Disco and The Fall of Saturn
Let me clue you in to the banal wonders of the universe again, you drunken separatist...
One - two - three - four - five - six - seven
1 - Oneday
2 - Twosday
2.5 - MISNOMER, (Wednesday)
3/(4) - Threesday
(4)/5 - Fiveday
6er - Satyreday
7 - Sunnyday
And the Sun brings us back ... number ONEday!
I heard Rob Ryner, last night, say that it is a mistake to run Satyrical movies on a Saturday, because no one is in the mood to understand them. "Satyrdays are what kill Satyre," to par a phrase. This is ironic, because both words are derived from that great god of Sat-Irony himself, Saturn. And I know this because I am Sagittarian, half sage, and half goat. And I run around attacking people with my arrows but this only makes them fall in love with each other, whereupon they proceed to nail me on a cross and call me Christmas...
What ever destroyed what must once have been the satyrical day of Saturday? Was it the swilling of wine? I think it was more than that: lots of drugs and such, and movies filled with addictive sex and violence. We took Satyre Day a little too far.
Maybe we got the idea that to be ironical, and clever, a piercingly deep was to be BAD, and so we substituted that with even badder things, as a prelude to our artifically pompitose Sundays.
We no longer worshipped the Sun, but worshipped a God of altruistic, lopsided, "Good." Black and white - doesn't leave much room for irony, and therefore satire. Probably, we just became a bunch of craven fundamentalists - religious, political, etc. - hell bent on achieving inattainable salvation. To deviate is to sin - except on Saturdays, when we go hog wild.
We have gone beyond Saturn, and are stuck somewhere out in Uranus - or in the God of the Dead, not to be confused with Morrissey.
Americans have always done everything with an heroic flourish, and so when they decided to become stupid, they did so with a manic vengeance. The dumbing-down of America lasted from about the 1970's to 2001 - then it became something worse...
Now, no one in America can become President, because everyone already thinks that they ARE President. Well, as went intelligence, so went satire, on a Saturday night.
It must have been, "Saturday Night Fever," which put the final nail in the coffin. The character was a pathetic narcissist with only one thing in his head, other than a complete depressive vacuum. No room for irony in there, as all the characters in the movie were unwittingly trapped in a larger, over-arching irony, which, IDK, maybe that was God or something.
This reminds me of thoughts I have had on the BeeGee's, after I had listened to Edgar Cayce Kasen's top 100 countdowns for the years 1976 and 1978. 1976 was predictive of what was coming in 1978. It's like someone heard Elton John and Kiki Di singing, "Don't Go Breakin' My heart," and that was a basis for their songs for Grease.
Also in 1976, the 1960's group, "The Four Seasons," had a hit called, "December 1963," wherein the lead singer, Frankie Avalon did NOT sing - but he did then get a gig in 1978, with Olivia Newton John, doing, "Grease," songs.
The BeeGees started off during the time of the Beatles, singing fairly depressing songs. Remember, depression, and the subsequent throwing off of any nagging morality causing the depression, was the main, driving force of the sociological phenomenon called, "Disco."
Two old hits from the BeeGees were, "I started a joke - which started the whole world laughing at me so I shrivelled up and died like an smelly egg on the floor," and, "You don't know what it's like, to love somebody..." The latter song, (alternately referred to as, "Dysfunctional Sex with an Idiot"), was moving the BeeGees into a phase of, "Romantic Desperation," so critical to Disco, and then to the whole Springsteen Revolution.
This probably caused Andy Gibb to go out, get drunk every night, become a part of the gay-like dance scene, and discover the Disco movement. So, then the BeeGees made the song, "Whatcha Doin' in Your Bed With an Egg? - You should be dancing, yeah!" That was in 1976. It was # 31 on Casey's chart, http://oldradioshows.com/at100/1976.html .
Then, by 1978, the BeeGees commanded the pop charts, and both, "Saturday Night Fever," and, "Grease," were huge hits. Andy Gibb also had a solo album which was ALSO at the top of the charts.
He started the whole world laughing. My guess is that he is one of the BeeGees who can't sing now, on account of being dead.
And that's the irony of it all.
In 1976, hit #32, was a song called, "You're Gonna Miss My Lovin," by, Lou Rawls. I get the sense that this song musically influenced Andy Gibbs' 1978 #1 hit ....
In Andy Gibb's, 1978, "Shadow Dance-Sin," he daftly wailed, "And in this world of people, there's only you and I," (using proper grammer, a first for rock-n-roll). That same year, the BeeGee's bemoaned, in, "How Deep is Your Love," that, "... we're livin' in a world of fools, breaking us down, when they all should let us be,,," Clearly, these were very alienated men, destroying Christendom with their devil music.
Or, maybe they were being correct, maybe people were assholes back then, just like today. In this sense, mind-numbing Disco music was a rebellion against orthodoxy, hence the song, "Disco Duck." It was a insistence on gaity!
Well, the main point here is that society was becoming paranoid schizophrenic, and it self-medicated with alcohol, clown outfits, and STDs. That is why the BeeGee's song, called, "Staying Alive," now a popular jogging tune at health spas, was ironically musically based upon the song, "Superstition," by Stevie Wonder, especially the part which I call, "The Stayin Alive Strut." Right?
And then came The Village People!
Therefore, much Disco music developed out of depressing drunken angst, and out of paranoia and superstition, as could be exemplified in the proto-Disco song, by proto-Marvin Gaye, "I Heard It Through the Grapevine," wherein the writer suspected that American Indians were coming to take back the studio.
This was a common development of Hippie music and bluesy rock: Everyone thought that culture had gone too natural and wild, and now the Apache were sneaking up to steal their stash, letting popcorn rot in the fields.
The other influence I can see for Disco was funk, invented by James Brown, where the beat was up front at the beginning. Disco eventually changed this into a single constant beat, and the true funk disappeared. But the whole message, "I Feel Good," continued to be a goal for all Discoid zombies thereafter.
Funk eventually came back as the, "Talking Heads," now completely devoid of their Disco bodies.
(As Blondie used to say, "Those guys give me the CBGB's!")
The derivative, "Tom Tom Club," had a mild hit, with the now-immemorable line, "Who needs to speak when your feet say, 'Go!'?" Near the end of this song, a guy keeps saying, "James Brown!... James Brown!" possibly in an effort to mock David Byrne, who had briefly become some sort of deranged house-plant.
Eventually, Disco evolved into, "Trance," and everyone began wearing dresses made out of meat.
I have more to write about Disco, later. What were the roots of Disco? What are the earliest almost-Disco songs you know of?
Well - I actually don't feel like completing this entry, and so I will exit. The day has been too hot, and my brain was dizzy, and all I could do was lie around and want sex. We've all had those days. Then, the guy mowing the lawn came in and got me pregnant.
More play with words in the next addition of, "Sartreday Night Spinal Taps."
One - two - three - four - five - six - seven
1 - Oneday
2 - Twosday
2.5 - MISNOMER, (Wednesday)
3/(4) - Threesday
(4)/5 - Fiveday
6er - Satyreday
7 - Sunnyday
And the Sun brings us back ... number ONEday!
I heard Rob Ryner, last night, say that it is a mistake to run Satyrical movies on a Saturday, because no one is in the mood to understand them. "Satyrdays are what kill Satyre," to par a phrase. This is ironic, because both words are derived from that great god of Sat-Irony himself, Saturn. And I know this because I am Sagittarian, half sage, and half goat. And I run around attacking people with my arrows but this only makes them fall in love with each other, whereupon they proceed to nail me on a cross and call me Christmas...
What ever destroyed what must once have been the satyrical day of Saturday? Was it the swilling of wine? I think it was more than that: lots of drugs and such, and movies filled with addictive sex and violence. We took Satyre Day a little too far.
Maybe we got the idea that to be ironical, and clever, a piercingly deep was to be BAD, and so we substituted that with even badder things, as a prelude to our artifically pompitose Sundays.
We no longer worshipped the Sun, but worshipped a God of altruistic, lopsided, "Good." Black and white - doesn't leave much room for irony, and therefore satire. Probably, we just became a bunch of craven fundamentalists - religious, political, etc. - hell bent on achieving inattainable salvation. To deviate is to sin - except on Saturdays, when we go hog wild.
We have gone beyond Saturn, and are stuck somewhere out in Uranus - or in the God of the Dead, not to be confused with Morrissey.
Americans have always done everything with an heroic flourish, and so when they decided to become stupid, they did so with a manic vengeance. The dumbing-down of America lasted from about the 1970's to 2001 - then it became something worse...
Now, no one in America can become President, because everyone already thinks that they ARE President. Well, as went intelligence, so went satire, on a Saturday night.
It must have been, "Saturday Night Fever," which put the final nail in the coffin. The character was a pathetic narcissist with only one thing in his head, other than a complete depressive vacuum. No room for irony in there, as all the characters in the movie were unwittingly trapped in a larger, over-arching irony, which, IDK, maybe that was God or something.
This reminds me of thoughts I have had on the BeeGee's, after I had listened to Edgar Cayce Kasen's top 100 countdowns for the years 1976 and 1978. 1976 was predictive of what was coming in 1978. It's like someone heard Elton John and Kiki Di singing, "Don't Go Breakin' My heart," and that was a basis for their songs for Grease.
Also in 1976, the 1960's group, "The Four Seasons," had a hit called, "December 1963," wherein the lead singer, Frankie Avalon did NOT sing - but he did then get a gig in 1978, with Olivia Newton John, doing, "Grease," songs.
The BeeGees started off during the time of the Beatles, singing fairly depressing songs. Remember, depression, and the subsequent throwing off of any nagging morality causing the depression, was the main, driving force of the sociological phenomenon called, "Disco."
Two old hits from the BeeGees were, "I started a joke - which started the whole world laughing at me so I shrivelled up and died like an smelly egg on the floor," and, "You don't know what it's like, to love somebody..." The latter song, (alternately referred to as, "Dysfunctional Sex with an Idiot"), was moving the BeeGees into a phase of, "Romantic Desperation," so critical to Disco, and then to the whole Springsteen Revolution.
This probably caused Andy Gibb to go out, get drunk every night, become a part of the gay-like dance scene, and discover the Disco movement. So, then the BeeGees made the song, "Whatcha Doin' in Your Bed With an Egg? - You should be dancing, yeah!" That was in 1976. It was # 31 on Casey's chart, http://oldradioshows.com/at100/1976.html .
Then, by 1978, the BeeGees commanded the pop charts, and both, "Saturday Night Fever," and, "Grease," were huge hits. Andy Gibb also had a solo album which was ALSO at the top of the charts.
He started the whole world laughing. My guess is that he is one of the BeeGees who can't sing now, on account of being dead.
And that's the irony of it all.
In 1976, hit #32, was a song called, "You're Gonna Miss My Lovin," by, Lou Rawls. I get the sense that this song musically influenced Andy Gibbs' 1978 #1 hit ....
In Andy Gibb's, 1978, "Shadow Dance-Sin," he daftly wailed, "And in this world of people, there's only you and I," (using proper grammer, a first for rock-n-roll). That same year, the BeeGee's bemoaned, in, "How Deep is Your Love," that, "... we're livin' in a world of fools, breaking us down, when they all should let us be,,," Clearly, these were very alienated men, destroying Christendom with their devil music.
Or, maybe they were being correct, maybe people were assholes back then, just like today. In this sense, mind-numbing Disco music was a rebellion against orthodoxy, hence the song, "Disco Duck." It was a insistence on gaity!
Well, the main point here is that society was becoming paranoid schizophrenic, and it self-medicated with alcohol, clown outfits, and STDs. That is why the BeeGee's song, called, "Staying Alive," now a popular jogging tune at health spas, was ironically musically based upon the song, "Superstition," by Stevie Wonder, especially the part which I call, "The Stayin Alive Strut." Right?
And then came The Village People!
Therefore, much Disco music developed out of depressing drunken angst, and out of paranoia and superstition, as could be exemplified in the proto-Disco song, by proto-Marvin Gaye, "I Heard It Through the Grapevine," wherein the writer suspected that American Indians were coming to take back the studio.
This was a common development of Hippie music and bluesy rock: Everyone thought that culture had gone too natural and wild, and now the Apache were sneaking up to steal their stash, letting popcorn rot in the fields.
The other influence I can see for Disco was funk, invented by James Brown, where the beat was up front at the beginning. Disco eventually changed this into a single constant beat, and the true funk disappeared. But the whole message, "I Feel Good," continued to be a goal for all Discoid zombies thereafter.
Funk eventually came back as the, "Talking Heads," now completely devoid of their Disco bodies.
(As Blondie used to say, "Those guys give me the CBGB's!")
The derivative, "Tom Tom Club," had a mild hit, with the now-immemorable line, "Who needs to speak when your feet say, 'Go!'?" Near the end of this song, a guy keeps saying, "James Brown!... James Brown!" possibly in an effort to mock David Byrne, who had briefly become some sort of deranged house-plant.
Eventually, Disco evolved into, "Trance," and everyone began wearing dresses made out of meat.
I have more to write about Disco, later. What were the roots of Disco? What are the earliest almost-Disco songs you know of?
Well - I actually don't feel like completing this entry, and so I will exit. The day has been too hot, and my brain was dizzy, and all I could do was lie around and want sex. We've all had those days. Then, the guy mowing the lawn came in and got me pregnant.
More play with words in the next addition of, "Sartreday Night Spinal Taps."