LJ Idol Topic #1 - Trust Everyone, But Cut The Cards - Entry
This performance of Purcell's "Cold Song" by Klaus Nomi is the most courageous musical performance I know:
Watch his eyes, especially at the end. Watch them carefully. That's the look of somebody who knows that they won't be alive much longer.
When I first read the prompt for this week - "Trust Everyone, But Cut The Cards" - I thought of the risks artists take with their audiences and the compromises they sometimes make with their work. To me, a courageous artist trusts that an audience will understand their work (or get something meaningful out of it) even if that work isn't quite what the audience expects. Nomi - an uncompromising musician and performer who always followed his own muse - came to mind immediately.
It was 1982 and Klaus Nomi knew he was near death. He wore a full collar in that performance both because he enjoyed theatrical fashion choices but also to cover up AIDS-related tumors on his neck. Legend has it that he had pneumonia as he sang that final song.
Nomi had fashioned himself as a sort of glamorous camp alien in the New York City music and theatre scene of the 1970's. His performances famously caught the attention of David Bowie, who invited him to perform on Saturday Night Live with him in December of 1979. I first saw him on that show. If you're curious, Nomi is the back-up singer in black in this video.
He released a couple of albums in 1982 and they're both kind of glorious. Its unclear to many whether he's serious on those records or whether he's having one over on us. Perhaps both of those things are true - perhaps he's serious about having one over on us.
For example, here's his version of "Lightning Strikes." Its a delightful, quirky interpretation that takes advantage of Nomi's vocal range, particularly his soaring falsetto:
If he'd lived, I believe Nomi was destined for something huge. Perhaps he would have developed a huge cult following in his lifetime (he has one now, more than 30 years after his death). Perhaps he would have become a household name - or maybe just a punchline on the Johnny Carson Tonight Show. We'll never know.
Henry Purcell wrote King Arthur (which features the "Cold Song" that Nomi chose for his final song) in 1691. In the third act of this play, Cupid wakes the spirit of winter (The Cold Genius) from his death like slumber. He asks the Cold Genius to acknowledge the power of love, which the Genius somewhat reluctantly does before returning to his sleep. In the "Cold Song," which the Genius sings at the start of the scene, he asks who has woken him up and desrires that he be allowed to freeze again to death.
In November of 1982, at a rock festival in chilly Munich (only about a 90 minute drive from his childhood home of Immenstadt, Germany), Nomi put on his full collar, his classical costume and his signature make-up. Frail and aware of his own mortality, he took the stage and bravely launched into this song that he'd been performing for most of the year that invites cold death to come and claim him:
What power art thou, who from below
Hast made me rise unwilling and slow
From beds of everlasting snow?
See’st thou not how stiff and wondrous old
Far unfit to bare the bitter cold
I can scarcely move or draw my breath
Let me, let me freeze to death. (Purcell)
Watch the video at the top of this entry if you haven't, even just the last 30 seconds. Nomi genuinely has trouble moving and his pneumonia made breathing difficult. Struggling against his own failing body, Nomi's performance is flawless and powerful - both vocally and emotionally.
But look at his eyes at the end of the song. He sees death coming and he stares at it in defiance. Listen to the applause at the end - the audience might not have known what Nomi was facing, but they were with completely him.
He was gone within a year from complication from AIDS - one of the first celebrity deaths associated with the disease. In the sense that we're watching his performances to this day, however, Klaus Nomi has perhaps managed to defy death after all.
Right until the end he was living life and creating art on his terms and trusting that the world would eventually catch up and recognize his genius - his cold, alien and perhaps immortal genius.
This is my entry for week #1 of LJ Idol - you can read all of this weeks entries here. You can check out my playlist of topic related songs here.
Click to viewWatch his eyes, especially at the end. Watch them carefully. That's the look of somebody who knows that they won't be alive much longer.
When I first read the prompt for this week - "Trust Everyone, But Cut The Cards" - I thought of the risks artists take with their audiences and the compromises they sometimes make with their work. To me, a courageous artist trusts that an audience will understand their work (or get something meaningful out of it) even if that work isn't quite what the audience expects. Nomi - an uncompromising musician and performer who always followed his own muse - came to mind immediately.
It was 1982 and Klaus Nomi knew he was near death. He wore a full collar in that performance both because he enjoyed theatrical fashion choices but also to cover up AIDS-related tumors on his neck. Legend has it that he had pneumonia as he sang that final song.
Nomi had fashioned himself as a sort of glamorous camp alien in the New York City music and theatre scene of the 1970's. His performances famously caught the attention of David Bowie, who invited him to perform on Saturday Night Live with him in December of 1979. I first saw him on that show. If you're curious, Nomi is the back-up singer in black in this video.
He released a couple of albums in 1982 and they're both kind of glorious. Its unclear to many whether he's serious on those records or whether he's having one over on us. Perhaps both of those things are true - perhaps he's serious about having one over on us.
For example, here's his version of "Lightning Strikes." Its a delightful, quirky interpretation that takes advantage of Nomi's vocal range, particularly his soaring falsetto:
If he'd lived, I believe Nomi was destined for something huge. Perhaps he would have developed a huge cult following in his lifetime (he has one now, more than 30 years after his death). Perhaps he would have become a household name - or maybe just a punchline on the Johnny Carson Tonight Show. We'll never know.
Henry Purcell wrote King Arthur (which features the "Cold Song" that Nomi chose for his final song) in 1691. In the third act of this play, Cupid wakes the spirit of winter (The Cold Genius) from his death like slumber. He asks the Cold Genius to acknowledge the power of love, which the Genius somewhat reluctantly does before returning to his sleep. In the "Cold Song," which the Genius sings at the start of the scene, he asks who has woken him up and desrires that he be allowed to freeze again to death.
In November of 1982, at a rock festival in chilly Munich (only about a 90 minute drive from his childhood home of Immenstadt, Germany), Nomi put on his full collar, his classical costume and his signature make-up. Frail and aware of his own mortality, he took the stage and bravely launched into this song that he'd been performing for most of the year that invites cold death to come and claim him:
What power art thou, who from below
Hast made me rise unwilling and slow
From beds of everlasting snow?
See’st thou not how stiff and wondrous old
Far unfit to bare the bitter cold
I can scarcely move or draw my breath
Let me, let me freeze to death. (Purcell)
Watch the video at the top of this entry if you haven't, even just the last 30 seconds. Nomi genuinely has trouble moving and his pneumonia made breathing difficult. Struggling against his own failing body, Nomi's performance is flawless and powerful - both vocally and emotionally.
But look at his eyes at the end of the song. He sees death coming and he stares at it in defiance. Listen to the applause at the end - the audience might not have known what Nomi was facing, but they were with completely him.
He was gone within a year from complication from AIDS - one of the first celebrity deaths associated with the disease. In the sense that we're watching his performances to this day, however, Klaus Nomi has perhaps managed to defy death after all.
Right until the end he was living life and creating art on his terms and trusting that the world would eventually catch up and recognize his genius - his cold, alien and perhaps immortal genius.
This is my entry for week #1 of LJ Idol - you can read all of this weeks entries here. You can check out my playlist of topic related songs here.