Y’all know I’m fascinated with earworms… after all, it’s just a hop skip and a jump from an earworm to drinking Jim Jones‘ Kool Aid. Picture of Jim Jones below:
Huh, nobody’s laughing. Too soon? OK fine, here’s a photo of the head of the CDC:
Ahhh… so where was I? Oh yeah, earworms, the mind control we can all agree we’ve actually recognized. It occurs to me that folks might think earworms are a modern thing. Wrong! We monkeys have been planting tunes in each other’s skulls since the first caveman drilled holes in a femur and made a flute.
Lets start with an earworm from 1899. Maple Leaf Rag is one of my favorite tunes. Simple yet catchy. Timeless yet also the instant signifier of an era. As soon as you hear it your mind immediately recognizes the sepia toned era. Sometime between the turn of the century and the great depression.
Scott Joplin was a genius. His music was a complete mindblower in his time and it still rocks. If only it had been at the time of AM radio Joplin would’ve wound up living in a solid gold house. Here’s a photo of popular musician from 120 years ago; Scott Joplin.
For comparison purposes, here’s a photo of popular musician from right now; Lizzo.
Enough wallowing in modern crapulence. Here’s Duke Ellington and the boys showing us how it’s done.
Take the A Train was a standard, meaning everyone could play it. I think it’s from 1939 but I wasn’t there so what the hell do I know? Duke Ellington nailed it and made it his own. This clip is a movie from 1943. Talkies baby! That’s where the action was at!
By the way, I don’t recognize the singer. It’s the right time to be Billie Holiday but it sounds too high pitched for her excellent voice. I’m not good with faces. I simply assume it’s not her. It’s my assumption if Billie Holiday and Duke Ellington occupied the same stage, the planet would probably implode as the galactic cool factor overcame Newtonian Physics.
Also, I should have known but if you google Billie Holiday from the middle of the Bidenverse (year of our decline, circa 2022), you’ll get buried in clips of Strange Fruit. A good song for sure! But such a shame to nuke the woman’s massive accomplishments and many good songs just to highlight one that’s overtly political. I like Strange Fruit but it’s not, in my humble opinion, her best singing. It’s certainly not an earworm.
This next song isn’t much of an earworm either. Depending on your generation you might not resonate with you. It’s from before my time but I’m an odd duck and love it. I’m providing it to remind us all that not every song is an autotune nightmare.
That song was the Chordettes in 1954. Simply beautiful.
Now that I’ve got you all chilled out, let’s switch from Mr. Sandman to Enter Sandman (Metallica, 1991).
Is all your chill gone? Good!
Let’s wrap this up shall we? The last clip isn’t an earworm. It’s a fictional portrayal of Mozart being simultaneously a genius and a shithead. I always loved this scene. Mozart was the heavy metal of his time and he was genuinely brilliant. For us modern nitwits, that think music in old timey days was all stuffed shirts and powdered wigs remember this, if Mozart was born today he’d be filling arenas while pissing off every record company in creation. Mozart would have cancel culture chasing his ass from day one. He probably wouldn’t care.
Mozart starts getting his freak on around 7:00 so I timed the clip to start about then.
Have a great Monday y’all:
