Forgive Me If That's A Bit Strained
There aren't that many words that rhyme with 'Culture', and of those 'Vulture' and 'Sculpture' are wildly inappropriate. I'm chancing 'Sepulchre' on the grounds that it's a variant of a tomb or vault, and what I shall be yarking on about deserves to be buried.
So! I decided to do another Little Musical Critique, and returned to 'The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway' and Song 3 on the first platter: 'Broadway Melody of 1974'. Art!
Nothing to do with Broadway or music, this is a gigantic atomic mobile subterranean sewer sweeper, because I can.
What you need to know is that BMO1974 is a collection of popular culture references - hence our title - that are only underscored by the liner notes. This was all very clever stuff in 1974 except that it's now 50 years in the past and Conrad wonders what 50 years before BMO1974 would throw up as equivalents. Long-dead equivalents - hence our title. Thus, without further ado -
"Echoes of the Broadway Everglades,
With her mythical madonnas still walking in their shades;"
Art!
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| The Broadway Everglades |
There are real, genuine, authentic 'Broadway Everglades', although they are in Florida, not New York. Also, the OAP of pop was only 16 in 1974, so they're not talking about her.
"Lenny Bruce declares a truce and plays his other hand"
Art!
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| Lenny posing for yet another mugshot |
I needed to look him up. Ah, he died almost 60 years to the day, a good 8 years before the song, and verrrrry much a South Canadian icon, so props to Peter for the mention. He was a stand-up comedian and satirist who was always getting into trouble with the obscenity laws, and whose own life was the very opposite of funny.
If we zip back in time to 1924, whom occupied a similar place in South Canadian culture? Art!
Meet Mister Rogers. No, not that Mr. Rogers, Will Rogers the half-Cherokee cowboy who broke into vaudeville and then Hollywood, and who was a very big cheese in comedy in 1924. Killed at age 45 in an airplane crash.
"Marshall McLuhan, casual viewin', head buried in the sand."
Art!
Ol' Mars was a Canuckistanian whose popularity peaked in the Sixties, so once again props to Peter for including him in the lyrics. He isn't widely read today but his central theses about digital media, technology and communications have very thoroughly permeated and been digested by society since then. His original aphorism 'The media is the message' originally applied to television, but it is also verrrrry apt with smartphones today and then some. And at no point did he ever stick his head in metaphorical sand. Tut tut Mister Gabriel. Art!
Say hello to the 1924 equivalent of Ol' Mars: John Dewey, South Canadian philosopher and educational reformer. His central tenet was believing in that Hom. Sap. is essentially a co-operative species, not a combative one, and he passionately supported democracy. Probably spinning in his grave at 4,500 r.p.m.
"Sirens on the rooftops wailing, but there's no ships sailing"
I find that hard to believe, given that New York is one of the busiest ports in the whole of South Canada. Labour dispute?
"Groucho, with his movies trailing, stands alone with his punchlines failing."
Art!
Groucho Marx went into gameshows in 1947 and made a career of them for fourteen years, so his punchlines kept a roof over his head. Plus, the anarchic comedies of his and his brothers films went down extremely well with the counterculture kids of the Sixties and Seventies. More tuts for Peter. Art!
With wonderful irony, the Marx Brothers' breakout hit came in 1924 and the musical comedy you see above. Note that there were four of them at this date, since Gummo and Zeppo tend to get overlooked somewhat.
"Ku Klux Klan serves hot soul food and the band plays 'In The Mood'"
Peter being deliberately contrarian, as the KKK would rather chop their collective hands off than serve anything to do with black culture or cuisine. They were at the peak of their power in 1924, hating equally against anyone who wasn't KKK, as proof of how undiscriminating they were. Art!
Conrad not quite sure where Glen Miller fits into this.
"The cheerleader waves her cyanide wand, there's a smell of peach blossoms and bitter almond."
The cheerleader and her squad are all going to be dropping dead in short order if she's wafting cyanide fumes about, especially if they're downwind. Who on earth gave approval for such a deadly implement to be used in public! There's no excuse, Nixon had signed the Occupational Safety and Health Act into being in 1971, three years before. Art!
What else are you going to do with it? Imbibe it?
During 1924 there were cases of chemical workers becoming raving homicidal maniacs thanks to lead poisoning, which they suffered during the process for creating tetraethyl lead, an anti-knock agent added to petrol.
"Caryl Chessman sniffs the air and leads the parade
He knows in a scent, you can bottle all you made."
He ought to be donning a gas-mask, not inhaling cyanide vapours, th
ANYWAY another name that needed to be looked up. He was a thoroughly unpleasant chap who sat on Death Row before exiting this mortal coil, via the gas chamber, in 1960, having written several books on why he should be let out, given an award and live happily ever after. Art!
Once again Peter is being a contrarian, as Chessman had long been a skeleton by 1974, meaning his nose no longer functioned. Was there an equivalent in 1924? Yes, the repellent 'Leopold and Loeb' case, which is so unpleasant I'm not going into it. Nor did Peter.
"There's Howard Hughes in blue suede shoes, smiling at the majorettes smoking Winston cigarettes"
Art!
Hughie would have been 68 in 1974, so his blue suede shoes are an old man's affectation in trying to be young. In 1924 he took over Hughes Tool Company after his father died suddenly, beginning his rise to billionaire status. Art!
There's a whole other blog Intro to be written about these; suffice it to say that Peter was picking on the most successful South Canadian cigarette brand of the time. Art!
There you go, the best-selling brand of 1924 and not to be confused with English prog rock bands.
"And as the song and dance begins, the children play at home with needles, needles and pins"
What neglectful parents they have!
There's another Intro to be written about the liner notes, which I will spare you out of sheer mercifulness. Today.
It's Getting Closer
13th August 2026 is the date of the Clacton by-election, the one that Nigel Farrago called in order to - make him seem more important? avoid Parliamentary committee scrutiny? Get his sordid financial background sorted?
Whichever, the major political parties are not fielding candidates against him. This is no time to relax, mind. Art!
We shall see how the Nasty Little Man performs. Don't forget, British election rules, no comments on how things are going until the ballot closes at 22:00 on Thursday.
Nerds Nailing It
Art!
Makes note of 'Lesany Tank Museum' for future reference
Hmmmm Okay I'll Bite
Here's the item title:
That was when I was still up with music trends and the like, proof of which is that the photograph is a Peter Gabriel solo effort. Let's see - Hmmmm I've Bookmarked the webpage so we will come back to it. I bet you can hardly wait.
