Secondhand rage in the age of coronavirus... the musical

HALLIE EPHRON: Today I bring you rage. Unadulterated. Incubating since March. Not very productive, I know. But there you are. 

Here in Massachusetts where we have (so far) flattened the curve, we live in a bit of an echo chamber. (Most of us) are not in a state of denial. (Most of us) wear masks. (Most of us) keep our social distance. I’m saddened and horrified as I watch what seems to be, from this distance, fellow citizens willfully playing follow-the-leader off the edge of a cliff. (Though it turns out even lemmings don't actually do that.)

It's been not-a-hoax to me from early on. My daughters were living in one of the epicenters: Brooklyn. There was no room for doubt whether it was a real thing, not with ambulance sirens going 24/7. Not with friends who worked in hospitals reporting back on what it was like with basic protective equipment running short and beds filling to the point where patients had to be piggybacked on  ventilators. In rapid succession, we knew a half dozen people who’d caught the virus; two have since died.

No surprise, I have been nurturing a craving for music that channels rage.

Twenty years ago the Dixie Chicks released one of my all-time favorite ragers: “Goodbye Earl.” It’s the tale of an abusive spouse who ends up getting his comeuppance at the hands of his wife Wanda and her best friend, Maryanne.

Those black-eyed peas, they tasted alright to me, Earl
You're feelin' weak? Why don't you lay down and sleep, Earl
Ain't it dark wrapped up in that tarp... 

The video  is a must-watch. Jane Krakowski plays Wanda. Dennis Franz the odious Earl. SO satisfying! 
 

Just in time, the (no longer Dixie) Chicks have released first new music in 14 years featuring a scathing song about an unrepentant liar: ‘Gaslighter.’

Gaslighter, denier
Doin' anything to get your ass farther

And another kickass video.
 



Here’s a play list of more classic revenge songs, in case you, too, are in the mood.

Nancy Sinatra - These Boots are Made for Walking (1966)

"One of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you..."

Carly Simon - You’re So Vain (1972)

“I’ll bet you think this song is about you…”

(Turned out it was about Warren Beatty.)

Gloria Gaynor – I will survive (1978)

“Weren't you the one who tried to hurt me with goodbye
Do you think I'd crumble
Did you think I'd lay down and die?”

 Adele – Rolling in the Deep (2010)

“The scars of your love remind me of us”

Taylor Swift - Mean (2012)

“All you’re ever gonna be is mean – why you gotta be so mean?”

Are you in the mood for a little secondhand rage? Share your playlist...
 

Just One Song

JAN BROGAN - As a novelist, one of the trickiest challenges is creating the right mood for a scene. We have to use words to generate emotions. I'm often jealous of the film-maker who can add music to a scene and instantly create longing, or sadness, even tensions.


But today, I'm talking about music's greatest power, to create nostalgia, to instantly transport us back to another time.


So the challenge I propose today is not in remembering songs that evoke memories, but to choose ONLY ONE SONG as a favorite and explain why.


That's right REDS, ONLY ONE, it's about both memory and discipline. Among the many memories and many songs, tell us about just ONE.


I admit that's the hardest part, I've got a long list like everyone else, but I'll chose Boz Scaggs, LIDO. Why? Because I was eighteen years old and had just started dating my then boyfriend, now husband, when my room-mate brought home the Silk Degrees album. During that idyllic period of complete infatuation, we must have played that album a hundred times. Now when I hear it -- and another bonus, is it's not overplayed like a lot of the music of our generation, so like the Rolling Stones, I'm not burnt out on it - Lido makes me instantly happy. I start dancing. Now, I seek it out on Pandora radio whenever I have boring tasks to perform. The mood lifter immediately counteracts all the tedium in cleaning closets and reorganizing cupboards.


Your turn.


HALLIE: You're going to think I'm nuts, but the song I find simply irresistible is the Dixie Chicks "Goodbye Earl." I've always loved Country Western but hated soppy songs about standing by your man and here's the perfect antidote. I laugh out loud every time I hear this song, and then I'm dancing and singing along.


The song tells the gleeful account of how abusive Earl's wife and best friend murder him ("Those black eyed peas? They tasted all right to me!) and then neatly disposed of his body ("Hey, Earl? Ain't it dark? Rolled up in that tarp?").


There's a campy music video on YouTube of this with Jane Krakowski playing "Wanda" that ends with a hoe-down attended by Zombie Earl.


Good-by Earl!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gw7gNf_9njs


RHYS: For me "our" song is "I Left My Heart in San Francisco", sung by Tony Bennett. We used to sing it to each other when we were first married and living in San Francisco and went through a phase of singing duets. We don't do that any more, thank God, but we did sing it a copule of years ago in a Kareoka contest (and I've just realized I have no idea how to spell kareeokay)in Australia and won ourselves a free boat trip around the Whitsunday Islands.


ROSEMARY HARRIS: Okay - corn alert - A Lovely Day by Bill Withers. It's impossible for me to hear that too much. I don't care that the lyrics are repeated ten times, each time he sings them the delivery is different and it feels different. I like to hear this first thing in the morning (along with another song - I know I'm not supposed to mention it, but, hint, hint, it's by Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes.)
I go out the door happy if I hear either one!
http://youtu.be/xSOSCYwKAbU


DEBORAH CROMBIE: Okay, and I'm going with the first thing that popped into my head, so you'll have to bear with sentimental. This last week my husband and I have known each other for forty--eeek!!!!-- years, although we've only married the last seventeen of them. But when we were very young, we used to sing together all the time (he has a MUCH better voice than I do) and Our House by Crosby, Stills, and Nash is the song that reminds me most of him and of that time. We now have one cat in the yard and two in the house, not to mention the two dogs in the house, but I can say that it pretty much came true. Oh, and we still sing together.


Just looking at the cover of the album brings back the whole feel of that era in a rush.


JAN: Oh, I love that song, Deb.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUADeRYIwW0&feature=related





HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Oh, I love all those! But I have to say, Jackson Browne's Running on Empty might do it. Oh, now wait, cheating now, Linda Ronstandt's The Waiting. (Yes I know it's Tom Petty, but I like Lindas.) Okay, no, now I have it. My choice: Let the River Run, from Working Girl, by Carly Simon. Yup. That's it.

How about YOU?

Baby you can drive my car

RO: I've been in six states in the last week - tearing around from one bookstore to another - and I couldn't have done it without Aretha Franklin, Randy Newman, Dire Straits, Candide, John Barry and the rest of the cds in an old bookmark box that I keep on the passenger seat of the Jeep. And there are more to come..next week Ohio, Virginia and Pennsylvania for RT Convention, Malice Domestic and Festival of Mystery.

With all the talking I do at events you'd think that I'd want to be quiet when I'm alone.

Nope. Singing at the top of my lungs while going 75 miles an hour is a beautiful thing. Perhaps not for a listener, but hey the jerk in the Camry can't hear me, nor can the trucker.

Old rock and roll, show tunes, standards - hell, I was singing along with The Mills Brothers this morning. Bing Crosby and The Andrews Sisters. What part of the brain houses these lyrics? (And what more important thing has it displaced?) I didn't even know that I knew the words to You Always Hurt the One you Love until I sang it two hours ago.

What's lodged in your brain that you're embarrassed to admit? Theme song to the Flintstones? Old tv commercials?

HALLIE: Lately, the Dixie Chicks have taken up residence. Maybe it's the mystery writer in me--it's surely the country and western twang fan in me--but I can do all the lyrics of Goodbye Earl.

It's a song about a woman and her friend who kill her abusive spouse. (Earl, ain't it dark? Wrapped up in that tarp?)

Love anything by Dolly Parton, or Brenda Lee, or Patsy Cline...especially Patsy. I think there's a theme here.

Ro: Earl, aint it dark? Yikes.

I wouldn't mind if it was Patsy Cline - it's when something like The Monster Mash or the theme song to Green Acres "Fresh air! Times Sqvare! You are my wife - goodbye city life!" decides to lodge itself in my brain.

Aaahh, perhaps if there wasn't so much empty space there.

Here...let it get stuck in YOUR head for a while.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mbk81X6WHA4&feature=related