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My Hana’s Suitcase Story

The power of books to transform lives. Read about my favourite experience in my teaching career and the book that inspired it.


Have you ever had a book change your life? I did. This is the story of a book that gave me my favourite experience as a classroom teacher ever!!! Please enjoy. 🙂

Prologue: Hana’s Suitcase by Karen Levine, is an award-winning story that is actually two stories in one. The story begins by introducing us to the Brady Family and, in particular, the two Brady children; George and Hana. As we meet them, they are blissfully unaware that they are about to be swept up into one of modern history’s darkest chapters: the Holocaust. In the next chapter, we fast-forward sixty years and meet a Japanese teacher named Fumiko who has organized a peace club. In order to help her students understand the true nature of the Holocaust, Fumiko knows that children usually learn more deeply when they have actual materials and objects to hold rather than simply looking through photographs. So, she sends requests to Holocaust museums all over the world for any resources that they could spare to help her in her lessons. She received rejections from every museum except for one.

That museum sent a collection of artifacts that included a suitcase with the name Hana Brady on it. And so begins a detective story than ended up spanning the globe as Fumiko and her students attempt to discover who this “Hana Brady” really was.

Karen Levine constructed her book by alternating the story lines every other chapter. So, as Hana and her family move through the well-known stages of the Holocaust process culminating in being sent to the concentration camps, Fumiko and her students move closer and closer to discovering what eventually ended up happening to Hana and her family members by the end of the book.

As a father, I completely and wholeheartedly endorse the notion of surrounding young children with rich literature. In my home we have books about every conceivable topic imaginable on bookshelves in our living room, in both of my daughter’s bedrooms and in our basement playroom, too. My daughters are growing up surrounded by, literally, thousands of books. Not surprisingly, they are both growing up to have a love of reading and to view reading as an enjoyable way to spend time during their day.

As a teacher, I have attempted to create the same kind of literature-rich environment for my students. There were, again, thousands of books in my classroom; available for students to read for pleasure, to use for research purposes, to listen to being read aloud and much more. The books in our classroom spanned a wide range of reading levels and subject areas so, there was something for every student to successfully read and enjoy in our classroom. Having good books in a school classroom is important so that students can hear wonderful writing and fascinating stories; stories that may inspire anything from flights of fancy to calls for social justice and beyond. Hana’s Suitcase by Karen Levine is an excellent book and I highly recommend it. It is well-suited to students who are in the 8-11 age range. But, I thoroughly enjoyed it as an adult, too. However, my reason to singling this particular book out has nothing to do with remembering the Holocaust or giving a shout-out to Karen Levine. My reason for writing about this book is that Hana’s Suitcase was the book that helped me experience my favourite and most profound reading experience with a student in my entire career. Here is my Hana’s Suitcase story…..I hope that you enjoy it. 🙂

My classroom was loaded with books. I had them sorted into bins and baskets usually based upon topic or genre. For example, I had a bin of “dog” stories, bins of “outer space” books, bins of “Halloween” books and so on. My standard classroom practice was to set these book bins/baskets out and make them available for students to access all throughout the year as interest or need arose for them. However, whenever I started a new Unit of study in the classroom, I would pull those books out from wherever they were and place them in a location of prominence near where our class meeting place happened to be. As I pulled these books out, I would hold a book talk with the students and go over each book so that they became familiar with them.

My Hana’s Suitcase story starts as we approached the special Canadian day known as Remembrance Day. In Canada, Remembrance Day is used to honour our soldiers who have fought in wars all over the world, as well as, those who are presently involved in peacekeeping duties in such hotspots as Afghanistan. As you all can appreciate, war can be a very grisly topic when you explore it in detail so, as a general rule of thumb, when getting Remembrance Day Units of Study prepared for Primary students, keeping things on a very general, basic level is the preferred route to go. So, in this context, I began my book talk with my class of Grade 2 students in Bowmanville, Ontario. I pulled out books such as The Butter Battle by Dr. Seuss and proceeded with the book talk as planned.

Now, I would be remiss if I didn’t stop here to tell you that this class of Grade 2 students was one of “those” classes. When a teacher usually talks about their class being one of “those” classes, they often are referring to classes that are not that well-behaved. The old adage is that every teacher will have one of “those” classes before their career is over. I’ve had mine and I survived my trial by fire. But, this class was not one of “those” classes because it was a bad class. In fact, the exact opposite is true. This class was a class that was full of keeners who all got along well together and who were all very eager to learn. They loved sitting on our carpet meeting place and talking about everything under the sun. They particularly enjoyed book talks. So, as I went through all of the primary-level books that I had in my collection, a young girl put up her hand and said, “My mother told me a story once about a little girl who……….I’m not exactly sure if I remember it right but……the girl and her family had to live in a closet or a basement for two years during the War.” Although she couldn’t remember the exact details, I knew at once that she was referring to Anne Frank. So, as she spoke, I debated with myself as to whether or not I really wanted to go where she was leading me. In the end, I did, as I often do. I decided to listen to the students and follow their interests. So, I told the class that the young lady in question was Anne Frank and I told them the broad outline of her story. I had the actual Diary of a Young Girl book in a cupboard (where I kept books that I liked but that I didn’t feel Grade 2s were ready to handle). I took it out and showed it to the class. This sparked a whole new round of questions and, in the end, they asked me if I would leave the Anne Frank book out with the other Remembrance Day books. I said that I would.

And since they liked Anne Frank, I told myself that there was no reason to keep Hana’s Suitcase tucked away either. So, I pulled that out and talked about Hana’s story in basic terms, too. I stressed to the kids that I thought both books were too hard for Grade 2s to read but that if they wanted to look at the books during reading time, I would answer any questions that they had as a result of what they were able to read themselves or see in the pictures. I concluded the book talk and life went on in our room as it normally did.

Two days later, a young girl in my class named Kaicey, came up to me during our Language time with Hana’s Suitcase in her hand. She asked me if I would help her read the book because she was interested in finding out what happened to Hana. Now, at that moment, I had 26 other students engaged in a variety of reading, writing and spelling tasks. There was a lot of activity going on and, to be truthful, after having told the class that I thought this book was too difficult for Grade 2s to read, I really didn’t want to sit down and slog our way through this 102-page book about the Holocaust. But, Kaicey continued to stand there. ”Will you help me read this book, Mr. MacInnes. Will you help me, pleaseeee!” I truly didn’t want to go down that road but that tiny voice inside my head reminded me that I was a teacher and that helping kids learn to read is my job and that I should just get over myself and help this child who has had her interest sparked by a book. Soooo, I took a deep breath, sighed a little and told Kaicey that I would help her read the book. But, she needed to know that we would not be able to finish it in one day because it was over 100 pages long and that it wasn’t a happy story, either, that I expected her to do most of the reading, that I would only help her with the big words and be there to answer her questions about what she was reading. She looked at me and smiled and said that we had a deal. So, in the middle of a bustling Grade 2 classroom, Kaicey and I sat down on the carpet, with our backs against a wall of cupboards and we began to read Hana’s Suitcase.

That first day, she read three and a half pages. We talked about what she had read so far and what she thought was going to happen to the, then, carefree Hana Brady. She answered. I, then, asked her if she felt like this was a book that she wanted to continue to read. I half expected her to say that the book was too tough, thank me for my time and tell me that she would move on to something else. But, she said that she liked the book so far and was excited to read it again tomorrow. In my mind, I was still not convinced that she would still be as interested the next day but, come the next day, Kaicey was right there with the book in her hand, ready to continue to learn about a little girl named Hana Brady. So, in that fashion, reading 3-5 pages at a time, we started getting deeper into the book and I began to enjoy my time spent reading and talking about Hana with her. She read almost all of the words by herself, with me filling in with only words such as the names of the towns and cities, for example.

Well, we were about 20 pages in, when Remembrance Day came and went. Kaicey knew that my routine was to put the “theme” books back in their bin or basket once our Unit of Study was over and get new books out for the next Unit. So, she came to me of her own initiative and said that she knew Remembrance Day was over and that the Remembrance Day books were going to be put away but, would it be ok if we continued to read Hana’s Suitcase. I told her that, of course it would be ok and that, perhaps, she would like to keep the book in her desk until we were through. She liked that idea.

So, over the next few weeks, reading a few pages here and a few pages there, amid the learning commotion in my classroom, we managed to reach the end of the book. Normally, under such circumstances, an event like this would be cause for celebration. It isn’t everyday that a grade 2 student can read a tough book like that, mostly on her own. But, as we discovered what happened to Hana and her family and to Fumiko and her students, neither of us felt like celebrating at all. In fact, we both felt somewhat sad that our experience had come to an end. While not as intense a bond as a father-daughter bond, we had shared a unique experience none-the-less and it brought us closer together in a way that normally doesn’t happen with a teacher and a student in the course of our academic affairs. So I said to her that, if she wanted, she could keep my copy of Hana’s Suitcase so that she could always remember Hana and remember our time together reading about her and learning about the Holocaust. I expected her to take the book. But instead, she gave me the book back and said that it was such a good story that she wanted to make sure that I would share it with other children in my other classes to come. So, reluctantly, I took the book back.

The story would have ended there if not for some fortuitous timing. Two weeks later, I attended the Ontario Library Association Annual Conference in Toronto. One of the workshops at this conference involved award winning children’s authors discussing their work and, as luck would have it, one of the authors was Karen Levine! I sat in the workshop, spellbound, as she regaled the audience with tales of how she came to be involved in this book project and how she felt as it came to its’ gorgeous conclusion. At the end of the presentation, the authors took questions from the audience. Someone asked Karen what the most satisfying consequence of writing the book was for her. Without missing a beat, she replied that she enjoyed the letters that she received; especially from young students who found Hana to be inspiring and her story to be important.

Now, I do have a brain and it normally functions well. But, the thought of writing to Karen Levine and telling her of my experience in the classroom with Kaicey and her book had never occurred to me until that very moment. So, my next immediate thought was that if Kaicey would’t accept my own copy of Hana’s Suitcase, perhaps she would accept a new copy if I got the actual author to autograph it for her. So I rushed out to the nearest bookstore and bought a brand new copy. However, Karen Levine had left by the time I got back to the conference hall. So immediately, I contacted her publishing company and explained what I wanted to do. Luckily, they were very understanding and were only too happy to help. I sent them the book and they said they would contact Karen Levine on my behalf and have her autograph the book.

About a month and a half later, a parcel arrived at school. It was the book. Karen Levine had, indeed, autographed the book but had gone one step better and wrote Kaicey a personalized note. The note read: ”Thank you for taking such an interest in someone that I have come to view as very special. Reading such a book at your age makes you very special, too. Keep up your interest in reading. Yours truly, Karen Levine.”

I contacted Kaicey’s mother and told her what I had done and that I wanted to give Kaicey the book as soon as possible and would she, Kaicey’s mother, like to be there. She was very pleased that I had done what I did. I gave Kaicey the book after school a few days later. Mom smiled. I smiled. Kaicey smiled and accepted the autographed book.

That experience happened many years ago, prior to the advent of social media. At the time, having message boards and chat rooms on my school network was as close to experiencing the interactivity that has come to characterize our use of social media nowadays. At that time, the following Fall, a teacher from another school posted a question asking for good book recommendations for our upcoming Remembrance Day. A good book recommendation!? Did I ever have one for her. So, I posted a letter describing the experience that Kaicey and I had with Hana’s Suitcase. I had never written anything for an audience before so I was unprepared for the avalanche of overwhelmingly positive feedback that poured in from all over the school board. One teacher even asked for permission to print our story off and give it to her mother who collected “Teacher stories”. I had never thought of writing about my experiences as a teacher before but, all of this feedback gave me food for thought.

So, I started my own blog and the first story I wrote was the one you are reading. Back in those days, I had only just joined Facebook and Twitter and was just learning how to link my blog posts up to social media and share them with the world. Before I did this though, I wondered about contacting Kaicey (and/or her family) and letting her know what I was hoping to do. Several years had passed by this point and I was able to find both Kaicey and her mother on Facebook. They were both delighted that this experience had meant as much to me as it did them and that I wanted others to know about it, too. They were enthusiastic in granting permission for me to go forward.

So, I linked my blog post up to Facebook and waited for another avalanche of glowing feedback. I waited. I waited some more. Eventually, a few friends chimed in and said it was a good story and thanks for sharing. But, that was it. I have to admit to being somewhat disappointed. So, I decided to give Twitter a try.

I was new to tweeting and using hash tags. So, I simply posted that I wanted people to know about an amazing experience I had had in class with a great book and an eager student. I hash-tagged it #teacherstories, #HanasSuitcase and sent it out into the world.

A day or two later, I received a reply………from Fumiko, herself! The same Fumiko who was profiled in the book. The same Fumiko who had discovered who Hana really was and who helped her family reclaim her suitcase. That same Fumiko had read my post and reached out to thank me for sharing the story of my experience with Kaicey and for helping to introduce Hana Brady to the world. Needless to say, I was star struck. Immediately, I contacted Kaicey via Facebook.

I told Kaicey what had happened. She was excited, too. Then she floored me by telling me that she still had ever single part of the package Karen Levine had sent. She had the book, the personalized letter, the book mark and, even, the original shipping envelop, too. Then she sent me the photo you can see to the left. Always Remember, Karen Levine had written and Kaicey said she remembered everything we experienced and shared and that she always would.

Thanks to sites such as Facebook, I have been able to maintain contact with Kaicey and her Mom. In fact, when I recently had my birthday in January, she was one of the first to send along birthday wishes “to my favourite teacher EVER!!!!!!!!!” A day or two later, her mother emailed me to say that her daughter’s birthday wish wasn’t mere flattery and that she still regards our experience reading Hana’s Suitcase as being her favourite moment in her whole school career.

Even though this experience happened many years ago now, it still touches my heart every time I think about it. Having opportunities to make an actual difference in the lives of our students is why teachers teach. It is my single-most favourite and treasured memory of a 30 year teaching career. Good books are important. A good book called Hana’s Suitcase helped to give me and a young Grade 2 student named Kaicey, a memory that we will cherish forever. Do you have a special memory of reading with a teacher or adult that you cherish? If so, do share. I’d love to hear your stories, too

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My First Tuesday: Welcome To My Blog.

The new school year started today for my wife and my two daughters. For me, today is the day my retirement officially started. A new start for them, a new world for me.

For the past few years, my school day would begin by taking my daughters to school and waiting there until the bell rang and they were safely inside. Then, as the other Moms and Dads would make their coffee clutch plans, I would head to my car and drive to school to prepare for my own day.  How I begrudged those other parents their freedom.  It was never the fact that I didn’t want to be with my own students or that I preferred coffee that much. It was the fact that I didn’t have the freedom to control my fate. I had to go to work. No choice. I had to go.

No longer.

Today, I saw my youngest safely inside her school and I……….and I……….well, I went for coffee!!!!!   I did.  I got into my car and drove downtown and met two friends, also retired teachers, and we had coffee together on a sidewalk patio. The sun shone down upon our skin. We waved to friendly passersby. We chatted about weighty matters and feather-light ones, too.  But, best of all, there was a school bell there that I was asked to ring. Not a tentative, self-conscience tinkle of a ring but, instead, a full-throttled, lusty declarative ring of freedom for all to hear. So, I rang that bell, loud and long and clear. Every time someone looked our way in puzzlement, my friends would point to me and announce, “It’s his first Tuesday!”, as if that explained everything.

But, it is my first Tuesday in this new life of mine. School traditionally starts on the first Tuesday after Labour Day in Canada. For the first time in 49 years, I was not in school on the first Tuesday. On this day, I was free.  Freedom is intoxicating and I admit to feeling slightly off balance by it all but, in a good way.  The best way I can describe it all is to point to those near-death experiences you read about. You know, the ones with the bright light that you are drawn toward and the loved ones awaiting you on the other side. Today, I got to experience the bright light that is the freedom to chart my own course. I am thankful to my two friends, Pat and Tracy, for being there to help me transition to the other side, as it were.

This is my first post on my new blog. Thank you for reading. I hope to see many of you following along as I embark on my journey with words.  Thanks for being part of my first Tuesday.  It is awesome to be here……on the other side!!!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton

Who’s Punk?! What’s the score?!…Song #4/25: Stella Was a Diver and She Was Always Down by Interpol

Today you are getting two posts in one!  The first part of this post will be standard fare regarding an underrated song called “Stella Was a Diver and She Was Always Down” from a superb album called Turn On The Bright Lights by post-punk revival darlings Interpol. The second half of this post will be a trip down the rabbit hole that came about as a result of this song and a warning about being a critical consumer of the information we view on the Interweb. All in all, there is lots to talk about so let’s get down to business. Here is the story of a girl called Stella and a band called Interpol and why sometimes things aren’t always what they appear to be.

Like all music genres, punk music has gone through its share of evolutionary phases. The first phase is generally called pre-punk or proto-punk and involves those bands who introduced punk music to the world. These bands include Iggy and the Stooges, along with MC5. They generally played in the late 1960s and early 70s. The period that most casual fans think of as being the time of punk rock occurred throughout the rest of the 1970s. That is when we saw the emergence of The Ramones, The Sex Pistols, The Clash, Siouxsie and the Banshees and many more. As the 1970s ended and the 80s began, we entered what is known as the post-punk period. This era saw the birth of The Cure, Echo and the Bunnymen, Joy Division and a whole lot more than that. Post-punk branched off into Synth Pop, New Wave and Alternative music, as the bands began branching out by becoming more melodic. Fast forward past Grunge in the 90s (Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden and Bikini Kill) and you have Y2K and the birth of a new generation of bands that were called post-punk revival. These bands included The Strokes, Yeah, Yeah Yeahs, The White Stripes and today’s featured band, Interpol. Many of the post-punk revival bands started playing in and around New York City. They featured fresh and innovative songwriting and a style of musicianship that harkened back to the days of the post-punk bands of the early 1980s, hence the term post-punk revival.

Interpol: Sam Fogarino, Paul Banks, Carlos Dengler and Daniel Kessler.

In August of 2002. Interpol decided to release their debut album entitled Turn on the Bright Lights. This album was very well received by fans and critics alike. It was hailed as one of the Top Ten albums of the year on many year-end lists. Influential music magazine Pitchfork actually named it as Album of the Year for 2002. The biggest hit single that came from Bring on the Bright Lights was called “PDA”. *(I wrote about that song in a previous post that you can read here). One of the things that pleased people the most about the songs on this album was how literate and cinematic they seemed to be. Lead singer and principal songwriter Paul Banks was a graduate of NYU, where he earned a degree in Comparative Literature. Banks also grew up in a family that moved all over the world because of his father’s work. Consequently, Banks approached the songs on Turn on the Bright Lights with a worldly, literary sense that many young writers are unable to draw upon. As a result, many of the song lyrics feature evocative, almost poetic words and phrases that paint intimate portraits of scenes and dramatic scenarios that read like plays or novels. Furthermore, Banks and his bandmates made the deliberate decision to create songs that were open to interpretation. One such perfect example of this is a song called “Stella Was a Diver and She Was Always Down”. 

There are several things that I like about this song but the first thing is that, stylistically, it is an obvious homage to Joy Division. Those post-punk bands such as Joy Division all came from a time period where I was discovering the music that became the foundation of my collection. I always consider The Cure and Dépêche Mode, early Simple Minds, Ultravox and others to be the bands that introduced me to the music that has gone on to become an important part of my life. So, when Paul Banks of Interpol channels his best Ian Curtis and the boys from Interpol jangle their way through this song in down stroke unison, I was immediately drawn to the music. The other thing about “Stella Was a Diver and She Was Always Down” that I like is the story being told. First of all, I like story songs, as a general rule. In the case of this song, in particular, I like that Banks paints a portrait of Stella that reads like a character in a good book. Because ambiguity is such a feature of his songwriting, Banks never says exactly who Stella is or what she is going through but I am invested, just the same. There tend to be three categories of thought as to what this song is actually about. First of all, there are those who think Stella is a prostitute and that “diving” and “always being down” mean the obvious sexual innuendos that one would think they do. Secondly, there is a school of thought that suggests that this song is about addiction and that it is about having a dear friend named Stella fall into addiction and being unable to help her climb out of it. A final theory about the meaning of “Stella Was a Diver and She Was Always Down” relies on the educational background of Paul Banks. This theory states that Banks was influenced by a series of books known as the Illuminatus Trilogy. *(If you want to learn more about these books, click here). For our purposes, all we need to know is that in these books, one of the main characters has a relationship with a girl named Stella aboard a submarine named the Leif Erikson. On Bring On The Bright Lights, there is a song called “Leif Erikson”, too, which adds fuel to the theory that today’s song is based on those books. Whatever the case, “Stella Was a Diver and She Was Always Down” is a modern, dramatic, literate song that plays like a classic throwback tune. I liked it when I first heard it years ago and I still like it today.

This brings us to our rabbit hole.

YouTube, being what it is, uses its algorithm-based formula to throw music videos at me based on my previous choices. I must have spent much of this past spring time listening to/watching The Cure, Dépêche Mode and others because one day when I clicked on YouTube, there was “Stella Was a Diver and She Was Always Down” sitting there waiting for me. I hadn’t listened to the song in a while, so seeing it there was like reconnecting with a long lost friend. The video’s thumbnail was that of a teenage/twenty-something girl who looked like she was high. I clicked on the link and was taken to a video that starts off with the band playing live for a few moments and then launches into a story that plays out like a movie. The story was gritty and harsh. But the action on screen meshed perfectly with the lyrics. As a work of creative Art, I was captivated and thought it was excellent. In order to go down the rabbit hole with me and learn the lesson that I took out of it, I need you to stop reading and watch this video now. Doing so will put the rest of this post into context and will make it a more enjoyable and easier to understand piece for you. However, having said that, this video depicts drug use, prostitution and addiction. The depictions in the video appear to be very real. Viewer discretion is advised. To watch the video of “Stella Was a Diver and She Was Always Down” click here.  

After watching this video several times over the course of the summer and mulling over in my mind whether or not I should launch a blog post series about Punk rock and then deciding to actually do so, I thought that this song would be one that I would include. Having made that call, I thought it prudent to learn as much as I could about the song and the music video so I could talk about both knowledgeably. When I began to focus on the background of the video itself, I did so reading some of the viewer comments that accompanied it. In the past I have often found viewer comments to be quite helpful in determining why others found the video/song important to them, as well as other technical aspects of the video that I may not have been privy to otherwise. In the case of this particular video, I noticed that people in the comments kept referring to an actual movie called Christianne F. I had never heard of this film so I looked it up, and then, this is where the rabbit hole began to swallow me whole.

The real-life Christians F. during her Zoo Station days in Berlin.

Christianne F. is a German film that was based on a book called Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo (We Children of Zoo Station) which is the true story of a young 13 year old girl who ran away from her middle-class home and found herself becoming addicted to heroin, acting as a teenage prostitute to support her habit and spending much time at one of Berlin’s main train stations most commonly known as Zoo Station. The people in the video comments raved about this movie, saying how important and influential it was in Germany in the early 1980s. From what I learned while doing my research into Christianne F., there was a thriving drug and teenage prostitution scene that revolved around Zoo Station back then. Berlin, in the late 70s/early 80s was also home to someone named David Bowie. You may recall that during his Berlin period, Bowie lived in Germany with Iggy Pop and ended up writing “China Girl” for Pop and “Heroes” for himself. Bowie plays an important role in the film Christianne F. because it was a nightclub concert of his that acts as the impetus for the teenage Christianne F. to sneak in and watch his show, which, in turn, is when she was introduced to heroin for the first time. Bowie appears as himself in the movie. He also supplied most of the songs for the movie soundtrack. On a different but related note, a decade later Irish band U2 would record an album in Germany called Achtung Baby! The first song on that album was called “Zoo Station”. I guess that station is a place that has more to do than simply catching a train ride.

David Bowie and actress Natja Brunkhorst from the movie Christian F. Brunkhorst was only a teenager herself at the time of filming. Many of the extras in the film were actual addicts from Zoo Station.

After learning all of this background information, I suddenly found myself thinking that the timing of the film and the music from its soundtrack didn’t add up to being in sync with when Interpol became a band and released “Stella Was a Diver and She Was Always Down”. Once I thought that thought, I immediately returned to the video I had watched of the song on YouTube to see what exactly I had been watching and how this video came to be.  This is where the lesson about being a critical consumer of information comes into play. Upon closer inspection, I discovered that the video for this song….a video that I thought was so well put together…was not an Interpol video at all! The band had nothing to do with any of it! To confirm this, I went to Interpol’s official website and checked to see what their “official” video of “Stella” was. There is none. Well, that is not completely true. There is an audio-only video. But there is no live video nor a dramatic recreation video by the band in existence on the planet. So then, what the heck was I watching all these months?!

As it turns out, the video I was watching was the creation of an Interpol fan who goes by the YouTube name of Lichtwerk3. I couldn’t find out anything about this person, but by examining the various other videos on their playlist, it seems like Lichtwerk3 is a fan of the band and focuses on creating videos based on Interpol songs. I am not sure if this is a form of fanzine *(homemade magazines created by fans of bands, sold and/or passed around to other fans), but whatever the case, the video that I had been watching (and that you watched above) was a fan-created video that paired “Stella Was a Diver and She Was Always Down” by Interpol with a German movie starring David Bowie called Christianne F.

Thumbnail image for the YouTube video for Slowdive’s “When the Sun Hits”. Oh look! It’s clips from Christian F. put to music again!

Secondly, as I researched the film, I discovered that there is a veritable cottage industry online of people who pair clips from the movie with songs that they like. There are dozens of songs used in this manner. Just for the sake of interest, click here to watch a video for a song called “When the Sun Hits” by a band called Slowdive. This is just one example of the movie being used as the backdrop to a song. There are literally dozens and dozens of music videos available that all use Christianne F. movie clips. It just goes to illustrate how important it is to know exactly what it is you are watching and/or reading when online. I spent months thinking that I was watching the official Interpol video for their song “Stella Was a Diver and She Was Always Down”, when no such video ever existed. Instead, I was unknowingly watching what was essentially a movie trailer for a foreign film. It makes me wonder how many other things that I see and/or read are actually one thing when I thought they were something else. Perhaps this is how Nazi soldiers from WWII turn into Ukrainian freedom fighters who then morph back into Nazi soldiers before our bewildered eyes in Canada’s parliament, too. Things aren’t always what they appear at first blush in politics or in music..

I will end this post with the simple declaration that I like Interpol’s music. I adore their album Turn on the Bright Lights. I have liked “Stella Was a Diver and She Was Always Down” from the very first time I heard it. I still like it today. I have learned a lot about being more careful with what I am watching on YouTube as well. You should, too. I want to give a shout-out to an online friend of mine who runs his own blog called Christian’s Music Musings. Like me, Christian writes about music. He grew up in Germany and was a big help in filling me in on the popularity and importance of the movie Christianne F. and of the goings on at Zoo Station. His blog can be reached by clicking here. Have a great rest of your day, everyone! Bye for now.

The link to the official Interpol audio-only video for their song “Stella Was a Diver and She Was Always Down” can be found here. ***The lyrics version is here.

The link to a video of a live performance of “Stella Was a Diver and She Was Always Down” by Interpol…as filmed by a fan…can be found here. ***This is an excellent live recording and shows why the band is so highly respected and why the song is such a fan favourite. 

The link to the official website for Interpol can be found here.

The link to the official website for Pitchfork Magazine can be found here.

The link to the video for the trailer for the movie Christianne F. can be found here.

The link to the video for the song “Station to Station” by David Bowie from the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack to the movie, Christianne F. can be found here.

***NOTE: The title for this series on punk rock is taken from the lyrics of a song called “Boxcar” by an amazing punk band out of San Francisco called Jawbreaker. Please show these guys some love and visit their website. While you are there, feel free to pick up some tickets to a show or to buy some cool merch. I thank the band for helping to inspire the writing of this post and for the creation of this series, as a whole. You can find their official website here.


***As always, all original content contained within this blog post remains the sole property of the author. No portion of this post shall be reblogged, copied or shared in any manner without the express written consent of the author. ©2023 http://www.tommacinneswriter.com

The Witness Blanket

Today is National Truth and Reconciliation Day in Canada. This is a day that has been set aside each year to help forge a path toward reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples on this land. The history of how Canada came to be is rife with examples of mistreatment of the Indigenous peoples who were already here when European voyagers arrived. The effects of such mistreatment are still being felt today. One of the many examples of this was the formal Government of Canada policy that was designed to forcibly assimilate the Indigenous population into the non-Indigenous, settler population. This was attempted via an odious policy that gave rise to something called The Residential School System. Because of this formal government policy, Indigenous children were taken from their families and sent to schools hundreds of miles from their homes. These schools were often run by religious missionaries and priests. Most Indigenous children who were sent to a residential school ended up suffering physical and sexual abuse, they were denied the right to speak their own languages or wear their own clothes. Their hair was cut short. I could go on and on when endless examples of cruelty. The bottom line is that many of these children died at these residential schools from the abuse and neglect they experienced there. As of the writing of this post, thousands of dead bodies have been located at the now-defunct school sites. How many more dead children lay under the ground, yet to be found? I cannot fathom how anyone could be cruel to children. We should protect them and nurture them as if our own lives depended on it. And yet, the little bodies continue to be found and the pain goes on and on, with no end in sight.

If this post is your introduction to the history of this land then I encourage you to check out a website called The Witness Blanket. This website is a respectfully and thoughtfully created account of the Residential School System as told in the words of those who went there and never returned, as well as those who survived the experience but were forever changed by it. The Witness Blanket website is the very best website of its kind that I have ever seen. As a non-Indigenous person, I am grateful for this open door that is being granted to me and to all other non-Indigenous people who may read this post. It is impossible to ever fully repair the damage that such harmful government policies have done but by taking the time to educate ourselves as to how Canada came to be, hopefully we can all begin our journey toward reconciliation. You can click on The Witness Blanket website here.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. Thank you to those who helped create The Witness Blanket website. The Witness Blanket project began with an art installation created by Indigenous artist named Carey Newman. This art installation uses objects associated with those who were at residential school. IF only those objects could talk, the stories they would tell….well, thanks to The Witness Blanket, these objects can talk. We would do well to listen.

Reader’s Choice/Tom’s Top Tunes: Song #33/250…Love Is a Battlefield by Pat Benatar

The very first professional music concert I ever attended in my life was seeing Pat Benatar play at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto in 1982. For someone who was barely five feet tall, the voice that roared out of her was unbelievable! Such power and range. At the time I was unaware of her personal background. There was no internet back then. All that I knew about her came from her first three albums and hit songs, such as “Hit Me With Your Best Shot”, “Shadows of the Night”, “Heartbreaker”, “We Live for Love” and many more. But I came to learn that my favourite singer at the time possessed a singing voice known as a coloratura soprano and that she had been accepted for music at the Juilliard School. But that night in Toronto, all that I cared about was the music. For my first concert, it was unforgettable. She was, and still is, amazing!

Pat Benatar turns 70 years old this year and is still actively performing. She was recently inducted into the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame alongside her husband of over forty years, guitarist Neil Giraldo. She is mother to two girls named Haley and Hana, who are both television actresses. Over the course of her career, Benatar has sold a whopping 35 million albums (including a half dozen or so to me), she has won four Grammy Awards in the Rock category, she released seven albums that went platinum or multi-platinum, along with having fifteen Top 40 hits and one #1 hit song. Ironically enough, Pat Benatar refuses to perform her only #1 hit song in public anymore. That song was “Hit Me With Your Best Shot”. Originally, I was going to feature that song in this post. But then I read about how the fact that many listeners in the States paired her song with gun play on YouTube and/or in video games. She was so appalled when she learned that a song about determination and never giving up had been appropriated by those in league with the N.R.A. that she declared that hit song to be off limits during public performances. In her words, “How can I sing of ‘taking a shot’, even though it has nothing to do with guns, when there are so many lives being lost to gun violence?” If nothing else, such action is a testament to the quality of her character. As much as she is known for her pipes, Pat Benatar is also highly respected as a person. She takes great pride in being a positive role model for others, especially for young women who may wish to make a career for themselves in the music business. Not singing her greatest hit in public is just one example that proves she puts her principles before her profit.

If I can’t use her only #1 hit song in today’s post, then I will go with a song that made it all the way to #2 on the charts…”Love Is a Battlefield”. This song is about the fact that some relationships require a lot of work in order for them to survive over time and that, at other times, the hardships are not worth it and it is better to walk away. This song is noteworthy for several reasons. First of all, it was released in the early 1980s. When it came to the musical side of this song, “Love Is a Battlefield” was one of the first songs to use a drum machine that used real drum beats. Synthesizers were just coming into vogue then, and as they became more common, other music-making machines appeared on the scene. The first drum machines produced artificial beats that tended to sound weak and tinny. However, for “Love Is a Battlefield”, one of the very first machines that captured the richness and depth of actual drum beats was used, giving the song a rich bass beat. Secondly, the video for this song is the answer to a trivia question. Most people who follow music can tell you that the first video played on MTV was a song called “Video Killed the Radio Star” by a band called The Buggles. The second video played ever on MTV was “Love Is a Battlefield” by Pat Benatar. In fact, Benatar really benefited because of the arrival of MTV on the music scene. Being one of the few female rockers at the time, her videos made her a unique and in-demand commodity on MTV. Consequently, all of her hit songs released during the early 1980s went into heavy rotation, which helped with record sales despite the fact that she only had the one #1 radio chart hit. The third notable aspect of this song is that the video is actually a dramatic play. In this case, the video showed a young woman who runs away from home after her father objects to her lifestyle choices. As part of the video, there are several lines of spoken word dialogue between Benatar’s character and the man who plays her father. This was the first time that spoken word dialogue ever appeared in a music video. The final thing that makes the video for “Love Is a Battlefield” stand out is that it contains a choreographed dance scene. Although Benatar was not a trained dancer, she gave it the old college try. Some viewers snickered at the scene in which Benatar leads a group of dancers out on strike from a ruthless, uncaring boss. But the joke ended up being on them, because one of the people who watched this video was a fellow performer named Michael Jackson. When he saw Benatar’s dance scene, he immediately knew that he wanted to have one in his next video, too. That subsequent video turned out to be for a little song known as “Beat It”.

Neil Gerald and Pat Benatar: the couple who play together, stay together.

As careers go, Pat Benatar’s stands out. She is the very model of success. She has had a Hall of Fame career, she is recognized as possessing one of the most distinctive and powerful voices of any female singer, she is respected for the principles by which she lives her life, she is happily married and has been for over forty years, she is scandal free, addiction free and still singing beautifully even as she turns seventy years of age. Even though I no longer have her poster on my wall, as I did at the time of that first concert, Pat Benatar remains one of my Top 5 favourite female singers of all time. In the video links below, I am going to include a recent performance that she and her husband, Neil Giraldo, gave on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert series. They play three songs there and banter about in between songs. You really get a sense of the quality of their individual characters, the easy rapport they possess and the talent that pours forth seemingly with ease. Please enjoy. 

That is it for this edition of Reader’s Choice/Tom’s Top Tunes. Please remember to submit your own song requests and I will happily, joyfully and accurately tell the story of your song and the band/musician who performed it. For now, “Love Is a Battlefield” was a Tom’s Top Tune selection. If you have any comments or memories about Pat Benatar that you would like to share, feel free to do so in the comment box below. Thanks for taking the time to read my post. Take care. Bye for now.

The link to the official website for Pat Benatar can be found here.

The link to the video for the NPR Tiny Desk Concert by Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo can be found here.

The link to the official video for “Love Is A Battlefield” can be found here. ***Lyrics version is here.

***As always, all original content contained within this post remains the sole property of the author. No portion of this post shall be reblogged, copied or shared in any manner without the express written consent of the author. ©2023 http://www.tommacinneswriter.com

Keepin’ It Classy: Composition #39/50: Also Sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss

I once took a philosophy course in university. We met in a round room for three hours a session and talked endlessly in circles. True story. Up until that class I had always considered myself to be somewhat of a deep thinker. I was not afraid to be alone with my thoughts in the dark. I thought that the conclusions I drew regarding the state of the world’s affairs were always spot on. If only everybody would see things as I did the world would be in such better shape. Then I took this philosophy class in the round room and my way of thinking changed. After having experienced immersive philosophy, I knew that there was another much deeper level of thinking that was going on in some parts of the world. This round room I found myself in was, for me, more of a carousel upon which I was merely a child bobbing up and down wondering when the ride was going to be over. It reminded me of the Dennis Miller joke that goes: “I was making love to my wife and she started moaning, “Deeper! Deeper!”, so I started whispering Nietzsche quotes in her ear and she yelled, “Whoa, Dennis! Enough! I’m trying to get off over here.” Which brings us nicely to the topic of today’s post, Richard Strauss’ masterful tone poem “Also Sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30”.

“Also Sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30” is a tone poem created by German composer Richard Strauss in 1896. This composition was inspired by the novel by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Friedrich Nietzsche considered Thus Spoke Zarathustra to be his magnum opus. It is a book that chronicles the journey of a prophet named Zarathustra who, in turn, was based on a real life Iranian prophet named Zoroaster. In the book, Zarathustra spends much time contemplating life while alone on a mountaintop. He alternates those wisdom accruing sessions with actual interactions down in the towns and villages located in the valley below. Each chapter of the book explores one aspect of Man’s evolutionary progress, with the end goal being the process we must undergo to become an Ubermensch, or a “Superior man who justifies the existence of the human race”. As part of his journey, Zarathustra discovers the restrictive nature of faith in God and states that humans can never achieve greatness as long as we subjugate ourselves to a deity such as the Christian God. Therefore, Nietzsche famously declared God as being “dead”, along with organized religion and all that this entailed. Nietzsche also had thoughts on Man vs. Nature, the education process, the nature of power and authority and so on. Thus Spoke Zarathustra is considered one of the great literary works of all time. It is certainly one of the most influential books on philosophy that exists. It also inspired the creative mind of fellow German Richard Strauss, who recognized, within the structure of the language Nietzsche used, a cadence that he felt could be transformed into a musical structure. The end result of this transformation was the tone poem “Also Sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30”.

Composer Richard Strauss

Strauss believed in the philosophical premise posed by Nietzsche that self-actualization was possible but only through complete and total dedication to the process. His tone poem focuses on ten of Neitzsche’s 80 chapters. Each of these ten chapters is dedicated to one aspect of Man’s evolution as a species. While his tone poem has ten sections, it is played as one consolidated piece of music. A tone poem is different from a symphony, for example, because the format it follows is meant to inspire imaginative reactions from the audience, to set a mood where reflection and deeper understanding may happen. On the other hand, a symphony has a structure that consists of four standard parts. Because of the nature of how a symphony is structured, the audience is attuned more to what is happening in each section of the symphony, rather than drawing deeper conclusions based on the entirety of the work. Because Richard Strauss understood the nature of Nietzsche’s arguments, he incorporated several clever techniques within the body of the tone poem which helped give it greater depth. For instance, “Also Sprach Zarathustra” is most widely known for the opening fanfare, which lasts approximately two minutes and is centered on a chapter of Neitzsche’s book concerned with the Dawn of Man. One of the clever things that Strauss did was to compose the fanfare in the key of C, which is known as the universal music key. Using a universal tone structure to create a backdrop to the Dawn of Mankind segment helped reinforce the commonality we all share from birth to death. One further thing to note is with the fanfare in particular, the note structure is in groups of three linked notes ascending the scale. It is easy to feel the magnitude of the subject matter…the Dawn of Man…as the scales ascend. This fanfare was most famously used by movie director Stanley Kubrick in the opening scene of his classic movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. That film, as you may know, is also a look at the place of Humankind in the grand spectrum of all creatures and things in the universe. It is a weighty movie that contrasts us, as humans, with the vastness of outer space, as well as the intelligence of the computer known as HAL. 

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, there was a time when I considered myself to be a deep thinker. But now I look at people like Friedrich Nietzsche, Richard Strauss and Stanley Kubrick and realize what an intellectual lightweight I probably am compared to them. Imagine how awkward it would feel for me if the four of us were placed in a round room and left to discuss whatever was on our minds. While I do dwell on the state of our world and worry about what the future holds for us as a species, I also worry about getting up carefully from the couch so as not to pull a muscle. For some of us, toilet humour and a good pie-in-the-face comedy sketch on TV or YouTube is more than enough deep thinking. For others, it takes a round room and the eternal recurrence of debates about things that just don’t seem to matter that much to make one realize that some deep thoughts are better left for the minds of others. To those special people for whom thinking deep thoughts is your jam, good for you. But I have to wonder if the knowledge that comes from knowing the answers to life’s greatest and most important questions is worth the journey it took to get there. I don’t have the answer to that because, after all, I am becoming more and more like Dennis Miller’s wife…”Whoa! Enough! I’m trying to get off here!”  Now comes the hard part…putting my laptop down and getting safely up off of the couch. Be careful out there, my friends.

The link to the official website for Friedrich Nietzsche can be found here.

The link to the official website for Richard Strauss can be found here.

The link to the official website for Stanley Kubrick can be found here.

The link to the video for the composition “Also Sprach Zarathustra” by Richard Strauss can be found here. ***Note: This is just the fanfare, not the entire composition.

The link to the video for the composition “Also Sprach Zarathustra” as used in the opening of the film 2001: A Space Odyssey can be found here.

The link to the video of the Dennis MIller comedy special with the joke about the use of Neitzsche quotes with his wife can be found here.


***As always, all original content contained within this post remains the sole property of the author. No portion of the post shall be reblogged, copied or shared in any manner without the express written permission of the author. ©2023 http://www.tommacinneswriter.com

The Great Canadian Road Trip: Song #43/250…Seasons in the Sun by Terry Jacks

“Seasons in the Sun” by Terry Jacks sold over 14 million copies worldwide. It went to the #1 spot on the charts in Canada, as well as the U.S. Terry Jacks won two Juno Awards because of “Seasons in the Sun”. It remains one of the songs that most people associate with being a “Canadian” song. And yet, it was a song that was never intended to be recorded by Jacks. In fact, his take on “Seasons in the Sun” was actually the fourth version that made it to the airwaves. Finally, despite its overwhelming sales success, “Seasons in the Sun” is a polarizing song that has regularly been voted as being one of the most overwrought, maudlin songs in the entire history of modern rock. What is it exactly about this song that so many people love and so many others find repugnant? Let’s find out. Here is the story of a song that is woven into the musical tapestry of a country called Canada. Here is “Seasons in the Sun” by Terry Jacks.

Terry Jacks was born in Winnipeg in 1944 but moved to Vancouver in his early teen years. Jacks always had an affinity for music. While in high school, he formed a band with some friends that was called The Chessmen. This band proved to be popular with the teen crowd on the west coast. They managed to have a few of their songs appear on local station CFUN in the mid 1960s. They even managed to have some of their music make it into CFUN’s Top 40 chart. This entire experience convinced a young Terry Jacks that the potential existed for a career in music. As the 1960s came to an end, Jacks met a young woman named Susan Pesklevits. They eventually married. Along with a few other friends, Terry and Susan formed a band known as The Poppy Family. They had a number of minor hits and one major one with a song called “Which Way You Goin’ Billy?”, which hit #1 in Canada and Top Ten in the U.S. This song was written and produced by Terry Jacks and helped him win his first Juno as a record producer. The success of “Which Way You Goin’ Billy?” was important for more than monetary reasons for Jacks. It was a song that introduced him to the west coast music scene in North America as a producer, as much as it did as a songwriter. Because the song was so well received in the U.S., it came to the attention of a man named Al Jardine. Jardine, as you may know, was a member of a little band known as The Beach Boys.

The Beach Boys asked Terry Jacks to help produce their latest album at the time called Surf’s Up. It was during this time that Jacks came to be working on a song of his own called “Seasons in the Sun”. This was not his own song. Instead, it was a reworking of a song by French singer Jacques Brel called “Le Moribond” or “The Dying Man”. In Brel’s original version of the song, the story involved a dying man who was coming to terms with the unfaithfulness of his wife and best friend. It was a song about accepting the hand that life has dealt the man, as well as being about forgiveness and personal peace. “Le Moribond” was translated into English by American singer and poet Rod McKuen. In America, the first time “Seasons in the Sun” achieved chart success was when The Kingston Trio cracked the Top 40 in the mid-1960s. But the song was never a huge hit for that group, nor did the song make that great an impression on audiences in general. The song would have faded into obscurity if not for the fact that Terry Jacks decided to play with the lyrics a bit to see if he could tell a story that may have been slightly more palatable to audiences in North America. So Jacks changed the plot line of the song’s story away from infidelity. In his version of the song, there still is a man who is dying, but instead of confronting those who have done him wrong, the dying man revisits those who have made a difference in his life…his father, his wife, his friends…and thanks them. Terry Jacks felt that his version of the lyrics made the song more uplifting and positive. He felt it was the perfect vehicle for the band he was working with at the time, The Beach Boys, and offered the song to them through Al Jardine. In a bit of foreshadowing of the song’s eventual legacy, the members of The Beach Boys had mixed reactions to “Seasons in the Sun”. Some, like Jardine, thought that the song had potential as a Beach Boys tune. But other members, such as Mike Love, dismissed the song as depressing drivel that didn’t mesh with The Beach Boys’ cool California sound. In the end, The Beach Boys passed on “Seasons in the Sun”. Terry Jacks still had a soft spot for the song so he produced it himself. The rest, as they say, is music history.

Terry Jacks released “Seasons in the Sun” on his own record label as a solo artist. As we have seen with many others, whenever a solo artist has a huge hit right out of the gate, it either helps set the stage for future success as a musical superstar or else it crushes them under the weight of those same future expectations. In the case of Terry Jacks, he never again came close to achieving the same level of chart success as he did with “Seasons in the Sun”. This did not mean that he became a failure or anything like that. Instead, the experience of having a monster hit sent him spiraling sideways, in new creative and personal directions. One of the first consequences for Jacks was that his singing career came to a close. It wasn’t easy to sing a song about death, day in and day out. The strain took a toll on his marriage (which ended in divorce in the mid-1970s), and it caused Jacks to decide that singing in the spotlight wasn’t where he found the most satisfaction from music. So, Jacks stepped away from performing. He focussed solely on being a record producer. As the 1970s progressed, Jacks produced hit songs for a wide variety of performers, such as Country star George Jones (“White Lightnin’”), Valdy (“Rock n’ Roll Song”) as well as Nana Mouskouri (“Loving Arms”).

However, in the 1980s, Terry Jacks stepped away from music altogether. He was drawn to environmental issues and began creating documentary films. He has received several awards for his contributions to the national conversation regarding Climate Change and other pressing environmental issues which, according to Jacks, were the real pressing issues of our times. While Terry Jacks is regarded by some as a one-hit wonder, it is obvious to see that he enjoyed many successes prior to the release of “Seasons in the Sun” and that he was a respected producer and film documentarian in the years that followed the chart-topping breakthrough of the song most closely associated with his name. 

However, the song,“Seasons in the Sun”, has a much more complicated legacy than the man who had a hit with it. There are those who view “Seasons in the Sun” as being an embarrassment because of how over the top it is with sadness and sentimentality. To those people, having the song play such a prominent role in the formative years of the industry speaks to how barren the musical landscape was in Canada back then. To many others, “Seasons in the Sun” was a very important song in terms of helping to create the vibrant Canadian music scene that we enjoy today. Having such a huge homegrown hit song that did well south of the border (which was always important to Canadians), did much to help establish the music industry in Canada. Along with other homegrown musical acts from the 1960s and 70s such as Ian and Sylvia Tyson, Wilf Carter, Hank Snow, Tommy Hunter, Anne Murray, Gordon Lightfoot, Neil Young, Joni MItchell, April Wine, Trooper, The Stampeders and many others, Terry Jacks became one of the homegrown Canadian musical acts who delivered increasingly distinctive Canadian sounding songs which, in turn, helped blaze a trail for the likes of Bryan Adams and Celine Dion to follow. If you are interested in learning more about how people like Terry Jacks helped us, as a nation, develop a healthy, respected music industry in Canada, I can recommend a great book by my friend, Ian Jack (no relation to Terry Jacks), along with his colleagues Michael Barclay and Jason Schneider called Have Not Been the Same. This book is a thoroughly-researched, expertly told story of how the Canadian music industry grew to thrive in the mid-1980s and how it has managed to adapt to new innovations in the world of technology to continue to achieve success going forward. As much as “Seasons in the Sun” grates on the nerves of many, it was beloved by many others, too. Songs such as this one helped lay the foundation of what has become the great Canadian musical canon. For that, Terry Jacks and “Seasons in the Sun” are deserving of all the respect we can muster. Thanks, Terry. 

The link for the official website for Terry Jacks can be found here.

The link to the video for the song “Seasons in the Sun” can be found here. ***The lyrics version can be found here.

The link to purchase the book Have Not Been the Same by Ian Jack, Michael Barclay and Jason Schneider can be found here.    

***As always, all original content contained within this post remains the sole property of the author. No portion of this post shall be reblogged, copied or shared in any manner without the express written consent of the author. ©2023 http://www.tommacinneswriter.com

Who’s Punk?! What’s the score?!: Song #3/50: Pinhead by The Ramones

You can tell a lot about a person and a society by how they treat those who, for whatever reason, come to be viewed as being different. For the sake of this post, I am going to refer to the term “different” as being people who possess intellectual and/or physical challenges. When I started working as an elementary school teacher in Ontario, it was the 1989/90 school year. Back in the early stages of my career, those students who possessed intellectual or physical challenges were often segregated from classrooms such as mine. They weren’t being punished or regarded with disdain. But the thinking definitely existed that these students were better off in a self-contained setting that could be designed specifically to meet their many needs. But, as my career reached the one-third mark in the mid-1990s, government legislation was introduced in Ontario that mandated a policy known as integration. What this meant in practical terms was that students with special needs would become part of so-called regular classroom life as much as was possible. Being Mr. Cynical Pants as I tend to be when it comes to the motives of governments, I believe that part of the impetus for this legislation was that it was the government’s way of reducing education expenditures by eliminating/scaling back the existence of parallel spaces within schools that were being dedicated for students with special needs. But, one of the very clear benefits that came about both for students with special needs and for the students in regular classrooms like mine was the opportunity to get to know one another and break down the walls of ignorance that kept us separated for so long. Working with students with special needs and the wonderful staff who accompanied them was a game changer for me as a teacher. In addition to teaching ABCs and 1-2-3s, we were all provided with real-time lessons in compassion and empathy and caring for others who were different from ourselves. The personal growth we received was self-evident. The students with special needs that joined our classroom ceased being mysterious entities and soon became friends that we welcomed without question. As they became part of our classroom world, the kids grew to become protective of their new friends. They viewed these children as being the same as anybody else, minus a few quirks and quarks that may have existed. A level of understanding and acceptance grew. We became a complete classroom family.  

Up until the years of the Covid pandemic, I would have been willing to state that we, as a society, had made progress in how we view and treat those that we deem as being different from us. But, the Covid pandemic turned out to be more than just a health scare. It became a social experiment that was weaponized by people with certain right wing views. Those views included a return to a world in which white is right and only Christians need bother to apply for membership. All other minority groups have seen setbacks in the past few years that are both societal and legislative. It isn’t easy being a person of colour, a woman seeking bodily autonomy, a child with special needs in schools, someone experiencing poverty, an immigrant, almost anyone on the LGBQTIA2S+ spectrum and so on. Our world has gotten crueler and colder as those harbouring hateful thoughts have gone on the march. The whole notion of racial purity and strength being one of the foundational aspects of these political movements does not bode well for those who are viewed as being different. If allowed to proceed unabated, it is not too far-fetched a notion to envision a world in which people with physical and/or intellectual challenges will be segregated away again …or even worse.  

Despite how it may seem so far, this is actually a music post about a song that is based upon a famous/infamous movie about the very topic of how we treat those we view as being different from ourselves. That movie is called Freaks. The song of the day is called “Pinhead” by The Ramones. I will end this post by connecting the dots to reveal a television show that drew the inspiration for its creation directly from a line in “Pinhead” and, by doing so, offers us all a utopian vision of how we can all live together in harmony regardless of our appearance and our capabilities. Let’s get on with the show!

The world was very different in 1923. One of the most common ways that society dealt with people who possessed intellectual and/or physical challenges was to lock them away in sanitariums or insane asylums. Mental illness was not viewed as an acceptable condition that was treatable. In fact, even shell shocked soldiers returning from the battlefields of Europe in WWI were often locked away from the general public. There was a very out-of-sight, out-of-mind mentality at play. However, every now and again, it was deemed as being socially acceptable for the general public to come into contact with people who would otherwise be locked away. One of those socially acceptable times occurred whenever a circus would come to town. In those days, many traveling circuses had acts called Sideshow Freaks. In essence, the people who performed in sideshows tended to be advertised as being frightening creatures, maybe even dangerous, some were even billed as being evil. In reality, they were people with medical conditions such as being conjoined twins, people born without limbs or with smaller than usual heads or tiny bodies and so on. Many of these performers were kept in very cruel and inhumane conditions behind the scenes. Many were intellectually disabled and unable to advocate for themselves. It was an awful life for these vulnerable people who required protection and compassion and only ever received exploitation. It says a lot about the state of social mores back in 1923 that the most common reactions from paying customers to these “freak shows” was fear and revulsion. 

Against this backdrop, an author named Tod Robbins wrote a short story in 1923 called Spurs. This story was a murder mystery set in the world of a traveling circus in France. The plot involved one of the sideshow performers known as “The Dwarf” inheriting a large sum of money. Afterwards, a beautiful female con artist of “normal height and looks” decides to trick the man out of his money by pretending to fall in love with him. Needless to say, the story does not end well for this woman. Readers were given a glimpse of the environment of a traveling circus, along with the details of a crime plot gone wrong. In the end, the film rights to Spurs was purchased by MGM Studios. In 1931, MGM Studios released one of the first great horror movies called Dracula. This movie introduced the world to Bela Lugosi. The director of Dracula was a man called Tod Browning.  Because of the success of his movie with Lugosi, Browning was given free rein to choose his next project. Out of several that were brought to his attention, Browning opted to adapt for the screen the short story Spurs.

Browning discarded much of the storyline of the short story because he realized that the real story that needed to be explored was the world of the sideshow performers. Browning understood how society viewed them and wondered what it must be like to live one’s entire life being viewed with fear and hostility, living essentially in indentured servitude, with no one to care for you in any regard at all. So Browning created a film that came to be known as Freaks. The film followed some of the storyline from the short story Spurs, but it really focussed on exposing the attitudes of those who claimed to be “normal”. Browning hired actual sideshow performers and dared film audiences to look at them in all their humanity and then look at themselves as reflected in the performance of the blonde femme fatale who tries to con “The Dwarf” out of his money. Browning used his horror skills to good use. Because people were not used to being confronted by others who were missing limbs or had misshapen heads, etc., many audience members found Freaks to be horrifying in the extreme and unsettling at best. The movie’s pivotal scene involves a gathering of all the performers at a dinner. There is a sense of community among them all. The reason for the gathering is that they had all fallen for the charms of this con artist and had prepared a community dinner at which time they were going to officially welcome her into their traveling family. There is a clip for the movie that I urge you to watch by clicking here. If you watch the clip, you will see the reaction this woman has when she realizes that the performers consider her to be one of them now as they chant, “Gobble! Gobble! We Accept you!  We accept you!  One of us! One of us!”.  The scene is not gruesome or horrifying. To me, it plays more like an episode of The Twilight Zone TV show. However, Freaks ended up being banned for decades in the US and around the world. People were just not prepared to welcome into their lives other people who may have been different from them. It says a lot about the state of society back then, and as Browning was trying to point out, it accurately showcased who the real freaks were. And they weren’t the sideshow performers.

Flash forward to the 1970s. Punk rock had taken root in America. One of the bands who became the face of the genre in the U.S was The Ramones. As you may know from previous posts about The Ramones *(that you can read here and here), they were a band who played songs with lightning speed. Although the lyrical content was often sparse, The Ramones were songwriters who had a flair for coining terms that captured the mood of the world at the time. For example, they are credited with introducing the term punk rock in their song “Sheena Is a Punk Rocker”. In any case, one thing that The Ramones understood as well as anyone was that their music was different from much of what passed for rock n’ roll in the 1970s. By extension, they understood that a majority of their fans felt as though they were different, too. These fans felt like outsiders who were being given voice by these skinny dudes in leather jackets and tight, tight jeans.

And so it was that The Ramones found themselves in Cleveland, Ohio one day. They had been scheduled to play at an outdoor event, but unfortunately, there was lightning in the area and the event was canceled. Suddenly, the band had time on their hands so they decided to spend the afternoon by seeing a movie. As it turned out, the movie Freaks had been given a new lease on life by folks who had come to realize that its portrayal of sideshow performers was nowhere as frightening in the 1970s as it had been in the 1930s. The ban on the film was lifted, and as it happened, the film was playing that rainy day in Cleveland. Immediately, the members of The Ramones identified with the sideshow performers’ sense of alienation as well as their sense of community. The boys were particularly drawn to a performer known as Pinhead in the film. This character was based upon a real person who went by the name of Schlitzie. In real life, Schlitzie suffered from a medical condition known as microcephaly.  This condition causes the skull to become misshapen, which, in turn, often causes pressures on the brain which result in speech and language impairments, intellectual difficulties and so on. The whole idea that these sideshow performers, who had so much going against them, exercised such solidarity and humanity by the end of the film struck a chord within the band. In particular, they recognized the rallying cry inherent in the chanted phrases of “Gobble! Gobble! We Accept You! We Accept You! One of us! One of us!”. The Ramones felt they could apply the same sort of rallying cry at their concerts. In doing so, there would be a tacit acknowledgement between the band and their fans that they may be outsiders, but they were outsiders together as a community. When the band left the theatre, they came up with the song called “Pinhead”. Within the sparse lyrical content of the song is the rallying cry at the end that goes, “Gabba Gabba Hey!” This was their take on the “Gobble! Gobble!” chant from Freaks. One of the things that allowed The Ramones to become such a fan-friendly punk band was their ability to build in audience participation moments throughout their show. They were known for starting songs with “1-2-3-4!” or using chants such as “Hey ho! Let’s go!” Add to that, “Gabba Gabba Hey!” and you have a fun evening singing, chanting and dancing with friends.

While The Ramones did much to bring punk rock into the mainstream of American music, the truth was that many “normal” music lovers still regarded them and their fans as being a niche group that occupied their own small space on the musical spectrum way off to the side, away from the rest of the bands and their fans. But, there was no denying the influence of The Ramones. One of the best examples of the groundwork that The Ramones laid with “Pinhead” and the “Gabba Gabba Hey!” chants bearing the fruit of social acceptance happened with two musicians named Christian Jacobs and Scott Schultz. These guys decided to develop the idea of creating a utopian version of Freaks, but for children, that was based directly on The Ramones’ song “Pinhead”. That show aired for the first time in 2007 and was called Yo Gabba Gabba. While Sesame Street remains the gold standard of children’s television shows, Yo Gabba Gabba is one that, for me, ranks right up there! It was an awesome show to watch as an adult when my girls were younger. The show had a DJ as host (DJ Lance) and was populated by a community of characters, none of whom looked like they were human. The segments on the show dealt with things you would expect, such as lessons on kindness and courage and sharing. But the best part was that cutting edge music was played all throughout the show. Real alternative and indie bands such as Hot, Hot Heat, Devo, MGMT, Sean Kingston, Eryka Badu, The Flaming Lips, The Roots, Weezer, My Chemical Romance and even Paul Williams singing an artsy, trippy rendition of “The Rainbow Connection” all appeared on the show. ***Manchester band, The Ting Tings performed a song that they called “Happy Birthday” which was something I used to play for my kids in class whenever it was their birthday. The whole show was filled with colour and music and characters who looked nothing like you or me, all living in harmony. Yo Gabba Gabba was a quirky show, but there was something there for everyone, if only we would take the time to look. 

I make no bones about it, I have always had a special spot in my heart for the underdog. I believe that the very essence of their humanity is as valid and vital as anything that a so-called normal guy like me can share with the world. That so many of our fellow humans may require extra care or assistance to be their true selves does not diminish their right to be allowed to thrive. I was always happy to help. I would rather spend one thousand days in a row in the company of some of those kids who joined our classroom in the 2000s or those sideshow performers from Freaks or the fans of The Ramones or in the world of Yo Gabba Gabba than I would one single second in the company of those who recently protested against the rights of trans children recently in Canada. In the end, I want to live in a world where everyone is welcome and all are respected and cared for and loved. That is all. Gabba Gabba Hey!

The link to the official website for The Ramones can be found here. 

The link to the video for the song “Pinhead” by The Ramones can be found here.

***The lyrics version can be found here.  

NOTE: The lyrics in this song borrow from the plot of Freaks but with a small change. Instead of a female con artist, The Ramones sing of a nurse who is going to take them away from being a pinhead and give them a normal life. However, in the end, the nurse accuses them of being “dumb” because they are pinheads after all. The song is mostly thrashing guitars, with the famous “Gabba Gabba Hey!” line at the end of the song. PS: A member of their crew will appear on stage as Schlitzie.

The link to the official website for Yo Gabba Gabba can be found here.

The link to the video for the song “Happy Birthday” by The Ting Tings that I showed to my students in class whenever it was someone’s birthday can be found here.

***The title for this series comes from a song “Boxcar” by the band Jawbreaker. I encourage all who read this post to go and check out their website, maybe buy some merch, purchase a concert ticket and/or listen to some other songs from their catalogue of great tunes. You can reach their website by clicking here. To Jawbreaker, thanks for helping to inspire the writing of this series on Punk music.


***As always, all original content contained within this post remains the sole property of the author. No portion of this post shall be reblogged, copied or shared in any manner without the express written consent of the author. ©2023 http://www.tommacinneswriter.com

Reader’s Choice/Tom’s Top Tunes: Song 32/250: Play That Funky Music, White Boy by Wild Cherry.

NOTE: Starting today I am tweaking the Reader’s Choice series a little bit. In the past I have used this series to accept song requests from you, my dear readers. I am still willing and able to do that, so feel free to send in any song from any era in any musical genre and I will do my best to tell your story with grace and thoughtful consideration. However, I decided to allow myself some greater flexibility in how I use this series going forward. While I was on hiatus, helping my mother get settled in her nursing home in Nova Scotia, I had time to create a new list of songs to augment those I have received from my readers. These songs may or may not have been a #1 hit in their day but all of them were noteworthy for one reason or another and all enjoyed their own “fifteen minutes of fame”. So, in that light, I introduce to you songs that I am simply calling Tom’s Top Tunes. I hope that you enjoy learning about how these popular songs came to be as much as you enjoy reading about your Reader’s Choice entries.  With that having been said, here is our very first Tom’s Top Tune….”Play That Funky Music, White Boy” by Wild Cherry. Enjoy. 🙂

Wild Cherry was a rock band that played out of the Cleveland, Ohio area during the 1970s. The band played straight-ahead guitar driven rock music and were quite popular in the local area. While Wild Cherry didn’t have any chart topping original songs, they did do a variety of rock covers, and they had some of their own material that was sprinkled into their sets. They were a well-received bar band, and for a while, that was good enough for them to find consistent bookings. Getting paid to do something each band member liked seemed like incredibly good fortune. But then, through no fault of their own, the musical sands shifted beneath their feet and everything changed.

Cleveland, Ohio is not exactly an east coast town. But it does have east-west and northern connections to places such as Detroit, Chicago, Minneapolis, Cincinnati, Buffalo, Boston, Philadelphia, Atlantic City and New York City. These connections exist primarily due to the transportation corridor that runs from the Great Lakes all the way to the Atlantic coastline. Because of the comings and goings of so many people and goods along this corridor, Cleveland has often ended up on the receiving end of many cultural trends that began in places like NYC and ended up moving westward across America. In the mid-1970s, one of the biggest cultural trends in music was Disco. 

Disco music, disco dancing and disco clubs spread like wildfire throughout the eastern part of the U.S. in the mid-1970s, with the epicentre being New York City. Clubs such as Studio 54 became the mecca of this new world. Everyone who was anyone vied to gain entry through Studio 54’s famous doors and into the decadent world that existed inside. Bands like Blondie had #1 smash hits. Movies such as Saturday Night Fever became cultural touchstones that launched a fashion scene that swept the country. Even television shows like American Bandstand followed the Disco trends. And when Dick Clark put his stamp of approval on a scene, then that scene would start showing up everywhere. One of the places that the Disco subculture took root was along that east-west corridor in Cleveland, Ohio. Because people always wanted to feel as though they had their fingers on the pulse of what was new and hip, many of the folks who went to bars in the Cleveland area did so in the hopes of disco dancing the night away. This was how a band like Wild Cherry suddenly found themselves at odds with their own local music scene that had nurtured them for so long.

The story goes that in the late 1970s, Wild Cherry was playing in a bar. They were running through their typical set of guitar rock. Usually, these sets were welcomed by their audience, but on this night, the band found that the connection that usually existed between the band and the crowd just wasn’t there. On this night, the audience grew increasingly restless as the evening went on. Finally, one man finally took it upon himself to express the frustration everyone was feeling. He stood in front of the stage and shouted at the band and, in particular, at lead singer Rob Parissi and asked, “Are you gonna play some funky music, white boys?!”  Parissi and his bandmates knew that their brand of rock was out of fashion, but they had hoped that this fad would pass and that they would be able to weather the musical storm and just keep playing good old rock n’ roll. But once this challenge was publicly uttered, it seemed to demand a response from the band. So, Parissi paused the set. He and the band took a break to discuss their next move. During the break, a lot of the thoughts and feelings that Parissi had been feeling about the pressure to adapt and begin playing disco music (which he did not actually like) came bubbling to the surface. According to Parissi, the lyrics to a song about their exact situation formed immediately in his mind. He claims that he grabbed a sheet of order paper from a passing waitress and wrote out the lyrics on a piece of paper in approximately five minutes. Then he showed them to the band. The band members felt that they had nothing to lose, so a few minutes later, they went back out on stage and played the song live for their audience. The crowd responded positively to Wild Cherry’s efforts. The response was enthusiastic enough that the band decided to polish the song and record it. The song was released locally and became a hit in the Cleveland area. Word quickly spread up and down the east-west corridor, and soon Wild Cherry was appearing on American Bandstand and other nationally-televised shows. They called their song “Play That Funky Music, White Boy”. The song went all the way to #1, selling over two million copies worldwide. It became Wild Cherry’s only Top 40 hit. But the success of the song allowed Parissi and his bandmates to enjoy a healthy living because of strong royalty returns in the years since.

As many of you know, the Disco era burned brightly while it existed, but soon enough, it faded away in part because of a backlash against it from many of those very same rock fans who originally watched Wild Cherry play back in the day. Wild Cherry did weather the musical storm in a sense. They never had another big hit to follow up “Play That Funky Music, White Boy” but that seemed ok with their local fans. The song, while inspired by Disco from New York, was still funky enough to survive the transition back into more standard rock fare in Cleveland. Almost forty-five years later, it remains a crowd pleaser whenever it is played at a bar, wedding reception or party. It was lightning in a bottle for Wild Cherry. Because of that one moment, Wild Cherry created a song that will always be remembered as marrying the fortunes of Disco and Rock together.

If you require proof that “Play That Funky Music, White Boy” has remained relevant decades later, that proof can be seen in how it was used in a television show called Big Bang Theory. If you know about the show at all, then you will be aware that two of the main characters were roommates named Sheldon Cooper and Leonard Hofstadter. Both men were scientists. Both were on the nerdy side of the social spectrum, with Sheldon being the one who is far more unaware of social cues, as well as being fixated on rules and order and organization, etc. Part of the show’s foundation was built upon Leonard helping Sheldon to better understand and function in the world around him. One such example of this revolved around the song “Play That Funky Music, White Boy” by Wild Cherry. In the scene, Leonard takes Sheldon for a drive. While doing so he puts on some music. He explains to Sheldon that listening to music while driving makes the experience of getting from here to there more pleasurable. Sheldon ponders the accuracy of that statement and decides to give music a try to see if listening to music brings him pleasure, too. The song that is playing is “Play That Funky Music, White Boy”. At first, Sheldon bops along with the beat and is, indeed, enjoying himself. Then the song comes to the chorus. This causes Sheldon to start analyzing the lyrics. He pauses to seek clarification from Leonard by asking if this song is representative of a style called funky. Unsure of where he is going with this, Leonard warily responds with, “Sure”.  Immediately Sheldon turns to Leonard and announces that this song is a perfect example of something known as Russell’s Paradox.  When Leonard adopts a quizzical look, Sheldon explains that Russell’s Paradox is a scientific theorem that states that something scientific can be a subset of the factors that cause the original scientific theory to be true. Leonard remains confused. Then Sheldon attempts to simplify his explanation, as he often felt the need to do throughout the course of the series, by stating that if the song was already an example of something funky, then why was the singer being asked to play a song that he was already playing? Then Sheldon threw his hands up in disgust and claimed that “Play That Funky Music, White Boy” was ruined for him now. He ended by stating a line that Keri often says to me when I feel the need to explain the meaning of and/or the story behind every song…he said, “Shouldn’t music just be fun?!”  

As I hoist myself on my own petard, I will stop talking and wish you all a great rest of your day. 🙂

The link to the official website for Wild Cherry can be found here.

The link to the video for the song “Play That Funky Music, White Boy” by Wild Cherry can be found here. ***The lyrics version is here.

The link to the video for the “Play That Funky Music, White Boy” scene from the TV show Big Bang Theory can be found here.


***As always, all original content contained within this post remains the sole property of the author. No portion of this post shall be reblogged, copied or shared in any manner without the express written consent of the author. ©2023 http://www.tommacinneswriter.com

The Stars of Stage and Screen: Song 40/250…The Rainbow Connection from the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack of The Muppet Movie

When it comes to the world of movies and television shows aimed at children, one of the colossal figures in the scene…or should I say, under that scene, was a man named Jim Henson. Mr. Henson was a master puppeteer. His career began with a little TV show that you may have heard of called Sesame Street. As a child, I was a devoted follower of Sesame Street. I knew everyone who lived in that neighbourhood, whether they were in human form or whether they existed as a puppet. As a child, I know that I found the show to be funny and entertaining, and it helped place me in an environment where I thought that learning about things was a natural way to spend my time. As an adult, I look back upon Sesame Street and I marvel at how incredible it all was. The people responsible for programming those episodes deserve special recognition for how easily and seamlessly they introduced such politically sensitive topics as racial harmony, women’s rights and so on in ways that made sense to the young children watching at home. I have said this in a previous post, but my favourite TV episode of all time, in any era and from any style of television show, was the episode when long time character Mr. Hooper dies (as he did in real life). The writers of Sesame Street wrote it into the show and framed the episode around Big Bird’s character learning about what had happened to his friend and what it means when someone you care for actually dies. *(You can read that previous post here). That Sesame Street could tackle the topic of death in such a respectful way spoke volumes to me about the quality of the character of the people who were running the show. One of those people was Jim Henson. 

Jim Henson learned about puppeteering in college in the late 1950s. He began his professional career as a puppeteer by making a short five-minute show segment that appeared as part of a TV show called Sam and Friends that appeared on Public TV in Washington. One of his early puppets was the early version of a talking frog. That talking frog would eventually go on to become the character we all know as Kermit the Frog. As Henson began to receive attention from his Sam and Friends segments, he began to appear with his puppets as a guest on TV shows such as The Ed Sullivan Show. His work on those national television shows brought him to the attention of the producers of Sesame Street, who hired Henson to join their production team. He agreed and, along with friend and fellow puppeteer Frank Oz, went on to create some of the most iconic characters in the history of television, such as Bert and Ernie, Big Bird (who was played by Caroll Spinney on the show), Oscar the Grouch, game show host Guy Smiley and many more. Henson believed that puppets could be made to seem so realistic in their appearance, their movements and their speaking ability that they would appear to be real and thus, would be believable to children. Thus, all of Henson’s puppets (which he called Muppets) were created using soft material, with movable rods hidden inside their bodies (as opposed to strings hanging down from above) and mouths that were easily manipulated from within the puppet. The overwhelming success of puppets such as Kermit the Frog led to a spinoff television show simply called The Muppet Show, a further spinoff called Fraggle Rock and a series of movies based upon the Muppet characters. The very first of these movies was given an equally simple title as the TV show had been given. It was called The Muppet Movie. From that movie came a song about rainbows that was about rainbows and so much more. “The Rainbow Connection” was a song written by the team of Paul Williams and Kenneth Ascher. This song was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Song in a Feature Film. The entire musical score was nominated for Best Film Score. “The Rainbow Connection” actually cracked the Top 30 Pop charts in 1979, making it as high as position #25. The song has since been selected for inclusion at The Library of Congress because of its cultural significance.  

The Muppet Movie opens with a scene in which Kermit the Frog is sitting on a log in a pond. Kermit sings the song “The Rainbow Connection” as he wonders about his purpose in life. Someone overhears him singing and tells Kermit that he could be an entertainer who brings joy into the hearts of millions of people. Kermit takes this suggestion as being a sign that his “rainbow connection”….his purpose in life… lay in finding a career in show business. To do that, he travels across America in search of Hollywood. Along the way, Kermit meets all manner of Muppet friends who, in the end, become like his family. The movie concludes by Kermit having his dream realized in a most explosive and unusual way that also involves a rainbow appearing, which he takes as a sign that he has made the correct choice in life. One of the things that most people in the audience for this movie didn’t realize was how difficult it was to film that opening scene where Kermit sits on a log in the middle of a pond and sings “The Rainbow Connection” song. 

If you think back to how Jim Henson and Frank Oz worked with the Muppets, they did so from below. Thus, all of the sets used in The Muppet Movie had to be built five feet into the air so that Oz and Henson could stand and move about freely from below. So every time you saw a scene using a muppet in the movie (or on Sesame Street or Fraggle Rock) keep in mind that those puppets were actually five feet in the air and a whole lot was going on under the camera’s view. In the case of “The Rainbow Connection” scene, Jim Henson couldn’t stand underneath Kermit the Frog because they were using real water to film the scene. So, in order for Henson to be able to operate Kermit from below, they had to build a sealed diving bell-like contraption. The diving bell was a fully sealed submersible device. Henson was able to breathe for the several hours it took to film the scene because oxygen was being pumped in from behind the bell. In order to feed him, food and water was brought in through a hatchway that could be opened from the outside yet remain sealed from the inside. The hatchway would be opened, the food would be placed in a cubby way, the outside door sealed shut and then, at that time, Henson could open the hatchway from inside and retrieve his food and drink. So, as you watch the video for this song, try and imagine all that went into creating this scene. What a lot of ingenuity was at play!

I will end this post with the following thought. The song “The Rainbow Connection” is about finding your purpose in life and believing yourself capable and worthy of finding it at all. There is no one single, universal “rainbow connection” out there. But there is one such connection waiting for us to find that is meant just for us. I truly believe that we are all worthy of finding a path in life that works for us and will help us become the person we were always meant to be. No one can dictate what that connection is any more than you can buy it from a store. Whatever your true rainbow connection turns out to be, it will be beautiful and wonderful. If you haven’t discovered it yet, keep looking. The journey may be long, but the reward for your heart and mind is immeasurable. To all those who believe in rainbows, I salute you. Good luck on your journey.

The link to the video for the song “The Rainbow Connection” as sung by Kermit the Frog from the original motion picture soundtrack of the film The Muppet Movie can be found here.  *The lyrics version can be found here.

The link to the video for the trailer to The Muppet Movie can be found here.

The link to the official website for Jim Henson can be found here.


***As always, all original content contained within this post remains the sole property of the author. No portion of this post shall be reblogged, copied or shared in any manner without the express written consent of the author. ©2023 http://www.tommacinneswriter.com

Keepin’ It Classy: Composition #38/50…”Piano Sonata No. 14, Quasi una fantasia, Op. 27, No. 2” or, as it is better known, “The Moonlight Sonata” by Ludwig van Beethoven

If you are anything like me, then somewhere in your home…in a closet, under your bed, in the back of a drawer….somewhere, you have a stash of letters and photographs that remain as evidence of your courting days with the one you love. For most of us, the story that our heart tells is well known by those who know us. However, for some people, their deepest desires were required to remain hidden. So imagine the scandal that might arise if you penned intimate odes of affection to another but never sent them, only to have those same letters discovered upon your death and reinterpreted by those who never knew the true facts. This happened to the famous composer Ludwig van Beethoven. The enduring consequence of the discovery, after his death, of a stack of letters addressed to an unnamed Immortal Beloved, was to have others begin to view him and his work with new eyes. Thus, the romanticization of Ludwig van Beethoven and his many compositions began in earnest. The most egregious example of this was the renaming of his composition “Piano Sonata No. 14, Quasi una fantasia, Op. 27, No. 2” as The Moonlight Sonata. Here is the story of how that renaming came to be and what it meant, in the broader sense, for Beethoven’s personal and professional legacy.

Ludwig van Beethoven lived a complicated life. He was a commoner by birth yet lived his whole adult life in the company of some of the richest and most powerful people of his time. He was a composer who had a gift for making beautiful music, yet, not far into his adult life, he began to go deaf. He was lauded as a genius by those who had the pleasure of listening to him play, yet he often felt lonely and devoid of happiness. Finally, he possessed innovative skills when it came to the musical structure of his compositions and yet never felt fully appreciated in his time. He desperately desired the company of an equal such as Mozart, but with Mozart’s early death while Beethoven was still young, there was never anyone for Beethoven to trade ideas with. His was an island of virtuosity. More than anything, he longed to not be alone and even more than that, to be understood.

In the late 1790s, Beethoven was just beginning to earn a reputation as an innovative composer. Up until that time, he had spent many years studying under such composers as Gustav Haydn and Antonio Salieri. It was only as the 1800s approached that Beethoven began to develop the reputation of being a composer of note among those who populated the upper classes of society. Having the trust of those in society circles was important to Beethoven, as well as any composer, because one of the chief sources of income for a composer was being a music instructor for the children of the elite. In order to be hired in such a position of trust, a composer had to first impress the parents of his potential students by performing concerts of original work in the salons and royal ballrooms of Europe. For Beethoven, the two parts of this process went hand-in-hand.

A statue of Beethoven in Vienna, Austria.

As the 1790s progressed, the French Revolution loomed large over the continent. Beethoven left the comfort of his homeland of Germany and moved east to Vienna, Austria, in the hopes of avoiding Napoleon’s army. By doing so, Beethoven gave himself a fresh start in a new city. Because he had no personal connections as he arrived in Vienna, he felt a sense of freedom to experiment with the limits of his creativity. This new sense of freedom coincided with the first stages of his hearing loss. Thus, Beethoven approached his compositions with a zeal and a fervor so far unknown to him. His work seemed fresh and interesting to him. One of the ways he pushed at the boundaries of convention was by attempting to reinvent the classical sonata form. Back in the 1700s, composers were expected to follow a structural formula when creating new work. In the case of the sonata form, composers were all tasked with creating compositions in three parts, or movements. The structure of these three movements was that the first movement was to be vibrant and fast-paced, so as to grab the attention of the audience. The second movement was to be calmer and more subtle, so as to allow the audience to catch their breath and delve deeper into the meaning of the composition. Finally, the third and final movement was to ramp back up in intensity, leading to a glorious conclusion that would leave audiences drained of emotion and breath. The sonata form existed as described for well over a century without any attempt at modification. That was until Ludwig van Beethoven moved to Vienna. Under the pressure of his health concerns, but also feeling the freedom of the complete lack of expectations placed upon him in his new home city, Beethoven decided that there would never be a better time to try something new and different. With that mindset at play, Beethoven began working on a composition that he titled “Piano Sonata No. 14, Quasi una fantasia, Op 27, No. 2”. What was different and revolutionary about this sonata composition was that Beethoven abandoned the traditional sonata form and, instead, opted to start with a quiet, almost dreamlike first movement and build in intensity from there. Not only that, he employed a piano playing technique that was, at turns, very rudimentary and simplistic, and yet it remained incredibly difficult to play properly, requiring much concentration and dexterity. Because Beethoven was experimenting to see how his new sonata form sounded and how it would be received, he never considered it to be a major work. To him, “Piano Sonata No. 14, Quasi una fantasia, Op. 27, No.2” was always viewed as being a stepping stone, or as part of the process of developing his skills as an innovative composer. Even when the composition was completed and first performed in public, Beethoven always regarded the work as being nothing special in its own right.

However, to those Viennese audiences, Beethoven seemed like a breath of fresh air. He was welcomed into the castles and drawing rooms of the aristocracy. He quickly gained the trust of a number of prominent families who all vied for his services as musical instructor for their young daughters. One such family who admired the upstart young composer was a family named Brunsvik. The Brunsviks had two daughters named Therese and Josephine. While providing instruction in music to these two girls, Beethoven began an intimate relationship with the younger sister, Josephine, who was 16 at the time. This relationship was discreet, but it was well known to Josephine’s sister, Therese. At the same time as he was instructing the Brunsvik daughters, Beethoven was introduced to Count Guicciardi and his wife, Countess von Brunswik and their daughter Giulietta.  Giulietta Guicciardi was a young woman who was described as being beautiful and enchanting by those who saw her. She had many admirers who all sought to win her hand. Ludwig van Beethoven was considered extremely lucky to have had such exclusive access to such a sought after young woman. Beethoven considered himself to be more than lucky, he was extremely infatuated with his new student. He wrote letters to a friend in which he publicly stated his desires but tempered expectations with the realization that, as a commoner, he had no realistic chance of being allowed to marry her. Nevertheless, he did manage to make one public gesture of affection toward his student. He dedicated his “Piano Sonata No. 14, Quasi una fantasia, Op. 27, No. 2” to Giulietta.

Fast forward to 1840, a few years after Beethoven’s death. By this time, Beethoven’s reputation was unmatched in the world of classical music. Works such as his Fifth and Ninth symphonies and many others established Beethoven as one of the greatest composers of all time. Because of his tremendously important position in the hierarchy of the world’s great composers, the books, letters and unfinished manuscripts left behind when he died became of great interest to music scholars. As a result, his possessions were sifted through by music experts and critics with great attention to detail. Among the many interesting things that were discovered was a stack of personal letters that Beethoven wrote to someone that he called his Immortal Beloved. The discovery of these letters led to much speculation and debate as to who this mystery lady might have been. The easiest answer is that his Immortal Beloved was his student Josephine Brunsvik. Those who claim that she was the object of his undelivered letters base this theory upon the many instances of the sister Therese making public comments about the relationship that her sister was having with Beethoven. Therefore, their relationship was hardly a career-threatening secret and was, in fact, considered to be common knowledge. However, there were those who thought that they knew Beethoven well enough to see into his heart. To those people, the only person who could possibly have been his Immortal Beloved was Countess Giulietta. That Beethoven knew he was beneath her social station in life, and, as a result, that the two could never wed, spoke to the fact that he exercised discretion in never delivering the love letters to her. This take on the speculation of who his Immortal Beloved may have been painted Beethoven as a hopeless romantic who lived out his life filled with unrequited love. It also started a chain reaction of reassessment by others with regard to his whole body of work, especially from around the time he was working with both Josephine Brunsvik and Countess Giulietta. Perhaps, the experts claim, the real fuel that sparked Beethoven’s creative impulses all throughout the most productive part of his adult life was the romantic love that existed within his heart. As a consequence of this new train of thought, many of his earlier compositions were re-examined to see if any hint of love could be found within his musical notes. 

The one composition that was most impacted by this new critical lens that was applied to Beethoven’s work was “Piano Sonata No. 14, Quasi una fantasia, Op. 27, No. 2”. Influenced by the discoveries of how Beethoven pined away in solitude for a lover he could never have, music experts and critics took another scholarly look at “Piano Sonata No. 14”, (which had been publicly dedicated to Countess Giulietta), to see if the words in those letters could explain why Beethoven decided to veer away from convention and create a composition that used a new sonata form. In particular, critics looked closely at the very slow, haunting, dreamy Movement #1. One music scholar named Ludwig Rellstab compared the musical structure of Movement #1 to being on the waters of Lake Lucerne in Switzerland and seeing the moonlight reflecting in the waves. The romantic descriptiveness of Rellstab’s interpretation caught the imagination of the public and of other musicologists. From that point onward, “Piano Sonata No. 14, Quasi una fantasia, Op. 27, No. 2” became referred to as Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. 

Truth be told, I find the Moonlight Sonata to be a very beautiful piece of music, especially the opening movement. Could it have been born from a love that could never be? Perhaps. But it is just as likely that such glorious music was born from the imagination of a creative genius who chafed at the constraints of conventional wisdom and who sought to create something new and magical and beautiful out of the sounds that he was increasingly becoming unable to hear. Whatever the case, we are left with a wonderful sonata, as well as a juicy romantic mystery that we may never conclusively be able to solve. As for me and my wife and our story, I know that when we are dead and gone and the time comes for people to find the letters that we wrote in our courting days, that they will find confirmation that we were each other’s Immortal Beloved. Nothing else matters beyond that.

The link to the official website for Ludwig van Beethoven can be found here.

The link to a video that shows the note structure of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata can be found here.

The link to the video from a scene in the movie Immortal Beloved that shows Countess Giulietta watching Beethoven as he plays the Moonlight Sonata can be found here.


***As always, all original content contained within this post remains the sole property of the author. No portion of this post shal be reblogged, copied or shared in any manner without the express written consent of the author. ©2023 http://www.tommacinneswriter.com

The Great Canadian Road Trip: Song 42/250…Who Do You Love? By Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks

Photo by Erik Christensen / The Globe and Mail

In a recent post about singer/songwriter and guitarist extraordinaire, Robbie Robertson (which you can read here), I talked about how his career really took off because of the mentorship of a man named Ronnie Hawkins. It was because of Hawkins that the members of The Band initially were brought together. Needless to say, Hawkins must have been a pretty good teacher because The Band sure went on to have a highly successful and important career. The members of The Band never forgot the lessons they learned from Hawkins. He was invited to perform with them during their final live show, The Last Waltz. They also name dropped him during their acceptance speech when they were inducted into The Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame. Finally, when Hawkins died in 2022 from cancer, Robbie Robertson gave him a fine formal send off via social media. But who exactly was Ronnie Hawkins beyond being the man who helped The Band to get their start? Well, he was a larger than life character in a business that often values predictability more than individuality. Ronnie Hawkins was a peer to many of the originators of rock n’ roll such as Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley. He was an American who became a Canadian citizen. Perhaps most importantly, Ronnie Hawkins was a man who practiced what he preached when it came to exercising his principles of humanity and inclusivity by working to integrate the music industry, particularly in the US Southern states long before laws dictated that it be so. Hawkins was a man with a big laugh and a big heart. Here is his story.

Ronnie Hawkins was born in the state of Arkansas in 1935. His family eventually settled in Fayetteville where he was raised by music loving parents. Hawkins completed high school, graduated from college and enrolled in ROTC training with the U.S. military. It was while participating in his Officer training that an incident occurred which changed his life and set him on the path for which he became famous. One evening Hawkins, who was barely into his twenties, was enjoying a cold drink in the officer’s lounge when a group of African American musicians picked up instruments and climbed onto the stage. Then the band began to play. They played a combination of R & B, Soul and Blues. Hawkins, who had been raised on Country music, had never heard anything like the sounds emanating from that stage that night. The music sounded primal and vital. It struck Hawkins deep within his soul. Hawkins listened to their full set that night and then again, for another four consecutive nights. On the final night that they were to appear in the Officer’s lounge, Hawkins approached the band and asked if he could sing with them on stage. He informed them that he had a musical background. I am not sure what these performers thought of this white boy who thought he could swing with them, but they gave him a shot. When the music began to play, Hawkins launched into the songs with a level of enthusiasm that might have made Little Richard blush. He whooped and he hollered, he pranced around the stage and his voice rang out like artillery fire! In the early 1950s when this performance occurred, it was not common for bands to be integrated in public nor for there to be so much emotion and swagger on display. Not to give Ronnie Hawkins more credit than he deserves, but it was performances like this that helped pave the way for the introduction of that “devil’s music” known as rock n’ roll. If that performance was an audition, then Ronnie Hawkins passed the test. He joined the band, which became known as The Nighthawks. Unfortunately, the southern U.S. was not ready to embrace a band like The NIghthawks for a variety of societal and political reasons, and their tenure as a band was short lived. But the experience of playing a new brand of music that had such jump and such soul had supercharged Hawkins. He would never end up serving in the U.S. Army. Instead, this marked the start of a life lived on the road. It was a journey shared with many of the biggest names in music. The first of those big names was a teenage drummer named Levon Helm.

As many of you may know, Levon Helm gained fame and fortune as the drummer and one of the lead singers for The Band. As a teenage boy, Helm also grew up in Arkansas. Because Ronnie Hawkins was from there, too, Helm would often see him as he traveled across the state performing at county fairs and the like. In those days, Hawkins performed under the first of many iterations of Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks. Helm was impressed by the energy of the music and the charisma of Hawkins as a frontman. Levon Helm was a drummer of some local renown in his high school, so one time when he crossed paths with Hawkins, he asked to audition. Hawkins was impressed with the young man’s skills. But, because Helm was underage, Hawkins could not give him a job yet. But he did meet Helm’s parents and negotiated a contract that stated that after Helm completed high school, he would take him under his wing and teach him to be an excellent drummer. If Helm developed his skills highly enough, then Hawkins would take him out on the road with his band. Levon Helm’s parents succumbed to Hawkins’ charm and signed their son away to grow up under his care. Not too long after that, a young guitarist from Toronto named Robbie Robertson would sell his only guitar in exchange for a bus ticket to Fayetteville, Arkansas. Robertson had seen Ronnie Hawkins and the original Hawks perform in Toronto and was hooked. He ended up boarding with Helm at his parents’ home. Like Helm, Robertson wished to travel with Hawkins’ band and learn about this new music called rock n’ roll. Robertson auditioned for Hawkins by playing some guitar for him and writing him two original songs. Robbie Robertson was accepted into the fold. Together, he and Levon Helm moved into a motel complex under Hawkins’ care that served as a form of musical bootcamp. While at the motel, Hawkins had his charges rehearse for hours on end. He also introduced them to the music of performers such as Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, Mahalia Jackson, Big Mama Thornton and many others as well. Robertson and Helm listened to those records for hours at a time. They analyzed the structure of the musical arrangements and did their best to capture the essence of the timing and the emotion of the lyrics. Eventually, the original Hawks disbanded, and Robertson and Helm were given full-time gigs. In order to fill out the roster, Hawkins hired three other young men named Rick Danko, Garth Hudson and Richard Manuel. The new Hawks were ready for the road and for a life that eventually saw them become The Band.

Once Roberston, Helm and the rest of The Band left Hawkins to start out on their own, Ronnie Hawkins was at odds with himself. He was growing tired of trying to keep a backing band together, and didn’t quite know what to do next. As it turned out, he happened to come into contact with rising Country star and friend, Conway Twitty. After a few pops together, Twitty advised Hawkins to head to Canada because, in Twitty’s words, Canada seemed more receptive to this new style of music that Hawkins played. Twitty said that there was a whole network of clubs in and around Toronto and Montreal that would welcome him and support him while he figured out his next move. Hawkins and Twitty shook hands and said goodbye. Then Ronnie Hawkins headed north to Canada. At the time, Hawkins figured it would just be a temporary measure. But, once he arrived in Canada, he fell in love with the place and stayed for the rest of his life, eventually taking out Canadian citizenship.. 

While in Canada, he bought a nightclub in Toronto called Le Coq d’Or that served as home base for him and his band, as well as any number of other musicians and bands who played Rock n’ Roll, Soul, R & B, Gospel and, of course, The Blues. During its heyday, the club became one of the hippest live music venues in Toronto. It was while Hawkins was running his nightclub that he had one of most noteworthy Canadian experiences. In the early 1970s, Hawkins and his wife were living just west of the city in Mississauga. Musicians who happened to be in town often paid Hawkins a call, and many even stayed in his home. One such celebrity was former Beatle, John Lennon. After The Beatles broke up, Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono, were looking for somewhere to hold a peaceful anti-war, pro-peace protest. After many ups and downs, the couple ended up coming to Canada. When they first arrived, they stayed with Ronnie Hawkins in Mississauga. Hawkins and Lennon both loved Blues-based Rock n’ Roll and played together for days. Lennon even cut some promotional ads for Hawkins to use on the radio for his club. In order to boost the credibility of their protest, Lennon and Ono were seeking a meeting with then Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. Hawkins agreed to act as intermediary. Together, the three friends traveled in secret aboard a train and arrived in Ottawa. A meeting with Trudeau was arranged. Afterwards, Hawkins let it slip that there may have been a shared marijuana cigarette passed around during their talks. Oh my! From there, Hawkins helped Lennon and Ono make it to Montreal where they held their famous Bed-in For Peace from which the song “Give Peace a Chance” was performed for the first time. *(You can read a post about that here). That experience with Lennon and Ono changed Hawkins. He saw how the duo used their public platform for good and it impressed him. Going forward, Ronnie Hawkins often dedicated portions of the rest of his life to campaigns around the world that involved peace-oriented and other humanitarian causes.

Eventually, Ronnie Hawkins and his wife, Wanda, found a home in the Peterborough region of Ontario, in an area called Stoney Lake. Hawkins dubbed their new home as Hawkstone Manor. As it was in Mississauga, Hawkstone Manor soon became a magnet for all manner of musicians who happened to be passing through, who needed some down time to recharge and rejuvenate themselves and/or who simply wanted to spend some time in the company of the gregarious Hawkins and his family. Life was good. Ronnie Hawkins has been inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and was a recipient of the Order of Canada. He passed away in 2022 at age 87. But during his time on this planet, Hawkins impacted many lives through his mentorship, his promotion of a form of music that many in society frowned upon, his willingness to work with all manner of musicians regardless of colour or racial background and his warm, friendly personality, which charmed everyone who had the good fortune to meet the man. He was a straight-shootin’, cart-wheelin’, camel walkin’, rock’ n roller and the world is better because of it. 

The link to the official website for Rompin’ Ronnie Hawkins can be found here.

The link to the video for the song “Who Do You Love” by Bo Diddley, as covered by Ronnie Hawkins and performed with The Band during The Last Waltz can be found here.

The link to a story about the importance of the Le Coq d’Or nightclub that was owned by Ronnie Hawkins can be found here.


***As always, all original content contained within this post remains the sole property of the author. No portion of this post shall be reblogged, copied or shared without the express written permission of the author. ©2023 http://www.tommacinneswriter.com