I assume you all know Jacques Brel, one of very, very few songwriters to write in a language other than English to actually be able to penetrate Western cultural awareness. In fact, I read here that Mojo magazine conducted a poll of British and American songwriters in 2000 and apparently Brel’s Ne Me Quitte Pas was the only non-English song to make the resulting list of the Greatest Songs of All Time.

Jacques Brel – Ne Me Quitte Pas

Given the fact that his songs have made such an impact on their own merit, and given that apart from writing some songs in Flemish, he never strayed from French, it seems a little odd to me that absolutely everyone who covers Jacques Brel seems to do so in English. Only such luminaries as Nina Simone and, erm, Sting have actually sung his songs in French, which seems amazing.

Nina Simone – Ne Me Quitte Pas

Artists are snobbish bastards so I am a little surprised that so few people have managed to eschew the grand pretension of covering someone so enormously credible in his native tongue – and not just any native tongue, the eminent cultural bastion that is French, no less. Is that too cynical? I really doubt it.

Secondly, respect for the integrity of art is quite important to people, in particular other artists, so I am a little surprised that people have been so quick to accept such a cavalier attitude. Mind you, most Brel translations are actually contemporary with his own work, and people seemed to be a little less precious about that sort of thing back then (in the music industry at least – don’t say that to a modern film-maker). Perhaps their age gives them a peculiar sheen of credibility, something I imagine they’d lack if done today.

The most popular translations are the Blau-Shuman ones, but Scott Walker seems to use those of Rod McKuen in his own many Brel covers – brought together brilliantly in Scott Walker Sings Jacques Brel. A superficial glance at the actual work makes them look a little flimsy though.

Scott Walker – Mathilde

Wikipedia cites this McKuen example, which is pretty awful:

“Moi, je t’offrirai / Des perles de pluie / Venues de pays / Où il ne pleut pas” [As for me, I'll offer you pearls of rain that come from a country where rain never falls].
Translates as:
“But if you stay / I’ll make you a day / Like no day has been / or will be again.”

Woeful.

Brel is famous for his lyrics, too. Evocative and sharp, bitter and cynical at times, and an absolutely integral part of his work. I keep thinking of the Asterix books and how the translation managed to remain so inspirationally true to the original humour. Never mind the books themselves, the actual translations were a serious master work in their own right. It’s sad, as much as anything, that despite large numbers of covers of his songs, almost no-one seems to have taken the time to actually put the work into the lyrics as well as the music. And as I said, this is not an industry that lacks for monumental acts of self-aggrandising pretension artistic ambition.

I can understand, grudgingly, why people insist on singing translations – there’s no point singing songs by someone famed for his acerbic wit if your audience can’t understand a word – but why people are paying so little attention to which translation they use and why is a little disappointing.

Professor Arnold Jonhston is the only man who has translated his stuff to a standard acceptable to Brel’s widow, and has recorded an album of these translations. I can’t find it anywhere, but I have to say I am as dubious about a musical work by an academic as I am about a literary translation by a musician, although if anyone wants to mention Toms Stoppard and Lehrer here they should feel free. I’d like to hear that album though, if anyone has any suggestions.

Other than that, I’m not really sure where I’m going with this. It was all started by Richard Godwin sending his music through to me for a listen. He has a lovely style that is somewhat similar to Jacques Brel, and he covers Brel himself. It’s not the same translation as Scott Walker used though, and I don’t think I recognise it at all. Anyhow, I started listening to some other Brel songs and it all snowballed from there really.

Right. I’m off to the pub. Have a good weekend, Toadlings.

Richard Godwin – Next! (Brel cover)
Jacques Brel – Au Suivant
Dusty Springfield – If You Go Away
Jacques Brel – Les Bourgeois
David Bowie – Amsterdam

Jacques Brel on Amazon

Back in the 80s that soulful-yet-rock ‘n’ roll sax solo was just about the pinnacle of any song’s achievement, and the uppermost point of its emotional trajectory.  It was, one might say, the vinegar stroke.

I know 80s sax was for the most part risibly, splendidly awful, but it certainly wasn’t considered so at the time.  Even the ubercool likes of David Bowie had a go: he’s listed as the sax player on a number of early albums, although this was largely in the 70s. It was a weird mix of soul and what was laughably considered to be rock that brought the two together at the time, if I remember.  Even the toughest rockers seemed to want to show their emotional underbelly, and that comically earnest, eyes-clenched, blouson-sporting, big-haired, backlit solo was quite frequently the way they did it.

Apart from slight bafflement at how this was ever considered cool in the first place, I am surprised it got left behind in the 80s revival – it’s not like we’ve had much of a quality filter on what has been dragged back into popular culture.  The man satirised so dismissively, and brilliantly, as Mr. Sensitive Ponytail in ‘This is Definitely Now the Nineties’ zeitgeist flick Singles would not have been seen dead without a considerable collection of albums by assorted posturing milk-toast soft rockers looking tough.  These albums almost by definition contained a portfolio of comedy sax solos, and we shouldn’t underestimate how actually, genuinely cool Mr. Sensitive Ponytail was in the 80s.

So here we are approaching 2010, and the inevitable 90s revival, and it looks like the sax has been forever consigned to the rock ‘n’ roll dustbin which is, erm, well probably no bad thing.  I can’t think of many current groups who do decent sax stuff really.  The Dave Matthews Band had some good sax moments about ten years ago, and that’s about it except for one: The Low Miffs.  Brilliant, brilliant sax.  It’s a one-group revival, and not the least bit Mr. Sensitive Ponytail, thank god.  If anyone needed to be left in the 80s and never ever revived again, it is him.  Probably liked fucking world music and jazz as well, the slippery cunt.

The definitive 80s saxophone solo:
Hazel O’Connor – Will You
Not far behind:
Bruce Springsteen – Jungleland
David Bowie – John, I’m Only Dancing
Huey Lewis & the News – The Power of Love
Dave Matthews Band – Two Step
The Low Miffs – Where Are Your Songs Now?

[After the success of Crash and Nate, I am afraid I have been bullied into allowing my darling girl a go, by dint of threats of castration, involuntary abstinence and not having my tea on the goddam table when I get home from work. So without further ado I cast you into the arms of my one true love, the gorgeous, the swoonsome, the dazzling Mrs. Toad...]

Ah, the High School Movie, that much maligned genre. Cherished by few regular movie goers, certainly few over the age of 25. My guilty pleasure and the cause of numerous taunts and exclamations of, “oh, for fuck’s sake” from Mr Toad at the video store.

These films are inevitably focused on a few themes; the ascendance to high social status through some crafty plan, bet or blackmail (The New Guy, She’s All That, Can’t Buy Me Love), the last blast of youth before adulthood beckons (American Pie, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, American Graffiti, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off), breaking down social boundaries (The Breakfast Club) or a love story worthy of Austen or Choderlos de Laclos (Clueless, Cruel Intentions). Occasionally attracting critical acclaim (Brick) but more often leaning towards the execrable (Road Trip), I hire them all with a frisson of pleasure and anticipation.

Snort with disdain, but some of the films above helped launch the careers of George Lucas, Harrison Ford, Richard Dreyfuss, Sean Penn, Forest Whitaker and Reese Witherspoon, a fair shake of Oscar winners and nominees. So the next time you see some teenage pap on the boards at the multiplex, take a shufti. You may just find yourself one up in the “I saw him/her first” Dinner Party Artistic Oeuvre Sweepstakes one day.

Now, the other facet of High School Movies is that they generally enjoy a healthy turn from their soundtracks. A party scene is inevitable, being the main forum (apart from exactly where one sits in the canteen/bleachers, a curiously US phenomenon) where social wheat is sorted from chaff. If you wish to see dancing scenes that approach the horrific brilliance of David Brent in The Office, 80’s High School Movies are often fertile ground for a spot of coordinated white boy body poppin with bat wing sweaters and rat tails flying (Corey Haim has a lot to answer for). You can laugh but 20 years ago you wanted to be them, Ice Ice Baby…

Soundtracks are often complemented by “live” prom turns from bands on the up and coming (or down and out..). The prom night denouement is virtually universal and real bands often turn up to have a turn on the silver screen. The legendary Pretty in Pink features the Plimsouls and the Rave-Ups at various points. Its such lucrative ground that some artists such as Sixpence None The Richer specialise in offering journeymanlike poppy nonsense just for the market, having scored “Kiss Me” on She’s All That, they later feature in Smallville (TV) and Not Another Teen Movie (shitting on their own doorstep surely?). Still, it has to be a step above screeching “Whoaaah, Bodyform!!! Bodyformed for youuuuuuuuu” in fanny pad ads at least. We can’t all be Radiohead (who condescended to have a song on the Clueless soundtrack btw). Of course, featuring on a film soundtrack is no guarantee of enduring success. One hit wonders are a frequent occurrence, Steal My Sunshine by Len anyone?

I could talk High School Movies all day and I’m always looking for more to watch, so suggestions welcome. In the meantime, I will leave you with a few instantly recognisable tracks from High School Movies past. In memory of Heath Ledger, who you may remember from an Oscar winning turn in Brokeback Mountain but I from such delights as 10 Things I Hate About You and medieval High School Movie, A Knight’s Tale, I have listed a couple of tracks from those movies.

Len – Steal My Sunshine (From Go)
David Bowie – Golden Years (From A Knight’s Tale)
The Raincoats – Lola (They weren’t on the soundtrack to 10 Things I Hate About You, but pretending to like them was Heath Ledger’s opening gambit in snaring Julia Stiles.)
Sixpence None the Richer – Kiss Me (From She’s All That)
The Platters – The Great Pretender (From American Graffiti)

Posts in this series:
- Crash Calloway from Pretending Life is Like a Song writes about The Commitments.
- Nate, who plays viola in The Young Republic explains why some terrible films have excellent scores.
- My dearest darling Mrs. Toad sings the praises of the High School Movie.
- DC, presenter of The Waiting Room, goes on a truly interminable ramble about the great Tom Waits and One From the Heart.
- Brother of Toad talks about how the context of music can interfere with its use in a movie.
- John sums up Natural Born Killers in three sentences.
- I have a go myself by writing about the art of referencing films in your song lyrics and what it lets you do.
- Tim from The Daily Growl digs away at the sensual texture of In the Mood For Love.
- Matt from Draped in Velvet might never forgive the false start of the world of rap-rock.
- Ian from Broken Records delivers the rant that started this all off: why soundtracks just don’t work!

Pah, arse, minge, bah humbug.  Motherfucking technology.  Whorish inadequate fucking clockwork computers, stumbling blindly through the twentieth century like a fucking homeless card-trick con man at a magicians’ conference.

Over Christmas I tried to record a podcast with the whole family.  I asked everyone to pick a couple of songs that made them think of Christmas – not necessarily Christmas songs you understand, just songs that sprung to mind – and then I dragged them all to the computer one by one and we had a chat and introduced the songs.  It was almost a great podcast: haphazard, incoherent and yet entirely embodying that family atmosphere you get at Christmas where everyone gets jammed together in a wee house and you all have to make do with one another’s foibles as best you can.

The problem?  Well my parents’ stone age fucking computer mostly.  It just couldn’t handle the recording process, so all the conversations to introduce the various songs skipped and jumped, lurched and bleeped all over the place.  And then, every once in a while, when the useless old fucker got really confused, it just replaced five minutes of conversation with deafening static.  How fucking marvellous.

I tried to rescue the raw material on my computer at Proper Job this week, which really is a computer with some bite to match its bark, but no dice.  The files were so corrupted it just wouldn’t export anything, so there is no Song, by Toad Yulecast this year I am afraid.

I thought it would be a lovely idea, and there is a great, if somewhat silly, podcast in there somewhere, but the inadequacies of technology have foiled the best laid plans of turds and toads I’m afraid.  So, erm, here are a couple of really non-Christmassy songs from the podcast.  Fuck.

Better luck next year, wot?

Sex Pistols – God Save the Queen (Mrs. Toad’s choice.)
Bruce Springsteen – Thunder Road (Dad’s choice.)
Frankie Goes to Hollywood – The Power of Love (My Bloody Mother’s choice.)

And, erm, yes.  Before we all get too indie and pleased with ourselves, my sister in law dropped this depth charge of cheese into the middle of proceedings and ruined Christmas for everyone.  Pa rup a pum fucking pum David?  I thought you were cool you muppet.
David Bowie & Bing Crosbie – Little Drummer Boy

I could have sworn that I spoke English pretty well. I mean, I’ve always been confident, able to communicate and rarely had extreme misunderstandings with other people who also seemed to think they were speaking English.

Then I read the quote below and I wondered if I have even the slightest grasp whatsoever of the language we all claim to have in common. I mean, do we have it in common at all or do we just make similar-sounding noises whilst all the while each taking completely different meaning from the conversation.

This man is talking about the rack. The medieval torture device called the rack. This. And what he has to say is the following:

“I am not going to give aid to our enemies by disclosing details of our interrogation techniques. But if we do expose detainees to the Rack it is not torture, because we do not torture.”

Well that’s cleared that up then. The quote was from none other than Deranged-Lunatic-in-Chief George Bush and was perhaps the pick of the bunch which I found on this little post here on Brian Leiter’s Law School Reports. It looks like a pretty reputable source – given it’s part of the Law Professor Blogs network one assumes he’d be pulled up pretty sharpish if he was making it up, never mind the implications for his own career.

Reading some of the bald-faced justifications for torture (yes, torture: think witch trials, The Inquisition, The Middle Ages and other such bastions of enlightenment and civilisation) truly is breathtaking. It pretty much puts the current American government slap bang in that Axis of Evil they invented a few years back. ‘The la-and of the freeee, and the home of thuuuh barbaric medieval torturers’ Quite fucking splendid. This makes an interesting read about the equally insane technique of waterboarding.

The comedy of this whole nonsense is that terrorist acts have killed 3000 people in America in the last six years. This works out at an average of about 500 per year, compared to 40 000 deaths per year due to road accidents. 500 per year, versus 40 000 per year. 500 versus 40 000. When, oh when, will they stop hating freedom and start bombing General Motors.

U2 – Daddy’s Gonna Pay For Your Crashed Car
Cracklin’ Moth – Car Wreck
David Bowie – Always Crashing in the Same Car

The tenth Toadcast is a Pink Podcast, celebrating all things gay in indie music, but trying to steer well clear of any sort of annoying Graham Norton stereotypes. So, in avoiding anything that might have seen this lapse into the Priscilla, Queen of the Desert podcast I enlisted the help of my friend James, who was Mrs. Toad’s best man at our wedding.

As well as being gay, James is a real indie fan so I though he’d be perfect to consult with on the playlist and most of these songs are his choices.It’s surprising actually, just how indie this ended up being.I left off quite a few things I really wanted to play and it’s still the longest ever Toadcast.

Ultimately, I’ve tried to explore the relationship between the gay community and indie music, but needless to say there are times where it descends into slightly angry ranting. Hopefully not too much to allow you to enjoy the music though. It’s also not really ended up being as much of a discussion of gay culture as I’d hoped and that is almost entirely down to my own ignorance. I should probably have got James round to help actually present, but that would have been a right pain the arse logistically, as well as technically in terms of capturing both voices on one shitty little webcam microphone.

On a technical point, there is a bit of an echo on the vocal recording. This is because we have moved out of our house for a couple of months while builders tear it to pieces and I am having to rather make do in terms of recording location. I’ll try and sort this out by next week. And I at one point describe the Book of Ruth as being in the New Testament, which is also wrong. What a muppet.

Toadcast #10 – The Pink Podcast

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01. Pet Shop Boys – It’s a Sin (01.20)
02. The Mamas & the Papas – Dream a Little Dream of Me (08.35)
03. Bloc Party – This Modern Love (13.55)
04. Rufus Wainwright – The Rebel Prince (18.08)
05. The Radiators – Under Clery’s Clock (24.34)
06. The Magnetic Fields – When My Boy Walks Down the Street (29.15)
07. Donna Summer – I Feel Love (35.28)
08. Soft Cell – Sex Dwarf (41.36)
09. The Ballet – I Hate the War (47.52)
10. Madonna – Ray of Light (51.02)
11. Blur – Girls & Boys (60.00)
12. M.J. Hibbett & the Validators – The Gay Train (67.25)
13. David Bowie – China Girl (71.50)
14. Morrissey – November Spawned a Monster (80.40)
15. R.E.M. – First We Take Manhattan, Then We Take Berlin (90.27)
16. Scissor Sisters – Return to Oz (103.20)
17. Elton John – Ballad of a Well-Known Gun (112.12)

Tim over at The Daily Growl has had a baby. Or rather, I presume the actual baby part was largely left to Mrs. Growl, but nevertheless, he’s a dad! So in a rare instance of me not being sarcastic, snide, deliberately obtuse or excessively cynical, Song, by Toad offers its most heartfelt congratulations. Fucking brilliant.

Pulp – Babies Yes, I know this isn’t appropriate, but it’s so splendidly inappropriate that I rather like it.[audio http://www.matthewjamesyoung.com/sbt/Pulp-Babies.mp3]

Back immediately to matters musical, poor old Tim, as he says in his own post on the subject, went out recently with the lovely intention of buying little Isobel Growl the single that was top of the charts when she was born as a sort of keepsake for her. Except it turned out to be shit. So he tried the top of the indie charts… which turned out to be shit as well. What’s a well meaning new dad to do? Downloading her something from the top of the eMusic charts and storing it on a USB drive for ten years just doesn’t have the same ring to it somehow. Maybe a compilation, I suggested – some decent popular stuff to mark time and place, some appropriate stuff for sentimental reasons and some of your own current favourites, for personalisation.

Whilst this isn’t a bad idea of course it is rather predicated on the assumption that wee Isobel won’t grow up to be an emo kid. Or into supermarket pop. Basically, this wonderful gesture of love and sharing might have her wrinkle her nose and say ‘Dad, that’s shit.’ Not that she’d say that I hasten to add, because she’ll be a well raised little girl of course.

How do you stop your kids going off the deep end – turning to the dark side, as it were – as far as music is concerned? I mean, drink, drugs, stealing, cheating, lying, teenage pregnancy and a taste for tinned custard are one thing, but any honest, decent upstanding citizen must surely draw the line at Fallout Boy. Or Busted. Or Westlife.

Half Man Half Biscuit – Vatican Broadside Who indeed?

Well to prevent such unmitigated disasters in the life of a youngster you need one thing first and foremost, and this Tim has: decent taste in music. This is an important starting point. You can’t keep kids away from Limp Biscuit (yeah, yeah, whatever) by trying to lure them away with the spineless dadrock of Coldplay. (Tim, I’m afraid this includes Athlete – keep them well away from the poor girl, you might lose her for good) No Aerosmith, no Kasabian, no Jamiroquai (unless you’re keen to find out what it’s like to be stabbed in the foot by a desperate six-month-old armed with a pencil), and definitely no prog. None. The Lead Zeppelin are not a band. Nor are The Pink Floyd. Nor, come to think or it, The Deaf Leopard.

Now that this is established we begin the long, meticulous process of indoctrination. My own parents had an excellent good cop-bad cop thing going. My Dad had all the more heavyweight stuff – Dylan, The Band, Tom Waits, Neil Young, Jackson Browne – where my Mum had more pop taste – Duran Duran, Bowie, The Stones, early Elton John, ABC, Tina Turner, even some Depeche Mode and Erasure. This way, if I felt I had to rebel then I had somewhere to go that was different, but never outside the confines of what is just and right. Very, very cunning. A bit like the way Tony Blair conned a nation into rebelling and voting Labour, only to realise when it was already far, far too late that they were just a bunch of Tories in sharper suits.

So, comprehensively outplayed, where do I find myself now? Exactly where my parents’ music collection put me, that’s where. So never fear, Tim, play your cards right and she’ll be putty in your hands!

The Band – Rocking Chair for the Old Git.
David Bowie – China Girl for Mother Toad.

Song, by Toad is not what one might call the King of Boogie.  Unless exceptionally drunk, when things get a lot worse, I dance pretty badly.  Sort of like a baby giraffe on roller skates, if you need an image to help explain.  Actually, that’s not fair, I don’t think I’m much worse than unimpressively below average for a bloke but the thing is: I just don’t enjoy it very much most of the time.

Honestly, I don’t go out to fling myself around a dingy basement like some spasming epileptic to music I really don’t like very much.  And if they did play music I liked, well, no-one else would dance then.  I go out to have a good time with my mates, and generally that means chatter.  I never used to dance as a kid, but as I’ve got older I have developed a sporadic taste for it, somewhat surprisingly.  Partly this was due to spending more time in clubs, realising what dismally inept dancers most people, girls included although they never think so, really are.  This, along with age and self-confidence, helped to pretty much sort out the self-consciousness, so now, when I’m in the mood (i.e. utterly plastered), I do occasionally feel the urge to boogie the night away.

Now that I actually do dance, however, I am getting a bit bolshier about the times when I really don’t want to. Have been a rather mercilessly cutting youngster, I never really experienced much in the way of peer pressure around drinking, smoking, sex or drugs.  Thus I can honestly say I have never experienced more peer pressure to do anything than I have to dance.  Truly.  People get so nervous if you just don’t feel like it.  Fuck off.  Leave me alone.  Do I look like someone who is just being coy?  Bugger off and flail about like a spastic if you want to, but I am quite happy here with my rather sad-looking gin in a plastic glass, depressingly bereft of either ice cubes or a slice of lime.

So, to the lovely Jamila over at Fucking Dance, I truly apologise, but honestly, sometimes people just don’t feel like it!  And if you are an embarrassed non-dancer now is the time to cast off your shackles of shame, brother, and slouch at the bar with pride.  Give the twitching muppets out there prancing about in broken glass and someone else’s sick the finger.  Do it boldy and with pride.  Dancing can be fun, but basically it’s just bobbing about in the dark to rubbish music in hilariously over-priced venues that you would never consider for a second if you weren’t rip-roaring drunk.

Honestly, are your friends that boring that you have to avoid talking to them for such a length of time?

Billy Bragg – Talking the Wag Club Blues
Blur – On the Way to the Club
David Bowie – Life on Mars?

Mind you, if there’s an easier way to pull I’ve yet to find it