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By TheophileEscargot (Tue Mar 25, 2008 at 03:00:50 PM EST) Watching, Listening, MLP (all tags)
Watching. Listening. Web.

What I'm Watching
Saw There Will Be Blood at the cinema. Pretty good, better than I was expecting, though it gets a bit bum-numbing at over two and a half hours. Liked Daniel Day Lewis's scenery-chewing performance as a misanthropic oilman. Lots of people complain that he's over-the-top, but I always think we go to the movies to see stuff larger than life. I especially liked the way he projects a seething effort whenever he's trying to be nice to people. I don't have a mirror when I'm trying to do the same, but he looks like I feel.

The plot's a bit uneven in the way they tried to extract it from a long, epic novel. Some elements seem to be introduced a bit too late to generate tension. Also I was a bit disappointed that he doesn't literally drink anyone's milkshake. He drinks their whisky in an earlier scene, but the milkshake itself is purely metaphorical.

Didn't think the cinematography was particularly wonderful despite the Oscar: it was good, but it's hard to film that kind of scenery badly. Thought Paul Dano did an underrated turn as the preacher Eli Sunday: he managed to be decently creepy by being less energetic than Lewis. The dual role as Paul Sunday just baffled me though: confused me as to why they looked the same.

Overall, not bad, could be worth a look if you have a strong bladder.

Review, review, review, review, adaptation, quotes, quotes, parody video.

Who is Liza Jane?
So, I had scraps of a song floating though my head: "Goodbye Liza Jane" by Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys. Couldn't work out what was going on so I listened to it and transcribed the lyrics as best I could. Still didn't make any sense: can't see why they've got the six-shooters on but nobody seems to get shot. Here's my attempt:

Up the river and round the bend, goodbye, goodbye
Six-shooters on in the dawn again, goodbye Liza Jane
[chorus] Oh how I love her, ain't that a shame
Oh how I love her, goodbye Liza Jane

There's three wheels off and the axle's dragging, goodbye, goodbye
You can't ride in the little red wagon, goodbye Liza Jane
[chorus]

Take shooter back and spin on the wall, goodbye, goodbye [???]
Swing that gal clear across the hall, goodbye Liza Jane
[chorus]

Swing your ma and swing your pa, goodbye, goodbye
Swing that girl from Arkansas, goodbye Liza Jane
[chorus]

Circle late and we'll all get straight, goodbye, goodbye
Knock-down Sal and big fat Kate, goodbye Liza Jane
[chorus]
Those lyrics seem to be pretty different to this performance by the same band though. And they seem to be completely different to other Liza Jane songs like Li'l Liza Jane (1917) and this, this or this.

So, I guess I'll never know. I suspect Bob Wills got a completely different song mixed in with L'il Liza Jane somehow, so wagons and six-shooters just turned up in the lyrics for no reason.

Interesting that as far back as 1917 it still seems to be in a hazy middle ground between jazz and country though.

Web
Christdot to close.

Technology. The Avro arrow was an innovative Canadian jet. Death of a Cyclotron (/.). Combined toilet/washing machine concept.

Elephant-cam shows their animal buddies.

Least impressive disaster ever: London Eye stopped for one hour: "Staff spoke to the trapped tourists via intercom, instructing them to open emergency supplies of water, blankets and commodes."

Stolen from lylehsaxon's diary: this Toyko train boarding video is amazing.

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Goodbye Liza Jane?
- Makes sense but you transcribed it wrong 0%
- Makes sense but you don't understand it 0%
- Doesn't make sense 100%

Votes: 2
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Related Links
- Review
- review
- review [2]
- review [3]
- adaptation
- quotes
- quotes [2]
- parody video
- this performance
- Li'l Liza Jane (1917)
- this
- this [2]
- this [3]
- Christdot to close
- Avro
- arrow
- Death of a Cyclotron
- /.
- toilet/washing machine
- Elephant
- cam
- London Eye stopped for one hour
- lylehsaxon's diary
- Toyko train boarding video
- TheophileEscargot's Diary
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I look at people and I see nothing worth liking | 18 comments (18 topical, 0 hidden) | Trackback
WIPO: by ammoniacal (4.00 / 3) #1 Tue Mar 25, 2008 at 03:10:40 PM EST
Doesn't make sense when a Briton is interested in American Cowboy Culture.

PMSbuddy.com -- Saving relationships, one month at a time!


Surely by TheophileEscargot (4.00 / 3) #2 Tue Mar 25, 2008 at 03:13:48 PM EST
If there's a gun on the belt in Stanza One, it has to be fired by Stanza Five.
--
"Life is too short to be interested in everything, but it is good to be interested in as many things as are necessary to fill our days."-Bertrand Russell
[ Parent ]

Over the top? No way. by Tonatiuh (4.00 / 2) #3 Tue Mar 25, 2008 at 03:22:03 PM EST
I know plenty of oilmen. The character in the movie is pretty understated in comparison.



Bob Wills and The Texas Playboys! by atreides (4.00 / 3) #4 Tue Mar 25, 2008 at 03:33:33 PM EST
Actually, Liza Jane probably has different lyrics because there's a long tradition in country, jazz and cowboy music to change around lyrics to fit your needs.  Sometimes the song is old and needs updating, sometimes they can't remember the original words, sometimes they personalize the song to themselves or the people around them at the time.  I hear there's a tradition of that in Mexican folk music, but I can't tell you that with any certainty.

And as a minor sidebar, I came to find Bob Wills by accident when I was looking for a recording of a certain jazz tune on Soulseek...  He definitely liked the jazz big time...

He sails from world to world in a flying tomb, serving gods who eat hope.


Most if not all folk music, surely, does this by motty (4.00 / 1) #9 Tue Mar 25, 2008 at 09:13:50 PM EST
This is using 'folk' music in the widest possible sense. I'm sure (unless Robert Graves was lying to me) this kind of thing was prevalent also in the old Celtic bardic tradition; it's also true in the vast bulk of rock, blues and reggae also. Compare and contrast, for example, Dawn Penn's version of 'You Don't Love Me' with the one on the Bloomfield / Kooper / Stills SuperSession album - there is a still more ancient blues antecedent of these two variants which has different lyrics again, to say nothing of arrangement. Yet it's still essentially the same song.

It's easier to enumerate kinds of music where this doesn't apply, because singers change the lyrics as they see fit any time where it's more important to be singing with real feeling and conviction than to be parroting something that has been laid down in stone by some weird authority figure. Off the top of my head, only classical styles and liturgical music really require a sacred text; one could argue that it is precisely the point that a lyric has become sacred in this way that it stops being folk music and becomes classical somehow. Or liturgical. And also often boring.

I amd itn ecaptiaghle of drinking sthis d dar - Dr T
[ Parent ]

You're probably right... by atreides (4.00 / 2) #13 Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 08:59:55 AM EST
...but I am not the musical master that you are.  I didn't want to talk to other forms I'm unfamiliar with.  And I have no idea why I didn't mention the blues.  That's a big "duh!" on my part...

He sails from world to world in a flying tomb, serving gods who eat hope.
[ Parent ]

Master shmaster by motty (2.00 / 0) #14 Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 03:26:13 PM EST
I wish.

eanwhile, here's more on 'You Don't Love Me', which I just found, and which includes verses I've not come across before and refers to a Grateful Dead version I didn't know about. How did I not find this stuff last time I researched this?

I amd itn ecaptiaghle of drinking sthis d dar - Dr T
[ Parent ]

You never find it when you need it... by atreides (4.00 / 1) #15 Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 04:01:54 PM EST
...but it always in mind when you don't.  That's my theory and I'm sticking to it.

He sails from world to world in a flying tomb, serving gods who eat hope.
[ Parent ]

Stop inciting the Canadians by georgeha (4.00 / 4) #5 Tue Mar 25, 2008 at 03:35:22 PM EST
the Avro Arrow ranks up there with Olympic figure skating on things that piss off Canadians.




And that whacky flying saucer concept by jump the ladder (4.00 / 1) #10 Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 05:06:45 AM EST
Stolen from the aliens in area 51

[ Parent ]

Hm, interesting . . . by slozo (4.00 / 1) #11 Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 07:45:07 AM EST
. . . thanks for that link - hadn't heard of their flying saucer project before.

[ Parent ]

Canada was a once a major miltary power by jump the ladder (2.00 / 0) #16 Thu Mar 27, 2008 at 06:17:28 AM EST
Due to WW 2 as it had the fourth largest navy in the world and the 6th biggest army. It was vital to Britain especially before the Americans entered the war.

I think the Avro Arrow and the flying saucer project were hangovers from that period.

[ Parent ]

Yes, Canada used to be . . . by slozo (1.00 / 1) #17 Thu Mar 27, 2008 at 07:22:58 AM EST
. . . a decent military power; now we have switched it up as a leader in arms sales. Hiding behind the camouflage of an undeserved reputation as peacekeeper, it's working out pretty well . . .
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/10/29/military-exports.html?ref=rss

Today, as started it started after WWII, I think this is all just an extension of the military industrial complex of first Britain, then the US of A. Projects that they want to be covert, seem too fanciful for funds approval, etc - do it in Canada!


[ Parent ]

you have no idea what you are talking about. by garlic (2.50 / 2) #18 Sat Mar 29, 2008 at 02:33:49 PM EST


[ Parent ]

To second a previous comment . . . by Christopher Robin was Murdered (4.00 / 5) #6 Tue Mar 25, 2008 at 04:27:14 PM EST
Bob Wills version of "Goodbye Liza Jane" grew out of a 19th century blackface minstrel song of the same name published in 1871 by an otherwise unknown composer by the name of Eddie Fox. The sheet music can be seen here in a scan of the Library of Congress's copy.

There's an argument that the song existed before in a relatively wordless version - a Civil War Era fiddle tune whose only lyric was the chorus "Goodbye Liza Jane" over and over - but I can't find much evidence for this.

The reason this might be important is that blackface performers took the song and basically turned it into an excuse to improv musically and lyrically. More often than not, these songs would sound like "Goodbye Liza Jane" and would mention her name, but they were otherwise full of nonsense lyrics. Sometimes these tune got new names. One of the earliest recorded examples of this is African-American black musician George W. Johnson's unfortunately entitled "The Laughing Coon" recorded for Edison 1897, which starts off as "Good Bye Liza Jane" and then takes off into Edward Lear territory before the first verse is over. Other versions would keep the name, becoming one of a vast army of Liza Jane tunes.

By the time Wills would have learned the tune, there would literally hundreds of versions to chose from and he would have been aware that most versions were the product of people improvising music and lyrics on the spot and recording them later.

This is pretty common - there are more versions of Stagger Lee's shoot out with Billy than there are Kennedy assassination theories and tons of John Henry's never even see a steam drill, let alone compete with one.



+1 Informative by TheophileEscargot (2.00 / 0) #7 Tue Mar 25, 2008 at 04:32:53 PM EST
I'm impressed.

Good to know that the lyrics aren't supposed to make sense or tell a particular story, and it's not just that I'm stupid to understand them...
--
"Life is too short to be interested in everything, but it is good to be interested in as many things as are necessary to fill our days."-Bertrand Russell
[ Parent ]

Thanks. by Christopher Robin was Murdered (4.00 / 1) #8 Tue Mar 25, 2008 at 04:54:23 PM EST
Though I was supposed to write "African-American blackface musician George W. Johnson's" rather than the redundant "African-American black musician George W. Johnson's." Oops.

[ Parent ]

There will be blood by Scrymarch (4.00 / 2) #12 Wed Mar 26, 2008 at 08:58:22 AM EST
I think this article would be the only reason I would catch it ...

His performance - or rather behaviour - in There Will Be Blood puts the tin hat on everything. It doesn't just dominate the film, it IS the film, and while watching him deliver the near three-hour film's climactic monologue it's possible to speculate whether any other acting was done anywhere else in the world that day, because Dan looks like he's doing it ALL.


The Political Science Department of the University of Woolloomooloo


I look at people and I see nothing worth liking | 18 comments (18 topical, 0 hidden) | Trackback

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