Category: music
Here in the bar the piano man’s found another nail for my heart
So tonight gotta leave that nine to five upon the shelf…
A Sunday on La Grande Jatte
State Archives of Florida, “Ski Champs in Action” (ca. 1955)
I got everything you wanted
Give you everything you need
Still you want that sugar daddy over me?
Who Wants To Be Lonely?
cf. Sears advertisement (1972)
I want to say to you
Time is just passing us by…
To Celia
cf. Maclean’s Magazine (1971)
Drink to me only with thine eyes,
And I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss but in the cup,
And I’ll not look for wine…
— Ben Jonson
Pick Up The Pieces
“You and Your Friends”, Blake (B.K.) Inc.
Neck On Up
Thomas J. O’Halloran, “Medlars – new computer to keep medical information” (1964)
Now I’ve found my heaven
From the neck on up
You’re a perfect eleven
From the neck on up…
Julie, Julie, Julie, do ya love me?
cf. Maclean’s Magazine (1958) (edited collage by me)
Time’s on the wing,
Life never knows the return the spring.
— John Gay, The Beggar’s Opera
Don’t Talk Just Kiss
I am resigned that this is me
I decided quickly (yes, I did) to disco down and check out the show
cf. Handy (Jam) Organization, “Consuming Women (Women as Consumers)” (ca. 1967)
Play That Funky Music (Jul Nako remix)
“My Sha-Rice-A-Roni”
“…whose heavenly touch upon the lute doth ravish human sense”
I bought the whole album for just one song but it turned out that I liked these songs also.
When Smokey Sings
Who, through long days of labor,
And nights devoid of ease,
Still heard in his soul the music
Of wonderful melodies.Such songs have power to quiet
The restless pulse of care,
And come like the benediction
That follows after prayer.
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Day is Done (excerpt)
We start believing now that we can be who we are
Get Down On It
There’s a hammer in my heart pounding out your name.
3/21/82
Late Night Thoughts On Listening To Bob Mould
cf. film via Prelinger Archives
I would forget her, but a fever she
Reigns in my blood and will remember’d be.
— Love’s Labour’s Lost
Forty years is a long time to be misunderstood
I remember happier days…
My joking friends well they all moved away.
Bruce Woolley and The Camera Club — “English Garden”
Summer of 1973
cf. photograph by freestocks-photos via Pixabay (edit)
We gotta get right back to where we started from
1985
pianoforte
His creativity increasingly extended to music. Though he never took formal piano lessons, he could pound out a simple melody by ear. “Even when he was a little kid,” remembered his sister Kim, “he could sit down and just play something he’d heard on the radio. He was able to artistically put whatever he thought onto paper or into music.”
—Charles R. Cross, Heavier Than Heaven
Aaron Copland invents the sound of pop music
Aaron Copland invented the sound of pop music. In two works from the early 1940s – the Violin Sonata and Appalachian Spring – he introduced a specific, independent harmonic entity which has defined pop music since 1970. This harmonic entity consists of a chord built a fifth above the root.
Aaron Copland: Sonata for Violin and Piano (1943)
Aaron Copland: Appalachian Spring – Ballet in one act for full orchestra (1944)
Here are just a few of the many famous pop songs that have used this chord…
“So Far Away” (Carole King)
“If You Leave Me Now” (Chicago)
“Josie” (Steely Dan)
“Sailing” (Christopher Cross)
“Love’s Theme” (Barry White)
“One On One” (Hall & Oates)
“Beth” (Kiss)
Take Your Whiskey Home
cf. LIFE, 1964
You Got Me Workin’ Day And Night
Esther Bubley, “Jitterbugs…” (detail) (1943)
“Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers” Remix by John Sapiro
Why don’t we steal away into the night?
In France They Kiss On Main Street
Toni Frissell, “A couple walking along the Seine River in Paris” (detail) (between 1940 and 1969)
WIP: “Daisy Changed Her Mind”
Scratch vocal of chorus.
Composition by John Sapiro © 2017.
All tracks by me.
Round and round you’re turning me
cf. State Archives of Florida, “Young people at a City Recreation Dept. dance…” (1962)
One Way Love
I will be your umbrella man
“You may contribute a verse…”
H. C. Benedict, “Original And Unique The P. and H. Process Of Negative Development” (1939)
The question, O me! so sad, recurring — What good amid these,
O me, O life?Answer.
That you are here — that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.
—Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass
I’m thinking of you Mary Anne…
I Feel The Earth Move
She loves to be in love, she don’t care if you’re not there — she can make it alone
No sugar tonight in my tea
Library Company of Philadelphia, “Sugar with your tea Patrick?”
Thought you’d never miss me ’til I got a Fat City address
Alfred Stieglitz, “A Snapshot, Paris” (1911)
Ain’t Too Proud To Beg
Big black car, long cigar — he’s twice your age
One bad apple don’t spoil the whole bunch, girl.
Young man, there’s no need to feel down. (MAOI)
My Baby Loves Lovin’
The Groove Line
Take A Letter Maria
And all through my coffee break time…
LIFE, 1955
Alter? When the hills do.
Falter? When the sun
Question if his glory
Be the perfect one.
Surfeit? When the daffodil
Doth of the dew:
Even as herself, O friend!
I will of you!
–Emily Dickinson
Still The One
Suffragette City
Call out the volunteers ’cause my heart’s a flambé
Harry Wayne McMahan, “The Television Commercial” (1954)
I gotta time it right so it’s warm when you get it
Turn up the heat just a little bit higher
It was a good idea but I think I overdid it
I can’t reach the oven and the kitchen’s on fire…
1-2-3-4 come on baby say you love me
Bell Telephone Magazine, 1973
“But the most important thing that you can take advantage of in the world of music is to see yourself.”
Carol M. Highsmith, “Playing for $1 in a hat…” (2011)
“But the most important thing that you can take advantage of in the world of music is to see yourself. I eventually got to the point where music meant to me self-exploration more than anything else…and I encourage everyone here to be brave in that respect, to be fearless in that respect…that album ‘A Wizard, A True Star’ which was such an abomination to everyone at the time it came out eventually became the signature moment in my career…”
Todd Rundgren – Berklee Commencement Address 2017 – YouTube
Can you hear me, the sound of my voice?
I am here to tell you I have made my choice…
“Just One Victory” by Todd Rundgren
It’s Your Thing
cf. LIFE (1943)
SCENE III: The disco near Polonius’ house
Afternoon Delight
Gold Bell Catalog, 1963
Remembering Allan Holdsworth
I was saddened to read recently of the passing of Allan Holdsworth. This is a transcription I did a long time ago of his “In The Dead Of Night” solo. I saw him in the fall of 1983 and remember how much he inspired me.
“Hats off, gentlemen—a genius!”
—Robert Schumann, Review of Chopin’s variations on Mozart’s “Là ci darem la mano,” Op. 2 In “Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung”, Vol. 33, no. 49 (December 7, 1831)
I Just Want To Celebrate
Corner Of The Sky
“I too am sometimes sad and lonely, especially when I walk around a church or parsonage.
Let’s not give in, but try to be patient and gentle. And do not mind being eccentric…”
–Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, March 16, 1877
I Don’t Wanna Know
LIFE, 1967
Computer Keyboard “Heart And Soul”
Harder than you would think because of the octave shifts!
John Sapiro 