Wear your art on your sleeve

What a picture.  I pored over that collar bone so many times and the half human / half alien creature who possessed it.  What was that mercurial-looking substance pooling there? It was about to drip down into the white space where the red and blue lettering of the album's strange title was placed. 

There was that, and also this.

The chiselled faces staring out from the rocks became carved in my memory too.   I didn't know about Mount Rushmore at 7 or 8 years old, but I could sing along to all the "ah ah" bits in 'Child In Time'..!

This one too.

Those slender, androgynous young men became so familiar, the same ones who were lovingly blue-tacked onto my sister's moss green and chocolate brown painted bedroom walls.  For me the early '70s are connected now not just with the sounds but also the imagery from her record collection and the process of that particular form of osmosis must've begun.  Album sleeve art seeping in, finding its way effortlessly into my pre-teen brain, with every intention of staying there for the long term.

Putting together the two puzzle posts last year (to identify album covers from small snippet of artwork) got me thinking about it some more.  How come we recognise so many records, even those we've never owned?  Neither I, nor anyone I've lived with, has ever had a copy of  'Tapestry', 'Hotel California' or 'Astral Weeks', for instance, but they're just so familiar.  As I selected covers which I thought might work best I realised that they mainly (though not all) came from a time when vinyl was dominant, when the cover artwork was a vital component of the whole package and we knew nothing else. I guess these are sleeves many of us saw regularly even if we didn't want them, flicking past them as we rummaged through the racks in our favourite shops, perhaps time and time again, one finger flipping forward a Beach Boys perhaps to get to a Buzzcocks - or whatever your taste pursued. Or when looking around at the wall displays in a second-hand record emporium, searching through musty boot sale crates and jumbled up charity shop boxes.  

Working in a record shop increased that for sure, but it goes back further. And I'd be hard pushed now to recognise as much album art from recent decades - certainly some, but I don't think as much has really stuck. Apart from perhaps only seeing them as small form CD inlays, far fewer of them have amassed the same history or had that ubiquitous presence like their predecessors.

As well as the ones I mentioned, others I became aware of early on had a degree of shock value at the time, like Hendrix's 'Electric Ladyland' and the Blind Faith album but many just  had striking imagery which has lodged itself in the brain - 'Abraxas' by Santana, for instance, and King Crimson's 'In The Court of the Crimson King' - memorable artwork in its own right.

How about you?  Which album covers have become permanently lodged in your memory, whether or not you own/owned them?

I'll be testing it out again soon! Hoping to compile another Covered Up' quiz next month.

Quark, nettles and Suffrajitsu

"I've got three wonderful random facts for you," I said to Mr SDS as I came into the kitchen after a long day working in my Shedio.

"Did you know about the word quark?" I began...

 "I know it's something to do with atoms and particles..."

"Yes, but do you know where the name actually comes from?"  

He didn't.  Nor did I until earlier that day.   Because every time I'm really busy with work like I have been lately, I also get the pleasure of picking up on a load of varied and unexpected facts through my choice of listening, BBC Radio 4. 

Music is great, but I often need to feel more connected to the outside world too - to hear voices, discussions, facts and fiction.  So Radio 4 it is, the station for grown ups!

It's a joy to be educated on surprising topics without even trying - like recently when I learned that there are scientific reasons why tea tastes better with milk added last and gleaned a wealth of info on earwax; I even gave 'The Archers' a listen although I don't have a clue who's who.  

Anyway, where was I?  Quark. Something to do with particles and atoms and my non-scientific brain didn't understand much more but what I did was far more interesting, I thought.

So I explained about the name quark - it's just a word from James Joyce's 'Finnegan's Wake' (specifically the line "Three quarks for Muster Mark!") and the bloke - the physicist, I mean (Murray Gell-Mann)  - who assigned it here just thought it sounded right.  He had in mind to call this particle-atom-thing something like "kwork" and then remembered that word and spelling in the book, one he'd leafed through as a child.

I also couldn't then help thinking of Hawkwind's 1977 'Quark, Strangeness and Charm'.  I recall the album's cover and hearing it in my record shop days, when it still sounded really quite contemporary.  I must revisit...

Yes! Still good!

"Ok, random fact number two...  well, maybe not a fact as such but, anyway, there was a woman on Gardener's Question Time who said that if you talk to nettles before you pull them up they won't sting you"

"What?!"

I know!  It sounds mad.  Plus not many people are willing to try and prove it. But I don't mind, I talk to inanimate objects all the time anyway.  And beetles and ants and stuff too.  I decided to give it a go.

So I went out to the nettle patch at the end of the garden and had a little chat.  You don't need to know what I said, that's between me and the nettles.  Then I grasped one of the leaves tightly between thumb and forefinger and steeled myself for the sting.  But - nothing!  Could it be true?  Apparently plants can respond to sounds through the vibrations they cause, and can transmit information to one another to warn of potential pest attacks (this also gleaned from the same GQT episode) so maybe there was something in it?  It "sensed" my voice?  I tried it again - same.  I felt gloriously immune.  Had I tapped into something mysterious? 

To be more prosaic, it's most likely due to the way I grasped it - a firm touch can press down the tiny hairs which cause the sting and in grabbing it so deliberately I probably did just that.  It's when you brush against them lightly that you get caught.  Still, either way, I've learned something.  Always handle nettles with a firm, assertive hold but, just to be on the safe side, why not have a few gentle words beforehand too, it's only polite.  Or wear gloves.

Arctic Monkeys: Nettles

Ready for another?

"Last one! I just listened to this great programme on the Suffragettes and it was all about how it became a popular thing for women to practise martial arts - especially Jujitsu - as a form of self-defence in the early 1900s.  Against the police, mainly, ha!  - and even abusive husbands.  It really took off in the Edwardian era, they ran classes and so on.  Look, there are pictures..."  

I'd had to check it out further after the programme, it was so interesting.

Picture Attribution: British Press - https://www.messynessychic.com/2018/10/02/bow-down-to-the-queens-of-judo/

They called it Suffrajitsu.  I love that!

And there you have it, three random facts; I hope they've enriched your world (if they're new to you too) as much as they have mine.  Even if not, I'll keep listening to Radio 4 and at least I'll always have something new to tell the nettles.

This song immediately sprang to mind on that last one too.

Wham bam, thank you Ma'am

Vegetables, acrobats and tambourines...

...Peanuts, mermaids and crickets, treble clefs and parrots...

What do they all have in common?  Buttons!  Oh, lovely buttons (I do like a good button).  More precisely - buttons designed by the Italian surrealist fashion provocateur, Elsa Schiaparelli (1890-1973), whose exhibition at the V&A I felt privileged to visit last Friday.

I've written about Elsa before here  - she of the famous Lobster Dress (as worn by Wallis Simpson) - as I've had a mild obsession with her for a few years now, so the chance to see some of her extraordinary ideas in the - cloth? - was not to be missed.  It was wonderful to take it all in, the beautiful tailoring and the idiosyncratic details, especially, which had passed me by in photos.  For instance, I had no idea about the zips... (I'll come back to buttons later!)

Zips didn't really gain functional popularity until the 1920s when they were used on boots (and the name 'Zipper' - after a pair of ladies' boots in which they featured - replaced their previous rather less catchy label of 'separable fastener').  But Elsa was one of the first to incorporate the zip as a design feature in itself (and there was me thinking that Vivienne Westwood and punk were the originators).  One of her most controversial garments was the 'Skeleton Dress', a collaboration with Salvador Dali, which had large plastic zips down one seam and on both shoulders. It was brilliant to see this for real but my photo of it hasn't turned out well so here's a better one...  Look at that bone structure!

But there were other zips in unexpected places too, big chunky plastic zips, and these gave the garments such an air of modernity that it was hard to believe they were nearly 100 years old.  There was a gorgeous evening dress with zips on the insides of the long sleeves - not only that, but this was the very first time a camouflage pattern had been used purely for fashion fabric.  This was made in 1931...  I would happily wear it now.

So, what about the buttons? Elsa's ideas were made real for her by various jewellers and sculptors, amongst them Alberto Giacometti and Jean Schlumberger (best known for his work for Tiffany & Co) and were fantastically, skilfully crafted in all their intricacy but it's what went on in her artistic mind that particularly appeals to me.Very up my street.  Just the concept alone of turning a carrot into a fastening device, for instance, and just look at the fabric on this where these cheeky vegetable buttons are featured - your five a day and more... ? This was from 1941, a time when French women in particular were being encouraged to grow their own veg.

Then there were the acrobats, as mentioned in my post title - part of Elsa's 'Circus Collection' from 1938.  These were handmade buttons, trapeze artists leaping out from the opening of a pink jacket which also featured blue performing horses with metallic thread manes and saddles.

Oh, I could go on - how brilliant it was to see the actual Lobster Dress, to look at the fancy bottles for Schiaparelli's 'Shocking' brand of perfume, to enjoy the collaborative masterpieces such as those made with Jean Cocteau...  (note the embroidered signature bottom right.)

and just to fall in love with some of her fabrics

as well as to learn about the exquisitely tailored women's suits with a proliferation of large pockets which were named 'cash and carry' pockets, designed to replace the need for fiddly handbags during wartime uncertainty.  Very practical, just grab your essentials, stow them safely in your deep pockets and run.

Well ok - I did go on, but still there is so much more and there's an awful lot that wasn't even in the exhibition; I didn't notice any underwear, for instance! I had hoped to see this favourite...

But, in summary, it was a joy and my mild obsession with Elsa's playful, life-affirming and classily eccentric take on clothes remains as strong as ever.  I just wish I could wear some myself.

NB - There were also several items created for the continuing Elsa Schiaparelli label in recent years by other designers, many of which have been worn by celebrities such as Dua Lipa and Beyoncé.  But they don't feature here as they just didn't do it for me, they looked far too contrived, self-consciously outrageous and OTT, as if just for the sake of it - very much a reflection of now, rather than of Elsa Schiaparelli's own, distinctive era of surrealism.

'Schiaparelli: Fashion Becomes Art' is on at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London until 8th November 2026.

Resurrection club #2

Hot (no pun intended, you'll see what I mean in a minute) on the heels of the first edition of the Resurrection Club (well, we've no time to waste!) - and on an appropriate day if you're into all that - comes a second instalment... 

The premise is: Songs which expressed things, perhaps forty, fifty or more years ago, that are still as relevant now and which, as a counterpoint to cancellation, should be resurrected.

Firstly, thanks so much for all the great suggestions, many of which will feature in future posts - the list is growing!  But before I get to those I had this already lined up because, like the last one, it's so spot on lyrically but has a deceptively light melody which is really at odds with its message.  And after so much time listening to angsty words delivered against similarly doomy, angry music, I find it refreshing and surprising when it's turned on its head.  This is one to sing along to; in fact it's so catchy that you may well find yourself with a new climate change and pollution anxiety earworm.

Hudson Ford were John Ford and Richard Hudson who had previously been in both Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera and The Strawbs.  They later went on to be in the Monks, when all lyrical credibillity goes out the window in one fell swoop, for it was indeed them who came up with, ahem, 'Nice Legs, Shame About Her Face'.  Moving swiftly on... here's what they were up to in 1974.  'Burn Baby Burn' reached no. 15 in the UK charts.

Now I don't mean to be a stick in the dirt
The world is changing only in reverse
And you can't live your life for what it's worth
'Cos it's a hell on earth

The world today of which we all endear
Has taken us about a thousand years
To go spoil all the things we had right here
'Cos it's a hell on earth

Burn baby burn, when you gonna learn
It's time to put out the fire, so
Burn baby burn, when you gonna learn
The earth is getting drier
The flames are growing higher

My clothes are dirty and the sky is red
And I've not anything to wash my head
'Cos all the detergent's on the river bed
And it's a hell on earth

Taking all your money so I'll tell you the facts
You join everybody trying to fiddle the tax
If you don't get them they'll try to con you back
'Cos it's a hell on earth

Burn baby burn, when you gonna learn

It's time to put out the fire, so

Burn baby burn, when you gonna learn

The earth is getting drier

The flames are growing higher

Another child is not the thing to attain

When family planning didn't work again

Another mouth to feed is all in vain

'Cos it's a hell on earth

Burn baby burn, when you gonna learn

It's time to put out the fire, so

Burn baby burn, when you gonna learn

The earth is getting drier

The flames are growing higher

I realise this is never going to be a very uplifting series, sorry!

Resurrection club #1

Our esteemed fellow blogger Rol has been stirring up debate recently through his excellent 'Cancel Culture Club' posts, in which a (now) controversial song from the past is held up for scrutiny by various contributors to either cancel or keep.  I'm really enjoying this feature although taking part does brings its own anxiety, a reflection of how scrutinised we can feel too in even expressing an opinion on them!   But thankfully, however strongly (or not) you might respond to the lyrics of an old song, I think we all know that we're good people who abhor racism, sexism and all the other isms in real life.  One thing that really comes through, though, is just how many lyrics from past decades would be contenders for cancellation now.  

All this got me wondering - what about the flipside to that?  What about all the songs which expressed things, perhaps forty, fifty or more years ago, that are still as relevant now, maybe even more so?  So just to redress the balance a little I've been thinking about some of those which should get the opposite of the cancellation treatment.  They should be resurrected.  A possible, occasional series is brewing...

To kick off here's something by John Gary Williams, who was perhaps best known for being a founding member of the R&B vocal band, The Mad Lads.  But around the height of The Mad Lads' success in 1966 he was drafted into the military, serving in Vietnam, and on his return two years later a newly found political consciousness was stirring within him.  'The Whole Damn World Is Going Crazy' appears on his eponymous solo album, recorded in 1973.

It's a breezy slice of '70s soul, with upbeat instrumentation and that easy, innocent voice - not what you might expect when you hear the lyrics.  I think this is often a deceptively powerful way to get a message across, contrary to angry, shouty, uncommercial songs which might alienate a wider audience. 

'The Whole Damn World Is Going Crazy' could hardly be more apt right now.

It takes my breath away

To see people live from day to day

Without respect for each other

Without a love for their brothers

Without a second of kindness

Or a minute to be reminded

That we all have a common cause

And together, we could conquer all

 

But I believe, I believe, I believe, yeah

I believe that the whole damn world is going crazy

I believe, now

I believe that the whole damn world is going crazy

Mmm, yeah

 

Ah, lovers without anyone to love

Because hate is taking over

Even though we're lost without love, yeah

And there's a mother

Who would leave her child without love?

Now is that the way God planned it

Or the lack of love?

 

I believe, yeah

I believe that the whole damn world is going crazy

I believe, now

I believe that the whole damn world is going crazy

 

Look at the world, there's not a sign of peace nowhere

(I believe that the whole damn world is going crazy)

And does anybody care? Yes, love folks do

(I believe that the whole damn world is going crazy)

All the hate, all the discrimination

(I believe that the whole damn world is going crazy)

In the Holy, Holy, Holy Land, oh, there's a man with a gun in his hand

(I believe that the whole damn world is going crazy)

It's something I can't understand, love should be in demand

(I believe that the whole damn world is going crazy)

Make a liar out of me, save humanity

(I believe that the whole damn world is going crazy)

Until then I believe, I believe, I believe

(I believe that the whole damn world is going crazy)

Any suggestions for songs that would be the perfect fit for resurrection now - and any guest posts?! -  will be welcome.

Hello Dolly

 Just this today - from an issue of Melody Maker, June 1970...

And it would have to have been orange, wouldn't it?

Young lady

 

Oh. 

I've reached that age.

I opened the door to the delivery driver, he was very youthful but had the air of a 'young fogey' about him. I like that term - think I first heard it on 'The Big Breakfast', if you remember that Channel Four show from years ago, where there was a regular slot featuring guests whose ages and interests were somewhat at odds with each other. Like, say, a 17-year old who was into George Formby, or a pre-adolescent in a bow tie who collected old clocks.  Anyway, Delivery Boy Man was bright-eyed and  gangly but his thick-rimmed glasses, unruly ginger beard and benign face gave the impression of being a little on the nerdy ticket, and his smiley, respectful demeanour as I greeted him were most endearing.

Then in a chirpy, old-fashioned Cockney bus driver sort of manner he said, as he handed over my parcel (remember, he was only about twenty):

"Here you are, young lady!"

Young lady!  Which, because I am clearly not a young lady and no amount of moisturising could ever give the impression that I am to one of such tender years, means only one thing: old lady.  I have to confess, my heart sank a bit.  I've reached the age when a person at least forty years my junior refers to me in this way precisely because he's thinking the opposite.*   Isn't that weird? But you know it's true! 

Mind you, reflecting on it later, I realised that it would have felt far, far worse, in fact I would be slowly dying inside, had he said, "Here you are, old lady!"  I should just be grateful for small mercies.  

 X Ray Spex: Age (if only it were all the rage...)

* Quick, important caveat: totally different if it's a friend, or someone of similar/senior age saying it, then as a tongue-in-cheek token of affection it's rather nice...

Fully booked

'Disgusted with life, she retired to the society of books' by Rosina Emmet Sherwood, 1888

Today is World Book Day and it would also have been my mum's 97th birthday had she still been alive.  Sadly she died a few weeks after her 70th but still, these two commemorations coincide nicely.   My mum adored books, worked in bookshops for years and even met a man who fell in love with her - although never got to be with her - in the antiquarian bookshop which he ran.   Thanks to her I grew up in a house full of reading matter of all kinds and trips to the library were a regular treat.  If I was off school, in bed with some lurgy or other, she'd bring me a little pile of picture books from there and later, lovely Puffin paperbacks - Moomintrolls and Borrowers to soothe an itchy throat or aching stomach.  

I still recall vividly from childhood the main bookshelves in the living room - about shoulder high to an adult - crammed full.  Non-fiction publications on all manner of topics: fossils, ballet, pondlife, Henry Moore; maps, the Oxford English Dictionary and Roget's Thesaurus, plus well-known works: 'Under Milk Wood',  'The L Shaped Room' and 'Moby Dick', for instance. You can tell what kind of a house it was!

Some of the novels held a special kind of intrigue. I gathered - not quite sure how, perhaps I'd overheard a whispered conversation? - that they were a bit rude.  I furtively flicked through their pages in the hope of stumbling across some titillating treasures.  'Fanny Hill' was one, and 'Women In Love' and 'Sons and Lovers' were there too - but I never did discover their saucy secrets then; I think it's simply because in my pre-adolescent innocence I really didn't know what I was looking for, or at.

Mmm, I remember this cover...

At one end of the uppermost shelf was a broad glass jar, perennially filled with toffees.  Sometimes just cellophane-wrapped plain caramels, sometimes the ones with a little strip of chocolate through their centres to give the exquisite pleasure of a melt-in-the-mouth cocoa reward for all that chewing.  I believed for years that reading and eating toffee always had to be experienced together; I'm sure my mum already did.

At sixteen I got a holiday job in the same little bookshop where she worked and where I had to unpack the new deliveries.  Ooh, the smell of fresh books!  The joy of revealing what was inside those boxes -  heavy tomes with shiny dustjackets and multiple copies of bestsellers-to-be, some not-so-goods too, but always interesting, and the anticipation - like a child's Christmas.

Anyway - although we should honour books every day, surely! - today's date has at least prompted this post and a few words in memory of my late mum, who instilled such a love of reading in me. I could say the same about toffee, but my teeth would never forgive me.

...What are you reading today? 

Broadcast: The Book Lovers