Catflapper

I've got some time off at the moment while I wait for my next project to start, so another post already and some more art.   This time in the form of a lovely old original sheet music book from 1923 which I bought for just a few quid last week.  I only wanted it for the front cover as I love the typography and the very simple graphic image.  Also, there's something about it being nearly 100 years old.

Maybe you remember seeing clips of ancient Felix The Cat cartoons on The Old Grey Whistle Test?  My big sister used to watch it at its peak in the '70s, eager for appearances by Focus, Rory Gallagher and the like and, although I was too young to stay up with her, I'm sure there were times when I couldn't sleep and may have been allowed to watch a little too; my memories of it seem inextricably linked to that era.  But even in later versions of the programme I'm sure this was still a device they used.  I can’t specifically recall any of the songs they did it with, but there was always some element of them that worked with the animation, like Felix hammering a nail into a plank to the rhythms of Bob Marley & The Wailers or something.  Seem to remember they also used scenes from the 1902 film A Trip To The Moon / Le Voyage Dans Le Lune....

This is one of the Felix cartoons (but without the addition of OGWT's choice of music), only the first five minutes unfortunately, but it gives the idea as it’s chock full of great visual tricks and deceptive surrealism  –  so simple and so clever at the same time.   I love this kind of thing...  and again, the fact that it's nearly 100 years old.

Kind of appropriate for this cold weather too, barely a day has gone by lately when I'm not having to don my parka to go in the garden to break the ice on the birdbath.

The inside of the music booklet is very endearing visually too (if you skip past the overtly racist reference/word in one verse, I know it's just an unfortunate reflection of the attitudes of the time.  Although... well...what kind of horrendous prejudiced times are we living in now?)

One other thing caught my eye - an ad in the back for another title, which is apparently:

  “a lesson in song.  The truest story ever told.  An appealing musical sermon that has won the commendation of press and pulpit throughout the nation…”   

You just don't see straplines like that for Little Mix, do you?

Lyrics reproduced here:

Just A Girl That Men Forget

Dear little girl, they call you a flirt,

A flapper with up-to-date ways,

You may shine brightly, but just like a lamp,

You’ll burn out one of these days.

The your old-fashioned sister will come into view,

With a husband and kiddies, but what about you?

Wallflower girl, now dry all those tears,

For you won’t be left all alone.

Some day you’ll find yourself up on a throne

Queen of a sweet little home,

And you, gay little flapper, you’ll live and you’ll learn

When you’ve gone down the pathway that has no return.

A flapper with up-to-date ways.

Sheet music

I love the graphics on these two pieces of sheet music, picked up from a second-hand bookshop in Cornwall some years ago - one of those places where you get sore knees from looking through boxes on the floor, a cricked neck from trying to see what's on the unfeasibly high top shelves, then come out covered in dust, sneezing and coughing and with that damp smell still lingering in your nostrils for the next week.  But it's worth it.

This one's from 1922:

And this is dated 1938:



I adore the typography, the shapes, the flat colours.  Must get them framed.