Hello there, I'm Peter Schickele, and this is Schickele Mix, a program dedicated to the proposition that all musics are created equal, or as Duke Ellington put it, if it sounds good, it is good. Today's program is called Belly Up to the Bar. We run a convivial establishment here and we aim to please. One of the nice things about this watering hole is that your tab has been taken care of by the American Public Radio Program Fund, Fund, whose contributors include the Ford Foundation, by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and also by this radio station, your friendly home away from home.
When I was four years old, my father was on some exchange professor thing and we lived for a while in Waltham, Massachusetts. My folks gave a party one Saturday night, after which they fell into bed and slept later than usual the next morning. When they did get I guess I was a pretty happy child in general, but this particular morning I seemed to be in an unusually fine mood.
I was singing and bouncing around, and it took a while for my parents to figure out why. Apparently I had gotten up early, come downstairs, and gone around emptying all the unfinished wine glasses into my little gullet, plus, as far as my folks could remember, about three-quarters of a bottle of sweet sherry. Oh, I was feeling no pain. But a few hours later, just as some of my dad's associates from Harvard showed up for a social visit, I started throwing up all over the house.
Now, as an allegedly responsible adult, I enjoy loosening up the old inhibitions as much as the next fellow. At appropriate times, of course. But I can't say I really like the taste of alcoholic beverages, and I sometimes wonder if I didn't give myself a bit of alcohol poisoning, If there is such a thing, back when I was four. Hey, I'm still four. I think a lot more about malted milks than I do about fine wines. But I do feel that most of us are up tighter than we need to be.
And I'm all for lubrication in moderation. It's been a long time since I was drunk drunk, but I'm a happy drunk. And even if I'm not drinking, I often prefer restaurants with liquor licenses because they're livelier. So our first song cycle today is called In Praise of Booze. It has three numbers, and they're all in foreign languages, just to emphasize the fact that no one nation has an exclusive appreciation of fermentation when it comes to libations.
The text of the first song, translated and truncated, reads, Go and order the best wine, away with the cold, with serious and melancholy thoughts. You are surrounded here by friends, and our glasses shall be filled with gladness. Here comes the first glass, long live all beautiful eyes.
Eyes. I love that line. Long live all beautiful eyes. Don't dally. Imbibe the precious juice with fervent eagerness. I'm going to skip a little, then it ends. Wine gladdens the spirit of man. Thus it is written in ecclesiasticus, and I can vouch for it. Don't you agree? This joking amongst friends not to be found at formal dinners, this talk of pleasurable things to come, the memories of kisses past, the ancient spirit of true brotherhood, all this is here and fills our hearts as we are drinking.
Then the second one is just marked on the album as a drinking song. I don't know what the words mean in that one. The third one goes, Long live our hostess, who without fail, glass in hand, sets us on our way. Long live our hostess, who without fail drives far away trouble and care. With a thousand touches she seasons the exquisite dishes she gives us. With her you feel free and easy, nothing else is as good. La, la, la, la, la, la, la It goes on for a while and it ends I've drunk too much, but I'll drink no more Long live our hostess Don't go away now, you hear? I'll be back in about eight and a half minutes
[music: Tonga Tribe, "Muka Nakayongo" (Music of Africa Series, No. 11)]
[music: Poulenc, "Chanson à boire" (A French Collection); The King's Singers]
Okay, our first song cycle was called In Praise of Booze, and it began with Telemann, a Trinklied drinking song from a set of 24 songs and scherzende, jokes, performed by Collegium Musicum 90.
90, well, I suppose if I'm going to say that properly, I'd have to say the 90 in Latin, and I can't do that, mea culpa, Simon Standage is the director, then we had another cut from one of my favorite albums, as those of you who listen to this program often know, Music of Africa Series, No. 11, Best Recordings of 1953, this is a 10-inch LP, that's how far back we're going, that was called Muka Nakayongo, The Tonga Tribe, a drinking song with drums and sticks by Job Coco and Tonga Singers, recorded in Northern Rhodesia.
And apparently the words talk about things that will amuse the audience. Now it's true, of course, that we can't enjoy the words, we can't get the laughs that perhaps the audience has, but I find the music so hypnotic just by itself that I enjoy it anyway.
And finally, we had the King's Singers from an album of theirs called A French Collection, and that was Poulenc, a Chanson à boire, a drinking song by Poulenc, written in 1922, and guess for whom it was written? The Harvard Students Glee Club.
We were friends with a family in Fargo that had three sons, close in age, and when the oldest son was probably a young teenager, and this was back during what we like to think of as more innocent days, there was a brief period there when the idea of drinking was so attractive, yet so naughty to them, that all you had to do was say a bottle of beer and they'd collapse into giggles. You know, you just put it at the end of a sentence, a bottle of beer.
Ah, yes, times change. I remember reading a story in Rolling Stone once about a well-known session pianist in Nashville. He's the one that Henry Gibson lashes into during a recording session in the movie Nashville, I believe. Anyway, this pianist is blind, and it seems that late one night after a session and some after-session drinking when it came time to go home, the pianist said to his buddies, hey, I want to drive.
So he got in the driver's seat, and they showed him where things were, and he drove home with his pals telling him what to do.
It's a great story. But of course, it's only a great story if no one gets hurt. Now, we all know that when it comes to drinking and driving, people get hurt a lot. And it's very often not even the people who are drinking who are the ones who get hurt. Which brings up a question that must be as old as civilization itself. Do the benefits of drinking outweigh its drawbacks? Most people seem to think they do, but it will probably always be an issue.
Some temperance advocates say that drunks should not be portrayed humorously on TV or in movies because being drunk is a serious matter. Personally, I think this point of view is, if not misguided, certainly pursued in vain. Many people will always find tipsy people funny because it's funny to see or hear things done wrong. To me, it's that simple. We laugh at drunks' misuse of the language just as we laugh at foreigners' misuse of the language and our own children's misuse of the language.
There will probably always be people chuckling at old chestnuts like, It may be true that I've had a few too many martoonies, but I'm not as drunk as some thinkle peep I am. Or W.C. Fields playing a character whose name is spelled S-O-U-S-E, and when people call him Mr. Souse, he corrects them, he says, that's Sousé. Be that as it may or may not be, here's a group of songs in which the singer is singing about people who drink.
The "Personally, I Never Touch the Stuff" Song Cycle has three numbers and lasts about 11 minutes.
[music: Flotsam and Jetsam (Malcolm McEachern, B. C. Hilliam), "Simon the Bootlegger"]
[music: Loudon Wainwright III, "Down Drinking at the Bar" (Attempted Mustache)]
[music: Henry Clay Work, "Come Home, Father"; The American Music Consort]
And that was our Personally I Never Touch This Stuff suite, or rather song cycle. It began with an old team, an English team, consisting of Malcolm McEachern and B. C. Hilliam. They called themselves Flotsam and Jetsam, and that was a song called Simon the Bootlegger.
And you may remember at first they were talking about Simon the Cellarer, and that means cellar as in wine cellar. His father obviously had a wine cellar and sold wine. He himself is a bootlegger. Then we had Loudon Wainwright III, Down Drinking at the Bar, from his album, one of my favorite album titles, the album is called Attempted Mustache, and there's a picture to prove it. And then finally a song by Henry Clay Work called Come Home, Father.
This was performed by the American Music Consort. The singer was either Sue Harmon, if you think it was a soprano, or Nancy Bliss, if you think it was a mezzo-soprano. We've used this song on the program before in another context, but I think its message can't be heard too often.
Well, it's Tidbit Time, and our tidbit today consists of a pair of items. Matti Salminen singing an excerpt from a Mozart aria, followed by a song sung by Malcolm McEachern, and we just heard earlier as part of Flotsam and Jetsam. The question is, what do these two numbers have in common? It's not that they're both sung by a bass, although that does have something to do with it. Now, I don't mean to blow this out of proportion, it's no big deal, but there's a nice little connection here, a bit of musical trivia that I'll lay on you after you've heard the tidbit du jour.
[music excerpt: Mozart, The Abduction from the Seraglio, "Wer ein Liebchen hat gefunden"; Matti Salminen, Mozart-Orchester des Opernhauses Zürich, Harnoncourt]
[music: Ludwig Fischer, "Drinking" ("Im tiefen Keller"); Malcolm McEachern]
Our tidbit was a double-barreled tidbit there. It began with Matti Salminen singing the part of Osmin, Osmin's first entrance in The Abduction from the Seraglio by Mozart, which he wrote in 1782. And then we went right into Malcolm McEachern singing a song called Drinking. You notice, by the way, he used the old singer's kind of enunciation. The first consideration was mellifluous tone. Intelligibility definitely came second. Now, the original German title of Drinking is Im tiefen Keller, in the deep cellar, as in cellarer, and although it used to be so popular that it was regarded as traditional, it was actually composed by Ludwig Fischer, the bass who very first sang the role of Osmin in the Abduction from the Seraglio, and also Sarastro in the Magic Flute, by the way.
How about that, huh? Don't you feel enlightened?
Speaking of musical trivia, did you know that Johann Sebastian Bach's oldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann, is said to have had a drinking problem? and may have lost a job or two on account of it? Well, however things were with old W.F., we here are about to get down and dirty. We're about to hear from some folks who drank too much and for the wrong reasons. The Serious Drinker's Own Song Cycle has four numbers, the second of which is in Spanish. The lyrics, translated, read, If I get drunk, it's because I suffer very much.
If I drink, it's because I need you here in my life.
Why deny it if you're my favorite one And if there's never a moment That I forget about your love? I what pain to live alone Without seeing you I go along without knowing where I am I drink constantly to drown this torment If I'm drunk there's nothing I can do about it When I drink four or five double shots I feel a lump forming in my throat And little by little I begin to wail My heart is crying out for you It can't take it anymore See you in about 13 minutes.
[music: Robert Johnson, "Drunken Hearted Man" (The Complete Recordings)]
[music: Tony De La Rosa, "Cuatro o cinco farolazos" (Tejano Roots)]
[music: Jones, "A Woman's Drinking Song" (Born to Burn); Ethel and the Shameless Hussies]
[music: Robertson, "Up on Cripple Creek" (To Kingdom Come); The Band]
Drinker's Own Song Cycle. We began with Robert Johnson. The classic recordings now reissued on CD complete, and that was Drunken Hearted Man. That was take one, if you're really into those things. Then we have from an album called Tejano Roots. This was Tony De La Rosa doing Cuatro o Cinco Farolazos. Sorry if I'm not saying that right. Four or five double shots. I found that text It's a text quite moving that I read to you before, actually, but the music itself is just about as peppy as it comes.
Then we had a group that has one of my favorite names of any group, Ethel and the Shameless Hussies. From their album Born to Burn, we heard A Woman's Drinking Song by Casey Jones. And we ended up with one of the classics of the 20th century as far as I'm concerned, The Band, doing Up on Cripple Creek. This is off the CD To Kingdom Come, the collection of their stuff.
And I must say that a song about a drunkard with this much energy and invention makes you wonder if you shouldn't be a drunkard. Just kidding, folks. And hey, you kids, don't try this at home.
You know, got a little time here for reflection, and I was thinking about beer.
You know, almost nobody likes beer at first, the first time they drink it. Beer is what they call an acquired taste. Well, my niece's husband a few years ago raised an interesting question. Who first acquired the taste? I mean, way back there in prehistory, who first kept drinking beer, even though it tasted terrible, just to see what happened? I mean, why would somebody do that? That's a question I leave for you to answer. We have a little time left, so we're going to have one for the road.
Actually, we've got time for two for the road. The first one's going to be Doc Watson from his Vanguard album called Doc Watson. And he's singing Intoxicated Rat with various sound effects. And then we will hear The King's Singers doing a delightful thing called Let Maids Be False, So Wine By True. Now that's what it says on both the album and the label on the record itself, So Wine By True. I don't know what that means.
I can't help wondering if it isn't a typo. Let maids be false, so wine be true. But, hey, what do I know? It was written by Sir George Martin, described on the album sleeve as a Victorian worthy on most of whose more serious work the dust has long since settled. Here's Two for the Road by Doc Watson and The King's Singers.
[music: Sir George Martin, "Let Maids Be False, So Wine By True" (Victorian Collection); The King's Singers]
[theme: Mozart, Symphony No. 24]
Doc Watson and The King's Singers have taken us out on Schickele Mix for this week. Our program is made possible with funds provided by the American Public Radio Program Fund whose contributors include the Ford Foundation, by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and also by this radio station and its members. Thank you, members.