1 00:00:00,020 --> 00:00:03,000 Have I ever let you down? Here's the theme. 2 00:00:03,740 --> 00:00:18,140 [music: theme; Mozart, Symphony No. 24 (K 182), 2nd Mvt.; Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra of London/Leinsdorf] 3 00:00:18,140 --> 00:00:25,420 Hello there, I'm Peter Schickele, and this is Schickele Mix, a program dedicated to the proposition that all musics are created equal. 4 00:00:25,940 --> 00:00:30,040 Or as Duke Ellington put it, if it sounds good, it is good. 5 00:00:30,860 --> 00:00:40,000 Now today's program has a distinct downer aspect to it, but the good news is that our bills are being paid by the American Public Radio Program Fund, 6 00:00:40,540 --> 00:00:49,700 whose contributors include the Ford Foundation, by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and also by this radio station, whose ultra-modern facilities I am ensconced amid. 7 00:00:49,780 --> 00:01:00,940 I had a history teacher in high school, I think his name was Philip Wrongly, and his name notwithstanding, he was a very nice guy. 8 00:01:01,400 --> 00:01:05,980 We had to do a book report every six weeks in his class, but I remember I talked him 9 00:01:05,980 --> 00:01:14,060 into letting me make an 8mm movie about a pre-Civil War incident in Kansas and having it count as the whole semester's book report. 10 00:01:14,820 --> 00:01:20,860 Okay, I guess it was a bit of a scam. It probably didn't take me and my friends more than a couple of weekends to make the movie, 11 00:01:20,940 --> 00:01:28,160 but hey, I had to research the script and it turned out pretty well and Shostakovich's First Symphony worked very nicely for the soundtrack. 12 00:01:28,580 --> 00:01:34,180 Alright, alright, alright. Sometimes even I can't really argue with the old irrelevancy alarm. 13 00:01:34,180 --> 00:02:03,000 The point of bringing Mr. Wrongly up was that I remember him saying once in his laid-back manner, you know what most poetry is about? No one answered. And he says, love. And everybody's like, oh, man. It's incredible, you know. This was junior or senior year in high school. Nobody's thinking about anything but sex and love. But at least in 1951 in Fargo, North Dakota, you still had to be embarrassed by the word love. 14 00:02:03,000 --> 00:02:09,770 Love. Eh, maybe only in public. Anyway, what's true of poetry is also true of songs. 15 00:02:10,190 --> 00:02:17,170 Most songs are love songs. Happy love songs are about the joys of love, and sad love songs 16 00:02:17,170 --> 00:02:22,470 are about the pains of love. In fact, that may be the most popular subject of all, the 17 00:02:22,470 --> 00:02:28,110 pains of love. But there are other afflictions in the world, and today we're going to hear 18 00:02:28,110 --> 00:02:32,930 some songs that touch upon some of those other problems. Problems ranging from the 19 00:02:32,930 --> 00:02:46,090 trivial to the catastrophic. Our show is called Woe Is Me, and we're going to begin with a bunch of songs about perfectly legitimate but rarely aired complaints. Or anyway, rarely sung about complaints. 20 00:02:47,190 --> 00:03:01,790 The Nobody Knows the Very Specific Kinds of Trouble I've Seen song cycle has five numbers in it. The third one is in German, and I'm telling you, you know, you think you have it bad. Listen to the translation of these lyrics. 21 00:03:02,390 --> 00:03:05,210 We have three cats, not one catches a mouse. 22 00:03:05,350 --> 00:03:07,550 We have three maidens, not one is pretty. 23 00:03:07,730 --> 00:03:10,050 We have three coachmen, not one can drive. 24 00:03:10,330 --> 00:03:12,690 We have three doctors, all three are fools. 25 00:03:12,680 --> 00:03:15,300 We have three skillets, not one has a handle. 26 00:03:15,420 --> 00:03:17,700 We have three millers, not one has a mill. 27 00:03:17,820 --> 00:03:47,100 We have three fathers, not one has a child. We have three oxen, not one's good for beef. We have three tailors, not one makes a suit. We have three fiddles, not one has a string. We have three knives, not one has a point. We have three fires, not one gives any heat. We have three invalids, not one has a pain. We have three daughters, not one gets married. We have three hens, not one lays an egg. We have three cocks, not one of them crows. So here we go. 28 00:03:47,220 --> 00:04:00,320 I guess you could say that the first of these five songs is a song about love, but what's unusual about it is that in most songs of unrequited love, it's the singer who's the faithful one, scorned by his beloved. 29 00:04:00,960 --> 00:04:02,920 I'll see you in about 13 minutes. 30 00:04:03,740 --> 00:06:35,800 [music: Hicks, "How Can I Miss You When You Won’t Go Away"; Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks] 31 00:06:41,260 --> 00:09:36,670 [music: Benson/Fisher, "Your Feet’s Too Big" (Ain’t Misbehavin’); Fats Waller & His Rhythm] 32 00:09:42,560 --> 00:12:23,120 [music: Seyfert, "Wir haben drey Katzen"; Udo Wildenblanck, boy soprano/Wolfgang Anheisser, baritone/Munich Instrumental Ensemble/ Neumeyer] 33 00:12:25,140 --> 00:15:11,080 [music: "Four Eyes" (Hums of The Lovin’ Spoonful); The Lovin' Spoonful] 34 00:15:16,360 --> 00:17:03,920 [music: Berlin, "Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning" (The Smithsonian Collection of Recordings: American Musical Theater); Irving Berlin] 35 00:17:05,490 --> 00:17:09,810 Nobody Knows the Very Specific Kinds of Trouble I've Seen song cycle. 36 00:17:10,120 --> 00:17:40,360 We began with Dan Hicks and his hot licks, singing a song called How Can I Miss You When You Won't Go Away. That's from an album, I guess it's his first album, original recordings. Then we had the classic Fats Waller tune, Your Feet’s Too Big. And I mentioned before that we were going to have songs that touched upon problems that weren't often aired, and I think you'll agree that in our society, at least, feet, no matter what kind of shape 37 00:17:40,360 --> 00:18:10,240 at least, feet, no matter what kind of shape they're in, are rarely aired. Then from an album called In Praise of Pleasure, songs in quodlibets by Valentin Rathgeber and Johann Kasper Seyfert. We heard a quodlibet Wir haben drey Katzen. That was sung by Udo Wildenblanck, that was the beautiful boy soprano voice, and Wolfgang Anheisser, the baritone with the Munich Instrumental Ensemble directed by Fritz Neumeyer. Next came one of my favorite songs. 38 00:18:10,240 --> 00:18:21,840 From the album Hums of the Lovin' Spoonful, that was John Sebastian singing his song Four Eyes, a song about growing up with glasses, and it sounds to me like a very heartfelt song. 39 00:18:22,080 --> 00:18:35,180 John does indeed wear glasses, and the song is not only about how many fingers, but also the business about who gets to choose what the glasses look like. 40 00:18:35,180 --> 00:18:59,900 Like, wonderful lyrics there, he's just tremendous, I love that second verse, "When you're so blind they call you Batman, you can't even see a fat man, you can't dig just where it's at, man, without windows on your eyes. But the things ain't your decision, and they're fitted with precision, and they magnify your eyes like they're a pair of cherry pies." John Sebastian, The Lovin' Spoonful. Then, finally, 41 00:19:00,000 --> 00:19:10,440 from an album. The way I have it is a series of recordings of the American Musical Theater. And this is from This Is the Army, a show by Irving Berlin. 42 00:19:10,580 --> 00:19:14,140 Oh, how I hate to get up in the morning. And that was Irving Berlin singing. 43 00:19:14,540 --> 00:19:24,940 This was apparently taken from a radio broadcast made in 1942, which was already years after the musical ran, but this was a special production, I expect, for the boys overseas. 44 00:19:24,940 --> 00:19:30,440 Me, I'm Peter Schickele. The program is Schickele Mix on APR. 45 00:19:34,160 --> 00:19:39,920 Woe is me. So far, the woes we've heard about have been specific and mostly 46 00:19:39,920 --> 00:19:46,100 quite individual. But there's one woe that most of the people on this planet have. Not 47 00:19:46,100 --> 00:19:51,600 enough money. It has been observed that money is the root of all evil. It has also been 48 00:19:51,600 --> 00:19:57,020 observed with equal acuity that the lack of money is the root of all evil. It's like power. 49 00:19:57,200 --> 00:20:01,320 You got too much, you're a tyrant. You got too little, you're a slave. The thing about 50 00:20:01,320 --> 00:20:10,240 about money is that even with a good job, a sense of contentment is hard to achieve, since our spending habits tend to at least keep up with our earning habits. 51 00:20:11,020 --> 00:20:15,780 There was an interesting bit of revisionism going on in musicological circles a while back. 52 00:20:16,020 --> 00:20:23,660 Somebody went through all the letters and papers of Mozart and those around him and actually added up the number of piano lessons he gave and everything, 53 00:20:23,840 --> 00:20:28,200 and came to the conclusion that in point of fact Mozart made a lot of money. 54 00:20:28,200 --> 00:20:34,660 And if our boy Amadeus died deeply in debt, it was because he spent so much on clothes and gambling 55 00:20:34,660 --> 00:20:39,980 and other fine things he was an avid billiards player you know and maybe it wasn't just a matter 56 00:20:39,980 --> 00:20:45,480 of putting a quarter on the rim of the table for the next game well money's like electricity it's 57 00:20:45,480 --> 00:20:50,720 got to circulate and if you don't handle it carefully you get burned my experience is that 58 00:20:50,720 --> 00:20:56,480 it's hard not to worry about money even if you're being paid well, but hey, I'm lucky. I'm doing things 59 00:20:56,480 --> 00:20:57,280 I really love doing. 60 00:20:57,380 --> 00:21:15,580 Unlike the singer of the next song. There are a lot of things he'd rather be doing than keeping a ledger correct, but as he says more than once, I guess that a guy gotta eat. The lack of money is the root of all evil song cycle has three numbers and lasts about nine minutes. 61 00:21:16,900 --> 00:26:17,580 [music excerpt: Britten, "Paul Bunyan," "Inkslinger's Song"; Dan Dressen/The Plymouth Music Series/Brunelle] 62 00:26:24,400 --> 00:27:53,830 [music excerpt: Bolcom, “Satires for Madrigal Group,” “The Subway Beggar”; The Western Wind] 63 00:28:01,730 --> 00:30:14,400 [music: Charles, "Blackjack" (The Birth of Soul); Ray Charles] 64 00:30:14,500 --> 00:30:18,570 Ooh, man. The lack of money is the root of all evil song cycle. 65 00:30:19,120 --> 00:30:30,120 We began back there with an excerpt from Benjamin Britten's early opera, Paul Bunyan, written in this country, with a libretto by W.H. Auden. 66 00:30:30,240 --> 00:30:42,800 And that was Dan Dressen singing the part of Johnny Inkslinger. That was the soloist's chorus and orchestra of the Plymouth Music Series in Minnesota, conducted by Philip Brunelle. 67 00:30:42,800 --> 00:30:47,980 That opera was written before Peter Grimes and for a long time it lay fallow. 68 00:30:48,260 --> 00:30:54,080 Britten apparently wasn't sure he liked it but later they revived parts of it and he 69 00:30:54,080 --> 00:31:01,630 decided I guess it was okay. Then we heard one of the satires for Madrigal Group by William 70 00:31:01,630 --> 00:31:08,270 Bolcom from an album called Satires, Ballads & Bop by The Western Wind. That one was called 71 00:31:08,270 --> 00:31:12,710 The Subway Beggar and Bill Bolcom points out in his notes, he says, most people think the 72 00:31:12,710 --> 00:31:23,530 meaning of the word satire is a farce, a joke, but as any dictionary will tell you, a satire is a commentary, a criticism, funny or sad, or otherwise, on human behavior. 73 00:31:24,130 --> 00:31:38,990 He says Daumier was a satirist, so was Andy Warhol, perhaps Americans understand pictorial satire better than satire in music or theater, which reminds me, I think it was Moss Hart who said satire is what closes on Saturday night. 74 00:31:39,990 --> 00:31:46,870 Anyway, we ended with a tune from one of the classic albums of the century, in your host's humble opinion. 75 00:31:47,270 --> 00:31:52,710 It comes originally from Ray Charles' album, Yes Indeed. The tune is Blackjack, of course. 76 00:31:52,970 --> 00:32:02,450 And it's been re-released on a compilation that I strongly recommend. Atlantic has brought out a whole bunch, I guess there are about three CDs in it, called The Birth of Soul. 77 00:32:02,450 --> 00:32:16,350 And you know, Ray Charles is always good, but those early charts were so spare, so lean, that band was so funky. I really prefer it to the later ones that often have the rich string backgrounds. 78 00:32:18,760 --> 00:32:26,680 You know, every once in a while a work of art comes along that, well, sort of puts things in perspective. 79 00:32:26,680 --> 00:35:26,380 [music: Robison, "Life Gits Teejus Don’t It" (Million Dollar Vaudeville Show); Carson Robison] 80 00:35:27,130 --> 00:35:44,680 Philosophy 101, our tidbit today was Carson Robison singing Life Gets Teejus, Don't It. According to this album, he was known as the granddaddy of the hillbillies and he had this form of rhymed monologue which he called a musical talk fest. 81 00:35:44,680 --> 00:35:57,080 That was recorded in 1947. I remember that from my youth. Even then, my name was Peter Schickele. This is Schickele Mix on APR. 82 00:35:59,900 --> 00:36:14,700 You know, during Tidbit Time, I was thinking about the title of today's show, Woe Is Me. And being one of those people who's interested in language, I mean, even grammar I'm interested in, I got to thinking, why is it Woe Is Me? 83 00:36:14,700 --> 00:36:22,200 I mean, if it means I am sadness, shouldn't it be woe is I? By the way, let me say right 84 00:36:22,200 --> 00:36:26,180 now that I am not one of those people who feel that the language should never change. 85 00:36:26,400 --> 00:36:31,480 It never has stood still, and it never will stand still. In fact, I used to work with 86 00:36:31,480 --> 00:36:36,760 a singer, John Ferranti, who was a real stickler about correct grammar, and I used to enjoy 87 00:36:36,760 --> 00:36:42,260 inventing sentences that would sound outlandish even to John, in spite of their correctness. 88 00:36:42,760 --> 00:36:47,640 For instance, you're worried that somebody you really can't stand is going to drop by. 89 00:36:48,040 --> 00:36:54,220 The doorbell rings and you go and peek through the window and say, oh no, it's they! 90 00:36:55,680 --> 00:37:01,060 A friend of mine in college, David Robinson, he ended up becoming a linguist and, as a 91 00:37:01,060 --> 00:37:06,300 matter of fact, published the first, at least as far as I know, reverse Lithuanian dictionary. 92 00:37:07,160 --> 00:37:11,400 The words are alphabetized from the last letter to the first, I'm not making that up. 93 00:37:11,400 --> 00:37:16,560 Anyway, he picked up a little grammar book in a used bookstore once that provided us 94 00:37:16,560 --> 00:37:17,560 with many a chuckle. 95 00:37:17,620 --> 00:37:23,100 It had these incorrect sentences that you were supposed to put into good English, after 96 00:37:23,100 --> 00:37:26,500 which you turned to the back of the book to compare your revision with theirs. 97 00:37:26,900 --> 00:37:32,020 And the thing was that the original sentences were always so much better than the corrected 98 00:37:32,020 --> 00:37:32,340 ones. 99 00:37:32,740 --> 00:37:34,900 I can only remember one of them now. 100 00:37:35,020 --> 00:37:39,220 The incorrect sentence was, let's scram out of this goofy burg. 101 00:37:39,220 --> 00:38:09,180 And the preferred version in the back of the book was, let's leave this unpleasant town immediately. Man, you know, I can't believe that the irrelevancy alarm hasn't gone off. I guess it's because we're talking about the title of today's program, and the thing about Woe Is Me is that we're not talking about 20th century American English here. This is an old expression, I should think. Uh, as a matter of fact, we can look it up. One of the many things that this state of the art studio is equipped with 102 00:38:09,180 --> 00:38:16,920 with, is a, you know, one of those quotation books, and let us take advantage of that here. 103 00:38:17,040 --> 00:38:26,160 I am looking up Woe in the back, and there is Woe Is Me, and it comes from the Bible. 104 00:38:26,680 --> 00:38:34,300 It is a quotation from the Bible, it's from Isaiah, Then said I, Woe is me, for I am 105 00:38:34,300 --> 00:38:35,020 undone. 106 00:38:35,020 --> 00:38:44,500 Okay, now if that's the Bible, it must be, right, the King James Version, which means basically that we're talking about Elizabethan English here. 107 00:38:44,600 --> 00:38:49,800 Now wouldn't you think it would be, woe is I? I mean, we're not talking about French here, you know. 108 00:38:49,820 --> 00:38:55,280 French, it's always been different. L'état, c'est moi, you know. Old Louis there saying, the state, that's me. 109 00:38:56,140 --> 00:39:00,480 French has always been different. English, well anyway, be that as it may or may not be. 110 00:39:00,480 --> 00:39:03,020 We're coming up on our last song cycle here. 111 00:39:03,140 --> 00:39:06,880 So far we've heard individual people singing about their troubles. 112 00:39:07,100 --> 00:39:12,020 Now we'll hear about some troubles that are visited upon large segments of the population. 113 00:39:12,840 --> 00:39:19,680 The Class Action Woes song cycle has three numbers, the first of which is in German. 114 00:39:20,240 --> 00:39:26,220 And it goes, When I observe the married state clearly by daylight, good heavens what a business 115 00:39:26,220 --> 00:39:26,820 goes on. 116 00:39:26,820 --> 00:39:37,000 Now there's a grumbling, a wailing, a blubbering, now there's something amiss behind, now there, now here, good heavens, the one way, good heavens, the other, in the married state, what a bawling goes on. 117 00:39:37,440 --> 00:39:50,940 Now comes the wet nurse, now the shoemaker and the tailor, now the washerwoman and they make a hole in your purse, now the lace is missing, now ribbons, now clothes, now we're on short commons in the cellar and kitchen, good heavens, the one way, etc. 118 00:39:50,940 --> 00:40:17,880 Now the nurse is grumbling, now the children screaming, Now the little darling whines fit to deafen us, Now the dog dies, now the knacker fetches the cat, And a neighbor drives us mad, Good heavens the one way, good heavens, etc. Now the third number of the three is in English, but it's choral, which makes it a bit difficult to understand, and you have to know the text to relish this wonderful music properly. 119 00:40:17,880 --> 00:40:23,600 Properly. The text is, He spake the word, and there came all manner of flies and lice 120 00:40:23,600 --> 00:40:29,800 in all their quarters. He spake, and the locusts came without number, and devoured the fruits 121 00:40:29,800 --> 00:40:37,660 of their ground. The Class Action Woes Song Cycle is about ten minutes long. I, 122 00:40:37,660 --> 00:40:39,420 like gypsy moths, will be back. 123 00:40:39,840 --> 00:44:40,660 [music: Seyfert, "Die Beschwerlichkeiten des Ehestandes"; Wolfgang Anheisser, baritone/Munich Instrumental Ensemble/Neumeyer] 124 00:44:43,920 --> 00:48:47,120 [music: Ritchie, "Black Waters" (None But One); Jean Ritchie] 125 00:48:51,220 --> 00:50:51,700 [music excerpt: Handel, “Israel in Egypt,” “He spake the word”; Taverner Choir & Players/Parrott] 126 00:50:52,600 --> 00:50:56,210 That was our class action woes song cycle. 127 00:50:56,210 --> 00:51:09,710 We began with The Troubles of the Married State. That's from that same album, In Praise of Pleasure, and by the same composer that we heard the Drey Katzen from before, Johann Kasper Seyfert. 128 00:51:10,090 --> 00:51:17,030 And this one on The Troubles of the Married State is a good example of how music can contribute to the ironic tone. 129 00:51:17,030 --> 00:51:26,590 If these were truly meant to be serious woes about the married state, surely the music would not be so happy, not to say bumptious. 130 00:51:27,910 --> 00:51:34,670 Then the middle cut was a beautiful Jean Ritchie song called Black Waters. 131 00:51:35,320 --> 00:51:41,800 The complaint here is an environmental one, and there are a lot of environmental protest songs. 132 00:51:41,800 --> 00:51:47,980 And I must say that I tend not to like protest songs an awful lot because I often find them 133 00:51:48,040 --> 00:52:00,020 Just a little bit too direct and often not very satisfying musically, but here I think both the lyrics and the song and particularly the arrangement is just beautiful. 134 00:52:00,820 --> 00:52:11,720 That's from an album called None But One, which has been re-released on CD as two LP albums on one CD, None But One and High Hills & Mountains. 135 00:52:11,720 --> 00:52:27,340 And then finally, we ended with one of the great pieces of programmatic music of all time from Handel's oratorio, Israel in Egypt. That was the Taverner Choir & Players under the direction of Andrew Parrott. 136 00:52:27,540 --> 00:52:34,780 And that is certainly the best insect music probably ever written, Israel in Egypt. 137 00:52:35,780 --> 00:52:46,720 It's interesting to hear that. It was written in 1738, which makes it approximately contemporaneous with Bach's St. Matthew Passion and how different they are. 138 00:52:46,960 --> 00:52:57,610 As a matter of fact, to me, that movement almost has a sort of a Gabrielli-ish quality from a century earlier, from the Venetian school of the early 17th century. 139 00:52:58,650 --> 00:53:04,210 And also reminds me of something my father-in-law used to say, and it puzzled me at first. 140 00:53:04,330 --> 00:53:05,850 He would talk about egg-wiped. 141 00:53:06,090 --> 00:53:07,870 And I said, what is egg-wiped? 142 00:53:07,910 --> 00:53:11,350 And he said, egg-wiped, well, Bert Lahr, I think it was Bert Lahr, maybe it was Jimmy 143 00:53:11,350 --> 00:53:12,530 Durant, he used to say that. 144 00:53:12,910 --> 00:53:16,430 Egg-wiped, that's the country of which Cairo is the capital. 145 00:53:16,900 --> 00:53:31,930 [music: theme; Mozart, Symphony No. 24 (K 182), 2nd Mvt.; Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra of London/Leinsdorf] 146 00:53:31,930 --> 00:53:33,950 And that's Schickele Mix for this week. 147 00:53:34,530 --> 00:53:50,200 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. 148 00:53:50,270 --> 00:53:54,350 We'll tell you in a moment how you can get an official playlist of all the music on 149 00:53:54,350 --> 00:53:56,210 today's program with record numbers and everything. 150 00:53:56,710 --> 00:54:00,510 Just refer to the program number and this is program number 46. 151 00:54:02,230 --> 00:54:06,590 This is Peter Schickele saying goodbye and reminding you that it don't mean a thing if 152 00:54:06,590 --> 00:54:08,410 it ain't got that certain je ne sais quoi. 153 00:54:08,410 --> 00:54:11,610 You are looking good. See you next week. 154 00:56:40,560 --> 00:56:46,900 If you'd like a copy of that playlist I mentioned, send a stamped, self-addressed envelope to Schickele Mix. 155 00:56:46,980 --> 00:56:51,400 That's S-C-H-I-C-K-E-L-E, Schickele Mix. 156 00:56:51,500 --> 00:57:01,400 Care of American Public Radio, 100 North 6th Street, Suite 900A, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 55403.