If Helen Reddy sang "I Am Woman," Helen Woman would sing "I Am Ready." Here's the theme.
[theme: Mozart, Symphony No. 24]
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. And to have good radio shows, you have to have good providers, somebody to bring home the bacon.
In our case, we're talking about this very radio station, and if, as some folks do at meals, we said grace at the beginning of this program, those organizations would be the second recipient of our thanks.
Speaking of meals, I don't know about your family, but both of mine, by that I mean the one of which I'm one of the kids as well as the one of which I'm one of the parents, We have certain catch phrases that are part of the family lingo, one of which was contributed by my brother years and years ago. I was living on not much money in those days and he was living on even less.
But because of a film project we were both involved in, we found ourselves one evening dining at the home of the sister of a very famous columnist. She lived in an exclusive residential area, you know, that you had to go through a gatehouse to enter. And although the atmosphere was relaxed and informal, the meal itself was fit for a king and or queen. And about halfway through it, my brother smacked his lips and said, Boy, you know, good food is better than bad food.
I find that to be a very profound statement. And it's applicable in such a wide range of fields, you know what I mean? I mean, good music is better than bad music, too. Good directions are better than bad directions. Good vibrations are certainly better than bad vibrations, and I think most of us would agree that good sex is better than bad sex. But let's get back to the subject of vittles. Today's program is called You Are and You Sing About What You Eat.
They say that some people eat to live and others live to eat. Well, I'm definitely in the latter category. And now that I'm in my dotage, or should I say old doggage, I'm trying to learn some new tricks, like not eating when I'm not hungry. Fortunately music, even Brahms, isn't fattening. Now there's only one thing worse than bad food, and that's no food.
It would be nice to think that someday we will be able and willing to move food around this planet as efficiently as we now move guns and ammunition. In the meantime, here's the Food Is Better Than No Food song cycle. It's got three numbers and lasts about nine and a half minutes. See you later.
[music: They Might Be Giants, "Dinner Bell" (Apollo 18); They Might Be Giants]
[music excerpt: Rodgers/Hart, “The Boys from Syracuse,” “Sing for Your Supper”; 1963 Off-Broadway Cast Recording]
The Food Is Better Than No Food song cycle. The first number was, of course, the first number from Oliver, the musical. This was the original Broadway cast recording. And then we heard a tune from one of my favorite newer groups, They Might Be Giants. Be Giants. This is from their album Apollo 18. The tune is called Dinner Bell.
And then finally from one of my favorite musicals, The Boys from Syracuse, Rodgers and Hart, and that was Sing for Your Supper. This is from the 25th anniversary revival of The Boys from Syracuse in New York. It opened on April 15, 1963. I saw that production. Sing for Your Supper with Ellen Hanley, Julianne Marie, and Karen Morrow.
Now, of course, we don't ingest edible material solely for the sake of nutrition or even gluttony. We also do it for medicinal reasons. It's the first of two Tidbit Times on today's show, and we're going to hear an unaccompanied vocal composition entitled Jenks's Vegetable Compound by one J. C. Macy. Sort of sounds like a department store merger, doesn't it?
J. C. Macy flourished at the turn of the century. The liner notes on this album refer to the undergraduate humor of this piece. All I can say is that when I was an undergraduate, I sure wish I had heard my music performed by groups as good as The King's Singers.
[music: Macy, "Jenks's Vegetable Compound" (Victorian Collection); The King's Singers]
A little tidbit there was Jenks's Vegetable Compound by J. C. Macy, sung by The King's Singers on their album Victorian Collection. And this is a fairly old LP, and if you heard a little bit of echo in the background, that is not a double chorus effect, that's just something that happens in old LPs. I'm Peter Schickele and the program is still Schickele Mix from PRI, Public Radio International.
There tends to be an especially strong bond between food and musicians. A lot of musicians are good, and I mean serious, cooks. That category, by the way, does not include your humble host, who can spread peanut butter very evenly, but that's about it. But at least two musicians I know have actually started restaurants. Now, for us touring musicians, food is a major concern.
In the first place, when you're on the road, meals are often the only events of interest aside from the concerts. And secondly, most of us don't like to eat right before concerts, which means we're famished afterwards. But in smaller towns, it's often quite a trick to find someplace open after 10 p.m. Of course, sometimes there's a reception. But the food at such gatherings is often nothing more than cheese cubes and toothpicks.
One of the main points of those things is to allow people to meet and talk with the performers. And it has happened more than once to me that by the time I got over to the table, all the food was gone. Somebody once told me that one of the big bands, Count Basie's I think it was, had perfected the technique of entering the room where a post-concert reception was being held, Descending on the food table like a swarm of locusts, sweeping it clean practically without breaking stride, and disappearing out the other door without talking to a soul.
When you're on the trail, you can't afford to be too picky about your food, unless you can afford to bring it with you, as I believe Carol Channing used to do. Years ago, my friend Philip Glass told me that when he was on tour, he sometimes abandoned his vegetarian ways because he got so tired of grilled cheese sandwiches. Of course, it's easier to be a vegetarian now than it was then. Okay, our first song cycle dealt with food in general.
The Let's Get Specific food song cycle zeroes in on three favorite comestibles and takes a little over nine minutes to do so.
[music: Wilson/Parks, "Vegetables" (Smiley Smile); The Beach Boys]
[music excerpt: Weill, "Street Scene," Ice-Cream Sextet; Anthony Mee, Ben Holt, David Marsh/Scottish Opera Orchestra & Chorus/Mauceri]
[music: Morand, "I Am a Can of Tuna" (Mama, I Wanna Make Rhythm); The Chenille Sisters]
And the Let's Get Specific Food Song Cycle goes off into the sunset. It began with a tremendous favorite of mine, Vegetables from The Beach Boys album, Smiley Smile. And those of you who like that album, Smiley Smile, and the one that came after it, Wild Honey, if you haven't replaced it on CD yet, if you haven't replaced those two, I strongly suggest you get the CD.
The two albums on one CD, with some very interesting liner notes. It really gives you a sense of the history of the time and what a competition there was for the great rock and roll album. And there had been a lot of publicity about how Smile, as it was going to be called, was going to be the great album and blow the Beatles out of the water.
And then The Beatles came out with Sgt. Pepper right about the same time that Smiley Smile came out and it was the beginning of a down period for The Beach Boys and a lot of people thought this was a real letdown, this album. I think it's a great album. I'm a silly person, I admit it, but I think it's a wonderful, sunny, great album.
Its two hits everybody likes, Heroes and Villains and Good Vibrations, but I love tunes like this Vegetables. Also the notes will give you some interesting little bits of trivia like the fact that the chomping on Vegetables that provides some of the percussion includes Paul McCartney who had dropped by and as a matter of fact there's a note here by Al Jardine, one of the members of The Beach Boys, he sort of blew it because Paul McCartney was hanging around but Al went into the booth to listen to it.
Paul played the spectacular A Day in the Life from the as-yet-unreleased Sgt. Pepper LP for Brian Wilson.
Al says, I'll always regret missing that. I'll bet he does. Okay, Smiley Smile, Vegetables. Then we had the Ice Cream Sextet from Street Scene, Kurt Weill's American musical with the lyrics by Langston Hughes. And that was sung by David Marsh and Anthony Mee. And then in an unusual problem here, I'm not quite sure whether the character of Henry Davis was sung by Ben Holt or Bruce Hubbard. Ben Holt apparently died while this recording was being made, so some of it is one voice and some of it is the other.
Kurt Weill's Street Scene. And we ended with the Chenille Sisters singing I Am a Can of Tuna from their album Mama, I Want to Make Rhythm. This may very well be the only song ever written from the point of view of a tin can. And here it is, Tidbit 2 time. The song you are about to hear chronicles what has got to be one of the most surprising meals in repast history.
Now this cut has a great groove going, so you can just bop along on that if you want, but I do suggest that keeping track of the words will deepen your experience of this tune.
Say it, Lyle. I love it. From the album Joshua Judges Ruth, the tune was Church. I'm Peter Schickele, and this is Schickele Mix from PRI, Public Radio International. If I were a novelist, I'd want to be the kind of novelist who writes his novel while sitting at a sidewalk café table in Paris.
There's something lubricating, creatively speaking, about a certain kind of low-level distraction. I do a lot of composing while playing solitaire in hotel rooms, or while driving. I used to spend a lot of time in a certain diner. The waitresses must have thought I was the loneliest guy in the world, because sometimes I'd sit there for two hours or more, thinking (how could they know this?) about music.
They don't have to put up with me as much anymore, not because I like diners any less, but because these days they usually have the radio on, and that's one thing my own thoughts can't compete with. I understand that the French composer Darius Milhaud used to request hotel rooms as close as possible to where the band would be playing. He liked to write while hearing other music, but that seems absolutely bizarre to me, and I think probably to most composers.
Well, nowadays most bars have a jukebox, a radio, and three TVs on at all times, so the diner, when I can find a quiet one, is my sidewalk café. But you can't sit there and eat for two hours, they'd have to roll you out to your car. So it's the old cup of coffee, or two or three cups of coffee. I don't really care that much about coffee, I'm not one of those people who isn't human until he has his cup of coffee in the morning, I don't usually drink it in the morning. But it's a good excuse to sit in coffee shops.
Our last suite is the Something to Wash It Down song cycle. The second song is in German, and it goes, Eating and drinking hold the body together. It is my favorite pastime of all, eating and drinking. When food and drink cheer me no more, then farewell, then, world, good night. Ah, when rolls and pies bid goodbye to my palate, then my days are finished.
Ah, and when in my sweet brimming glass Sorrow and trouble sink downward Then to all the world, good night That's the middle one of three songs. I'll see you in approximately seven and a half minutes.
[music: Mr. Elk/Mr. Seal, "Another Cuppa Coffee" (Nula Verba Obscenitus); Mr. Elk & Mr. Seal]
[music: Mozart, “Essen und Trinken” (K 234) (The Comic Mozart); Vienna Akademie Kammerchor/Mayer]
[music: Oakland/Drake, "Java Jive"; The Ink Spots]
The Something to Wash It Down song cycle. Something very nice to wash it down.
We began with Mr. Elk and Mr. Seal, a cassette of theirs called Nula Verba Obscenitus, No Dirty Words, and they're right about that, and that was a tune called, what was it called, it's called Another Cup of Coffee, and then we had from an album called The Comic Mozart, a canon called Essen und Trinken, Eating and Drinking, and that was the Vienna Akademie Kammerchor, Chamber Choir.
Mozart, you know, was a real party animal, I've said that many times, and even if the movie Amadeus is a little bit perhaps over-stylized, or at least if you want to take it as history, it's over-stylized, nevertheless, it's true that compared to the old image of Mozart, he probably was a fairly gross person, certainly his sense of humor was gross by modern standards, but that's not necessarily an indication of how it was viewed by his audience.
He wrote a lot of canons and rounds and party pieces, and this is a very nice album containing examples of all those genres. And then finally, the suite ended with The Ink Spots, the original Ink Spots, an album called Whispering Grass, but that tune was called Java Jive.
Okay, now you know I was thinking during that suite and it seems to me that we have time to do this. I was just thinking, you know I write songs too and I've got a song that is so perfect for this program and here we are we have some time I think that I happen to know there's a piano in the next studio over the big studio and I have found the place to patch in you know to get that mic on and everything, so I'm just gonna move over to the next studio and do that song. I'm gonna get the, that should be on in the other studio, so if you'll just bear with me, it won't take a minute to get in there and sing that song for you. I'm not really warmed up.
[sound: vocal warmup, footsteps, door]
Okay, all right, that mic's set up.
[music: Schickele, "Hunger"; Peter Schickele]
All right, now, uh, I guess I have to get back. Let's do the elevator here.
[sound: sound effects]
Okay, that wasn't so hard. Now let's get that back off. Everything should be cool in the other studio. Live music is not dead on radio. That was my song, Hunger, sung by me. And as far as I'm concerned, this was a very successful show. Why do I say that?
Those of you who listen to this show regularly will agree that I don't make value judgments on the program. But in this case, I know it's a successful show because I am one hungry puppy. And all I can say is that I hope you're as close to some food as I am.
[theme: Mozart, Symphony No. 24]
And that's Schickele Mix for this week. Our program is made possible with funds provided by this radio station and you, its members. We'll tell you in a moment how you can get an official playlist of all the music on today's program, with record numbers and everything. Just refer to the program number. This is program 47. And this is Peter Schickele saying goodbye and reminding you that it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that certain je ne sais quoi. You're looking good. See you next week.
[theme: Mozart, Symphony No. 24]
If you'd like a copy of that playlist I mentioned, send a stamped self-addressed envelope to Schickele Mix. That's S-C-H-I-C-K-E-L-E, Schickele Mix. Care of Public Radio International, 100 North 6th Street, Suite 900A, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 55403.