Paging Doctor Moore Sunday, August 10, 2003

Mushrooms growing in the little dirt garden ringing my apartment building. Evil mushrooms? Undoubtedly.

Listened to my priest, and now a secular one: Jonathan Schwartz, an oldies, pop-standards and show-tunes deejay at WNYC. I was dubious about him for a long time; he seemed to be in love with the sound of his own voice, snobby and overwrought. Lately the scales have fallen, in good musical-comedy fashion, and I've realized what a wonderful service he provides. He's basically the only source for American Popular Song on the radio--all the best composers (Mercer, Hart, Carmichael, Porter, etc.), all the great singers (Frankie above all) and some interesting curveballs from time to time (he has a Martha's Vineyard fetish; Carly Simon et al). I never "got" this music until I heard him present it, until he showed me how literate and mature it was, and at the same time how overpoweringly sexy and fun it could be. Musical phases come and go with me, but listening to, say, Lorenz Hart certainly puts my bread-and-butter folk-rockers in another context. Even the best of them sound pallid in comparison. Mark Eitzel, for instance, never wrote anything as breezy-but-deadly as this (via the Lyrics by Lorenz Hart site):


VERSE

You don't know that I felt good
when we up and parted.
You don't know I knocked on wood
gladly broken-hearted.
Worrying is through,
I sleep all night
appetite and health restored.
You don't know how muck I'm bored!

REFRAIN 1

The sleepless nights,
the daily fights
the quick toboggan when you reach the heights
I miss the kisses and I miss the bites
I wish I were in love again!

The broken dates,
the endless waits,
the lovely loving and the hateful hates,
the conversations with the flying plates
I wish I were in love again!

No more pain
no more strain
now I'm sane but ...
I would rather be ga-ga!
The pulled-out fur
of cat and cur
the fine mismating of a him and her
I've learned my lesson, but I wish I were
in love again!

REFRAIN 2
The furtive sight
the blackened eye,
the words "I'll love you till the day I day"
the self-deception the belives the lie
I wish I were in love again!

When love congeals
it soon reveals
the faint aroma of performing seals
the double-crossing of a pair of heels.
I wish I were in love again!

No more care
no despair
I'm all there now
But I'd rather be punch-drunk!
Belive me sir
I much prefer
the classic battle of a him and her.
I don't like quiet and
I wish I were in love again!

(Not to push myself in Metrosexual territory, but the Judy Garland/Mickey Rooney version of this tune has to be heard to be believed.)

The closest I've heard lately is Ron Sexsmith, a self-described sensitive guy with a guitar, who writes lovely melodies and homely lyrics; homely in the sense that they're built on simple, everyday words that take on uncommon power through his arrangement and delivery.

Off his latest record, a lyric that could've come from Oklahoma! (via Ron's Web site):

I know it doesn't seem that way
But maybe it's the perfect day
Even though the bills are piling
And maybe Lady Luck ain't smiling

But if we'd only open our eyes
We'd see the blessings in disguise
That all the rain clouds are fountains
Though our troubles seem like mountains

There's gold in them hills
There's gold in them hills
So don't lose heart
Give the day a chance to start

Then, of course, there's Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, who are the last great writers of popular standards. To qualify: They write and arrange songs in a way that hasn't been seen since, say, Nelson Riddle or Burt Bacharach. Reading Sinatra bios, I keep tearing my hair when the timeline reaches the 70s and The Voice starts recording Rod McKuen songs and other nudniks on that level. I guarantee you: If he had dipped into the Steely Dan catalog, he would have saved popular standards, and his recording career, from the modern age. (He stayed a big concert attraction, of course.) Can't you just imagine him turning this into a saloon song (via Steelydan.com):


In the corner
Of my eye
I saw you in Rudy's
You were very high
You were high
It was a cryin' disgrace
They saw your face

On the counter
By your keys
Was a book of numbers
And your remedies
One of these
Surely will screen out the sorrow
But where are you tomorrow

I can't cry anymore
While you run around
Break away
Just when it
Seems so clear
That it's
Over now
Drink your big black cow
And get out of here

Down to Greene Street
There you go
Lookin' so outrageous
And they tell you so
You should know
How all the pros play the game
You change your name

Like a gangster
On the run
You will stagger homeward
To your precious one
I'm the one
Who must make everything right
Talk it out till daylight

I don't care anymore
Why you run around
Break away
Just when it
Seems so clear
That it's
Over now
Drink your big black cow
And get out of here

Can't you just see Frank in a tuxedo with his tie half-off, pounding out that last line? "Don't let the door crease your caboose, baby!"

And here I was, all set to write about Church...well, Jonathan Schwartz delivers a lot more consistently than my sainted pastor does. I still miss my church in Brooklyn, where I returned to the communion after a decade away, where I ended up marrying my astonishing wife. (On cue, Jonathan Schwartz fires up Frankie singing "Love and Marriage.") It was a tiny church, a Bobo church, with sympathetic pastors who had the same peccadilloes as me: the historical Jesus, loving everybody but not particularly liking lots of them, etc. The churches in Bayonne don't play that way. I don't know what's in peoples' hearts and heads, but from the pulpit there's not a lot of spiritual questioning going on.

Still I go, which is really just an excuse to type out my favorite quote from any source, anywhere, anyhow:

I, for example, am a Roman Catholic, albeit a bad one. I believe in the Holy Catholic Apostolic and Roman Church, in God the Father, in the election of the Jews, in Jesus Christ His Son our Lord, who founded the Church on Peter his first vicar, which will last until the end of the world. Some years ago, however, I stopped eating Christ in Communion, stopped going to mass, and have since fallen into a disorderly life. I believe in God and the whole business but I love women best, music and science next, whiskey next, God fourth, and my fellowman hardly at all. Generally I do as I please. A man, wrote John, who says he believes in God and does not keep his commandments is a liar. If John is right, then I am a liar. Nevertheless, I still believe.

Walker Percy, Love in the Ruins. My second-favorite quote, from any source, anywhere, anyhow, from the same book:

Ellen, though a strict churchgoer and a moral girl, does not believe in God. Rather does she believe in the Golden Rule and in doing right. On the whole she is embarrassed by the whole God business. But she does right. She doesn't need God. What does God have to do with being honest, hard-working, chaste, upright, unselfish, etcetera. I on the other hand believe in God, the Jews, Christ, the whole business. Yet I don't do right. I am a Renaissance pope, an immoral believer. Between the two of us we might have saved Christianity. Instead we lost it.

For my money, those two little paragraphs sum up the modern world (or at least the world as it appears through Rob binoculars). I have a bookcase full of the hunt for the historical Jesus, books expounding Catholic philosophy, I can laugh and huzzah along with G.K. Chesteron--but on the whole I'd rather be listening to Sinatra on Sunday. Moreover, I say a lot of hosannas, I get teary at Easter, but those fine feelings don't sink deep enough for me to want to devote my life to helping people. There are lots of people who do a lot more to help the world than I do, and don't believe in God. Does that matter?

Search me. Maybe Mel Gibson has some thoughts. I wonder what they'll show as the previews for that one. And I wonder where the sequels will go...

Anyhow, off to gather mushrooms. Take care. If you see any signposts, let me know.

@ 1:50:00 PM,

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