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Cadwell NOT Caldwell
I put a spell on You
[5 minute read ]
Marionettes and Pipe Dreams
{I have found that by following the YouTube links provided, if you just wait, the preceding ads will not play and about five or six seconds later the paused video you want to watch will be cued and you can click on the play button. I think this is because the links were copied before YouTube introduced new algorithms to play preceding ads. Wherever possible I shall include code to make the YouTube videos open in a new screen, over the next fifteen minutes, before 09:30am today. However, I have included a playlist in no particular order (including other songs on YouTube that I considered for the puppet show, as an attachment).
A couple of years ago, I listened to some music by Mozart. The task I had been given was to describe it; melody; structure, interaction of the instruments; genre; and solo instrument. It was fun to try to delve into it. I have never really been into music. I find it to be a linear pastime; that is, one musical phrase or lyric follows another. Because I never bothered to actually listen to music before, I never realised that there is, to me, hidden depth to many genres. It is not two dimensional at all. In fact, with a lot of classical music, I can picture some quite amusing scenes; often as a 'Disney-esque' animated film, perhaps in the same way as 'Fantasia'. Certainly, Emile Waldteufel's 'Skater's Waltz', in my head, has an anthropomorphic rabbit, at the very beginning, tumbling and sliding down a snowy hillock for the first 22 seconds, before coming to an abrupt 'bump' against a snow-drift at the edge of a frozen pool in a winter wood. (at 23 seconds in). The rabbit, righting itself (I always think it is a male rabbit - Thanks, Beatrice Potter!) is amazed to see a couple of woodland animals skating serenely. More animals join in, and the 'rink' fills. There are solo skaters doing little spins and leaps at 1:49 to 2:18 and then tentative steps and glides as a young 'learner' joins fun at 2:18. Rapid draws of bows across violins help me see flailing arms, and legs thrown to all sides until 2:48. At 2:49 an accomplished and 'well-to-do' older couple join as a pair. I even 'see' the female of the pair wearing a long burgundy-coloured coat. Soon, a hazardous skater arrives and disrupts the scene at 04:03, announced by the loud 'blare' of the woodwind instruments. This skater darts around and about the other skaters, and the animals send him/her/it away, but there is a very brief scurry as it crosses the 'rink', and then it returns at the very end, when everyone happily skates together. Twee, isn't it?
If you listen on YouTube:
The Skater's Waltz should get you there. (YouTube video opens in new window)
For about ten years now, I have wanted to put on a marionette show with hand-made puppets (shadow, stick, and string). A love story, it has a boy marionette who falls in love with a girl puppet from a different culture. I was inspired by Storm Large singing 'Până când nu te iubeam', with Pink Martini in Portland, Oregon in 2013. It is haunting. The YouTube link:
Până când nu te iubeam' (YouTube video opens in new window)
She sings in Romanian, but there are English lyrics on the screen.
'Before I fell in love with you, My love, my love.
I slept like a baby, My love, my love
Since I fell in love with you, My love, my love
I've been restless, my love, my love....'
The song was originally recorded by Maria Tănase, a Romanian, in the 1950s I think.
In my imagined puppet show the girl is asleep and visited by spooky spirits on a second occasion. They swirl and hover around her bed after she has fallen in love with the boy puppet
The first time the girl puppet is visited in her dreams is by fiends and spirits which might be accompanied by a similar song to 'Baghdad' by 'Habibti Ensemble' live at Zappa Jerusalem in 2016. I have no idea what the lyrics in English are though, so I can only seek similar suitable orchestral music to the beginning of their song; the leaping clarinet would play an integral part. I have not included a YouTube link because when I played it just now, there was an ad break.
I saw Charlotte Summers, sing 'I put a spell on you', on 'America's Got Talent', (2019), who, when asked by Simon Cowell what she would do with the million dollars if she won the show, answered that she would buy a guinea-pig and call it Simon Cowell. (She had a huge crush on Simon Cowell) and she would buy one for her sister and call it 'Howie'. If you watch the YouTube video, watch her facial expressions.
More fitting for the puppet show is IZA and her cover.
IZA I put a spell on you, ' (YouTube video opens in new window)
The boy and girl puppets go on a date and watch swing dancers such as in 'Booty Swing' - Parov Stellar. There is an interesting comment to this video on how well the women dance in heels.
Booty Swing (YouTube video opens in new window)
The two puppets dance together for their first time during this date to 'Via Con Me' (It's Wonderful) - Swingrowers. The video, to this YouTube video is from 'Roman Holiday' with Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck.
Via Con Me - Swingrowers (YouTube video opens in new window)
Later in my marionette show, the boy and girl puppets dance in sync to Mark Ronson - 'Uptown Funk' (feat. Bruno Mars).
Uptown Funk (YouTube video opens in new window)
There are shadow puppets against the background while they dance, and swaying onlooking automated string (marrionettes) on the sidelines.
I have always been tempted to include Barry White's 'My First My Last My Everything' in my puppet show. But....even though I love it soooo much. It kinda hurts too. Bit too emotional for me. There is just something there I can't fix to something in me but I can't find it. I think it is a longing for something I imagine lost, but never really had.
My First, My Last, My Everything (YouTube video opens in new window)
Somewhere, I want to put 'Superstition' by Stevie Wonder in. But it would really be done with a crow-bar; it doesn't really fit.
Inspired by 'The Skater's Waltz' by Emile Waldteufel, I imagined the girl and boy marionettes passing through a formal 18th century waltz scene in which two-dimensional cardboard cut out dancers dance to Waltz No. 2 - Dmitri Shostakovitch.
Waltz No. 2 - Dmitri Shostakovitch (YouTube video opens in new window)
The reason I have never produced the puppet show is because I need to get the performing rights for the music, and I would need a lot of assistant puppeteers. Realistically, it will have to be a multi-media production with animation, lighting, and sound engineering. It remains a pipe-dream, but this Summer I shall be making some marionettes out of egg-box pulp. Once turned back into a slurry it can be cast in moulds and dries out to be a very light form. For finer detail and greater mass, I shall use air-drying clay such as 'DAS Pronto', and oven-baked 'Fimo' for where mass is important.
As a multi-media production, I might end with the credits running while Leo Sayer's 'The Dancer' plays.
Leo Sayer - The Dancer (YouTube video opens in new window)
The attachment 'Marionette Songs' also lists songs on YouTube that are not links, just search terms. 'The Flower Duet' sung by Sabine Devieilhe & Marianne Crebassa is beautiful.
Got something to say about the objectification of women? Try this song video: Maddie & Tae 'Girl in A Country Song'
Girl in a Country Song (YouTube video opens in new window)