Day 13: March 30 - Tune Rations
Since we’re all home tending to our newfound passion for bread, some music about food (and some pleasant and less than pleasant substitutes if you get desperate…)!
Stephen Sondheim - The Worst Pies in London (from Sweeney Todd)
Sondheim’s classic musical tells the tale of Sweeney Todd, a barber who kills and robs his clients and has his baker/partner-in-crime, Nellie Lovett, bake them into pies. This is the second number, in which Todd first walks into Lovett’s shop. She sings manically about the meager, meatless horridness of her pies (and how her competition, Mrs. Mooney, likely fills hers with cats…). Incredibly tuneful, hilarious, and touching. Classic Sondheim. This is the original cast recording, sung by Angela Lansbury.
PALATE CLEANSER 1 Leonard Bernstein - Plum Pudding (from La Bonne Cuisine)
Interspersed between today’s Tunes are some palate cleansers. Bernstein set the recipes from French chef Émile Dumont’s La Bonne Cuisine Française in delightful miniatures. Performed by Roberta Alexander with Tan Crone.
The Presidents of the United States of America - Peaches
A classic 90s tune. I suspect he isn’t really talking about peaches…
PALATE CLEANSER 2 Leonard Bernstein - Ox Tails
Orlando Gibbons - The Cries of London
Market criers were a popular topic in art, literature, and music from the Medieval to the Baroque era. English composer Gibbons catalogues a days worth of street criers in London hawking goods in a playful, dialogic texture. Underneath, the in nomine theme, is played by viols in long tones. This connects these figures, who were poor and indigent but were largely portrayed as amusements to the upper classes, to God, reminding listeners that we are all made by the same creator (or, more secularly, there but for the grace of God go the wealthy). Performed here by Fretwork and Theatre of Voices under Paul Hillier.
PALATE CLEANSER 3 Leonard Bernstein - Tavouk Gueunksis
Prince - Starfish and Coffee
Classic nonsensical Prince tune about a girl who’s lunchbox is full of odd and wondrous foods.
PALATE CLEANSER 4 Leonard Bernstein - Rabbit At Top Speed
Antonio Machin - El Manisero
Along with Guantamera, the song El Manisero (The Peanut Vendor) popularized Cuban music in America in the mid 20th-century. The song is sung in a style based on street vendors, called pregon, and the beat is called a son (not a rhumba, as it was originally given when it was released). The lyrics are about street vendors who are loudly selling peanut cones morning until night and how loved they are by the people. This version is by Antonio Machin.