Valentina Lisitsa – Chopin’s Minute Waltz
An evening pause: In this case the word “minute” does not refer to time. It is pronounced “my-nute,” and refers to the piece’s small-size, delicacy, and fast-paced shortness.
Hat tip Edward Thelen.
Category: The Evening Pause
A nightly pause from the news to give the reader/viewer a bit of classic entertainment.
I Are Cute Duckling AWW
An evening pause: Two minutes of simple unblemished cuteness, to cheer us all up.
Hat tip Jim Mallamace.
Ryan Adams – English Girls Approximately
Missing Persons – Words
An evening pause: I think the chorus here describes our entire intellectual society today.
What are words for when no one listens anymore
What are words for when no one listens
What are words for when no one listens it’s no use talkin at all
Hat tip Jim Mallamace.
John Williams – Raider’s March
An evening pause: From one of the best films ever made, Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). As I wrote about it at the time for a comic book fan group, it recognizes that there is good and evil, and that there is something in the universe that casts judgement on each. Such concepts had and continue to be largely rejected by modern intellectualism, at our peril.
Hat tip Edward Thelen.
Toots & The Maytals – 54 46
An evening pause: Hat tip Jim Mallamace, who noted that this is “a song about getting arrested for marijuana possession and being given a prison number in the late 60’s.” Jim also added, “The song is meaningful to me because at the end of 2011, I couldn’t imagine the country would re-elect a failed president with a legacy of disastrous economic, domestic, and foreign policies. I thought Mr. Obama would lose by 54 to 46. When he went on to win his second term, 54-46 felt like our prison number for the next 4 years.”
Crab Processing
An evening pause: It is quite surprising how this process is still almost entirely done by hand.
Hat tip Edward Thelen.
I sure could use more engineering type evening pause suggestions like this. You all like them, so you must know how to find them. If you have a suggestion, let me know in a comment here. Don’t give the link, I will email you for it.
Jessica Rabbit – Why don’t you do right
A evening pause: From the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988), and sung by Amy Irvine.
Hat tip Jim Mallamace.
South Pacific – You’ve Got to Be Taught
An evening pause: This clip includes the scene that leads up to the song, and helps explain its dramatic context.
To be honest, this has never been one of my favorite Rodgers & Hammerstein songs. The musical, South Pacific, is magnificent, and has been featured before as an evening pause, but this song to me always seemed a bit preachy. It was written in the 1950s, however, and thus for its time was, as was the musical, important components of the civil rights movement that ended the bigoted discrimination against blacks in the United States.
I should add that as a child who loved this musical when I first heard and saw it in the early 1960s, I never understood what Nellie’s problem was. Why did it matter that the kids’ mother had been Polynesian?
Hat tip Edward Thelen.
1776 – Hatching an Egg
An evening pause: I posted this last year for the Fourth of July. It is worth watching again, and again, and again. From the 1976 movie version of the 1972 musical, 1776. As I said last year, not only did the musical capture the essence of the men who made independency happen, it is also a rollicking and entertaining work of art.
Vanessa Williams – Save the Best for Last
Reba McEntire -You can’t get a man with a gun
An evening pause: From the Broadway musical Annie Get Your Gun. In January 2001, McEntire, a well known country singer, made her Broadway debut in the 2000 revival of the musical that was opened originally with Bernedette Peters in the role. McEntire was an instant sensation, performing the role on Broadway for eighteen months. In many ways this role made her, as it showed she could do far more than sing, and was in fact a very skilled comedic actor.
This clip, shot by an audience member, does a remarkable job of capturing part of one of those performances.
Hat tip Diane Zimmerman.
The Fixx – Red Skies
Liberace & Jack Benny
Lesley Gore – California Nights
An evening pause: From a very amusing 1967 Batman television episode, with the evil arch villain Catwoman, played by Julie Newmar. Lesley Gore’s lip-syncing isn’t the best, but the overall silliness of the scene, as well and the entire show, makes it is worth watching. The song is nice too. Unfortunately, I can’t find the whole episode, but this search on youtube finds a host of scenes from that classic of campy 1960s television.
Hat tip Diane Zimmerman.
George Michael & Wham Careless Whisper
Joe Bonamassa & Tina Guo – Woke Up Dreaming
Maria Mena- All This Time
Nils Lofgren – Keith Don’t Go
Journey To The Edge Of Space
Sachal Jazz Orchestra – Take Five
An evening pause: I’ve posted this song previously, performed by writer Brubeck and his quartet. This Pakistani version is definitely worth its own viewing, however, as it uses some very different instruments to make it happen.
Hat tip Tom Wright.
Thomas Quasthoff & Sylvia Schwartz – Papageno & Papagena
T Rex – Bang A Gong (Get It On)
An evening pause: The history of this band (which I hadn’t known until I began putting this post together) is very interesting, as it mirrors the overall cultural disaster of the 1960s. The finale is especially depressing:
Marc Bolan and his girlfriend Gloria Jones spent the evening of 15 September 1977 drinking at the Speakeasy and then dining at Morton’s club on Berkeley Square, in Mayfair, Central London. While driving home early in the morning of 16 September, Jones crashed Bolan’s purple Mini 1275GT into a tree (now the site of Bolan’s Rock Shrine), after failing to negotiate a small humpback bridge near Gipsy Lane on Queens Ride, Barnes, southwest London, a few miles from his home at 142 Upper Richmond Road West in East Sheen. While Jones was severely injured, Bolan was killed in the crash, two weeks before his 30th birthday.
Bolan’s death ended the band. Steve Peregrin Took died from asphyxiation from a cocktail cherry after his throat was numbed from his use of morphine and magic mushrooms in 1980, Steve Currie also died in a car crash, in 1981; Mickey Finn succumbed to illness in 2003. Peter ‘Dino’ Dines died of a heart attack in 2004.
Regardless, they created good music, for a short time.
Hat tip Jim Mallamace.
The Emotions ~ Best of My Love
Lennon Sisters – May you always
An evening pause: Left to right: Kathy, Peggy, Janet, and Dianne. From a 1960s Lawrence Welk show.
Listen to the words. They express the hope and dreams of the 1960s.
Hat tip Jim Mallamace.
Laura Engel – Bésame Mucho
Vangelis – Chariots Of Fire
An evening pause: Performed live at the Temple of Olympian Zeus in Athens on June 28, 2001.
Hat tip Edward Thelen.
World Party – Ship Of Fools
Simon & Garfunkel – The Sounds Of Silence
An evening pause: From a recent live performance. I’ve posted this song before, sung by others, but not surprisingly, the best version is still performed by the originals.
I also think of this verse today whenever I read of the insane craziness going on in the political world:
And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
No one dared
Disturb the sound of silence
Hat tip Peter Fenstermacher.