September 9, 1963 (5 weeks)
It is the night of the big school dance at St. Basil's, an all-boys Catholic school in Brooklyn. Joining the young men are the girls from the nearby Virgin Martyr school. Michael, the film's main character, promptly ditches the event to spend some time with Danni, who happens to be of another religious persuasion (or happens to be agnostic or an atheist. Meanwhile, bully Rooney convinces the lovely Jeanine to come out with him to cruise around in his father's new car. She agrees but on the condition that her best friend, the timid Kathleen, joins them along with one of his friends to keep her company. She suggests brainiac Caesar which Rooney reluctantly agrees to. The foursome pile in to the car which Rooney then foolishly parks on a bridge. Caesar and Kathleen are left in the backseat of the vehicle while their friends find a secluded spot so they can drink, make out and puke. Having to clean Jeanine's barf from his suit jacket, the night hasn't gone the way Rooney expected so he heads back to the car only to discover that a boat is coming and the bridge operator is unaware there's a car parked on it. It looks as if the vehicle and its passengers are going to plummet into the river when the operator finally notices them and they are saved — but not before it ruins Rooney's dad's car. "Blue Velvet" plays out the last few seconds of this scene.
As you will no doubt know by now, I did not describe a scene from the 1986 David Lynch film Blue Velvet. Rather, it's from Michael Dinner's comedy-drama Heaven Help Us from a year earlier. I don't know if there's a whole lot of reason for it being there beyond simply being a very popular song from the time but symbolism be damned! In any case, it sort of provides a calm after the storm to finish up that scene. As far as the film Blue Velvet, I wouldn't know because I've never seen it. I once watched about half of Eraserhead but I got so bored I turned it off. Otherwise, I've never seen a Lynch picture in my life — and, with all due respect to a legend who recently passed away, I'm not planning to do anything about this gap in my cultural development. On the other hand, he did direct the video to Chris Isaak's "Wicked Game", though, sadly, not the one everyone remembers.
One thing that Heaven Help Us inadvertently does to aid the cause of Bobby Vinton's signature hit is to place it in the context of teenagers in the sixties who borrowed their dad's Cadillacs or Oldmobiles in order to take a date to a spot called 'Make Out Point' in order to engage in some passionate necking and maybe even a bit of petting. (That said, not only is parking a car on a bridge stupid, it's also not an especially romantic setting; no bloody wonder Rooney and Jeanine ditched Caesar and Kathleen there) It's a classic make out song to have on in the car stereo or perhaps playing in the rumpus room. Hell, it might as well have invented the concept of make out music. Barry White, Anita Baker, a whole generation of hair metal bands so desperate for a hit that they resorted to the syrupy ballad: they all owe a debt of gratitude to the Polish Prince.
The last time he came up, I knocked Vinton for being all teen-idol looks and smooth vocals with little else to show for it. This still holds true but did he need anything else if he had the right material to work with? "Roses Are Red" suffered from being not a great song that he couldn't not get to rise above being horribly blane.; for its part, "Blue Velvet" isn't terribly brilliant either but a definite step up. Due to its use in this film of the same name, "Blue Velvet" is intrinsically linked to the Lynch picture. This has prompted Tom Breihan to wonder if it always had a dark side. "Could a song", he asks, "be Lynchian before David Lynch got a hold of it?" I think that is something that we can only claim in retrospect. Sure, it's dreamy and there's a touch of teenage angst about it but nothing to suggest a psychological thriller or whatever it is Lynch did as a part of his "oeuvre". Lynchian? I prefer Dinnerian.
Look up the soundtrack to Heaven Help Us over on Discogs and you'll no doubt notice a nice selection of bangers. "Come See About Me", "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)", "I've Been Loving You Too Long" and "My Girl" are all present and correct. Missing, however, is "Blue Velvet", presumably either because it didn't fit in with all that sixties' soul and Motown or because they couldn't get the rights. Either way, it's a shame since the pent up desires and fantasies of Dunn, Rooney, Caesar, Williams and Corbett crystallize in this memorable pop song even if the brothers at St. Basil's were determined to beat it out of them.
Score: 6
~~~~~
Can Con
I once read the bulk of Ian Tyson's autobiography, The Long Trail. I don't think I finished it but I consumed enough of it to get the picture. Mainly, I learned that he was "not a socialist" because I'm quite sure he brought it up on three separate occasions. I understood the first time because he clearly wanted to emphasize how he differed from many of his contemporaries in the left-leaning folk music circuit, though I'm not sure he needed to keep bringing it up. Otherwise, it wasn't such a bad book. It was during the five week reign of "Blue Velvet" that this Canadian singer-songwriter teamed up with his then-wife Sylvia — whose preference for the economic systems proposed by Karl Marx and Adam Smith I am unaware of — on the much-covered masterpiece "Four Strong Winds". With all due respect to Ian & Sylvia, this is one of those songs that everyone seems to nail. Then again, maybe that's what makes it so special.
No comments:
Post a Comment