Questionable Judgment As Concerns Oboes
Mar. 25th, 2016 10:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rinueI can't remember whether I've already mentioned this, but one of my favorite movies as a kid was Watership Down, which is odd not only because it's terrifying but because it's slow. I didn't need constant stimulation, but for instance it took me until practically adulthood to agree that A New Hope was entertaining, even though I loved Star Wars, because Threepio wanders in the desert for maybe a minute.
I suspect a key element of my attachment to the movie was the song "Bright Eyes" by Art Garfunkel. It is a song that begins with an oboe solo. If you want me to listen to something, even tiny kid me, lead off with an oboe, and I'm probably going to follow you. (Presumably this was the instrument employed by the Pied Piper of Hamlen.) I mean, I probably would have liked the movie anyway and would have liked the song anyway, but the two together were potent.
And I mean little kid, here. I was watching that movie at a time before I can remember; I can't remember what the TV room of that house looked like because I was too little. It was my Frozen, I guess. (I also liked Superman II and Annie.)
In any case, without going into the question of whether that's an appropriate film for a three-year-old, the oddest thing about it is that since it's an animated movie and therefore nominally for children (because America), the song is therefore considered to be a kids' song by the kinds of people who put together songs-for-kids anthologies. Which is crazy. It's the bleakest confrontation with the baffling and painful inevitability of death that I've ever heard, and I am definitely someone who has spent hours listening to tragic music from a variety of genres and eras.
Remy Zero's cover is acceptable even though it cuts the oboe.
I suspect a key element of my attachment to the movie was the song "Bright Eyes" by Art Garfunkel. It is a song that begins with an oboe solo. If you want me to listen to something, even tiny kid me, lead off with an oboe, and I'm probably going to follow you. (Presumably this was the instrument employed by the Pied Piper of Hamlen.) I mean, I probably would have liked the movie anyway and would have liked the song anyway, but the two together were potent.
And I mean little kid, here. I was watching that movie at a time before I can remember; I can't remember what the TV room of that house looked like because I was too little. It was my Frozen, I guess. (I also liked Superman II and Annie.)
In any case, without going into the question of whether that's an appropriate film for a three-year-old, the oddest thing about it is that since it's an animated movie and therefore nominally for children (because America), the song is therefore considered to be a kids' song by the kinds of people who put together songs-for-kids anthologies. Which is crazy. It's the bleakest confrontation with the baffling and painful inevitability of death that I've ever heard, and I am definitely someone who has spent hours listening to tragic music from a variety of genres and eras.
Remy Zero's cover is acceptable even though it cuts the oboe.
