This isn’t even my favorite song off of this album, but pretty much every single one is fucking great and absolutely essential. Like, I still think about “G-I-R-L-F-R-E-N” at essentially random times every once in a while, so this record has to have had at least some effect on me.
I know Richman’s pretty much disowned his early, punkier stuff in favor of the weird calypso-influenced twee acoustic rock he’s been doing for the last few decades—which might be the only cutesy stuff like that that I really, really listen to—but man do all the early Modern Lovers songs still smoke. He’s one of those guys I just hope keeps living forever, writing songs about Vermeer and chewing gum and barely aging.
The Paul Taylor Dance Company performs ‘Bei Mir Bistu Shein’, sung by the Andrews Sister. This is part of Paul Taylor’s work, ‘Company B.’ Aren’t those outfits adorable? And there’s a bit of a sapphic vibe right at the very beginning of the dance, too.
‘Krekhts or krekhtsn (Yiddish for “sobs”) are kind of dreydlekh (ornamentation) in klezmer music, especially on the violin. In an article about Jewish music in Romania, Bob Cohen of Di Naye Kapelye describes krekhts as “a sort of weeping or hiccoughing combination of backwards slide and flick of the little finger high above the base note, while the bow does, well, something - which aptly imitates Jewish liturgical singing style.” He also noted that the only other place he has heard this particular ornamentation is in Turkish music on the violin.’
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