Back to the future

California Uber Alles



I am Governor Jerry Brown
My aura smiles
And never frowns
Soon I will be president...

Carter Power will soon go away
I will be Fuhrer one day
I will command all of you
Your kids will meditate in school
Your kids will meditate in school!

[Chorus:]
California Uber Alles
California Uber Alles
Uber Alles California
Uber Alles California

Zen fascists will control you
100% natural
You will jog for the master race
And always wear the happy face

Close your eyes, can't happen here
Big Bro' on white horse is near
The hippies won't come back you say
Mellow out or you will pay
Mellow out or you will pay!

[Chorus]

Now it is 1984
Knock-knock at your front door
It's the suede/denim secret police
They have come for your uncool niece

Come quietly to the camp
You'd look nice as a drawstring lamp
Don't you worry, it's only a shower
For your clothes here's a pretty flower.

DIE on organic poison gas
Serpent's egg's already hatched
You will croak, you little clown
When you mess with President Brown
When you mess with President Brown

[Chorus]

Favourite 19th Century German art music works

ABC Classic FM have been revisiting their listener-voted Top 100 Classical Works which they originally compiled in 2001. Described as The Classic 100 Ten Years On even though it's only been nine years (EoR expects the next one will be in eight years time) it's interesting to see what people prefer in classical music (or what they don't by the ommissions). The two lists are not directly comparable, since listeners could nominate ten works this time, but only one last time.

EoR's favourite composer, Jean Sibelius is there with four (non challenging — where's the Fourth Symphony or Tapiola?) works compared to only one last time. No Webern, no John Dowland (but no change from last time there).

Nine composers make up over half the chosen works: Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Tchaikovsky, Schubert, Rachmaninoff, Sibelius, Mahler, Mendelssohn and Bizet. That's not too bad: nearly half of them aren't German. Nearly.



Three musical forms account for almost half the works: concerto, symphony and opera.



Selections are seriously skewed towards the late nineteenth century. They drop off dramatically for the second half of the twentieth century (and those few are works like Gorecki's Symphony 3 and the Giazotti arrangement of Albinoni's Adagio — not exactly challenging listening), and there are no works from the last decade.



There are no women composers in the list.

We Are All Prostitutes Once Again

Oh, to be in England now the Pop Group's back... EoR still has his 45rpm single of We Are All Prostitutes (backed with a reading taken from the Amnesty International Report on British Army Torture of Irish Prisoners) — a jazz punk tirade against capitalism and the self-delusion of those attacking it. Given that we now live in a post-capitalist consumer society, the lyrics are still relevant (especially to those following the precepts of The Power):

Everyone has their price
And you too will learn to live the lie
Aggression
Competition
Ambition
Consumer fascism
Capitalism is the most barbaric of all religions
Department stores are our new cathedrals
Our cars are martyrs to the cause
We are all prostitutes

at this moment despair ends and tactics begin.

Quelle Horreur

EoR's world is shattered. Plastic Bertrand did not sing on Ça plane pour moi, the seminal Punk anthem. Next thing you know, someone will claim the Sex Pistols were only in it for the money. Or that Crass were funded by BAE systems. Or that The Dead Kennedys had all their songs written by Paul McCartney.