Music clips

Some more music clips today.

Humperdinck, Children's Chorus, Hansel & Gretel.  One of my favorite opera overtures!

Richard Adinsell, Beau Brummel.  This 1950s MGM production is no great shakes: Stewart Granger is an oddly stolid choice for the title role, Robert Morley's George III is a haunted-house madman, and the final deathbed scene is fiction. (He actually outlived George IV!) But it has a nice fanfare by Adinsell, who also composed the Warsaw Concerto.

Jerome Moross, The Big Country.  William Wyler's 1958 western is a classic, and Moross' musical score does it justice.

"We Won't Be Happy Till We Get It," from Babes in Toyland.  The villain's trio from the 1961 Disney movie of Victor Herbert's operetta, it's the best of the songs that Leven & Bruns added. (The main villain is Ray Bolger, best known as the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz.) When I was little we owned the soundtrack album and I became familiar with these songs.  Youtube actually has the movie number, but I prefer the vinyl version.

Peter Gabriel, "Biko" from Peter Gabriel.  A musical tribute to the anti-apartheid movement's most prominent martyr, murdered by South African police in 1977. (For what it's worth, I think the movie Cry Freedom got a bad rap.) Gabriel is a singular musical talent!

Brian Eno, "1/1" from Music for Airports. Genius musical producer Eno came up with this 1978 album of new-wave ambient music. (They actually tried playing it in airports, but people found it too depressing!) It rewards patience.

Heaven 17, "Come Live With Me" from Luxury Gap.  A single from an underrated 1982 British album.

The Parachute Club, "Rise Up" from The Parachute Club.  I loved this song and video back in 1983, even before I moved to Toronto and got to know the city in the background.

The Payolas, "Where Is This Love" from Hammer on a Drum.  A 1983 song by another underrated group, this time Canadian. I especially like the moment where the kid instinctively protects the little guy!

Frank Zappa, "Jesus Thinks You're a Jerk" from Broadway the Hard Way.  When they made Frank Zappa they broke the mold. (Or as Zappa might say, they threw away the shovel.) He did this single attacking the "Christian right"--who are neither Christian nor right, IMHO--in the mid-'80s, at a time of his high-profile fight against musical censorhip.