In Memory of Elizabeth Reed
Dean
One of my favorite Dean's World commenters (I have several) is Steven Malcolm Anderson. Recently, he disagreed with me when I wrote, in reference to Carole King's immortal Tapestry:
I am (as anyone who knows me knows) a huge fan of popular American pop music. Indeed, I have a somewhat reactionary attitude: I believe that most classical music is overrated because it overlooks so much that is great in popular music. Steven said, in response,
That strikes me as a somewhat funny reversal spectrumologically. I've always thought of your liking for popular music as one of your liberal traits. I've always thought that the reactionary, and elitist, attitude was mine in preferring classical music over popular music.
Well maybe yes, and maybe no, for I am not a complete heathen. I do love Bach, and Beethoven, and Tchaikovsky, and many "classical music" composers. On the other hand, I often think that those wh love that kind of music miss out on some of the most exciting and dynamic music of the modern era. As evidence I give you this amazing recording: The Allman Brothers Band's astonishing recording of "In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed."
This song was first written in the late 1960s by a stoned-out, pot-smoking, LSD-dropping hippy near Macon, Georgia named Dickey Betts. He was drinking wine and talking sh** with some of his hippie stoner friends near the grave of a woman named Elizabeth Reed, and on that tombstone was written her epitath: she was born in the 1860s, and had a husband and children. Dickey's group recorded this song live in her honor at Bill Grahamn's Fillmore East around 1970. Here is what they recorded in her memory:
This is a (mixed-race, as it happens) group of hippies. They were with two guys playing Gibson Les Paul electric guitars, a Fender strat bass, and a couple of Buddy Rich-style drum trap sets with Zildjian cymbals. Oh yeah, and a Hammond B3 with a whirling Leslie. All played live in New York, in 1970.
I must tell you, when I listen to this recording, tears come to my eyes. It's just so goddamned beautiful.
Dickey Betts could just put his guitar down right now and say, "I wrote this song."
You can buy this amazing recording right here.
(There happens to be a Dean's World commenter who shares this beautiful song's namesake. I can assure you that this is entirely coincidental, although I love the fact that she always disagrees with me about everything.)
As for the 'always disagreeing with you', yeah, you drive me crazy Dean, but somehow it hurts so good. :-)
Take a look at your typical 'good for you' classic literature like Scarlet Letter and all its cousins.
Great scott! Sick, warped, demented. English majors try to tell us that these books say something important about the human condition--maybe they do--we're all pschyos.
Much of modern literature seems healthier, although of course there's Robert Heinlein to help disprove my case.
You know, I may not agree with Enlightenment or Romantic philosophy, but at least authors back then weren't trapped in today's malaise of moral relativism and nihilism. At least Hawthorne had a coherent and internally consistent, if perhaps sometimes misguided, understanding of his world.
THANK YOU!!!!
That comment of mine was just my spectrumological observation, no depreciation of your tastes. I like the fact that you're liberal where I'm reactionary, populist where I'm elitist. It's one of the reasons why I read you. I have to say that I've steadily become more conservative over the past couple or so years in my views on all the arts. I have come more and more to acknowledge that there is an absolute hierarchy of artistic values, which I myself have scarcely begun to climb.
I agree with Kacie Landrum about much of modern literature. I would recommend the novels of Ayn Rand as an antidote to that, along with her literary hero, Victor Hugo. G. K. Chesterton also, always a delight to read. Certain playwrights such as Terence Rattigan, Henrik Ibsen, and George Bernard Shaw I admire (though I oppose everything Shaw advocated). Of course, no modern writer has yet come close to equalling the Supreme Master, William Shakespeare. I must confess that I absolutely must read much more of Shakespeare. I have scarcely begun to climb the hierarchy of values.
Kinda like real people, huh?
""Characters are no longer intelligent, rational beings. Instead they react to every situation like animals: they eat, sleep, have sex, get drunk, and then they die. They make no attempt to think about their situation or figure out a deeper meaning to life, because there is no meaning; reality is cruel and irrational and out to get them."
Kinda like real people, huh?"
As Ayn Rand used to say: Speak for yourself, brother.