FRIDAY RANDOM TEN

Friday? Friday? How did it get to be Friday so soon?

This week has seemingly flown by; the Holiday Season proceedeth apace. Right now, Chez Elisson is reverberating to the pounding of the Tile Guy, who is preparing our master bathroom for its brand-spanking-new tile floor. At the very least, it should make it easier to clean up those miscellaneous spatters of makeup, toothpaste, toenail clippings, earwax chunks, and Gawd knows what else. I hate to think of all the crap that has been trodden into that carpet after all the years we’ve lived here...

But you didn’t come here looking for Tales of Earwax and Carpet. You came here looking for the weekly Random Assortment of Music as disgorged by the Little White Choon-Box. And, so, let’s have a listen...

1. Ballad of Bilbo Baggins - Leonard Nimoy
   
   Created when Nimoy was riding the crest of his Star Trek fame in 1967, and when Lord of the Rings was being rediscovered by the Love Generation. The resulting tune is such a monumental Clusterfuck of Personal Mortification, I’m surprised Nimoy hasn’t slit his wrists knowing it’s out there on YouTube for everyone to snicker at.
   
   
2. Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring (from Bach Cantata #1 47) - Wendy Carlos
   
   
3. The Contest - Stephen Sondheim, Sweeney Todd
   
   
4. Organic Love - Moonraker
   
   
5. Eminence Front (live) - The Who
   
   
6. Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life) - Green Day
   
   
7. Blackbird/Yesterday - The Beatles
   
   From the “Love” mashup album.
   
   
8. The Twelve Inches (with Tom Waits) - Frank Zappa
   
   Frank Zappa and Tom Waits. Gotta love it!
   
   
9. Neon Meate Dream of a Octafish - Captain Beefheart
   
   Captain Beefheart is, of course, Don van Vliet, a longtime Zappa associate. This piece of dadaist dub poetry is from the good Captain’s “Trout Mask Replica” album, one of the strangest pieces of vinyl ever created.
   
   Lucid tentacles test ’n’ sleeved
   ’n’ joined ’n’ jointed jade pointed
   Diamond back patterns
   Neon meate dream of a octafish
   Artifact on rose petals
   ’n’ flesh petals ’n’ pots
   Fack ’n’ feast ’n’ tubes tubs bulbs
   In jest incest injest injust in feast incest
   ’n’ specks ’n’ speckled speckled
   Speckled speculation
   Fedlocks waddlin’ feast
   Archaic faces frenzy
   Ceramic fists artificial deceased
   ’n’ cysts rancid buds burst
   Dank drum ’n’ dung dust
   Meate rose ’n’ hairs
   Meaty meate rose ’n’ hairs
   Meaty dream wet meate
   Limp damp rows
   Peeled ’n’ felt fields ’n’ belts
   Impaled on ’n’ daemon
   Mucus mules
   Twot trot tra la tra la
   Tra la tra la tra la
   Whale bone fields ’n’ belts
   Whale bone farmhouse
   Cavorts girdled ’n’ latters uh lite
   Cavorts girdled ’n’ latters uh lite
   Uh dipped amidst
   Squirmin’ serum ’n’ semen ’n’ syrup ’n’ semen
   ’n’ serum
   Stirrupped in syrup
   Neon meate dream of a octafish
   
   
10. Brazilian Stomp - George Benson and Earl Klugh
    
    

It’s Friday. What are you listening to?