This edition of clapping hands spans three decades of music. Let’s start with a song from the disco era. In 1977, a French producer duo had the idea of incorporating flamenco rhythms into disco beats. Santa Esmeralda turned it into a global hit, which younger listeners will only recognise from the final sword fight scene between Kiddo and O-Ren Ishii in Kill Bill.
The American singer-songwriter Sam Beam, also known as Iron & Wine, has also drawn inspiration from flamenco. Although castanets rather than clapping hands set the rhythm, this video is worth featuring here.
One of The Temptations’ absolute classics from the sixties simply has to feature in this series.
Last weekend, I watched another classic of film history, The Bridge on the River Kwai. The film is about a group of British prisoners of war in early 1943 in a Japanese camp in Burma who are ordered to build a wooden railway bridge. The film glorifies the steadfastness of the British officers and the capabilities of the soldiers, which contrasts with the reality that approximately 20% of the 80,000 British prisoners died due to poor nutrition and the climatic and hygienic conditions.
What made the film unforgettable was the prisoners' march as they whistled Colonel Bogey March, a military song from the beginning of the last century.
That inspired me to look for more whistled film scores. Another one is the main theme of Sergio Leone's masterpiece The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Ennio Morricone made a perfect soundtrack to the last showdown.
In 1979, the Monty Python troupe sparked what was probably the biggest controversy over blasphemy with their film Monty Python's Life of Brian. I loved the film because of its sarcasm. The crucifixion scene remains unforgettable.
For life is quite absurd
An death's the final word
You mus always face the curtain with a bow
Forget about your sin
Give the audience a grin
Enjoy it, it's your last chance anyhow
So always look on the brigt side of death
And finally a scene from Kill Bill where Deryl Hannah attempts to kill her comatose rival and is ultimately stopped by her lover Bill.
Next follows with songs that feature whistling at some point, whether as an intro, outro, or interlude. Be sure that you won't listen to Klaus Meine whistleing.
The worries we made about what happened two years ago vanished in normal life. We used to live like nothing happened before and stored it in another file. So me and Christiane decided to take our next step an buy an apartment closer to the main city of our little town. We prepared everything for the move and the day before it should take place Christiane got a lighted appendix. So we had to do the move without her advices and finished it in time. Later this year we started for a longer trip to Thailand. Also a place I haven't been before. We did it close to our trip to India and traveled the country from north to south in local buses or trains. This yourney might be the reason why I am so addicted to South East Asia. Not only the people that are most friendly and helpful it is also the scenery, vegetation and meals. And these countries makes it easy to me to recreate and load up my battery. What else do you need sometimes more than sitting with a cold beer and a lovely woman by your side at pretty beach watching the sundown?
Another year with very good records:
Kings of Leon - Youth and Young Manhood: 4 brothers bring us back classic rock
The White Stripes - Elephant: It's the record I noticed them
Belle & Sebastian - Dear Catastrophe Waitress: Another album with great songs
The Rapture - Echoes: Dance punk at it's best
Calexico - Feast of Wire: Their next one on high level
Ben Harper - Diamonds on the Inside: Fantastic songs
The Raveonettes - Chain Gang of Love: Simply great
Warren Zevon - The Wind: See my words below
Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros - Streetcore: His legacy
Sons and Daughters - Love the Cup: Superb Scottish music
And songs as well:
And as ever - some remarkable movies:
Mystic River: Great story and a fantastic Sean Penn
Monster: Charlize Theron shows us the darkest sides
Cold Mountain: Wonderful western according to the novel
Love Actually: One of the every years christmas movies
Bend it like Beckham: Nice story about women and football
Once Upon a Time in Mexico: Classic drama
Kill Bill 1.: The revenge of the bride
What happened in the world and was necessary to recall:
Another African Drama: The war in Dafur begins // Global protest against the Iraq war // The Indonesian military starts a operation in the Aceh province // A lot of east European countries join the European Union // The Concorde makes his last commercial flight // Saddam Hussein is captured at the end of the year.
Once more it was hard to decide which record I should feature on this series. The record that touched me most emotional was Warren Zevon's The Wind. Not because it was his last one. He recorded it while he was sick of lung cancer and he told us in his words to say good bye. I'll feature this record in another series these days. So let's go to todays record. It is probably one of the best debut albums in the last decade. British Sea Power brought us back the spirit of Post Punk, New Wave and Independent Rock. Based on the best of Joy Division, Echo and the Bunnymen and early Pixies they give us a full load of wonderful guitars. Most songs has catchy rhythms and the singer fits to all the songs. Beneath songs with heavy leading guitars shines the febrile hymn The Lately that ends in organized chaos.
I think this one of the most known songs ever. The original version was recorded by Nina Simone back in 1964 to be covered by Eric Burdon and the Animals in a blues-rock version. I noticed this song on one of my first records I bought from my own earned money. It was on the first Joe Cocker record and was on heavy rotation for a long time.
A disco version of this song by Santa Esmeralda, which took The Animals' arrangement and added some disco, flamenco, salsa and other Latin rhythm became a worldwide hit in the early 70s. Samples of the hand clapping can be found on Missy Elliot's 'Pass the Dutch'. It was also featured in Kill Bill 1 during the final fight between The Bride and O-Ren Ishii
