Sunday, May 14, 2006

A praise to whimsy

His rival it seems had broken his dreams
By stealing the girl of his fancy.
Her name was Magil and she called herself Lil
But everyone knew her as Nancy.
Now she and her man (who called himself Dan)
Were in the next room at the hoe down
-- Rocky Racoon by The Beatles

I'd like to call a toast to whimsy in art.
Great messages are, uh, great. But we must not forget that a prime function of art is whimsy, inventiveness, and just fun.
Strangely, some of the best people for that, in music, is the Japanese. Perhaps it is a reaction to the extremely hard and serious culture they live in.
The Beatles was impressive in that their most whimsical work was at the end of their run, a time when most others have lost it. Just look at the fantastic artists Kate Bush and Sinead O'Connor. Both of those did wonderful fancyful and carefree work for a few years and then got bogged down in expectations or whatever, and everything got so serious and frankly rather boring.

I am a cat but got no tin tin tail
Put on a pinkly lip cream on funny face
But I'm a cat live in a candy canvas
And I am happy happy staying in here....

Fantastic Cat
I play my mini mini moog
Fantastic Cat
I play a piece of strange music
hoo hoo...
I'm a fantastic cat
Are you OK? Here I go!
-- Fantastic Cat by Takako Minekawa

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