Saturday, May 10, 2014

Blackadder Goes Forth Whistling A Gershwin Tune


Sometimes I get carried away by an image. It need not be an image of natural beauty or searing drama; often it is in the prosaic that fascination resides. Take, for example, this record cover along with its 78rpm shellac disk which I must have picked up from some junk shop for pennies rather than pounds and which now resides on one of my bookshelves forever hoping that I will crank up my old gramophone. There is something about the colour, the texture, the design and the wording that endlessly fascinates me. I could gaze at the cover for a full 3 minutes and 19 seconds and obtain almost as much enjoyment from the sight of it than as from the sound of its contents. But why limit yourself to the look when you can hear the record as well. My thanks to that legion of lovers of old music who make some of the fine tunes of the past available on platforms such as YouTube.

5 comments:

  1. I'd rather look at the image than hear the record. :) Little things like the period at the end of Saloon and the period after Gramophone but a comma after Dealer. The color, the hypens... I really like it too; a reminder of simpler times I suppose. When we used typewriters. Maybe.

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  2. A great relic to have in your collection. They were the days of real music and real bands

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  3. That is a great-looking little package!

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  4. Nothing like the sound of a Victrola...that is what we called them over here. We had one in the museum that I would crank up for the visitors:)

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  5. I really should get down to that stack of 78s...but nothing to play them on. Yes - the label and the sleeve are strangely evocative and, somehow, comforting. Isn't YouTube fun!

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