Showing posts with label Welcome to the Monkey House. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Welcome to the Monkey House. Show all posts

Sunday, August 11, 2013

Welcome to the Monkey House: Issa's Sunday Service, #173



Welcome to the Monkey House by The Dandy Warhols on Grooveshark
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Today's song is as brief as brief can get - mere seconds over a single minute yet, though only the title seems to allude to its source, Kurt Vonnegut's Welcome to Monkey House, somehow it feels to me that it captures nicely the spirit of that volume.

Which is pretty weird, since it primarily talks about the outs and ins of the music biz:

Welcome to the Monkey House

  Wire is coming back again
  Elastica got sued by them
  When Michael Jackson dies
  We're covering Blackbird
  And won't it be absurd then
  When no one knows what song they just heard
  Unless someone on the radio tells them first
  So come on come on come on
  Come
  Come on come on come on
  Come on
  Come on come on come on
  You monkeys

The Dandy Warhols have been a late acquired taste for me. Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia is an album I can listen to almost anytime and come away tapping, scratching and smiling. 

On the other side of the coin, Mr. Vonnegut was great fun to hear in person. What follows is one of his routines he regularly trotted out and, like so much of his work, this is at once spot-on, hysterical and somehow is lightly tinged with ennui.

Or maybe I need another cup of tea.

 
 
Perhaps the most famous story from Vonnegut's Welcome to the Monkey House is Harrison Bergeron - if you haven't read it, have a taste.

Nothing like a little Vonnegut to get things straight. 

-----

 Photo by William Cho 



laughing politely
while tea is served...
Buddha
Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue




best,
Don   

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Go to the LitRock web site for a list of all 173 songs