Mary Poppins Review Cover Is Not the Book Inappropriate
The great comic songwriters tin dazzle, shock, illuminate, and convey a complex or subversive series of ideas almost by stealth, argues Alexander Larman
The recent Disney family unit extravaganza Mary Poppins Returns features a variety of songs: some charming, some wistful and some sad. Yet the one that has gathered the most attention and interest – and, perhaps non coincidentally, is the most played on Spotify at the time of writing – is the show-stopping 'A Comprehend Is Not The Volume'. Featuring Emily Blunt (as Poppins) doing her best Cockney accent, Hamilton's Lin-Manuel Miranda engaging in an extended patter verse halfway through and a suitably boisterous music-hall arrangement (courtesy of composer Marc Shaiman), information technology'south enormous fun. Then ane pays closer attention to the lyrics, courtesy of Shaiman's frequent collaborator Scott Wittman.
It is a off-white assumption that most U-certificate films will not contain jokes virtually dipsomaniac bibliophiles, liberation of the sexually repressed or naked heiresses, on the grounds that their target audience would exist baffled, bored or shocked. Notwithstanding 'A Comprehend Is Not The Book' takes its rightful place in the tradition of such groovy innuendo-laden musical show-stoppers as My Fair Lady's 'Get Me To The Church On Time' and, more recently, The Greatest Showman'southward 'The Other Side'. When Edgeless sings about a woman's 'roots' being 'lush and green', to the accompaniment of priapically thumping drums, or notes of the exploits of 'a dingy rascal' that 'the quicker you're into it, the quicker yous're out of it', it is surprising that Shaiman and Wittman always managed to get away with such unabashed filth – and in Mary Poppins, at that. Every bit the song builds to its rousing climax, musical aficionados might note that any resemblance between 'A Cover' and Shaiman's earlier, bright satirical masterpiece 'Blame Canada', from South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut is entirely intentional.
Shaiman and Wittman (presumably with the contrivance of the filmmakers) are continuing a fine tradition that writers of comic songs have been engaging in since at to the lowest degree the seventeenth century, and probably before. Restoration comedies often contained an interlude in which the cantankerous-dressing female star would sing an apparently sweet and wholesome dearest ode to the play's hero, but anyone paying the slightest scrap of attention would annotation that outrageous sexual allusion would be inextricably entwined. Suffice it to say that a virginal young lady singing of her neat love and appreciation for 'red china' was not thinking of an early course of Royal Doulton.
Emily Blunt at the 'Mary Poppins Returns' Japan premiere in Tokyo (Photo by Keith Tsuji/Getty Images for Disney)
In this, the plays reflected the life of the street, where ballad-sellers sold songs sentimental or suggestive, depending on the sense of taste of the purchaser. Mayhap unsurprisingly, most of the ballads that have survived today – such as 'The May-Day Country Mirth, Or, The Young Lads and Lasses' Innocent Recreation' – fall heavily into the latter category. Yet they were suggestive, rather than explicit; the raunchier songs written by the notorious likes of the poet John Wilmot, earl of Rochester, would have seen ballad-sellers whipped if they had been caught selling them.
Even so, this was a balmy punishment compared to what would await those who put satirical songs well-nigh the court – or, even worse, the king – in the public domain. In extremis, this might pb to transportation, or even the death penalty. It is unsurprisingly, then, that most comic treatments of club verged on the mild, at least until the late Victorian era, when Gilbert and Sullivan produced a series of operettas that took aim at diverse institutions. Although One thousand&Due south today take a reputation for tuneful cosiness, William Gilbert'southward lyrics often take a vigour and bite to them that are the equal of any comic genius today. Take, for case, the damning 'Sir Joseph Porter's Vocal' from HMS Pinafore, better known equally 'When I Was A Lad', a brilliant satire on institutional incompetence. In information technology, we larn that the young Porter'southward stellar career was down to advancement, rather than any talent; he 'polished upwardly that handle so intendance-ful-ly/That now I am the ruler of the Queen's navy'. Sir Joseph, of course, has an additional political career. In our turbulent era, the lines 'I always voted at my political party'southward call/And I never thought of thinking for myself at all' might elicit a groan, rather than the intended laughter.
His satire on Sixties race relations, 'National Brotherhood Week', with lyrics mocking well-meaning only facile attempts to bring America together, is a masterpiece of perfectly barbed wit
Gilbert and Sullivan'south subjects tin sometimes seem obscure and out-of-date today; their 1881 operetta, Patience, attacks the then-modish aesthetic movement, and in one case-daring references to 'an zipper à la Plato/For a inconversable young murphy/Or a not-likewise-French French bean' now seem pleasantly amusing, rather than scandalous or shocking. This is non the case with their 20th century successor,Tom Lehrer, who adapted their 'Modern Major-Full general's Song' to act every bit a double-time recitation of the periodic tabular array in 'The Elements'. Lehrer has a decent claim to be the last century's most influential and significant figure in musical one-act, thank you to the witty and distinctly black-humoured songs that he performed at the piano.
Some of these, such as the morbid 'Your Paw In Mine', have the Gothic humour of Roald Dahl, but others feel near the knuckle and edgy, fifty-fifty today. His satire on Sixties race relations, 'National Brotherhood Calendar week', with lyrics mocking well-pregnant merely facile attempts to bring America together, is itself a masterpiece of perfectly barbed wit. Lehrer's introduction on the live recording emphasises this, as he notes, deadpan, 'During National Brotherhood Calendar week diverse special events are arranged to drive dwelling the message of brotherhood – this twelvemonth, for case, on the first mean solar day of the week, Malcolm X was killed, which gives you an thought of how effective the whole thing is.' In our sensitive and broken-hearted age, it is incommunicable to imagine anyone making a similar annotate without their career beingness over immediately.
Tim Minchin (Photo by Jo Hale/Redferns)
Today, musical humour notwithstanding thrives, albeit without so distinctive a figure as Lehrer. Possibly its leading calorie-free is Tim Minchin, whose mainstream success with the musical of Matilda brought his dexterous wordplay and musical talents to a wide and beholden audience. Those who take been to his concerts might come across another, less family unit-friendly side to Minchin, who is unafraid to take on topical targets with both wit and anger. In his 2010 set on on Pope Benedict XVI'due south credible willingness to plough a blind center to issues of child abuse in the Catholic church, 'The Pope Song', the litany of 'fucks' that the vocal opens with soon segues into a more cerebral, if no less sweary, register.
As he sings 'If you don't like the swearing that this motherfucker forced from me/And reckon that information technology shows moral or intellectual paucity/Then fuck y'all, motherfucker, this is linguistic communication 1 employs/When one is fucking cross almost fuckers fucking boys'. Later in the song, he rhymes 'rapist' with 'papist'. It is a deservedly angry cry for justice and righteousness: a very long way indeed from Miss Trunchbull and unfortunate only vivid little girls.
Simply setting witless obscenities to music does not make them whatever more interesting to listen to: any number of end-of-the-pier comedians have failed
Notwithstanding for every piece of comic songwriting that engages with the wrongs of club – or simply the worse impulses of those within it – at that place can be another that is simply riotously entertaining. Such an example tin be found in Neil Hannon's cricket-themed band The Duckworth Lewis Method, and their song 'Jiggery Pokery'. Although Hannon's main project, the Divine One-act, is more than capable of their ain social satire – every bit on his 2010 vocal 'The Complete Broker', a withering assail on those who caused the financial crisis –'Jiggery Pokery' displays a lighter side in its musical account of Mike Gatting being bowled out by Shane Warne with the then-called 'Ball of the Century' at the Ashes in 1993.
Told from the perspective of Gatting equally he prepares to confront Warne – 'I took the pucker to great applause, and focused on me dinner' – it is a riotous and hilarious account of how 'the blithering erstwhile buffoon' was outsmarted by his Australian rival. The vocal has no higher satirical purpose other than to entertain, but Hannon'south lyrical gifts have seldom been more appropriately used than in the verse 'How such a ball could exist bowled/I don't know simply if you ask me/If it had been a cheese roll/It would never have got past me.'
The great comic songwriter, then, can use their rare talents to enviable effect at their all-time. They tin dazzle, daze, illuminate, convey a circuitous or destructive serial of ideas almost past stealth, and wrap the whole package in the catchiest of tunes. This is a difficult act to get correct, and any number of stop-of-the-pier comedians accept failed; simply setting witless obscenities to music does not brand them any more interesting to listen to. Yet the few who can get it correct manage to enliven our listening in, to quote the original Mary Poppins, 'the most delightful fashion', even if the medicine that we are taking is oft accompanied by a dose of the most delicious salt, rather than sugar.
Source: https://unbound.com/boundless/2019/02/28/the-sting-of-a-comic-song/
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