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A couple of semi-random thoughts related to the connective tissue between music and cinema:

Sunday night I made the journey up to D.C. to catch the Swell Season, a partnership between Glen Hansard of the Frames and 19-year-old Czech singer/pianist Marketa Irglova. The two musicians co-starred in the indie film Once, which I discussed in this blog a couple of times a few months ago.

Their live performance -- which included Frames members Colm Mac Con Iomaire on violin and Joe Doyle on bass, plus cellist Bertrand Galen -- was probably the best show I've seen all year. We'll have a full review of one of their recent concerts in the Northwest in our January-February print edition; meantime, if you live in one of the few towns still remaining on this tour's itinerary (Boston, Montreal, Toronto, Chicago), consider yourself duly notified.

The big hanging question is whether their song "Falling Slowly" will be recognized by the Oscars when nominations are announced in January. It's certainly deserving; no song could possibly have carried more emotional impact for its film than when "Falling Slowly" swelled up during the final scene of Once. The Oscars do have a history of acknowledging terrific music from small but acclaimed indie films (Elliott Smith's "Miss Misery" from Good Will Hunting, Jorge Drexler's "Al Otro Lado Del Rio" from The Motorcycle Diaries), so don't be surprised if you see Hansard and Irglova onstage at the Academy Awards come February.

On the drive back from D.C. the next day, I slipped into the CD player a recent Norah Jones promo-only odds-and-ends collection sent out by her label Blue Note, apparently as a reminder about some of Jones' ancillary non-album forays this past year. The concluding, and most moving, track of the bunch was her version of Gene Scheer's "American Anthem", which was the musical anchor for the recent Ken Burns PBS epic The War.

A nice little subversive humanity-improvement prank to play on the mass population would be to alter all CDs, iPods, jukeboxes, and such which contain versions of Lee Greenwood's "God Bless The U.S.A." so that when that song is selected, what plays instead would be Jones' version of "American Anthem". The world would be a better place if someone could somehow pull that off. Not only is Jones' version exquisitely touching in its subtlety compared to Greenwood's melodramatic bombast, but lyrically there's just no comparison in terms of eloquence and elegance, no matter what one's political views. Consider the two:

"I'd thank my lucky stars
To be livin' here today
'Cause the flag still stands for freedom
And they can't take that away."

and...

"Let them say of me I was one who believed
In sharing the blessings I received
Let me know in my heart when my days are through
America, America, I gave my best to you."

See if you can guess which is which.

adios,
peter

Posted by peter on November 20, 2007 5:37 PM | Permalink