Inappropriate Reference to Beckett on Bloomsday
Jun 16th, 2010 by Donagh
I was just listening to Dave Barker’s I’ve Got to Get Away for the first time and I thought that is sounded familiar.
And then I remembered. It’s a Massive Attack song from their Mezzanine album. Or rather it’s a cover. The original was by Horace Andy & The Paragons. Or was it Dave Barker’s originally and was covered by Horace Andy? I have no idea. Massive Attack attribute it to Andy anyway.
Here’s the Massive Attack version of the song which they’ve called Man Next Door. For added interest some YouTuber has put it over Film directed by Alan Schneider, starring Buster Keaton and written, of course by Samuel Beckett. Although the minimal lyrics match the plot I can’t think of a less appropriate soundtrack.
Lady GaGa maybe? But this impression might be due to Beckett’s passion for music and his well known fastidiousness about how his work is presented. I remember keeping a dictionary beside me when I read Murphy and finding out that many of the obscure words I hadn’t recognized related to classical music. Sticking a pop song, no matter how good, on top of his work seems to put everything out of kilter.
Dean Baker? Dave Barker? Freudian slip? I just read your post Class in Ireland, An Immodest Proposal, from Sept 2007, and found it very. interesting. indeed. This site will provide quite the ongoing distraction from my academic duties. Thanks!
Hehehe, yeah, Freudian slip. Dean Baker is of course more familiar to me than Dave Barker but thanks for pointing out the error.
Class in Ireland, An Immodest Proposal is all Conor’s work. For further distraction you should check out his longer piece in the Irish Left Review from 2008.
http://www.irishleftreview.org/2008/02/21/michael-zweig-class-consumerism-ireland/
yes, I do apologise, not sure why I thought this was him - it’s quite clearly you!
I once in mid 90’s- under some serious time pressure - cogged the script for ‘Film’ - and used it for a music video by a Dublin Band called BAWL for a song called Glen Campbell Nights. I shot it on one roll of colour 16 mm film. It was broadcast by No Disco at the time.
The band got picked up by a bigger label and the label liked the video - not knowing anything about its origin - and then hired a hot shot london director who proceeded to remake said video. He remade it from my template - not knowing anything about the origin of it. It was some laugh seeing the bastardised version that emerged at the end of the process. Made up somewhat for the annoyance of some guy getting paid mucho to cog an Idea I’d originally cogged! Neither version has been ‘tubed unfortuanately.
http://www.discogs.com/artist/Bawl
Hahaha, brilliant, a visual chinese whispers although with the elements remaining the same. Clearly the lion’s share should go to Beckett for writing a script that was clearly a forrunner of the modern music video.
Always thought that Not I would make a good music video with someone singing, of course, rather than the rapid word fire of the original.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8C4HL2LyWU&feature=related
Anyway, great story