It's about music!

Fri Apr 1 14:12:00 CDT 2016

Isn't there a Pynchon fakebook out there somewhere? Maybe I'm thinking of
Monty Python...In any case, I think at least the majority of the songs are
just lyrics which imply a certain type of musical phrasing. Some of them
are trickier to get than others, and I haven't taken the time to analyze
them all. I'm not convinced that they all work as real tunes, but if one
took the time to explore them, that theory could be proven wrong. Knowing
Mr. P's work, he probably took the time to make sure they do.

On Fri, Apr 1, 2016 at 3:02 PM, Smoke Teff <smoketeff at gmail.com> wrote:

> Everything you say here, Laura, I second. Including especially compliments
> to Kai.
>
> On Apr 1, 2016, at 1:39 PM, <kelber at mindspring.com> <kelber at mindspring.com>
> wrote:
>
> Great stuff, Kai. It's always been a source of frustration for me that I
> don't have the musical knowledge to make sense of what the songs might
> potentially sound like. Hints such as "close-harmony trombones" are lost on
> me. On first hitting those Pynchon songs, I thought it was only a matter of
> figuring out the popular tune it was based on (like the old Mad Magazine
> satirical songs, "sung to the tune of …"). Is it your sense, Kai (or
> anyone) that Pynchon had exact tunes in mind when he wrote these, or is he
> just riffing with words?  I know there've been a number of attempts at
> adding music to Pynchon's lyrics (Just a Floozy With an Uzi). But what a
> great project for a musicologist to write/compose a definitive
> written/audio work on the music, employing as many hints as are available.
>
> Laura
>
> -----Original Message-----
>
> From: Kai Frederik Lorentzen
>
> Sent: Apr 1, 2016 8:06 AM
>
> To: pynchon -l
>
> Subject: Re: It's about music!
>
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> > ... Pynchon's phrasing as a writer follows the musical
> criteria of flow, he's the auditive type of writer (- in contrary
> to more visually orientated authors like, for example, Ernst
> Jünger or Claude Simon) ... Especially obvious this becomes with
> the incorporation of songs into the novels, which is, on this
> world-literary level, as far as I can see unique ... <
>
>
>
> While Homer could write his 'novels' still in verses ("Versepen"),
> modern writers have, even if they're poets like Rilke ("Die
> Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge", 1910), to write their
> novels in prose. The quoted or - like most often in Pynchon's case
> - created verses respectively song lyrics thus are a) poetry in
> prose, b) graphic interludes and c) music in literature. All three
> aspects play a role in Pynchon's use of songs.
>
>
>
> The idea to turn his texts temporarily into a jukebox Pynchon must
> have had early on. Already in "Low-Lands" this becomes obvious.
> This early short story not only contains three lines from a Noel
> Coward song - "Is this Noel Coward or some shit?"(GR, p. 709) -,
> but also, later on, four lines of a song Pynchon himself seems to
> have written (at least the lyrics of it):
>
>
>
> "A ship I have got in the North Country
>
> And she goes by the name of the Golden Vanity,
>
> O, I fear she will be taken by a Spanish Ga-la-lee,
>
> As she sails by the Low-lands low."
>
>
>
> Note the "Ga-la-lee" which emphasizes the actually musical
> dimension. In other cases, Pynchon also gives hints about the way
> how to arrange the songs, which gives the reader the opportunity
> to intuit the musical details. Like in the third song
> ("Yes---I'm---the---/Fellow that's ha-ving other peop-le's
> fan-tasies ...") of Gravity's Rainbow which appears on page 12 and
> where it says in between:
>
>
>
> "[Now over a lotta tubas and close-harmony trombones]"
>
>
>
> Can you hear them?
>
>
>
> By the time of V, Pynchon was very sure about this special style
> feature of his and already used it with a certain self-evidence.
> The first chapter of V contains four songs on 34 pages. No song
> appears in the first chapter of The Crying of Lot 49, but in the
> second there are no less than three on just 14 pages. "The Secret
> Integration" has drunken soldiers singing "Mine eyes have seen the
> misery of the coming of the draft,/ And the day I got the letter
> ...". (I was a Kriegsdienstverweigerer and did Civil Service
> instead of going to the army, taking care of seniors who were
> still able to live alone in their condos. It was twice the time it
> would have been in the army, 20 instead of ten months, and thus
> rather long when you're young, but it was an experience - actually
> I had a client, her condo contained a samovar and an incredible
> number of books, who had experienced the Bolshevist revolution as
> a teenager and had stories about it to tell - I wouldn't like to
> miss.) In Vineland, the first song appears on pp. 43-44, the
> second on page 51, and the third on pp. 78-99; Mason & Dixon
> offers the first song on pages 18-19, the second on pages 27-28,
> and the third on page 34; in Against the Day the first two songs
> appear on pp. 15 and 49-50; in Inherent Vice the first three songs
> can be heard on pp. 43-44, 51 and 78-79. Although Pynchon seems to
> have grown a little tired of song writing by the time of Bleeding
> Edge - after the initial five lines from the fictional Leonard
> Bernstein musical (pp. 55-56) where Robert Moses sings "Throw
> those Puerto/Ricans out in the/street---It's just a/slum. Tear it
> all/do-o-own!", the reader has to wait until pp. 152-153 before he
> gets to hear another song -, I could imagine that this, perhaps,
> has to do with the problems music itself is facing in our
> retromanic times. People don't read anymore - and certainly not in
> Pynchon novels like Vineland or Bleeding Edge! - and the music is
> just there to provide your mobile phone with a catchy ringtone or
> to present yourself on a Karaoke night.
>
>
>
> Here are the page numbers for the songs or fragments thereof from
> Beyond the Zero:
>
>
>
> 8-9, 11, 12, 14-15, 61-62, 66 ("Down the toilet, lookit me,/What a
> silly thing to do!/Hope nobody takes a pee,/Yippy dippy dippy doo
> ..."), 67, 68, 108 (Dutch traditional), 129/136 (Suso: In Dulci
> Jubilo), 163, 174-175, 177. This makes a song density of 14 tracks
> in 174 pages. The best songs are, imho, to come later on in the
> book. Here's one from pp. 229-230, sung by "rats 'n' mice", which
> I chose because of our recent debate on behaviorism:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> PAVLOVIA (Beguine)
>
>
>
> It was spring in Pavlovia-a-a,
>
> I was lost, in a maze ...
>
> Lysol breezes perfumed the air,
>
> I'd been searching for days,
>
> I found you, in a cul-de-sac,
>
> As bewildered as I---
>
> We touched noses, and suddenly
>
> My heart learned how to fly!
>
>
>
> So, together, we found our way,
>
> Shared a pellet, or two ...
>
> Like an evening in some café,
>
> Wanting nothing, but you ...
>
>
>
> Autumn's come to Pavlovia-a-a,
>
> Once again, I'm alone---
>
> Finding sorrow by millivolts,
>
> Back to neurons and bone.
>
> And I think of our moments then,
>
> Never knowing your name---
>
> Nothing's left in Pavlovia,
>
> But the maze, and the game ...
>
>
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>
> I wish you all a weekend with music!
>
>
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>
> On 21.12.2015 12:57, Kai Frederik Lorentzen wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Or at least also about music ... One may see bigger themes in
> Pynchon --- "the century's master cabal" (V, p. 226), technology,
> "the fork in the road America never took" (GR, p. 556), or (since
> Vineland) family --- but music, though this is rarely analyzed by
> the academic Pyndustry, plays a certain role in all of Pynchon's
> books ... And not just one genre of music, music in general ...
> There's an ongoing interest in classical music, from Stravinsky in
> V to Wagner and Puccini in Bleeding Edge, including, among other
> things, fictional Kazoo pieces from Vivaldi (TCoL49, chapter 1)
> and Haydn (GR, p. 711) ... But also - from McClintic Sphere's
> saxophone playing in V over Ragtime in Against the Day to the
> HipHop culture in Bleeding Edge - in African American music ...
> Plus lots of other musical phenomena popping up in Pynchon's books
> ... With Zoyd Wheeler we have, in addition to McClintic Sphere,
> another professional musician as male protagonist, here from
> Pynchon's second work phase ... And with Mucho Maas, who goes from
> DJ to record producer (and from acid to blow), there is a music
> related character as an indicator of cultural change connecting
> Pynchon 1 with Pynchon 2 ... Equally relevant: Pynchon's phrasing
> as a writer follows the musical criteria of flow, he's the
> auditive type of writer (- in contrary to more visually orientated
> authors like, for example, Ernst Jünger or Claude Simon) ...
> Especially obvious this becomes with the incorporation of songs
> into the novels, which is, on this world-literary level, as far as
> I can see unique ... What do the musicians on the list say? Is
> Pynchon - as one could perhaps say in analogy to formulations
> like 'writer's writer' and 'musician's musician' - a, well,
> 'musician's writer?' Let me know! ... "The old man was singing, in
> a fine, firm baritone:/ Every night is Christmas Eve on old East
> Main,/ Sailors and their sweethearts all agree./ Neon signs of red
> and green/ Shine upon the friendly scene,/ Welcoming you in from
> off the sea./ Santa's bag is filled with all your dreams come
> true:/ Nickel beers that sparkle like champagne,/ Barmaids who all
> love to screw,/ All of them reminding you/ It's Christmas Eve on
> old East Main." (V, pp. 9-10) ... Cheers!
>
>
>
>
>
> -
>
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=nchon-l
>
> - Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l
>
>

-- 
www.innergroovemusic.com
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