Hilo (Hello+Hi)
Everybody out there on the internet (imagine it sung in a Sesame Street voice),
(before you read this, go to itunes,and listen to the first 3o seconds of each track of ANYWHERE I LAY MY HEAD by SCARLETT JOHANSSON).
I'm just gonna interject here and say how much i love Youtube, and how much i would actually pray to it, if i knew it could grant my wishes. As I write this, I'm watching the entire series of MTV's Daria, the nineties show about the sarcastic girl who was emo before there was a such thing as emo (god, that blonde cheerleader Brittney reminds me of the amazing Harley Quinn), which i haven;'t seen since i was ten. I loved it then , before i really understood it's nuances, but now it's just about the greatest thing ever! Check it out. Oh, and Guy Fawkes Day (the first Iever heard of it), as seen in the Depth Takes A Holiday (Christmas/Halloween/St. Patrick's Day/Valentine's Day/ President's Day) episode, is so Sid Vicious!
Moving on, Everybody has heard of Scarlett (who did you know has dual american and danish citizenship?) as an actress and of her coltish old Hollywood glamour . Whether you know her as a pretty dreamer and romantic from Sofia Coppola's (A Goddess, and one of the best directors ever) Lost in Translation (the 2nd in her trilogy), and Girl with A Pearl Earring, as a sarcastic, disillusioned girl from the cult movie Ghost World, as a Femme Fatale from the noir-esque thriller The Black Dahlia, as a rental movie queen (you know, the kind of movies you wait to see on video) from The Perfect Score, The Nanny Diaries and In Good Company, or as period actress from the tudor movie, The Other Boleyn Girl, and of course, if you're a teenage boy, from the girl-on-girl kiss in Vicky Christina Barcelona, she's definately impressive, and more than your average teen movie star.
But if you saw her singing karoke of The Pretenders' Brass In Pocket in Lost In Translation, or heard her performance of the jazz/blues standby Summertime (originally from the opera Porgy and Bess) on the compilation, Unexpected Dreams- Songs From The Stars, will know that she is also unique in her singing voice.
While she is not the best singer ever, she has a unique voice, and takes risks in her singing choices and arrangements and although she is blonde (which, as i have to keep repeating is no indication of low intelligence or Dumb Blonde-edness), Scarlett's 2008 debut album, ANYWHERE I LAY MY HEAD, a collection of covers of Tom Waits songs is no bland copy or Hilary Duff, or Britney Spears wannabe tracks, and c'mon! She garniered a NYLON cover. Unfortunately, upon release the album recieved largely negative reviews and only sold around 16,000 copies, causing me to question whether the general listening public are truly getting it or are they expecting the bubblegum pop work of another actress turned singer?
But what truly confused me, and drove me to write this testimony in Scarlett's defense was when I saw her breath-taking album and its' understatedly dark beauty in a trashy magazine (which I only read while wandering around the grocery store. Hello! Only NYLON deserves my real time and petty cash)'s list of notorious album flops and actress who tried to be singers who really shouldn't have. Something tells me they only looked at the sales, not the substance.
To understand Anywhere I Lay My Head's theatrical covers, you must first understand the theatrical poetry that is Tom Waits. For a starter course, try TOM WAIT's ALICE, a CD of songs originally meant to soundtrack a stage version of Alice in Wonderland. At the same time, it remains hazy, melanchloic and musing as well as dark, racing, and scary, almost like seductive hot house plants and a exotic dancing (which it just makes my want to practice in front of mirror or a pull a boy into my bed and show him a few tricks), although the poetry and music are tender and thrash-like a fun house mirror, Tom Waits own singing is admittedly not the best, but his albums are about the performance and the lyrics, they're basically poems set to music. In other words, its perfect for Halloween (if you want a real scare, the track Poor Edward, about a boy with a girl's face on the back of his head that could laugh and wink, is true story). Also (also I can't forgo any opportunity to plug this) check out the dark gem of a movie, the soft -focus Wristcutters: A Love Story, the entire movie set after all of the characters have committed suicide.
Scarlett (who, by the way shares my birthday of November 22)'s album features drastically rearranged and reintrepreted versions of classic Tom Waits songs, that sound remarkably like junkyard dances and lush velvets lost to victorian steamer trunks (I'm not sure what that means, it just sounds right). It's dreamy and vibrates with almost 80's sounding rhythms in some points, and even features collaborations with David Bowie (if it has his spectacular seal of approval, it must be great), the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (lead singer Karen O. also shares my birthday), and Celebration. It has texture, layers, and a dense crawling melody, that you can almost feel creeping up your spine. it's filmy, gauzy and avant-garde and majestic, although in some points, the sweeping music, does overwhelm Scarlett's unexpectedly deep voice (she's no soprano), it does it in almost a good way. It's also haunting and provocative and features almost a rainbow of all types of instruments, all completely unexpected on the unprecidented album, making me want to break out the red lipstick and black lace and sequins and go climb a tree or roll around in the grass. it's unremarkable and hard to understand, and is on of those albums you have to repeat over and over again on your ipod just to tell for sure if you really like it. But in listening to it on continuos repeat, you will just fall in love with it even faster.
This morining I work yup to the Forgotten Wonderland-esque instrumental track Fawn, playing like a music box as i got out of bed. I just keep thinking I Don't Wanna Grow Up (EVER!), now lets go to the discotecque! I love that word!
So I'm closing this post with what's gotta be the record of most people with the same birthday mentioned in a single blog post. GO NOVEMBER 22! Oh, and if your out wandering, down go down Fannin Street and remember, home in the Green Grass is Anywhere I Lay My Head.
FILM NOIR. 'Till another day, dears.
And HAPPY GUY FAWKES DAY in advance For November 5th (let's try the arcane holidays this year)!
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