{"id":5706,"date":"2018-05-01T07:16:11","date_gmt":"2018-05-01T07:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/?p=5706"},"modified":"2018-06-06T16:11:01","modified_gmt":"2018-06-06T16:11:01","slug":"cry-baby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/?p=5706","title":{"rendered":"Cry, Baby"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Cry Me a River\/sammydavisdog\/flickr<\/p><\/div>\n

Is there any music that is guaranteed to turn on the waterworks, as far as you\u2019re concerned? I\u2019m afraid there are a number of pieces that I can only listen to with a box of tissues nearby, and I am obviously far too easily moved to tears. Mr Verity will not let me forget one particularly shameful episode, when, replete with leftover Christmas pudding (q.v. \u2018Hands Off My Christmas Rituals\u2019), I fell asleep in front of the telly, woke up for the last five minutes of La Traviata<\/em>, and instantly dissolved into sobbing, snotty mess. All of this got me to wondering how it is that music exerts this effect \u2013 though I can\u2019t claim to have come up with an answer.<\/p>\n

It was Noel Coward who said that it was \u2018Extraordinary how potent cheap music is.\u2019 But in this context, what is cheap music? I\u2019d define it as piece written to be deliberately tear jerking. I love cheap music when it comes to bubble gum pop and novelty songs (Leapy Lea\u2019s \u2018Little Arrows\u2019 is a particular favourite), but I\u2019m impervious to the mawkishness that oozes out of every bar of Bobby Goldsboro\u2019s \u2018Honey\u2019: \u2018One day while I was not at home\/While she was there and all alone\/The angels came . . . ‘ \u2013 I ask you!<\/p>\n

There are more subtle ways to generate emotion, and the curious phenomenon of DESH is a sure-fire winner. DESH stands for diatonic enhancement of static harmonies, and no, I don\u2019t know what that means either, but as far as I can gather it\u2019s the recipe for a sequence of descending chords that conjures up a mood of exquisite melancholy. You can hear it in pieces as varied as Pachelbel\u2019s Canon, Bach\u2019s Air on a G String, the Moody Blues\u2019s \u2018Go Now\u2019, and \u2018A Whiter Shade of Pale\u2019.<\/p>\n

But in deciding on my Desert Island weepies, I realised that all my choices were songs rather than instrumentals, meaning that there are concrete images and powerful concepts acting with the musical manipulation. (My only rule was that carols were automatically excluded as too obvious. Inviting people to their offspring\u2019s nativity play and then expecting them to sing when their eyes are swimming and their throats constricted is just plain cruel.)<\/p>\n

So here\u2019s my list \u2013 from childhood to maturity \u2013 but with no guarantees that some other song won\u2019t hijack me at some point, with a danger of flooding. (Click on the titles to listen to the songs.)<\/p>\n

1. Puff the Magic Dragon, Peter, Paul and Mary<\/strong><\/a>
\nUncle Mac used to play this regularly on the radio, and once I noticed the words \u2013 ‘One grey night it happened\/Jackie Paper came no more\/And Puff that mighty dragon, he ceased his fearless roar’ \u2013 there was no stopping me. My sister often came out in sympathy, leaving my mother with two wailing wusses to contend with.<\/p>\n

2. Donna, Joan Baez<\/strong><\/a>
\nA song about a calf (with a mournful eye) on the way to slaughter: need I say more?<\/p>\n

3. Needle of Death, Bert Jansch<\/strong><\/a>
\nWhen I first heard this back in the day, I must admit there was probably some ghastly heroin chic at work, but its impact now comes through the verse \u2018Your mother stands a’cryin’\/While to the earth your body’s slowly cast\/Your father stands in silence\/Caressing every young dream of the past.\u2019<\/p>\n

4. Mandolin Wind, Rod Stewart<\/strong><\/a>
\nMore cattle: this time \u2018buffalo died in the frozen fields\u2019. No humans died, but the bleakness of the landscape, the raw urgency of Rod Stewart\u2019s voice, with the plangent sound of the mandolin \u2026<\/p>\n

5. We\u2019re Off to Button Moon, Peter Davison and Sandra Dickinson<\/strong><\/a>
\nWe had a cassette of stories from this children\u2019s television programme about space-travelling kitchen utensils that we would sometimes leave playing. The lyrics of the theme song were nothing, but the wistful melody, combined with the vulnerability of sleeping infants, and the knowledge of the transience of this moment, was nearly unbearable.<\/p>\n

6. Thousands Are Sailing, Planxty<\/strong><\/a>
\nWhen I first really listened to the lyrics of this song, rather than just having it playing in the background, it did for me \u2013 much to the consternation of everyone else in the car with me at the time. Liam O\u2019Flynn\u2019s light voice in individualises the stories of the thousands forced to leave Ireland in search of a better life in the US: \u2018Oh I pity the mother who rears up the child\/And likewise the father who labors and toils\/To try to support them, he will work night and day\/And when they are reared up they will go away.\u2019<\/p>\n

7. \u2018His Yoke is Easy\u2019, Messiah<\/strong><\/a>
\nNo muscular Christianity here, just a promise as warm and comfortable as a feather bed, and transcendent harmonies.<\/p>\n

8. When I Grow Up, Tim Minchin<\/strong><\/a>
\nThe latest addition to the roll-call: in a sudden break from all the riotous anarchy of Matilda<\/em>, the children sing a song expressing hopes that we, as adults, know will be dashed: \u2018When I grow up,\/I will be brave enough\/To fight the creatures that you have to fight beneath the bed\/Each night to be a grown up.\u2019<\/p>\n

So: what are the tracks of your tears?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Me, I love a novelty song . . . <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":5708,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,67,53],"tags":[95,81,96],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5706"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5706"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5706\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5714,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5706\/revisions\/5714"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damesnet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}