The Troll Doll Channel: 💗FALLING IN LOVE💗

I have discovered a TROVE of 78 rpm recordings from my childhood, all in pristine shape, with nary a pop or a skip. This is one of the real joys of YouTube. I tried to sing some of these songs to my kids a zillion years ago, and they acted like I was crazy (which I am, of course!). But now I feel vindicated, and get to enjoy these any time I want. One of my all-time favorites was Puss in Boots. What I really appreciate now is how good the voiceovers were, with Puss coming across as a total smart-aleck and his master, John, naive and a bit of a dimwit. And the singing was so great! They honestly do not make voices like this any more. People really knew how to sing, and gave their best even on a children's record which would probably not pay them much. What I love about this is how childlike the imagery is, making the romantic aspect a little more comprehensible to kids. I mean - sliding down bannisters? Home runs in baseball? Come to think of it, falling in love IS a little like that. Especially the bannister part.

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They said, 'beautiful eyes' - they said, 'lovely fur'

If I really want to spring the latch on my childhood and release all the hobgoblins of memory, I listen to Children's Record Guild recordings on YouTube. I didn't save any of my originals, which were in bad enough shape when I inherited them from some other family who didn't want them any more. But they didn't go anywhere. They took up residence in the back of my brain. When the internet was relatively new, I discovered "kiddie record" websites which actually SOLD these things, and I was amazed to see they still existed, but I wasn't about to pay $50 for an old beat-up copy of Puss in Boots.

Now  I can hear them, many of them, for free. Some have aged better than others. This might be my favorite - a vastly-simplified version of the Puss in Boots tale, with the main character played by a brash actor with a slightly nasal, possibly New Jersey accent. At the time I just thought Puss was "neat" and didn't notice how American he sounded. 

Then there were the songs. They stuck in the mind. When we  got a kitten in about 1990, I went around the house singing something that made my kids want to climb the walls. It was the song about how Puss learned to talk.

"When I was just a teeny-weeny kitty,
Everyone told me that I looked so pretty.
They said, 'beautiful eyes',
They said, 'lovely fur',
But all I could answer was meow,
or purr."

Pretty soon they were singing it with me, helpless to resist. "My coat was black, my eyes of course were yellow/People always said, what a charming fellow! I wanted to thank them, but I did not know howwww, for all I could answer was purrrr, or meowwww."

When I listen to these things that we played so often, full of familiar skips and scratches that somehow became part of the story, they seem - different. They've changed. For one thing, they're so short. In childhood, time is perceived differently. When we were waiting for Christmas to come, it seemed to take a few thousand years. Now Christmases whip by in a blur, and I want time to go slower so I can at least breathe. The stories now seem almost laughably brief. Puss in Boots was one of the really big, impressive, two-disc recordings, a musical extravaganza, an epic. You had to keep turning records over to hear it. And the whole thing lasts about fifteen minutes! It was hard to fit more than three or four minutes per side on a 78 rpm record, especially a cheaply-manufactured kids' recording. 

Fifteen minutes! Surely those stories lasted hours, because they were a kind of universe we entered. We didn't notice how stupid some of the songs were: 

"Oh a beaver shouldn't bother with a bathrobe
And a raincoat on a reindeer isn't right
And a seal in bedroom slippers
Though he fits them on his flippers
And he zips them up with zippers looks a fright
Now a spider in a sweater is no better,
Hippopotami look horrible in hats,
And a sparrow in a snowsuit looks much worse than one in no suit,
But boots look nice on pussycats
(purrrrrrr, purrrrrrr)
Boots look very nice on pussycats.
(purrrrrrrrrr)."

That song, dumb as it sounds, still kind of gets to me because it's sung rather tenderly, and the "purrrrr, purrrrrr" is quite convincing. Then Puss says, "Thanks, Jahn," and the spell is broken.

All those actors are dead now, because these things were mostly made before I was even born. It was an important cultural genre then, children's records, and even my own kids caught the tail-end of it. And then it all changed. I can't keep up with kids' entertainment now, not sure I even want to, and every day I encounter at least six words that I don't know the meaning of. And yet, in the midst of this alien landscape, I can take a trip backwards any time I want. For free. By the power of YouTube.

Dark times in the farmyard

I almost want to apologize for this. Almost. But not quite. I have a love for old recordings that borders on the obsessive, so much so that I wrote a whole novel around it (Bus People! You can read the whole thing here. Just click on the pink link.)

Bus People: quick links to parts 1 - 12

But never mind that. Now that I have YouTube, I don't have to wait for these bizarre old things to come on the radio or appear on a recording. NO! Here they are, millions of them, thick with dust and outmoded thinking, things you never wanted to hear but are going to hear anyway. 

The first two are - strange - novelty recordings, I guess, with a lot of barnyard stuff on them. But partway through the Farmyard Medley is a shock so unexpected that it literally registered in my gut. You'll know when you get to it.

That leads to the third recording. It's the same song I heard on an old record - so old it had grooves on only one side, and was about 1/2" thick - which I listened to with my friend Nancy, one day in the musty attic when it was raining too hard to do anything else. We found a trove of ancient records that probably hadn't been played since the 1920s, and some of them were far older than that. Cornfield Medley is shocking because of the language, and in particular the casual use of one of the worst words that exists, but the version we heard was even uglier because it involved a "Massa" ordering his slaves around.

Old and horrible, but how far have we come? Things are dark, these days, and the only way around it is to keep going. We're still fighting battles around ugly words, even uglier racism, the ruthlessness of it, the way it diminishes humanity. Back then, it was simply called entertainment.

(Never mind what's on this one. I don't know myself. But there IS a connection to Bus People, in that nobody is quite sure who this is.)

Turn again, Dick Whittington

An Old BALLAD of 

WHITTINGTON and his CAT.

Who from a poor BOY, came to be THRICE LORD-

MAYOR of LONDON.

HERE I must tell the praise of worthy Whittington,

Known to be in his days Lord-Mayor of London.

But of poor parents born was he, we hear,

And in his youth brought up in Somersetshire

Poorly then up to London came this simple lad,

And with a merchant soon a dwelling had:

And in the kitchen placd, a scullion for to be, 

And a long time he passd his labour drugingly.

His daily labour was turning spits at the fire,

To scour pots for a poor scullion's hire.

Meat and drink his pay, of coin he had no store,

And to run away in secret thus he bore:

So from the merchant Whittington secretly

Into the country run, to purchase liberty.

But as he went along in a fine summers morn,

London bells sweetly rung, Turn again Whittington

Evermore sounding so, Turn again Whittington,

For thou in time shalt be Lord mayor of London,

Whereupon back came Whittington with speed,

A servant to remain, as the Lord had decreed.

Still blessed be the bells, this was the daily song,

That my Good fortune tell; most sweetly have they rung,

If God so favours me, I will not be unkind,

London my Love shall see, and my bounty find.

But for this happy chance, this scullion had a cat,

That did his fame advance, and him wealth go.

Whittington had no more but his poor cat then,

Which to the ship he bore like a valiant man.

Venturing the same, says he, I may get store of gold,

And the Mayor of London be, the bells have me told

Whittingtons merchandize carried unto the land,

Troubled with rats and mice as we do understand,

The king who there reignd, as at dinner sat,

Daily in fear remaind of many a mouse and rat:

Meat that on trenchers lay, no way could they keep safe,

But by rats torn away, fearing no whip or staff.

Hereupon they brought, Whittingtons fine cat,

By the king was bought, heaps of gold given for that.

Home again they hie, with their ship laden so,

Whittingtons wealth by his cat began to go.

A scullions life he forsook, to be a merchant good,

And soon began to look how his credit stood.

After he was chose Sheriff of the city we hear,

And then quickly rose, as it doth appear.

For the citys grace, Sir Richard Whittington,

Came to be in his days thrice Lord Mayor of Lon-don.

His Fame to advance, thousands he lent the king

To maintain war in France, glory from thence to bring.

And after a feast, which he the King did make,

He burnt the note in Jest, and would no money take

Prisoners cherishd were, widows comfort founp

Good deeds far and near by him were done,

Whittingtons College is one of his charities,

Newgate he built, where many prisoner lies.

Many more deeds were done by Whittington,

Which joy and comfort bring to those that look on.

Somerset, thou hast bred the flower of charity,

Altho hes dead and gone, yet he lives lastingly.

Call him back no more to live in London,

Those bells that calld him back, Turn again Whittington.

Printed and Sold in Aldermary Church 

Yard, London.

This, as usual, started off as Something Else. Every once in a while I become feverish to find the records of my childhood: those scratchy old 78s that occasionally surface on the internet, sounding better than they ever did when I was (seemingly, by the sound of them) using them as Frisbees or even eating lunch off them.

I found lots of them: Pinocchio with Paul Winchell (though I loathe the man and his offputtingly aggressive voice), The Travels of Babar, Robin Hood, Cinderella, Pedro in Brazil, Build Me a House, Slow Joe, and . . . the rest wouldn't interest anyone else.  But it's a strange feeling to listen to something you haven't heard in 50+ years, such as Jimmy Stewart narrating a completely charming version of Winnie the Pooh. The voices of the characters are so perfect that it makes the horrible Disney version even more cringe-inducing (see: Paul Winchell as a thoroughly obnoxious Tigger).

You'd think all these weird auditory vibes from the deep past would bring back your  childhood in a flood, but they actually don't. There's a  lot of variation in quality, and sappiness is the norm. The thing I notice most, eerily, is how short these things are. Each side of a 78 is only 3 or 4 minutes long, and they used to last at least a half-hour. Or so I thought.  Robin Hood or some other four-sided epic would go on for hours, not for 14 minutes! I can only surmise this is the same phenomenon that made it seem like years and years while you were waiting for it to be Christmas.

On a site called Kiddie Records Weekly I rediscovered, to my dismay, a few recordings which had been shoved down our throats (for I didn't buy any of these myself - they were purchased by my parents): Pee Wee the Piccolo, Pan the Piper, and the dreaded Rusty in Orchestraville (with the Miracle of Sonovox!). These were part of our Musical Education and were simply dreadful, and even more dreadful when I forced myself to listen to them again.

But then today I happened upon a very short and very dear-to-me record, a story only four minutes long that as a child I had not encountered anywhere else. It was Dick Whittington and His Cat. 

I guess it's a silly record, but then, why did it make me cry? Why does it still make me cry? It's, to some extent, the very realistic cat noises Dick's cat makes. But it isn't that, it isn't. The cat, with the silly name of Ripple-dee-dee, is Dick's beloved companion, causing him to exclaim things like, "Oh cat, I love you so very much!'

I have a cat I love VERY very much, and sometimes he makes me cry. His name is Bentley, and he almost wasn't, or wasn't in my house anyway. I've written about this before, but I still find it hard to write about because of the circumstances.

I had a sweet, friendly baby lovebird called Paco. I had only known her for a couple of weeks - and already she had become the family's beloved pet, tame and outgoing with everyone, including the grandkids - when she died. No one could figure out why.

It was stunning. Just stunning - the sudden drop of unexpected loss. My last lovebird Jasper had lived for eight years, and some birds live for fifteen. Paco was only about eight weeks old.

I felt a kind of disorientation emotionally, because I had prepared myself to enjoy a good, long life with Paco (who by the way was a glorious lavender colour). Meantime my daughter had just lost her handsome cat Oscar, an awful thing which caused the whole family to turn inside-out with grief. They sought a new cat, and found an adorable kitten they called Mia.

"Come on, you guys," Shannon said to me (enraptured with Mia, as the whole family was). "You're retired. You need a cat."

A cat?!

We were never getting another cat, not after Murphy (the catriarch of the family since my kids' pre-teen years) died at the age of seventeen. But during my most awful day of grief and anger over the loss of Paco, I found myself bitterly exclaiming to Bill, "Well, Christ, I guess we might as well just go out and get a cat!"

"We could get a cat," Bill said. He had actually taken me seriously.

Suddenly the flame was lit, and I was on the internet seemingly night and day, seeking a suitable cat on SPCA sites. We were soon to find out that kittens got snatched up almost immediately, so we were likely going to have to choose a mature cat.

Though it did not take all that long, it went a way neither of us could have expected. I saw a mug shot of a year-old cat on the local SPCA site, went crazy, and told Bill, "We HAVE to see this cat tomorrow."

"Why not today?" Bill said, so we jumped in the car and drove to Maple Ridge.

The cats were in "dorms", quite comfortable cubicles with lots of "up" space, and bunked in twos and threes, except for the cat I wanted to see. He was by himself. What was going on here?

"He just came in from Surrey. They ran out of space for him there.  He's a stray, ran away from home apparently, and was attacked by a dog. But he's all healed now."

Oh my goodness. Attacked? Would this cat be timid, traumatized, mean? I didn't know what I'd find when I opened the door, but I saw a very self-possessed-looking cinnamon tabby with a white dickie, sitting very high up, at the highest point in his dorm. He perked up, immediately jumped down, ran up to me and looked up expectantly.

I scooped him up, cuddled him close and felt it in my heart: oh cat, I love you so very much.

He had a bald patch on his shoulders and two puncture marks, his duelling scars. He had been neutered since his ordeal. No one could tell me if the fur would grow in, but I didn't care. My daughter-in-law put it this way: "That's where his wings broke off."

It was instant love and bonding, and it has lasted for over a year now. This is "the" cat, the cat of Fate. When we prepare to go out anywhere, he runs into his cat carrier hoping we'll take him with us. He's a presence, he hangs out with us and is a beloved companion who, somehow, seems to look after us, watch out for us.

When I heard the Dick Whittington recording again, and the little boy exclaiming about Ripple-dee-dee, I cried again because this is a cat I love very, very much. He came to us wounded but healing, valiant and unafraid. 

Last night while mucking around with records, I found one of those delightful old English broadsheets with the ballad of Dick Whittington and his Cat on it, fiddled around (I had to print, scan, enlarge and crop it in half to make it slightly legible), then to my surprise found the actual words to it (no, I didn't transcribe it by hand!)

As it turns out, while there was probably a Dick Whittington back in the 14th century (?!), it's doubtful he ever had a cat. He MAY have been Lord Mayor of London at some point. The rest is just fiction. And there was no Ripple-dee-dee or cat of any description.

But if there wasn't, there should have been. 

Please note. This is Dick Whittington's Cat (top), and Bentley Whittington the Fourteenth. He photoshopped into this picture so neatly that I was able to use the same tail for both of them!

POST-REFLECTIONS.  Yes, I know Whittington and his Cat is a lousy poem! I know it might have been written by that guy, what's-his-name, the Worst Poet who Ever Lived who wrote about train wrecks and ships sinking and such. I'm too lazy to look him up. But this was the sort of thing that was sold as entertainment back in 17-whatever (and I'm too lazy to look that up), maybe for a penny or ha'penny (whatever that is!). 

Try  clicking on the links below (maybe one of them will work for you!) and listen to that Dick Whittington record. It's a charmer. You might like it - very, very much.


Dick Whittington and his Cat


Dick Whittington and his Cat MP3

Special Bonus Cat Record! THIS one will play for sure, because it's on YouTube. I blogged about this recording a while ago, but I might dredge up part of it just because it's fun (and doesn't make me cry).

When I was just a teeny-weeny kitty
Everyone told me that I looked so pretty
They said, 'beautiful eyes'
They said, 'lovely fur'
But all I could answer was 'meoowwww' or "purrrrrr"

My coat was black, my eyes of course were yellow
People always said 'what a charming fellow'
I wanted to thank them, but I didn't know how
For all I could answer was 'purrrrrrr' or 'meow'






Then one fine day as I was lying sleeping
A great idea into my head came creeping
A pussy cat that could learn to say 'meow'
Could say just 'me', by leaving off the 'ow!'

So I said me, me, me, me, me,
Then as you plainly can see
From me to he to she to we
Was just as simple as it could be
I practiced daily for a week
And that is how I learned to speak!

Then I thought that I would try
Slipping off from me to my
From me to my to sky to why
Was just as easy as eating pie
I practiced daily for a week
And that is how I learned to speak!

Soon I was no longer a beginner,
When someone asked 'how would you like some dinner?'
If I wanted to answer, I could say 'yes sir!'
Instead of replying just,
MeOW-wow-wow-WOW-wow-wow-WOW-wow-wow-WOW
Or purrrrrrr.
Prrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

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A great idea into my head came creeping

In this magical age of YouTube, everything comes around again. These Children's Record Guild rediscoveries are recordings I thought I'd never hear again. As a kid, they were epic tales that seemed to go on forever, so I'm surprised to see how short they are, some of them having only three or four minutes per side. Though I didn't post it here because it's in four parts, the Children's Record Guild version of Cinderella is full of the music of Prokofiev. It wasn't familiar to me then (for in spite of my classical music upbringing, the only Prokofiev I knew was Peter and the Wolf), but many years later I discovered, or rediscovered the ballet and got the strangest prickly feeling all over: yes, I had heard this music before, embedded in a story, or was the story embedded in the music? It took me a while to put the pieces together, and when I hear it now I realize how cleverly Prokofiev was adapted and spliced together with a minimalized version of one of the world's oldest fairy tales.

The Emperor's New Clothes, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Sleeping Beauty, Robin Hood, Build me a House, Grandfather's Farm, Pedro in Brazil, Slow Joe, Let's Have a Party, and. . . the immortal Travels of Babar, that one was the best of all:

"I am an elephant actor." (Trumpet fanfare)

Greek chorus: "This elephant actor is going to make believe he is the brave King Babar."

"I am an elephant actress." (Trumpet fanfare)

Greek chorus: "This elephant actress is going to make believe she is the beautiful Queen Celeste."

These weren't just records, they were things to hold on to, companions, a means to get away from the hell of school and the scorn of my so-called friends. They come around again now in this unlikely form, something I couldn't even have imagined ten or fifteen years ago, and they're different somehow - they changed somewhere along the line. The character of Puss, once beloved, is now a smart-ass con with a thick, nasal accent, perhaps working-class Boston or New Yahhk. The cleverness of the songs and the way the stories move right along (they HAD to, at 3 1/2 minutes per side) are more apparent to me. I'm now the storyteller, not the "tellee", so I know a thing or two about the craft.

(Next day.  All this seemed familiar, as if I had written about it before. And lo, when I went digging, I found this:)

There is another association with articulate animals: the Children's Record Guild recording of a very strange, adulterated version of Puss in Boots. We had a number of these recordings, which originally came through the mail as a sort of record-of-the-month subscription. But this set of maybe thirty or forty records was bequeathed to us by someone who didn't want them anymore. Obviously they hadn't been played much: there was hardly a scratch on them. We soon took care of that.

Through the wonders of the internet, I've found some of these records and listened to them again for the first time in more than (blblblpphhht) years. The Travels of Babar, Slow Joe, Build Me a House, Robin Hood, etc. I even found a bizarre version of Pinocchio with Paul Winchell and Jerry Mahoney which we played half to death (though my recent posting about the hellscape of Winchell-Mahoney Timeexpresses my abhorrence of that particular entertainer, who always struck me as a son-of-a-bitch).

These reborn-through-the-internet kiddie records are miraculously pristine, with no World War III going on in the background. Someone must have preserved them in a vault somewhere, or found some way to remove all the scratches. Anyway, the one I most happily happened upon was Puss in Boots, the strangest re-imagining of the story I've ever heard. Puss, a cheeky little feline in seven-league boots, adopts this person named John and somehow renders him into a Prince by wangling an audience with the King. Sort of like that. But first of all, John is totally gobsmacked by the fact that THIS CAT CAN TALK!

Here is the Ballad of Puss, which we used to sing to each other endlessly. I just listened to it again (I had to convert an unplayable MP4 file into an MP3 for this, which took some doing), and made an effort to transcribe it: for you, precious reader, the gardenia that blooms in the innermost Eden of my heart, deserve to share it with me today.

When I was just a teeny-weeny kitty
Everyone told me that I looked so pretty
They said, 'beautiful eyes'
They said, 'lovely fur'
But all I could answer was 'meoowwww' or "purrrrrr"

My coat was black, my eyes of course were yellow
People always said 'what a charming fellow'
I wanted to thank them, but I didn't know how
For all I could answer was 'purrrrrrr' or 'meow'

Then one fine day as I was lying sleeping
A great idea into my head came creeping
A pussy cat that could learn to say 'meow'
Could say just 'me', by leaving off the 'ow!'

So I said me, me, me, me, me,
Then as you plainly can see
From me to he to she to we
Was just as simple as it could be
I practiced daily for a week
And that is how I learned to speak!

Then I thought that I would try
Slipping off from me to my
From me to my to sky to why
Was just as easy as eating pie
I practiced daily for a week
And that is how I learned to speak!

Soon I was no longer a beginner,
When someone asked 'how would you like some dinner?'
If I wanted to answer, I could say 'yes sir!'
Instead of replying just, 
MeOWW-wow-wow-WOWW-wow-wow-WOWW-wow-wow-WOWW
Or purrrrrrr.
Prrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

And the following: more links to CRG recordings.

http://www.matthewlind.com/CRG.html

Sounds pretty good (and pretty old)

 

 

www.matthewlind.com/CRG.html

This link, if it works, will take you to a generous selection of the 78 rpm records of my youth. (I never pretended to be young.) These include such delicious favorites as Puss in Boots, Travels of Babar and Robin Hood. That is, if they will play for you. It's dodgy: at first they were in some sort of mp4 format that I couldn't extract sound from, so I ended up converting them to mp3s. But at this point, they might actually play without all that screwin' around.

When I first heard this again, my reaction was: SHUT THE FRONT DOOR!! I never thought I'd hear the Ballad of Puss in Boots again.

"When I was just a teeny-weeny kitty,
Everyone told me that I looked so pretty.
They said, beautiful eyes
They said, lovely fur
But all I could answer was meow
Or purr. . ."