OK, boys and girls. . . compare and contrast!

This is your homework assignment for Friday: compare this recording of Eva Taylor singing Chloe (also charmingly nicknamed Song of the Swamp) to the Spike Jones parody. Damn, it's close, except for all the cowbells, interjections ("where are you, you old bat?") and starting pistols going off. Jones had a sort of perfection about him - everything was perfectly timed, perfectly insane, and beautifully played because he had a hell of a band.

I was hard-pressed to find a favorite (very nearly chose Laura for the fact that fully half of it is played straight, and beautifully) and of course the tracks brought back floods of memories which I didn't particularly want to experience, but there you are.

As a confused child, I often thought parody was straight - I was, like, four years old, right? - and tried to take Spike Jones and Songs of the Pogo literally. It was my fault that I couldn't understand it, because it was obvious that the adults did or they wouldn't have kept on listening to it. My sister was thirteen years older than me, but I figured I should be able to keep up.


http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.com/2012/01/synopsis-glass-character-novel-by.html

http://members.shaw.ca/margaret_gunning/betterthanlife.