Today I learned +

[billd91]

When listening to personal-sounding or other POV lyrics for a song, you always wonder just how much of it (if any) is autobiographical. Today, I learned that Midnight Oil's song "In the Valley" off the Earth and Sun and Moon album has some autobiographical elements. When lead singer Peter Garrett sings "My grandfather went down with the Montevideo, The rising sun sent him floating to his rest," he's singing about his grandfather being one of the casualties of the sinking of the Montevideo Maru, a Japanese merchant vessel acting as a transport ship in 1942. Garrett's grandfather's unit had surrendered on Rabaul and were being transported as POWs. The Montevideo was sunk by the USS Sturgeon off the coast of the Philippines, not knowing it was transporting Allied POWs.
This suggests that other lyrics about his grandmother and parents may also be at least somewhat autobiographical, if not as obvious in their meaning.

 

[MoonSong]

When listening to personal-sounding or other POV lyrics for a song, you always wonder just how much of it (if any) is autobiographical. Today, I learned that Midnight Oil's song "In the Valley" off the Earth and Sun and Moon album has some autobiographical elements. When lead singer Peter Garrett sings "My grandfather went down with the Montevideo, The rising sun sent him floating to his rest," he's singing about his grandfather being one of the casualties of the sinking of the Montevideo Maru, a Japanese merchant vessel acting as a transport ship in 1942. Garrett's grandfather's unit had surrendered on Rabaul and were being transported as POWs. The Montevideo was sunk by the USS Sturgeon off the coast of the Philippines, not knowing it was transporting Allied POWs.
This suggests that other lyrics about his grandmother and parents may also be at least somewhat autobiographical, if not as obvious in their meaning.

Back at the turn of the century, I liked Overprotected and Lucky. I didn't know they were autobiographical.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

to the point where fonts designed to help readers with dyslexia can help readers with ADHD

Yeah I've come across this - I used to have the Gill Dyslexic font, which definitely helped me not miss vital words when reading, but it's so obnoxiously unaesthetic to me I ultimately gave up on it. Kind of a problem to have aesthetic tastes that run counter to what works well for one but here I am lol.

Colour filters can also help people with ADHD in some cases too - I found that pale orange/parchment/beige makes things much easier for me to read than white. Unfortunately Microsoft ripped out the options to recolour just background white in applications in Windows 10, as well as casually destroying a number of other accessibility features - when dyslexia and ADHD groups and similar have pressed them on this, their only response is "Just use the screen reader!", which is an incredibly insulting suggestion.

 

[Autumnal]

Pink Floyd had six backup singers on The Wall, five men and one woman. The woman was Toni Tennille. That’s the Tennille of the Captain & Tennille.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Pink Floyd had six backup singers on The Wall, five men and one woman. The woman was Toni Tennille. That’s the Tennille of the Captain & Tennille.

It’s always amazing to see where big stars got their early major breaks. Elton John & Bernie Taupin did some studio work for The Beatles.

David Bowie has a list of performers who worked for him before they were famous, like Stevie Ray Vaughan and Luther Vandross. He also hired Adrian Belew from Frank Zappa’s band (for which he was never forgiven).

Not that FZ didn’t have his own storied history of breaking musicians: Steve Vai was a member, as was Warren Cuccurullo and everyone else in the band that became Missing Persons.

Jimi Hendrix’ big break came with the Isley Brothers. Bootsy Collins was hired by James Brown.

Then there’s The Yardbirds, who had a parade of rock royalty playing lead guitar for them: Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton.

 

[payn]

Pink Floyd had six backup singers on The Wall, five men and one woman. The woman was Toni Tennille. That’s the Tennille of the Captain & Tennille.

I will, I will, I willl….

 

[Autumnal]

Also, I learned the reason some of the sax solos on The Wall and subsequent albums sound like they wandered in from a Supertramp album (not a complaint) is they did, borrowing Supertramp’s sax player between and then after their albums.

I really enjoy books of the song by song format, with full credits, composition and production notes, and this and that, working through the discography of bands I like. They’re wildly unlike anything else I read and make more a better-informed audience.

 

[Autumnal]

One more Pink Floyd tidbit. The album released as A Momentary Lapse of Reason went untitled until practically the last minute. The band and production crew tried out a lot of possibilities, but none seemed to do the job. Finally David Gilmour went to one of his long-time friends and offered him £5,000 if he could come up with a title that everyone would go for. The friend did, and so now we have A Momentary Lapse of Reason.

The long-time friend was Douglas Adams.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Too bad Adams & The Floyd couldn’t have done some joint projects, like Moorcock did with Hawkwind and BÖC.

A Momentary Lapse of Dolphins
Dark Side of Magrathea

 

[Rabulias]

It’s always amazing to see where big stars got their early major breaks. Elton John & Bernie Taupin did some studio work for The Beatles.

Not really her big break. Pink Floyd's The Wall was 1979, and The Captain and Tennille had hits in the mid-1970s.

One more Pink Floyd tidbit. The album released as A Momentary Lapse of Reason went untitled until practically the last minute. The band and production crew tried out a lot of possibilities, but none seemed to do the job. Finally David Gilmour went to one of his long-time friends and offered him £5,000 if he could come up with a title that everyone would go for. The friend did, and so now we have A Momentary Lapse of Reason.

It's a lyric from "One Slip" on the album, so Adams did not create the title entirely on his own. He likely selected it from the lyric sheet.