Songs about Impressionists

Subject: Songs about Impressionists
From: DonMeixner
Date: 18 Aug 02 - 09:47 PM

I have a freind who is doing a photo essay on impressionist painters. She would like songs if they are around. "Vincent" is an obvious find but what about Cezanne or Monet? Any suggestions?

Don

Subject: RE: Help: Songs about Impressionists
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 18 Aug 02 - 09:52 PM

There is one about Cezanne, Here

Nigel

Subject: RE: Help: Songs about Impressionists
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 18 Aug 02 - 09:53 PM

How about "Monet Monet Monet" by ABBA,

or "Monet makes the world go round" from 'Cabaret'

Nigel

Subject: RE: Help: Songs about Impressionists
From: Stewie
Date: 18 Aug 02 - 10:53 PM

There is another good one about Vincent: David Olney's 'Vincent's Blues'. You can find it on his 'High, Wide and Lonesome' Philo CD PH 1177. It includes this stanza (actually sung by Rodney Crowell who is duetting with him on the recording):

Oh you can moan about Monet
Get silly 'bout Cezanne
You can rave about Degas
Or go crazy for Gaughin
But if you want to see the blue
Ah Vincent, he's your man

The 5 Chinese Brothers have one about Cezanne. I will type it out later from the lyric sheet.

CDDB has several listings re Monet:

Click Here

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Help: Songs about Impressionists
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 19 Aug 02 - 12:06 AM

A fragment of Pop Wagner's "Impressionists Two-Step" can be found in the Forum here.

Subject: Lyr Add: PAUL CEZANNE (Tom Meltzer)
From: Stewie
Date: 19 Aug 02 - 01:35 AM

Here's the one from the 5 Chinese Brothers. It's a load of old bollocks, but nonetheless a song about Cezanne:

PAUL CEZANNE
(Tom Meltzer)

Well I love cubism, it's my favorite style
When I see a cubist painting, I just got to smile
But there's one painter, I'm his biggest fan
He's the father of cubism and his name's Cezanne, Cezanne
Cezanne, Cezanne, the father of cubism

Some people say that it was Picasso
Other people claim it was DeChirico
Some people think it was Modiglian(i)
But they're all crazy, it was Paul Cezanne, Cezanne
Cezanne, Cezanne, the father of cubism

When Paul Cezanne sat down to paint a flower or a face
He had to solve one problem, three-dimensional space
He said, 'Form is content'. He smoked a Gitanne
He was right. Now he's Paul Cezanne, Cezanne
Cezanne, Cezanne, le pere de cubisme

Well Cezanne's father wanted him to be an avocat
But Paul just looked at him and said: 'Pfff, mais non, pa
I want to be a painter, I know I can!'
Now his oeuvre's in the Louvre, he's Paul Cezanne, Cezanne
Cezanne, Cezanne, the father of cubism

Well I had an aunt and she was in a coma
So we loaded up her bed and we took her up to MoMA
We got through the door, you wouldn't believe what began
She sat up and started screaming, 'Hey, where is that Paul Cezanne'
Cezanne, Cezanne, the miraculous father of cubism

Paul Cezanne is famous now and I think that's pretty nice
'Cause his melons look like footballs and his apples look like dice
So all you would-be painters, get out your brush and can
You may be the next Paul Cezanne, Cezanne
Cezanne, Cezanne, the father of cubism
Cezanne, Cezanne, the original father of cubism

Words and music by Tom Meltzer. Copyright 1973 Songs of Polygram Int/Rock City Crackers Music.

Source: lyric sheet in 5 Chinese Brothers 'Singer, Songwriter, Beggarman, Thief' Prime PCD002.

Subject: RE: Help: Songs about Impressionists
From: GUEST,Fred Miller
Date: 19 Aug 02 - 09:13 AM

I can't help recommending Debussy's Girl With Flaxen Hair, arranged for guitar by someone whose name I should remember and performed by Parkening. It's not a song, but it's impressionist, and very nice. Besides, most songs for some reason are about post-impressionists.

Subject: Lyr Add: TRUCKLOAD OF ART (Terry Allen)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 19 Aug 02 - 11:28 AM

Not about Impressionists, but I figure this is a good place to post this anyway. It's a cool, funny song.

Lyrics copied from http://www.insurgentcountry.com/terry_allen_lbk_on_everything_lyrics.txt

TRUCKLOAD OF ART
(Terry Allen)

SPOKEN INTRO: Once upon a time, some time ago back on the East Coast--in New York City, to be exact--a bunch of artists and painters and sculptors and musicians and poets and writers and dancers and architects started feeling real superior to their ego counterparts out on the West Coast. So they all got together and decided they would show those snotty surfer upstarts a thing or two about the Big Apple. And they hired themselves a truck. It was a big, spanking-new, white, shiny, chrome-plated, cab-over Peterbilt, with mud flaps, stereo, TV, AM and FM radio, leather seats, and a Naugahyde sleeper, all fresh with new American-flag decals and "ART ARK" printed on the side of the door with solid 24-karat gold-leaf type. And they filled up this truck with the most significant piles and influential heaps of artwork to ever be assembled in modern times, and sent it west, to chide, cajole, humble and humiliate the Golden Bear. And this is the true story of that truck:

A truckload of art from New York City
Came rolling down the road.
Yeah, the driver was singing and the sunset was pretty,
But the truck turned over and she rolled off the road.

Yeah, a truckload of art is burning near the highway.
Precious objects are scattered all over the ground.
And it's a terrible sight if a person were to see it,
But there weren't nobody around.

Yeah, the driver went sailing high in the sky,
Landing in the gold lap of the Lord,
Who smiled and then said, "Son, you're better off dead
Than hauling a truckload full of hot avant-garde."

Yes, an important artwork was thrown burning to the ground,
Tragically landing in the weeds.
The smoke could be seen, ah, for miles all around.
Yeah, but nobody knows what it means.

A truckload of art is burning near the highway,
And it's a tough job for the highway patrol.
Ah, they'll soon see the smoke and come running to poke,
Then dig a deep ditch and throw the arts in a hole.

The truckload of art is burning near the highway,
And it's raging far out of control.
And what the critics have cheered is now shattered and queered,
And their noble reviews have been strewed on the road.

[Recorded by Terry Allen on "Lubbock (On Everything)," Sugar Hill CD 1047, 1995 (originally released as an LP in 1979); and by the Austin Lounge Lizards on "Small Minds," Watermelon CD 1034, 1995.]

Subject: RE: Help: Songs about Impressionists
From: EBarnacle1
Date: 19 Aug 02 - 01:40 PM

Of course, a bifocal definition of art is that a) It's remembered after it's gone; b) It hasn't been dumped in the landfill, regardless of price at time of purchase.

A friend of mine is an artist who makes his living as an impressionist--Willard Bond. When I called him up a few minutes ago to comment that there was a song about him, he started singing "Willow, Weep for Me" before I could finish the line. [Willow is also his nickname.] You might have some luck tying nicknames to songs if you cannot find them under the original names.

Subject: RE: Help: Songs about Impressionists
From: SharonA
Date: 19 Aug 02 - 04:56 PM

DonMeixner: Actually, Van Gogh and Cézanne are not technically Impressionists, they're post-Impressionists. Van Gogh was influenced by Impressionism, and Cézanne did paint in an Impressionist style for a time, but they are not considered "of the school", so to speak. Take it from this former art-school student with several art-history courses under her belt. Or check out this page: http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/glo/impressionism/

A bit about Vincent here: http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/gogh/

...and Cézanne: http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/cezanne/

Subject: RE: Help: Songs about Impressionists
From: DonMeixner
Date: 19 Aug 02 - 05:39 PM

I'm more a Louis Agassi Fuertes Bird school kinda guy. I'm only asking for a friend and I know she appreciates as I do all the help.

Don

Subject: RE: Help: Songs about Impressionists
From: SharonA
Date: 20 Aug 02 - 09:32 AM

Don: When I posted last, I understood that you are asking on behalf of your friend. I addressed you only because you started the thread (and because I don't know her name!)! The reason I mentioned the art-history stuff is that it was not clear to me whether your friend's photo "essay" was an independent effort or a school assignment. If it's the latter, I wouldn't want to see the grade for her project affected negatively by the inclusion of songs about painters who aren't technically Impressionists. (Or, if it's for a museum exhibit, I wouldn't want to see her exhibit criticized or condemned by any snooty art critics because of those songs). That's all!

On the other hand, if her photo essay is her own project for her own purposes where art-historical accuracy will not be an issue, and she wants songs about Van Gogh and Cézanne as a part of that project, then more power to her!!

Subject: RE: Help: Songs about Impressionists
From: GUEST,MikeofNorthumbria Off Base
Date: 20 Aug 02 - 10:17 AM

Hang on a minute! Didn't Leonard Cohen write a song called "Cézanne"?

Subject: RE: Help: Songs about Impressionists
From: musicmick
Date: 21 Aug 02 - 01:12 AM

How about "How Manet roads must a man walk down/ before they call him a man?"

Or "Go-Renior the chilly winds dont blow"

Or "Degas stick of bamboo, throw it in the water"

Or "If, somehow, you could pack up Pissaro (and give it all to me)"

Subject: RE: Help: Songs about Impressionists
From: SharonA
Date: 21 Aug 02 - 08:57 AM

Oh, gawwwwwwwwwwd! Mike, that's pain(ter)ful!!!

How about: "Dicen que los de tu Cassatt, ninguno me puede ver..." ("Coplas")

Subject: RE: Help: Songs about Impressionists
From: SharonA
Date: 21 Aug 02 - 09:08 AM

Or: "Fareweel ye banks o' Sisley, fare ye weel ye valley an' shaw..."

Subject: RE: Help: Songs about Impressionists
From: SharonA
Date: 21 Aug 02 - 09:43 AM

But seriously, folks... Here's a CD that includes the Pop Wagner song mentioned earlier, "Impressionists Two-Step". The CD is called "Keeper of the Key" by the David Nelson Band: http://shopping.yahoo.com/shop?d=product&id=1921600701

Subject: RE: Help: Songs about Impressionists
From: Armen Tanzerian
Date: 21 Aug 02 - 09:51 AM

Eric von Schmidt, a formidable painter himself, used to do a tune he wrote called Cézanne Was the Man. I remember it had a couplet that ran "Lautrec cashed his check. He was too loose."

Subject: RE: Help: Songs about Impressionists
From: GUEST,Fred Miller
Date: 21 Aug 02 - 10:32 AM

I feel bad for our apparently "unsung" American cowboy impressionists.