Saturday, August 06, 2005

Life Is What You Do While You're Waiting To Die

Because it was the fault of a room that prevented me from posting anything for so long, it only seems fitting to present Zorba The Greek by Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass. Why, you may ask? Well, shut up and I'll tell you: In our childhood days, my older sister and I used to skip around the living room to this song, increasing our mobility as the tempo builds, collapsing in a triumphant heap at the song's end. I haven't seen the movie this theme song was taken from (titled Zorba The Greek, of course, and starring Anthony Quinn) in years (nor have I seen a staged production of the Broadway musical based on the movie, entitled Zorba). As a child, this film used to fascinate me endlessly. Watching it as an adult, I have a feeling its tale of a simple Greek peasant teaching the depressed city man how to enjoy life will now come off as forced and overwrought. Sometimes I wonder if I created a connection to this movie as a child simply because it was released the year of my birth. Shout! Factory has been reissuing all of Herb Alpert's classic '60's albums for the last so many months and doing a fine job it: mastered from the original studio tapes, well-annotated liner notes, original artwork intact. A class act all the way. We should all make an effort to buy each and every one of them so they'll keep up the good work.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Do all kids do this? I remember doing the same with my siblings, with musical choices from Alpert and Johnny Cash.

Mark

Disco:Very said...

We also used to skip around to the soundtrack (on 8-track) of The Sting (music by Scott Joplin). While other kids my age were head-banging to kiss, I was prancing around to ragtime music from the late 1800's. What a dork I was!