Weekend Funnies…..
Well, the kids should be off with 20,000 of their closest friends at the Coldplay concert at The Gorge, so lets us adults have a little fun, OK?
I’m a sucker for English humor what with its tricky wordplay and all, and Michael Flanders and Donald Swann were absolute masters of the humorous musical form. Flanders was an actor (although confined to a wheelchair) who wrote the lyrics, and Swann an accomplished classical pianist who contributed the score, and in the period between 1956 and about 1968 they had at least two musical reviews that sold out wherever they played.
The first is just plain fun. In the 60’s I swear there wasn’t a folk singer who didn’t include this in his program just get the audience singing along……
The second is for our Master Gardeners, a story of two plants. But like the good satirists that Flanders and Swann were, there’s a second meaning to the song. See if you can catch it. It’s a bit like Dickey Lee’s “Patches”, only a lot more subtle…..
I figure you should get a chance to look at the two so here it is. This is a bit risque, but risque in the same way Red Foxx or Rusty Warren were risque “back in the day”, but are considered quite mild by today’s standards. From their musical review “At The Drop Of A Hat”, recorded in 1967. Pour a glass of Maderia, sit back and relax. You can have one too, my dear……
This is another case of comedy that’s both smart AND funny at the same time. A lost art, one that will probably not return. But it will, if only in the badly scratched Angel records recordings on my shelf and You Tube videos like these.
Have yourself a wonderful weekend……