Word: balladeers
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Under the rule of Brezhnev and Kosygin, a grim new strain has entered into the Russian ballad. Some recent songs describe the insane asylums where more and more dissenters, whose "crimes" do not qualify for prosecution under Soviet law, are imprisoned with genuinely sick people. For example, Vladimir Vysotsky, a popular balladeer, has composed a song called The Psychiatric Lyric. He sings of the silent, incurable lunatics who stare at the terrified political prisoner as he lies in the ward. "They are madmen of all kinds, quiet ones, dirty ones-starved and beaten as part of their cure. If only...
...being an intellectual." The collective members have not become scholars of ancient revolutions but rather what Stokeley Carmichael calls "students of the revolution." Their studies have taught them the importance of high-energy media: in Sympathy For The Devil (1+1) the Rolling Stones build from a low-key ballad to a revolutionary anthem ("I killed the Czar and his ministers") while Godard's smoothly moving camera records the potential relationship of the media to the Black Panthers, and the use of media in determining sexual roles (the pornography store scene and the interviews with Eve scene...
There is a sadness in Nilsson's work too, but, like the great tragic clowns, he feels that he may as well put on a cheerful front until proved wrong. His specialty is the melancholy ballad delivered with an upbeat melody. Mr. Tinker, for example, is about a tailor whose life has passed him by. "It isn't easy for a tailor/When there's nothing left to sew" goes one of its lines. The lyrics may be sorrowful, but the music is pure devil-may-care...
...died, the bloodstained trunks he wore when he dethroned Zale. Whenever anyone mentioned his quest for the championship, petit Marcel spoke the few words of English he had mastered: "It is my destinée" Shortly before the fight, he listened to a recording of a soul-searing ballad by "Aunt Zizi" (Piaf), not because he is superstitious, he said, but because "it is a personal force." Then he put on his father's old leather supporter and the blue trunks with a Ste. Thérèse medal (a gift from Aunt Zizi) sewn inside...
Black Is the Color of My True Love's Hair-a classic ballad...