Word: twist
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...long it should last. There had been other songs broken up into two sides of a single: Cozy Cole's"Topsy," Ray Charles'"What'd I Say," the Isley Brothers' "Twist and Shout" and, in the early 50s, Johnny Standley's comedy homily "It's in the Book." But the 1965 "Like a Rolling Stone" was, I believe, the first epic rock ballad issued as a one-side, 6min. single. (Within two years, Richard Harris' "MacArthur Park and the Beatles' "Hey, Jude" went Dylan one minute longer, though not better...
...Perhaps the film's most surprising twist is its humor. When an unwitting real estate agent comes to collect his rent from the bed-confined couple, Candy tells him: "We're junkies; I'm a hooker; he's hopeless." When they move to the country, Candy complains that their living room is too dark, so Dan knocks a skylight through the roof. In this way, Armfield lets light into their darkest hours, bringing a heightened sense of mortality that seems to stem from his own childhood. "When I was 13 years old, my mum was given six months to live...
...over the MSM's lack of attention to Gore's satire - though it was undeniably funnier than Stephen Colbert's White House Correspondents' Association monologue, it had a smaller target: the person who was elected in 2000, not the one who actually sits in the office. It's that twist of history that made the skit so satisfying to liberals, myself among them, who have gnashed their teeth through six long years in George W. Bush's Washington. But the satisfaction one might draw from even a playful vision of an imaginary Gore administration points up the other limitation...
...prodding Broadway back to life in 2001 with The Producers. That staging of his 1968 movie was full-throttle farce with generically catchy songs, and it presaged the next generation of smart-silly musical comedies. Among its spawn were Hairspray and Spamalot, shows that put a post-modern twist on the antique shows of the '20s and '30s. Back then, plots were dental-floss clotheslines on which to hang a dozen chipper songs, and the audiences were meant to go out humming and smiling...
...ignorance toward a potential affair: "Who knows why an April breeze never remains? / Why the stars in the trees hide when it rains? / Love comes along casting a spell, / Will it sing you a song, / Will it say a farewell? / Who can tell?" And at times, Mercer could twist a song's kicker. "Tangerine," written with Victor Schertzinger for The Fleet's In, sounds for most of its length like a standard number about an elusive goddess. The codas: "Yes, she has them all on the run, / But her heart belongs to just one. / Her heart belongs to Tangerine...