Monday 20 July 2009

Enjoy the show, peeps

Morning all. How are you this sunny Monday morning (if it is sunny and Monday)? I had a lovely weekend. Amongst other things, Imaginary Friend and I saw the new Harry Potter film (it was quite effective) and I bought some books. Returning to Wolverhampton I was greeted by leaden skies and the most complete, shining rainbow I've ever seen - like one of those appalling posters with a Biblical quotation that Christian teenagers have in their rooms instead of Slayer/Backstreet Boys/whoever. I took a photo on my camera but seem to have lost that device. Perhaps it's at home.

I hope you all enjoyed David Mitchell on Desert Island Discs. I was torn between hating his choices in music (apart from Elgar's Cello Concerto) for being utterly lightweight, and respecting his honesty. I suspect it's true that the music we find meaningful for the context in which we heard it, and the memories associated with it, is often banal: Mitchell chose music he may not listen to for its own qualities, but because it was associated with particular people, places and times. Amongst them were Katrina and the Waves' 'Walking on Sunshine', Radiohead's 'Creep', some Acker Bilk and Herb Alpert, the Elgar and Kermit the Frog's 'Rainbow Connection', which was a piece of genius with which I wasn't familiar.

Mitchell was, of course, charming, thoughtful and self-deprecating, and prepared to address the contradiction between wanting to go through life unnoticed and choosing a career as a performer. I did wonder about his presence on DID. They have widened their choice of guests recently, sometimes to the detriment of the show, which at its best can be a meditation on a life lived badly, sadly, wisely or well. Mitchell was the perfect guest in many ways: witty, thoughtful, distinctive: but he's only 35. His songs reminded him of his parents, his time in Cambridge. Let's have him back when he's 60, when he's faced love, loss, death, triumph and failure, and has more experience about which to be self-deprecating.

Anyway - well worth listening too, particularly for his views on fashion (essentially: showing off) and his self-portrait 'tweed on the inside'. As I suspected, we have a lot in common: nerds, still living in squalid student accommodation, alone, so very alone. Except that he's funny, gifted etc. etc.

It's on Radio 4 again on Friday morning. Or possible Thursday, I can't remember. It's not on Listen Again though for music copyright purposes.

8 comments:

Dan said...

Kermit the frog has an excellent music pedigree. He does a great line in covers, particularly that of Needle in the Hay by Elliott Smith.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oEYMGL0ZtA

The Plashing Vole said...

Thanks for the link - I've always hated the Muppets except for Kermit and the two grumpy old men.

Benjamin Judge said...

Leaving to one side the fact that someone who loves Belle and Sebastian called Mitchell's choices "utterly lightweight"

OK not leaving it to one side I have just looked up lightweight in my dictionary. This it what I found

lightweight. adj 1 of a relatively light weight. 2 not serious, trivial. 3 a professional boxer weighing 130-135 pounds. 4 the collective squalid outporings of serial bedwetter Stuart Murdoch

Anyway as I say leaving that aside can I just agree with you completely on the point that he is just too young to be a guest. There are many places to interview people on the BBC but it would be nice to save Desert Island Discs for a more substantial length of reminiscence than 'tell us about when you made the first series of Peep Show a few years ago'.

Zoot Horn said...

I missed it because every room in my like pad man, with a radio in it, had and still has step-nieces sleeping in it. I will have a chat with vole near a turntable instead.

The Plashing Vole said...

Cynical, you just won't leave it alone!
Zoot - there's a repeat later in the week.

Some Chilean Woman said...

You wouldn't like Kermit in Spanish. I am still afraid of him.

neal said...

I was missing your blog over the weekend so I posted on David Mitchell's instead, which amounts to pretty much the same thing.

I let him know that he has a doppleganger that enjoys watching The Wire, so he is quite likely to enjoy it too. Another blogger picked up on this and said that Mitchell looks like David Cameron, ergo...

The Plashing Vole said...

Oh God, he's even blogging now. Thanks a lot Neal.