Tag: Music

Bye, Bye, Birdie

JESS: It’s really that big a deal?
RORY: What do you mean?
JESS: I mean, I know it’s got an ‘I’ve been pinned’ Bye Bye Birdie kind of implication to it, but it was just a bracelet.

Bye Bye Birdie, 1963 musical comedy film directed by George Sidney, based on the award winning 1960 Broadway musical of the same name, with music by Charles Crouse, lyrics by Lee Adams, and book by Michael Stewart.

Set in 1958, the story was inspired by Elvis Presley’s draft into the US army in 1957. Jesse Pearson plays Conrad Birdie, a teen idol based on Elvis, his name a play on Conway Twitty, Presley’s rival at the time.

Conrad Birdie is giving a farewell performance in Columbus, Ohio, to end with his song, “One Last Kiss”. It is arranged for him to kiss a randomly chosen high school girl at the end of the song before going into the army. The teenager chosen is Kim MacAfee (played by Ann-Margret) from the town of Sweet Apple, but Kim’s boyfriend Hugo Peabody (played by Bobby Rydell) isn’t thrilled, as he and Kim have got “pinned” – he’s given her his fraternity pin to wear, indicating a serious commitment between them. When Birdie kisses Kim in a rehearsal, she swoons.

Elvis Presley himself was the first choice for the role of Birdie, but his manager Colonel Tom Parker wouldn’t allow it. The film helped make Ann-Margret such a star that in 1964 she appeared with Elvis himself in Viva Las Vegas.

Jess is saying that Rory and Dean are the small-town teenage sweethearts, and he is the sexy outsider. It seems slightly egotistical, and a bit demeaning to Rory, as if he has randomly chosen her for a meaningless encounter; it strongly suggests Jess doesn’t intend to stick around.

The film ends with Hugo knocking Birdie out before he can kiss Kim on stage, which might be what Jess is expecting from Dean – that he’ll punch Jess before he gets a chance with Rory. In the stage musical, the story continues with Kim going off to hang out with Birdie, and he is arrested for attempted statutory rape. Kim claims to have been intimidated by Birdie, and gladly returns to Hugo.

Quite a few warnings for Rory in this apparently casual reference! Foreshadowing, on multiple levels.

The reference to Birdie being about to go into the army makes me wonder if this reference was originally meant for Tristan, who went off to military school. Jess is much more of a Birdie than Tristan, however.

“A big, pretty dish of lovin’ with a spoon”

LORELAI: A big, pretty dish of lovin’ with a spoon made especially for you.

This sounds like a reference to the rock band The Lovin’ Spoonful, founded in Greenwich Village in 1965 by singer John Sebastian and guitarist Zal Yanovsky. Their hits include Do You Believe in Magic? (1965), Summer in the City (1966), and Daydream (1966). The band broke up in 1969, but have had a few revivals and reunions over the years. An influence on British bands such as The Beatles and The Kinks, they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000, and into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 2006.

The band’s name is taken from a line in the song Coffee Blues, by blues singer Mississippi John Hurt, a tribute to Maxwell House Coffee. There is a link in blues songs between a “spoonful” of something and sex (sometimes drugs); it has been conjectured that the “lovin’ spoonful” in the song refers to the amount of ejaculate in a typical male orgasm.

This connection between coffee, sex, and love seems very apt for Lorelai! It’s as if the coffee Luke makes for her is a metaphor for something else that’s hot and wet.

Attica

LUKE: And even if he does stay, it’ll be only for another year, and then he’ll go off to college or Attica or whatever, and it’ll just be me again.

Attica Correctional Facility, a maximum security state prison located in the town of Attica, New York. Constructed in the 1930s, it has held some of the most dangerous convicts of the times. Prisoners are often here because of disciplinary problems in other institutions.

Some of its past infamous inmates include serial killer David Berkowitz “Son of Sam”, and Mark Chapman, the assassin of John Lennon (both now held elsewhere). Ironically, John Lennon and Yoko Ono released a 1972 song called “Attica State”, lamenting the loss of life in the 1971 Attica State prison riots, as well as the poor living conditions and humans rights abuses in the US prison system. It appears on the album Some Time in New York City.

This is a very harsh comment from Luke about Jess, even as a joke. Before Jess arrived, Luke seemed to think he was nothing more than a slightly wayward teen only in need of a stable home. After six months, he seems to think it’s a toss-up whether Jess will go to college or prison (perhaps under Lorelai’s influence, who was saying that before she even met Jess). In fact, Jess will do neither.

Interestingly, the historic region of Attica in ancient Greece was the location of the city of Athens, a centre for learning and culture during its Golden Age. Jess will end up working in a job where his mind is put to good use. He’ll also live in an American city with a Greek name!

Miami Sound Machine

MICHEL: And while I’m shaking it to the Miami Sound Machine, the phones here – they would ring and ring and ring, and no one to answer, no one to assist.

Miami Sound Machine was a band of Latin-influenced music, featuring the vocals of Cuban-born singer Gloria Estefan. Established in 1975 by her husband, Emilio Estefan Jr, the name was changed to Miami Sound Machine in 1977. They were popular during the 1980s, before Gloria Estefan continued as a solo performer.

In 1985 they brought out “Conga”, which became their first hit single. It was from their album Primitive Love, and was a world-wide success, becoming the band’s signature song. It went to #10 in the US and #1 on the Hot Dance Singles chart. It was most popular in Canada and Spain, where it went to #1. It was re-recorded as a remix in 2001, and released on Gloria Estefan’s fourth compilation album.

The Shaggs

JESS: Here. [tosses her a CD]
RORY: The Shaggs?
JESS: Trust me.

The Shaggs were an all-female rock and outsider music band formed in New Hampshire in 1968, composed of sisters Dot, Betty, and Helen Wiggin; Rachel Wiggin joined later. Their father, Austin Wiggin, insisted they form a band based on a prediction his mother had made during a palm reading that his daughters would form a musical group.

The Shaggs only released one studio album, in 1969, called Philosophy of the World. It gained very little attention, but the band continued to play locally, sometimes accompanied by their brother, Austin Jr, and their nephew Robert. The Shaggs disbanded in 1975, after the death of their father.

The Shaggs are notable for their perceived ineptitude at playing conventional rock music. Rolling Stone once described them as sounding like “lobotomised Trapp Family singers”. They were rediscovered in the 1970s, thanks to the Dr Demento radio show, which specialised in novelty songs. Frank Zappa appeared on the show, listened to the album, and professed a love for the band. The Shaggs themselves were bewildered by their popularity and cult status, which has never disappeared.

Jess gives (or loans) Rory a CD version of Philosophy of the World. Such CDs are now worth hundreds of dollars. (The original vinyl album, of which only 1000 copies were made, is now a collector’s item and extremely valuable). Interest in The Shaggs had recently been renewed by the 2001 release of Better Than The Beatles – A Tribute to The Shaggs, a collection of their songs covered by indie rock and punk musical artists such as Ida and Deerhoof.

Punk Planet

When Jess arrives to clean the gutters, he is wearing a tee-shirt advertising this underground punk magazine on it. Punk Planet was a bi-monthly punk zine founded in Chicago in 1994 that examined punk subculture and a wide variety of progressive issues, such as feminism, media criticism, and labour issues. It tried to review all punk records it was sent, so that its review section was very long.

The final issue of Punk Planet was sent out in 2007, due to rising costs, and the website closed down two years later. However, its entire print run is still available to read online as an internet archive.

Price Yeah!

This is the music that Jess is sleeping to when Luke wakes him up. Price Yeah!, is by the American indie rock band Pavement, first released on their EP Slay Tracks: 1933-1969 in 1989. The EP was self-recorded, and is experimental hard-core punk.

The band were partly inspired by their home town of Stockton, California, a place they considered flat and boring that they wanted to escape from – something that Jess can probably relate to.

Being an extremely limited release, copies of this EP quickly became collector’s items selling for hundreds of dollars. Jess is most likely listening to Westing (By Mustang and Sextant), a compilation of Pavement’s early EP’s and singles which was released in 1993.

The song begins:

Just cause I’m fakin’
Doesn’t mean I’m wrong
Cause I bought my price, yeah,
No I got it at cost

And there’s the things I know
Wrote them down on your nib
Just remember turning
It’s a rapid affair

Jess knows that he is faking it – but is he faking by hiding his true level of misery from Luke and the town, or is he faking by pretending to be less interested in Rory than he makes out? He’s aware of the price he is paying, but considers it worthwhile. The “rapid affair” may allude to how quickly he fell for Rory, and the things he wrote down to the annotations he made in Rory’s book.

Jess says he needs loud music on in order to sleep. Possibly he got into that habit needing to block out the sound of his mother partying or entertaining guests. Or even the sound of Liz having sex or fighting with her companion of the moment. Or they just lived in an apartment block where there was a lot of noise from other people, and little insulation against it.

Either way, it’s a sign that he didn’t have the best environment growing up. Unless he simply hasn’t adjusted to the quietness of the country after living in New York?

If Jess always needs loud music in order to sleep, how on earth has poor Luke been able to get any sleep? For that matter, why is he surprised to learn about it now? Has he just been gritting his teeth for six months and working long days on little sleep, and this is the final straw? And why haven’t any of their neighbours complained?

Legal Man

This is the song which plays during the secret CD drop-off into Lane’s bag. It is Belle and Sebastian’s 2000 debut single, and was later included on their 2005 compilation album, Push Barman to Open Old Wounds. The song went to #15 in the UK, #4 on the UK Indie charts, and #9 in Scotland. It was most popular in Canada, where it went to #4.

The lyrics of the song humorously chime in with Rory’s plan to make it all happen, and even the time of year.

Refer to our discussions, confirm the terms of our love affair
I exercise all options, and I know I’ll see you there …

Not withstanding provisions of clauses 1, 2, 3 and 4
Extend contractual period, me and you for evermore

You’re the legal man, you’ve got to prove that you’re no liar
I’ll render services that you may reasonably require

L-o-v-e love, it’s coming back, it’s coming back
L-o-v-e love, it’s coming back, it’s coming back

Get out of the city and into the sunshine
Get out of the office and into the springtime

Rory’s CD Plan

Rory has co-opted Kirk and Michel to help her with the CD drop off to Lane. While Kirk distracts Mrs Kim with idle chit-chat, it is Michel’s task to jog past, secretly slipping the CD into Lane’s bag. Unfortunately, Rory forgot to tell Michel about the revised time, so the poor man was left to jog around the square for an hour waiting for Lane to show up. He is understandably miffed.

Roping Kirk into a zany scheme is a natural choice, but it’s a surprise that Michel, who can barely be bothered doing his actual job some days, is apparently willing to help Rory and Lane out like this in his free time. Perhaps he always goes jogging on Saturday morning anyway, but even so he stuck it out for over an hour until everyone else arrived. Lord knows how Rory managed to persuade him.

I feel as if the writer, Daniel Palladino, was almost forced to choose Michel as the only person in Stars Hollow who is young and fit enough to be credibly kept jogging for an hour. It’s interesting that Rory never considers asking her boyfriend Dean to be involved. Maybe he works on Saturday morning.

If this scene does connect with the Elton John song “Rocket Man“, then Michel is in the role of the “rocket man” who is “lonely out in space on such a timeless flight”, and “burning up his fuse out here alone”. And as he feared, “I think it’s gonna be a long, long time”!!!!!