Readers recommendMusic This article is more than 10 years oldReaders recommend: songs using geometric shapes – results
This article is more than 10 years oldRR regular treefrogdemon squares the circle to pick the geometric playlist from last week’s thread
Clang! Clang! Clang! You can still see the original Auld Triangle at Mountjoy Prison in Dublin, though they no longer wake the prisoners up with it. The song was written by Dominic Behan, and what better version can there be than the one by the Dubliners, as recommended by RR’s very own llamalpaca? Welcome to the many sides of songs with geometric shapes.
Songs that are actually about geometric shapes are fairly rare. And given that, you might not have thought there was a song about a Dodecahedron. (Or known what a dodecahedron was – Readers Recommend is nothing if not educational.) So here come Beth Jeans Houghton and the Hooves of Destiny to prove that there is.
Next we get a little more metaphorical, with Marillion telling us all about the many kinds of Warm Wet Circles you can have (more than you first thought of, probably) and Betty Wright lamenting the circular nature of her love life. She keeps making the same mistake and having to go back to the beginning in a Circle of Heartbreak; you’ve got to admire the bongos though.
Boxes can potentially come in all shapes and sizes, but Pete Seeger’s Little Boxes are definitely cuboid. They all look just the same, and so will you once you’ve lived in one for a bit. And you’ll probably be made out of ticky-tacky too. You might end up wishing you were a little less square – doing the Unsquare Dance with Dave Brubeck perhaps. But if that doesn’t work, don’t worry, because Buddy Holly will love you even though You’re So Square.
There are some strange folk in the world, and in Los Angeles especially. Frank Zappa’s been warning us about them for ages, so it’s no great surprise that he’s come across some Coneheads. Goodness, all these shapes are starting to go to my head too – thank heavens, then, for Blossom Dearie who’s using circles, squares, rectangles and triangles to explain the end of her relationship in The Shape of Things. Sarcasm in geometric shapes? You better believe it, dearie.
Now, are you ready for the country? Tasmania, that is. Because, if you think of Amanda Palmer's Map of Tasmania, it’s in the shape … it’s the shape of … well, it’s what Hadley Freeman’s been talking about this week. And it’s a triangle, so there.
More triangles, and in many colours, are listed in Christy Moore’s Yellow Triangle. It’s the equivalent in song of Pastor Niemöller’s speech/poem that starts “First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a Socialist.” I think you know how it goes, said suzi who recommended the song. Yes, we do.
And finally for this week, williamsbach had noticed the bit in the rubric that talks about songs that express a shape in their structure; so he recommended that very circular song There’s a Hole in the Bucket. The audience are in on the joke, of course, but that’s part of the joy of the piece – they know what’s coming, and they glory in it, with Harry Belafonte and Odetta milking it for all they’re worth. (Milking it? Bucket? Oh dear, I do apologise.) One thing that puzzles me, though, and has done since I first heard the song as a child, is how on earth you use straw to mend a bucket. Any ideas? Perhaps it’s one of life’s mysteries that will never be solved, like geometry.
The Playlist
The Auld Triangle – the Dubliners
Dodecahedron – Beth Jeans Houghton and the Hooves of Destiny
Circle of Heartbreak – Betty Wright
Unsquare Dance – the Dave Brubeck Quartet
You’re So Square – Buddy Holly
The Shape of Things – Blossom Dearie
Map of Tasmania – Amanda Palmer feat. the Young Punx
Yellow Triangle – Christy Moore
There’s a Hole in the Bucket – Harry Belafonte and Odetta
Read all the readers' recommendations onlast week's blog, from which treefrogdemon selected the songs above.
Listen to ourSpotify playlist with readers' recommendations on this theme.
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