Saturday, October 26, 2002 #4 Shirley Bassey, "Send in the Clowns" The fact that this song has anything at all to do with clowns is one primal reason why it has this faint nimbus of kitsch. Most people, myself included, hate and fear clowns, what with their dual roles in public life as bottomless wellsprings of pathos and the enforcers of mandatory jollility. But if the idea of a song with clowns makes you retch, consider that the clown metaphors only take a supporting role in this song. There are other ones to savor: "Send In The Clowns" is sung as two former lovers once again split up. A widowed lawyer, Frederik, who recently married a very young girl (who after months of marriage still is a virgin) meets again with his old lover, an actress called Desiree. She hopes to regain the love of the lawyer but he rejects her. She sings "send in the clowns...", a phrase used in the circus if anything goes wrong and things must be covered up (if somebody drops from the trapeze or has been bitten by a lion, it's time for the clowns to entertain). (from The Songs of Shirley Bassey) I didn't know the title had a previous life until I accessed the above-mentioned webpage, but knowing this reconfigures lines like "Me here at last on the ground/you in mid-air" and "one who keeps tearing around/one who can't move" into something darker and more morbid: Desiree and Frederik as trapeze artists, with Desiree falling, failing in front of everybody, humiliated so deeply she can't see how she can pick up the pieces. Emphasizing his morbidity is an awfully punk rock approach in "redeeming" Sondheim for a modern-day a go-go world, yes, but a guy responsible for Sweeney Todd and Assassins and The Last of Sheila pretty much invites it. Yes, yes, all very well and good, but what about Shirley? Initially I feared this one. What I know -- what most people know -- are her Bond songs (and that thing in the car commercial). Those are masterworks of overstatement and if there's anything this quiet song of self-loathing DOES NOT NEED is overstatement. And yeah, if I was doing imitation of a generic diva singing this song, I'd sing it as "Don't you love FAHCE?" and make my consonants super-crisp, too. But that doesn't bug me at all. It's redeemed when she allows herself these moments of dreaminess, especially when she gets very quiet in the song's last lines. Lovely. (link)

Tuesday, October 22, 2002 #3 Chet Baker and Van Morrison, "Send in the Clowns" Without Van's indebtedness to the blues...no, strike that. It goes beyond indebtedness -- Van needs the blues like a diabetic needs his insulin. Without Van's personal pantheon of the musically earthy kept near his bosom like a security blanket (or at least liberally name-dropped on one of his albums), he spins out of control much as he did that version of SITC reviewed earlier. But under the tutalage of Chet Baker, he gives a fine, muted reading (even if by the mid-80's Van Morrison sounds more like a Gyoto monk than he does Huddie Ledbetter). His roots are his subject, his substance, and his limitation. Bet he'd never even think of recording something as synthetic as a corny show tune until some member of his pantheon prodded him on, telling him it was OK if he crossed Broadway, just as long as he looked both ways before he did. Chet and band are great, though, with Van more-or-less takes care of the song proper while everyone else making sideways glances to the melody or the chord structure or the rhythm. You know, like in jazz. (link)