Author: chimesfreedom

Editor-in-chief, New York.

Mary Queen of Scots and Mary Queen of Arkansas

Mary Queen of Scots On July 24 in 1567, the imprisoned Mary Queen of Scots was forced to abdicate her crown. Eventually, she would be beheaded.

]The abdication came after Mary’s second husband died under mysterious circumstances.  Mary subsequently married the main suspect, leading the nobility to have her imprisoned.  She was forced her to abdicate her throne in favor of her son.

After Mary escaped and went to England, she became connected to plots to overthrow Queen Elizabeth. So, Mary was beheaded.  But when Elizabeth died, Mary’s son King James VI became King of England, Scotland, and Ireland.

A Mary Who Was Queen of Arkansas

More than four hundred years later, Bruce Springsteen wrote a song about another Queen Mary, “Mary Queen of Arkansas,” which appeared on Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. (1973).  Springsteen earlier included the song among the first demos he recorded for John Hammond at Columbia.

When I first got the album, “Mary Queen of Arkansas” was one of my least favorite songs on the record.  Hammond did not especially like it at first either, and Springsteen rarely plays the former concert opener live these days. But gradually, the song grew on me.

“Mary Queen of Arkansas” is a love song, with some circus references:  “Well, I’m just a lonely acrobat, the live wire is my trade.” Beyond that, I never thought too much about the meaning.

But checking some sources for this post, I found various interesting theories. Some say Mary has religious significance or that she was a prostitute. Similarly, Springsteen has commented on how he often uses the name “Mary,” saying “I’m sure it’s the Catholic coming out in me, y’know? That was always the most beautiful name.”

Here, though, the title’s similarity to Mary Queen of Scots seems less than a coincidence.  Reportedly, Springsteen got the idea for the title from the 1972 film Mary, Queen Of Scots, which starred Venessa Redgrave.

The song, though, is not about the Queen of Scots. Wikipedia concludes, “The song appears to be sung in the first person, by a slave in the antebellum American south, to his white mistress, with whom he is having a clandestine affair.”

I never saw that the slave connection in the song, although some of the lyrics support that theory.  For example, consider the lines: “your white skin is deceivin’ . . . But on your bed, Mary, I can see the shadow of a noose.” Hmmm. . .

Either way, it is a beautiful song.  It also makes one think fondly of Mary Queen of Arkansas.

The song also captures the escape theme that arises in other Springsteen songs like “Born to Run.” While Mary Queen of Scots was unable to escape a tragic end, we can hope that Mary Queen of Arkansas and her lover were able to get away clean to Mexico without either one of them losing their head.

The above version of “Mary Queen of Arkansas” is from a 1974 Houston radio show.

Do you think Mary Queen of Arkansas is in the voice of a slave having an affair or is it just an Arkansas love song? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    How to Tie Your Shoelaces

    shoelaces better way to tie

    Look at your shoes. Do your shoelaces come untied periodically? Are your bows straight across the top of the shoe as they should be — like the shoe on the right — or do they end up aimed down the length of your shoe — like the shoe on the left?

    I recently ran across a three-minute video on Netflix from TED about how to tie your shoe. Intrigued, I figured it was worth three minutes. In the short video, Terry Moore explains how you likely have been tying your shoe wrong all these years.

    While Moore explains the problem quite well, it took me several viewings to figure out how I should adapt my shoe-tying style. For me, it was a matter of looping the opposite direction around my finger instead of my thumb.

    If you are still not quite seeing it, here is another video that explains a little more how you might make the adjustment to tying the superior reef knot instead of that granny knot your parents taught you. [2016 Update: A previously posted video from from Runner’s World is no longer available.]

    In defense of your parents, the granny knot probably is easier for little kid fingers. But I am upset about all those years I wasted having to retie my shoes after they came undone.

    Now, if you tie your shoes correctly, you can use that extra time for for your favorite activities, including reading Chimesfreedom.

    How do you tie your shoes? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    It’s Only Two O’clock and the Temperature’s Beginning to Soar

    Meat Loaf Out of the Frying Pan It is really hot today in New York, which has me thinking about songs about the summer heat. For example, if you flip through the radio stations you are bound to run across Buster Poindexter’s “Hot, Hot, Hot!” But one of my favorite songs about the heat, which is not as well known, is “Out of the Frying Pan and Into the Fire,” written by Jim Steinman and recorded by Meat Loaf.

    I discovered the song when it appeared on Bad for Good, the 1981 album Steinman made after Meat Loaf’s voice problems prevented him from recording the follow-up to his mega-hit album Bat Out of Hell (1977). I probably am one of the few people who bought Steinman’s album and still will listen to it. I love his version of “Out of the Frying Pan” as well as every moment his voice strains to reach the high notes, perhaps because that is how I first heard it. I grabbed anything related to Steinman and Meatloaf for awhile, and I bought all of Meat Loaf’s 1980 albums before his big comeback with Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell (1993), which featured Meat Loaf’s version of “Out of the Frying Pan.”

    While through the years my music tastes went in other directions, I still play some Meat Loaf and Jim Steinman music out of my archives. And today is a good day to listen to their overblown song with double entendre meanings and lines such as, “The subways are steaming and the skin of the street is gleaming with sweat.” Here is a grainy video of a young Meat Loaf performing the song in 1988 on a small stage in Flushing, New York before his 1990s comeback.

    You may find more recent performances on Youtube.  And even though an older Meat Loaf no longer had the great voice he once had, he always gave his all.

    For covers of various songs about the heat, check out Cover Lay Down.

    What is your favorite song about the heat? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Marty Brown’s AGT Las Vegas Performance of “When You Say Nothing At All”

    Marty Brown AGT Las Vegas

    As Chimesfreedom previously reported, country singer Marty Brown advanced to the New York rounds of “America’s Got Talent.” During the Las Vegas rounds, he performed Keith Whitley’s “When You Say Nothing At All.”

    Howard Stern and Howie Mandel noted that they did not like the performance as much as Marty Brown’s San Antonio performance of Bob Dylan’s “Make You Feel My Love.” On the other hand, if you saw the entire episode, you would see the show is edited to create drama so it shows the judges saying something negative about everyone. Meanwhile, one of the other competitors noted about Brown, “He makes me like country music.” Most importantly, the judges liked the performance enough to send Brown to the live performances at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. What will Marty Brown do next to win over the judges and America?

    [Update: For a post on Brown’s entire run on America’s Got Talent, check out our post on The Great AGT Rebirth of Marty Brown.]

    What would you like to hear Marty Brown sing next? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Alanis Morissette and Irony

    alanis Morrisette ironic Through the years, people have noted that the Alanis Morissette hit “Ironic” on Jagged Little Pill (1995) misunderstood the meaning of “ironic.” The events listed in her song included things like a free ride when you already paid and rain on a wedding day. These events might be described as “coincidental” or “improbable,” but not “ironic.” The Free Online Dictionary instead defines “irony” as an “occurrence, result, or circumstance notable” for an “[i]ncongruity between what might be expected and what actually occurs.”

    To illustrate true irony, Eliza Hurwitz rewrote the lyrics to “Ironic” and her sister Rachel Hurwitz did the music to make “It’s Finally Ironic.” This new song changes the lyrics of Morrisette’s song to illustrate irony. For example, a fly in your chardonnay is not ironic, unless you specifically purchased the chardonnay to repel flies. Check out the song.

    The grammar critique does not undermine Morisette’s songwriting skills or the hit original, of course (and as one YouTube commentator noted, maybe is ironic that a song about irony does not feature any irony). While some have criticized the critics of the song, the new video is an entertaining and educational tribute to Morissette’s original. And Ms. Hurwitz and Ms. Leah made something fun out of all of the discussion of the song.

    What is your favorite part of “It’s Finally Ironic”? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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