Day 24: Fly Me To The Moon
AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 LOUSY TUNES
I awoke with a rudimentary fishbowl on my head and my manservant Crispian De Savary gurning over me in a similar helmet. I could not help noticing that we were both floating as if we were in a very expensive Michael Jackson or U2 video. The sensation was as pleasant as being in a Michael Jackson or U2 video.
“Crispian. Please tell me where we are, what you have done and where all my money is.”
“Well, you see its like this Tanya. It has always been an ambition of mine to see the Dark Side Of The Moon.”
“Rubbish Floyd album. Surely Crispian you could just hot foot it to Our Price and see the puffed up prismed nonsense for yourself. No, don’t tell me, you saw it, you listened to it and now in your madness you are trying to escape all of Earths hideous tunesmithery.”
“Well I am escaping Earth. You see with your fortune and the insurances I cashed in after you, er, died it gave em enough money to buy loads of rocket fuel which I snuck into this converted Saturn V booster rocket.”
“Who would sell you rocket fuel Crispian. People know you still watch Firestarter once a week and you are banned from municipal firework displays.”
“I – ahem – said it was for. Turns out Tanqueray Gin makes a tremendous booster propellant.”
“You are burning gin, to send us in to space.”
I could barely speak so appalled was I with the cretins waste of fine alcohol.
And then I considered our position.
“You say you aim to land on the dark side of the moon.”
“Yes. Just left of the prism.”
“So you have enough fuel to get us back?”
“Yes in the secondary tank.”
Aha, a tank of tanq. Well, every bad day has a silver lining.
“I don’t suppose you have any tonic and lemon?”
FRANK SINATRA: Fly Me To The Moon
Old Blue Eyes, a soubriquet he has now earned what with the white of his eyes having evaporated and mold having taken hold in the sockets. In his lifetime I always liked to think of him as Old Black Eyes, which was perhaps wishful thinking on my part. Frank Sinatra was the lead member of the Rat Pack, so named because the were hated and reviled as a pest wherever they went. If the Pied Piper of Hamlyn really existed, and was not a musician, I cannot think of any greater bunch of vermin for him to destroy that Deano, Franko and Sammy Davis-o. Their resemblance to rats continued even down to the cellular level, apparently you could catch Weils disease from drinking Sinatra’s piss. (You could get quite drunk if you swallowed Dean Martin’s piss, but he was like a rat in so many other ways.)
Such was the gross stupidity and misplace vanity of the Rat Pack that they thought it was a compliment to be compare TO RATS! Think about it. But then think about the kind of music they made, dull slow ballads and supposed swinging numbers. These numbers swung so much that people still dance to them in Darby & Joan clubs up and down the country. Without putting their artificial hips out. Songs For Swingin’ Lovers, Songs For Teetering Geriatrics more like. There is nothing easy about this listening, and the suggestion that this is music to watch girls by is laughable. Music to watch a girl (me) run away to. I am sure those albums were marketed to blind men.
As for Fly Me To The Moon: its release was nicely timed to not cash in on the actual moon shots. A simple song of the type which has later become known as a Standard. Perhaps here is where we let Ken Livingstone explain what he thinks of when he hears the word Standard, and the words nazi, fascist etc leap into view.
Fly Me To The Moon is a remarkably stupid song by the way. Consider the lyric “Let me see what spring is like on Jupiter or Mars.” Let me tell you. Pretty much like the weather on those planets at any other time of the year. Fucking inhospitable.