u/Suttree1971

It’s a small group possibly, but did anyone fall in love with (mostly British) alternative music that was so ambient and jangly and sad/happy?

I’m thinking of these groups. These were the ones, at the time, really connected me to life:

The Cure (of course), Cocteau Twins, The Smiths, The Church, Siousxie, Dead Can Dance, The Sundays, Lush, My Bloody Valentine, This Mortal Coil, Slowdive, Spiritualized, Ride, The Ocean Blue, Mazzy Star, Galaxy 500, and really anything on the 4AD label.

This music was happening when I was coming to a beautiful campus to start college. I picked the “alt” dorm, filled mostly with artists, weirdos, and intellectuals. And this music was the soundtrack of my time there.

I just listened to the Thanksgiving scene in which Suttree runs into Harrogate on a wickedly cold Knoxville night.

I found it so sweet and kind for Suttree to take the country mouse to get a hot meal in his belly. He always realizes how completely helpless Gene is, but he loves the kid.

Once they sit down for food, after Suttree calls in a favor with the waitress, Gene says “I thought you said you didn’t have any money!” And Suttree teases “I thought YOU had some money.”

It’s such a cute, sweet scene that shows Suttree’s compassionate heart.

Love it.

I looked up the question “What would classical composers think of modern pop music?” But most of the answers concentrated on how blown away they’d be over the technology of the recording and dynamics.

What I am wondering is the same, but a different angle:

What would the Baroque and Classical composers think of the music if we took the top 25 most beautiful modern songs- perhaps The Beatles “Yesterday”, Dylan’s “Tamourine Man”, And other modern songs (not just ‘60s) played for them on PIANO or acoustic guitar? Or some combo of basic acoustic instruments. Even something like an acoustic guitar and cello version of these songs with vocals- intimate and stripped down from the studio dynamics of multitrack recording and synthesizer/distorted guitar/drumset.

So if it were about the -music-, what might they think?

I wonder if they would scoff at the simplicity of our chord progressions. Excited to hear what they might make of our modern “folk tunes”.

I have editing to do and I would like to get out of the house and work. Wouldn’t hurt if there’s refreshments. And a staff that doesn’t mind you lurking if you spend money.

The only place that occurs to me is the Spoon. Any other ideas?

Thanks!

I’ve read or listened to BM three or four times. I find the story so visceral and layered. The characters mesmerizing. And a reality even through Cormac’s flowery language.

I was just listening to a CSPAN clip of Harold Bloom talking about the novel, which he calls the “ultimate Western”, and it struck me: I’ve been so dazzled by the characters that I forgot the metaphors.

He describes the Judge as having “all languages, all knowledges” who “preaches endlessly of the theology of violence and war.” And who is “still alive and dancing and proclaiming that he will never die, at the end of the book. And indeed he has never died.”

I’d love to hear any thoughts about how the Judge is with us now, in these scary times, with charlatans and sociopaths paving the modern way.

Earlier he talks about how the novel has a “deep implicit warning for current American society.” (Of note: this interview is from June of 2000. Pre-9/11)

This idea of the coarseness with which we treat each other, displayed so well in this Western fable- my mind is opened. Maybe it’s the sadness of this late America that has opened my eyes to deeper interpretation. I don’t know.

I’d be happy to share the CSPAN link, but I don’t know the rules.