Today's song is...
Meet James Ensor
My boyfriend and I have this long standing joke about the part of Gigantic where Ira Glass is talking about asking the Johns why they wrote about James Ensor and all they would say was "He's a really great painter." It dates back to the very first time we watched the movie together. It comes up every now and then and I still find it funny. Just something about that story really amuses me and I love the quote.
I found a book on James Ensor at work the other day, and while, as far as I could tell, it made no mention of the song, the title of the introduction was Meeting James Ensor so I feel quite certain the author was familiar with it.
I have heard this live a few times but I have to admit, I am much more amused by the recordings of performances of it without the band where the Johns replicate the little guitar part towards the end vocally. Cracks me up every time :-)
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I love the vocal replication of the guitar part at the end too. This isn't one of my favorite songs, but I don't hate it. It's fun to harmonize with.
ReplyDeleteI love the lyric: "Before there were junk stores/ Before there was junk/ He lived with his mother and the torments of Christ".
ReplyDeleteI've always liked the lyric "dig him up and shake his hand, appreciate the man". :] And I love learning about people I would probably know nothing about through fantastically-written songs.
ReplyDeleteThe day you posted this entry, I watched Jeopardy! and there was a clue regarding a Belgian painter. I guessed James Ensor, of course, just because he's the only Belgian painter I could think of, but alas, it was some other guy.
hahaha! I just happened to be listening to Podcast 7a and there's a bit of the vocal replication of the guitar part of this song you mentioned on there! That IS amusing! XD
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