What are you listening at the moment?

[Harrison Danneskjold]

 

[Harrison Danneskjold]

GREAT stuff to work to.  YouTube Music put it into my feed the other day and I'm fairly certain my productivity rose measurably.

[Harrison Danneskjold]

On 11/19/2024 at 1:23 PM, Boydstun said:

@Harrison Danneskjold – The relation of the "John Gray" to the "Little Apple" is foggy to me, but they seem related, perhaps family lineage. Long had a link I posted originally, but that link (at YouTube) voided in the years since. The former might be this one below. 

I'll listen to both later and compare. Because right now we are finishing listening to Turandot. Also: 

 

Nope.  Not John Gray; the Little Apple.

From New Ideal:
 

Quote

“Song of the Little Apple”

Although mentioned in only two places, this song is one of the most evocative in the novel. Also known as “The Apple,” the lyrics have had many variants, presumably to fit any situation. The melody is a well-known Russian gypsy folk tune that was used for “The Russian Sailor’s Dance” by Reinhold Gliere in his ballet The Red Poppy (1927). Its first appearance in We the Living is early in the book, when Kira hears it on the train the Argounov family was taking from the Crimea back to Petrograd. It was sung by a soldier accompanying himself on the accordion.

No one could tell whether his song was gay or sad, a joke or an immortal monument; it was the first song of the revolution, risen from nowhere, gay, reckless, bitter, impudent, sung by millions of voices, echoing against train roofs, and village roads, and dark city pavements, some voices laughing, some voices wailing, a people laughing at its own sorrow, the song of the revolution, written on no banner, but in every weary throat, the “Song of the Little Apple.” . . . No one knew what the little apple was; but everyone understood. (26)

It was also sung “softly, monotonously” by a young boy on the train taking Irina and Sasha to a Siberian prison camp (350, 352). The message of the song and its use in these scenes seems to be that of inevitability and resignation.

The lyrics of the first stanza in We the Living are:

Hey, little apple,

Where are you rolling?

If you fall into German paws,

You’ll never come back. (26)

Another variant is:

Hey, little apple

Green on one side

A Kolchak is not allowed

To go across the Urals.²⁶

The lyrics never seem to be quite the same between one performance and the next, but the lyric structure and themes involved are.  It's always about a little apple and Communist Russia, with lots of references to Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky.  From the version I found:

Quote

Hey, little apple
Where are you rolling?
You'll roll into my mouth
And there'll be no way back

...

Hey, little apple
Little apple of the orchard
Away with the landlords
Claim it all as the worker's property

 

Also, at one point I searched through dozens of online versions of this song, thinking it couldn't possibly be the one mentioned.  She says of Little Apple "No one could tell whether his song was gay or sad, a joke or an immortal monument; it was the first song of the revolution, risen from nowhere, gay, reckless, bitter, impudent" but most online versions are sung like a funeral dirge.  It's the same tune; it's just performed as if the singer is on his way up the steps of the gallows.  So if there was any element of gaiety or recklessness in what Ayn Rand had heard then it probably sounded more like this version.

Edited May 22 by Harrison Danneskjold

[Harrison Danneskjold]

 

Also great stuff to work to.  Most of the music I like is.

[Pokyt]

I hadn't listened to a Motörhead album front to back in a while so I decided to revisit my old favorites. Orgasmatron still rips.

I've also been rewatching Initial D with a friend who hasn't seen it before, so that soundtrack has dominated my drives recently.

The song is "Stop to Give Up" by Eurofunk. Posting the scene it's included in because it's too cool.

Edited 10 hours ago by Pokyt