Marguerite
Active Member
"A mouse lived in a windmill so snug and so nice... There's nobody there now but a whole lot of mice. oh yeah!"
And the ultimate challenging lyric from about 1968 - "Mashed potato yeah, yeah, yeah..."
Seriously - that was it! I figured, now I've heard everything!
A lot of people were horrified when Rolf harris did a cover of "Stairway to Heaven" in his own typical Rolf style (complete with wobble board and didgeridoo). But it became a hit and re-launched his career. Personally, I like it.
But Rolf's original hit, "Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport" had to be re-released with a certain verse missing - these days that verse would be considered racist, although you couldn't consider Rolf racist in any way. It's the Aussie equivalent of a certain "n" word used so freely in "Blazing Saddles" (it was funny then, it was not used to be racist because it was actually highlighting racism in how it was used). Theway Rolf used the Aussie word in his earlier version of the song was also delivered in a way to satirise racism, but it is just too close to the bone these days and had to be cut.
I then had to explain to my kids - all those years we'd been playing the song from a very old recording and the kids had to be re-educated. "Don't sing that verse any more, kids."
Back to "Stairway to Heaven" - an Aussie TV presenter, ANdrew Denton (one of our best interviewers, he's brilliant) had a TV show called "The Money or the Gun". He declared that his favourite song in all the world was "Stairway to Heaven" and because it was HIS show, he could have whatever he wanted. So he had that song - done in a different style each week by a different artist. It became a running gag and a good one, too. An album was released with all those different versions - Sydney Philharmonia Choir doing it in choral style a capella; Judi Connelli doing it in Jazz style; a famous performance poet doing it as a narration like Man from Snowy River; and so on. And then Rolf.
I love it. But especially those who didn't get the joke or who found it wearing thin, would have hated Rolf's version, they felt it ruined a great song.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgsH1pdWJ84"]YouTube - Rolf Harris - Stairway to Heaven[/ame]
Marg
And the ultimate challenging lyric from about 1968 - "Mashed potato yeah, yeah, yeah..."
Seriously - that was it! I figured, now I've heard everything!
A lot of people were horrified when Rolf harris did a cover of "Stairway to Heaven" in his own typical Rolf style (complete with wobble board and didgeridoo). But it became a hit and re-launched his career. Personally, I like it.
But Rolf's original hit, "Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport" had to be re-released with a certain verse missing - these days that verse would be considered racist, although you couldn't consider Rolf racist in any way. It's the Aussie equivalent of a certain "n" word used so freely in "Blazing Saddles" (it was funny then, it was not used to be racist because it was actually highlighting racism in how it was used). Theway Rolf used the Aussie word in his earlier version of the song was also delivered in a way to satirise racism, but it is just too close to the bone these days and had to be cut.
I then had to explain to my kids - all those years we'd been playing the song from a very old recording and the kids had to be re-educated. "Don't sing that verse any more, kids."
Back to "Stairway to Heaven" - an Aussie TV presenter, ANdrew Denton (one of our best interviewers, he's brilliant) had a TV show called "The Money or the Gun". He declared that his favourite song in all the world was "Stairway to Heaven" and because it was HIS show, he could have whatever he wanted. So he had that song - done in a different style each week by a different artist. It became a running gag and a good one, too. An album was released with all those different versions - Sydney Philharmonia Choir doing it in choral style a capella; Judi Connelli doing it in Jazz style; a famous performance poet doing it as a narration like Man from Snowy River; and so on. And then Rolf.
I love it. But especially those who didn't get the joke or who found it wearing thin, would have hated Rolf's version, they felt it ruined a great song.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgsH1pdWJ84"]YouTube - Rolf Harris - Stairway to Heaven[/ame]
Marg
