Most depressing song...

[Prospero]

Interesting to read Stavros's typically dogmatic remarks about the wonderful music of Edward Elgar.

I find certain of his pieces depressing but for wholly different reasons.

I cannot listed to Elgar's "The Wand of Youth" suite at all because I purchased it for my father for his birthday but never go to give it to him before he died from a heart attack.

[Stavros]

Interesting to read Stavros's typically dogmatic remarks about the wonderful music of Edward Elgar.
.

Dogma has nothing to do with it, as I do not have a musical theory or doctrine to explain it. Elgar's music is not to my taste, like the (so-called) music of William Walton, Aaron Copeland and Handel, I feel ill when it I hear it on the radio. If it means something to you, then that is fine with me. Just don't expect me to share it.

[Beav42]

"I Want to Know What Love Is", by Foreigner.

[Prospero]

When I used the word dogmatic I meant it in the sense that you generally brook no dissent from your view Stavros. That you are equally deaf to the wonders of Copland, Walton and Handel is a matter for regret, not condemnation.

[timmartin]

Gloomy Sunday by Billie Holiday. A real ray of sunshine it is.

[Stavros]

When I used the word dogmatic I meant it in the sense that you generally brook no dissent from your view Stavros.

I disagree, as I am open to robust debate on all, and any topic.

[Prospero]

"colourless, superficial emotion soaked in the most depressing range of chords known to man. "

This is what I mean. An articulate but utterly subjective dismissal of a composer who is widely considerated to be a great figure in the musical world. I accept that liking or not liking any music is - ultimately - a subjective thing. But this is hyperbolic nonsense.

[Laphroaig]

"When a Blind Man Cries" by Deep Purple.

"If you're leaving close the door.
I'm not expecting people anymore.
Hear me grieving, I'm lying on the floor.
Whether I'm drunk or dead I really ain't too sure.

I'm a blind man, I'm a blind man and my world is pale.
When a blind man cries, Lord, you know there ain't no sadder tale."

[Prospero]

Set this to music....
“No matter where; of comfort no man speak:
Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs;
Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes
Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth,
Let's choose executors and talk of wills:
And yet not so, for what can we bequeath
Save our deposed bodies to the ground?
Our lands, our lives and all are Bolingbroke's,
And nothing can we call our own but death
And that small model of the barren earth
Which serves as paste and cover to our bones.
For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground
And tell sad stories of the death of kings;
How some have been deposed; some slain in war,
Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed;
Some poison'd by their wives: some sleeping kill'd;
All murder'd: for within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be fear'd and kill with looks,
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable, and humour'd thus
Comes at the last and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!
Cover your heads and mock not flesh and blood
With solemn reverence: throw away respect,
Tradition, form and ceremonious duty,
For you have but mistook me all this while:
I live with bread like you, feel want,
Taste grief, need friends: subjected thus,
How can you say to me, I am a king?”

[Prospero]