Writes , in "Sly Stone and the Sound of an America That Couldn’t Last/The influential musician, who died on Monday at 82, forged harmony — musical and otherwise — that he wasn’t able to hold together on his own" (NYT).
Beautiful version of a song that one usually associates with Doris Day. Here's Day singing it as loud as possible in "The Man Who Knew Too Much." Here's how she sang it when it wasn't an incredibly intense scene in a Hitchcock movie. And here's a beautiful version by 2 young women on TikTok.
The seeming lightness of the song has made it useful in dark comedy:
For example, in The Simpsons episode "Bart's Comet", the song is sung by the citizens of Springfield in anticipation of an impending comet strike that threatens to wipe out the town and kill them all. In an episode of The Muppet Show starring Vincent Price, Shakey Sanchez, a pink/purple red and purple haired Muppet sings the song after Behemoth eats him .... In Gilmore Girls, the song appeared in a Season 2 episode as a musical cue to juxtapose Lorelai falling through their termite-ridden porch. In 2009, the song appeared in a climactic scene in Mary and Max as Mary is about to commit suicide. A 2010 commercial for Thai Life Insurance also juxtaposes the song and its message with a choir of disabled children performing to it.
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What’s your damage!?! …and dubbed or not Muppet Show performances of hits are grossly underrated. I get loves from the so for Blue Bayou on anniversaries…
It is what it is
John Henry
Sly was great.
The series 'From' on MGM+ also uses a slow, sad version of the song.
Not only were Sly Stone and Doris Day very good friends, it has been suggested they were VERY good friends, IYKWIM.
I guess if you like that sort of thing, that's the sort you'd like. Personally, it got old after about 30 seconds. But then, I felt that way about the other songs I've sampled.
The readers of the NYT's seem to love this guy, just like they loved leonard cohen. I've never heard of either of them until I read Althouse. There's something about them a minority of people just cant get enough of.
From reading the wikipedia, he was a typical R/Rer:
"Live bookings for Sly and the Family Stone had steadily dropped since 1970, because promoters were afraid that Stone or one of the band members might miss the gig, refuse to play, or pass out from drug use"
And of course, the theiving dishonest Record producer in the background:
Stone had filed suit against Goldstein for $50 million in January 2010, accusing Goldstein of cheating him out of years' worth of royalty payments for the songs he had written
FFS, dogma and pony show.
Imagine if he could have seen the future and got to choose. "You can have five years on top of the world, but the price is fifty more years of drug addiction."
Of course I'd heard Que Sera Sera many times as a child, thinking it a simple and happy song. Imagine my shock when I saw "The Man Who Knew Too Much". What a powerful, frightening moment. Credit to Doris (and Hitch) for later interpretations.
Try adding a bit of Cream when your Strange Brew is sopping with rue…
…it was just the open of The Doris Day Show, on after Petticoat Junction…
Not only were Sly Stone and Doris Day very good friends, it has been suggested they were VERY good friends, IYKWIM.
Was that before she was a virgin? (Joke)
Doris Day gets no credit, by the way, for being a feminist woman. But if you watch Pillow Talk she is walking the walk and talking the talk. I love that movie.
My favorite Sly song is Everyday People
You pay attention to black artists, you start to notice that many of them are in the MLK camp, while another group are more of the Malcom X variety.
Sly, like me, was MLK all the way. RIP, brother.
I just found out for the first time that Scooby Doo got into those lyrics. Cool.
Some people flunk their stochastic aptitude test/. Because of some random mutations, their life goes splat. Others get a recherche nose and a long life. I guess if you eat leafy greens and study hard in school, you can increase the probabilities of a good life, but luck plays a huge part in it. Que sera sera. When Doris Day sings about the implacability of fate, she makes it sound reassuring and positive. The destiny that shapes our ends is benign. This might not be true, but, in any event there's comfort to be had in Doris Day's voice.
"The Man Who Knew Too Much" is my least favorite Hitchcock film, not least for Doris Day's singing. Apparently the Hitch like it, since he made it twice. We know he had a thing for blonds, thus making Miss Day a worthy object of his longing. But how to get her?
It's not like Doris Day was short of work in 1955; she could write her own contract in those days. The deal must have been I get five uninterrupted screen minutes to belt out a Top Forty candidate and the exclusive recording rights, or it's pound sand, you dirty old man. I imagine Hitchcock signing on the dotted line while thinking of Kim Novak.
It just shows some people will like or dislike anything. Day's Que Sera was one of her greatest hits and still popular today. Same with the movie. What's amazing is what a good actress Doris Day was. But she didn't like doing dramas. She wanted to do "feel good" comedies and romances.
May 1, 1970 Dane County Coliseum
Setlist 1.) I Want To Take You Higher
That's right, one song. After waiting two and a half hours they dragged a near comatose Sly onto the stage. The band tried to cover with an admirably energetic performance but after 20 minutes even they couldn't hide the fact the singer could only repeat the title line from one song. "I want to take you Higher" seemed more like a request than a performance. I was amazed to learn he died this week. In 1972 I would have given him six months maximum.
One thing about "Man who Knew too much" - Hitchcock is no musical director. The staging of the first redition of que sera is terrible. Some people claim to like the 1930s version better, but you can see why Hitchcock remade it. Even at 75 minutes, the movie drags. And the effects and staging are primitive.
Looking at DD's wikipedia and links. She found out after he died that her husband of 17 years bilked her out of millions. Also she's the Mom of Terry Melcher. Record producer of Beach Boys and Charlie Manson fame. Just imagine what would have happened if he gave Manson a record contract?
The writings of music critics are almost entirely unreadable, meaningless piffle, and this is no exception.
The Man Who Knew Too Much is my 19th favorite Hitchcock movie. Here's my list.
1. Notorious
2. Rear Window
3. North by Northwest
4. The Lady Vanishes
5. To Catch a Thief
6. Saboteur
7. The 39 Steps
8. The Birds
9. Foreign Correspondent
10. Dial M for Murder
11. Psycho
12. Shadow of a Doubt
13. Stage Fright
14. Strangers on a Train
15. Suspicion
16. Vertigo
17. Mr. and Mrs. Smith (his one screwball comedy)
18. Marnie
19. The Man Who Knew Too Much
20. Lifeboat
21. Rebecca
Here's my mini-review...
Doris Day is not really a Hitchcock woman. No singing! No singing in Hitch! Come on. The best Hitchcock woman is obviously Grace Kelly, and you can get into bar fights arguing about who's next. Tippi Hedren is good (too good, she sent Hitch over the edge), Ingrid Bergman, Joan Fontaine. Doris Day is just too damn happy. It's like my mom in a Hitchcock movie. She's not bad, she just doesn't belong here.
Now I got that "Que Sera, Sera" song in my head. Damn it, Doris.
"The Man Who Knew Too Much" is my least favorite Hitchcock film
It's a solid A-
You want bad?
4887 Frenzy (1972) Old age hit Hitchcock pretty hard. His last great movie, Marnie, was released in 1964, when Hitch was 65. And Marnie has problems, but it’s still pretty amazing. It’s highly original. After that one, though, everything is paint by numbers. Topaz has a few amazing shots, but it’s a horrible story, really. Torn Curtain was Hitchcock’s attempt to collaborate with a new star, Paul Newman. It was a disaster. Family Plot is watchable and light. Kinda fun, but you ain’t missing anything if you miss it. But the worst movie from Hitch’s final years, hands down, is Frenzy. It’s not fun at all. It’s sadistic and crude. Sex and violence is nothing new to Hitchcock. But he always kept it classy and cool. In Frenzy, it’s how low can you go? Pretty damn low. It’s like violent porn. Raw, ugly, and worst of all, boring.
“I am convinced Hitchcock was never the same after Marnie,” said Francois Truffaut. Yes, I think that’s exactly right.
Sly Stone was genius level. He was writing and creating music from an early age. Produced for so many. Influenced scores of musicians for years. If our music industry was not so creatively clotted these days we might have more Sly Stones.
Everybody is a Star.
"It's a solid A-"
A as in aimless. A as in anemic.
Sly Stone’s multiracial band showed straight America the funky logic of our cherished melting pot.
Brick House. One Nation, That's the Way and the Family Stone's Family Affair and If you Want Me to Stay. Funk is special. The One is the foundational beat, but only because it gives so much room for the off beat that forms funk's rhythm.
When you're fourteen, you still need the pop to hook you, It comes much later when your mind can dig deeper into the sound and rhythm of the funk.
Sly and the Family Stone are going to be the band that turn's the young mind on to funk because they could write such great tunes. But it doesn't make them any less serious funksters. Sly's influence has been up there with George Clinton and definitely in the same room as James Brown.
kak wouldn’t make it through a week, even writing for Crawdaddy.
Jeez, speaking of genius level. We've just lost another great- an all-timer.
Brian Wilson has passed away.
Ahhch. Try this link: Brian Wilson has passed.
Howard: "Just imagine what would have happened if he gave Manson a record contract."
...with album covers by Dolph Hitler, after his long career with the Viennese Academy.
I don't know why people are fixated on the "kill Baby Hitler" time travel scenario, when the more bloodless way to avoid the Holocaust would be to just teleport into the art academy and put his application in the "Accepted" pile.
JSM
"I don't know why people are fixated on the "kill Baby Hitler" time travel scenario, when the more bloodless way to avoid the Holocaust would be to just teleport into the art academy and put his application in the "Accepted" pile."
https://anewdomain.net/time-travel-assassination-squad-kill-hitler-or-admit-him-to-art-school-ted-rall-satire/
This one is also good.
https://viruscomix.com/page382.html
Blinkered Realist, tonight at Emo's
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