Behind the Moon, Beyond the Rain ... Over The Rainbow

A scene From the movie "Wizard of Oz" ... Aunt Em tells her to "find yourself a place where you won't get into any trouble". This prompts her to walk off by herself, musing to Toto, "Some place where there isn't any trouble. Do you suppose there is such a place, Toto? There must be. It's not a place you can get to by a boat, or a train. It's far, far away. Behind the moon, beyond the rain...", at which point she begins singing.

"Over the Rainbow" is a ballad, with music by Harold Arlen and lyrics by Yip Harburg. It was written for the movie The Wizard of Oz and was sung by actress Judy Garland, in her starring role as Dorothy Gale. It won the Academy Award for Best Original Song and became Garland's signature song, as well as one of the most enduring standards of the 20th century.

The very first artist to record the song was actually big band singer Bea Wain, who at the time was a featured vocalist with the Larry Clinton Orchestra in 1939. MGM prohibited release of this version until The Wizard of Oz (1939) had opened and audiences heard Judy Garland perform it.

Bea Wain with Larry Clinton Orchestra sings "Over The Rainbow"

In April 2005, the United States Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp recognizing lyricist Yip Harburg's accomplishments; it features the opening lyric from the song.

Lyrics:

Somewhere over the rainbow

Way up high,

There's a land that I heard of

Once in a lullaby.

Somewhere over the rainbow

Skies are blue,

And the dreams that you dare to dream

Really do come true.

Someday I'll wish upon a star

And wake up where the clouds are far

Behind me.

Where troubles melt like lemon drops

Away above the chimney tops

That's where you'll find me.

Somewhere over the rainbow

Bluebirds fly.

Birds fly over the rainbow.

Why then, oh why can't I?

If happy little bluebirds fly

Beyond the rainbow

Why, oh why can't I?

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Influence and legacy:

The song is number one on the "Songs of the Century" list compiled by the Recording Industry Association of America and the National Endowment for the Arts. The American Film Institute also ranked the song the greatest movie song of all time on the list of "AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs".

Aretha Franklin sings

Gene Vincent (Rockabilly Vocalist)

** The song was used as an audio wakeup call in the STS-88 space shuttle mission in Flight Day 4, which was dedicated to astronaut Robert D. Cabana from his daughter, Sara.

Cimarons (Trojan Reggae - 45 rpm)

Played on a Theramin (experimental electronic instrument)

Harry Nilsson - Over the Rainbow (explicit lyrics at the end)

Ben Webster

** The song was honored with the 2014 Towering Song Award by the Songwriters Hall of Fame and was sung at its dinner on June 12, 2014, by Jackie Evancho

Tony Overwater

Melody Gardot

Eric Clapton

** In April 2016, The Daily Telegraph listed the song as number 8 on its list of the 100 greatest songs of all time.

A few more Blue Raven Favorites:

Les Paul on Guitar:

Bill Frisell on Guitar

Jeff Beck on Guitar

In March 2017, Garland's original rendition of the song was selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or artistically significant".

Moondog - Part Three Germany and Beyond

Moondog Promotes himself In Europe

In 1973 he has a desire to visit the home of his ancesters. Hardin’s time in Candor ended rather abruptly in 1974. Paul Jordan, a Binghamton University professor of music, had a former student in Frankfurt, Germany, who invited Moondog there to play on a program in “unclassifiable” music. Once in Europe, Hardin decided to stay. A family ended up taking him in and reforming him of wearing the Viking helmet and had loose tailored clothes made for him.He met an archeology student by the name of Ilona Goebel. Having recently discovered an album of Moondog's music in her local record shop, she convinced the fascinating composer to move in with her and her family in the nearby village of Oer-Erkenschwick, a "composer's paradise" according to Moondog. Goebel quickly put an end to her archeology studies to become his daily assistant, publisher, record producer, and eventually his companion. Together they founded the publishing company Managarm (a dog in Nordic mythology that chases the moon), to promote his music in Europe

Bracelli [1986] Moondog - As the earth turns

To A Seahorse

Moondog - Choo Choo Lullaby

Commits to Composing:

His childhood desire to not only become a composer, but the greatest composer, burned strong within Hardin his entire life, pushing him to compose increasingly ambitious works, entirely in Braille, often at a dizzying rate. As a resident composer in Vienna in 1983, Moondog wished to follow in the footsteps of the great Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (who composed his last three symphonies in the Austrian capital) by composing his first three symphonies. Not only did he do so in only six weeks, but by the following year, Moondog had composed a total of 20 symphonies! Many of his works were performed and published during his lifetime, and there still remain to this day many works by Moondog that have never been heard , let alone recorded, including works for 13 celestas, another for 76 trombones, Tree Tone, a work requiring eight conductors, and notably Cosmos, a nine-hour work calling for thousand musicians and singers!

Many of Hardin's sketches are still in Braille, meaning that it could be years before musical audiences are fully aware of the extent of Moondog’s musical accomplishments.

"You'll never be a composer unless you master counterpoint". Upon reading these words in a book as a teenager, Moondog naturally sought to learn more about contrapuntal writing. He quickly discovered (and fell in love with) the works of Johann Sebastian Bach. A great admirer of the German composer, he nonetheless unashamedly pointed out Bach's supposed mistakes:

"I love Bach but he never analysed his pieces - I'm sure he realised that there were a lot of mistakes in there. I'm sure he would have corrected them if he had the time but he had kids and wives to take care of.”

Moondog - Chaconne in C

Moondog - Bug on a Floating Leaf

Moondog - Barn Dance

Moondog - Wind River Powwow

Moondog - Introduction And Overtone Continuum

9 Is The Magic Number (I knew it!!!)

As if Moondog was not eccentric enough, he also showed a strong fascination for the number 9, believing the number to contain within it a universal code born through sound, derived from a superhuman intelligence reserved only for those capable of understanding it:

e=Effect and c=Cause

"I've found that in the first nine overtones [a principal of musical soundwaves] there's a code which can only have been conceived by a god - I call it a Megamind. That code not only proves that god exists [...] but I have found that there are secret laws in there referring to cosmic construction [...] These things are all there in the first nine overtones."

This fascination permeated many of his poems, written in iambic nonameter, and his compositions, as described by the composer himself: for example the Overtone Tree, a symphonic project for four conductors based upon the first nine overtones, a one-thousand-part canon nine hours in length, and Sax Pax for a Sax, composed for nine saxophones.

Sax Pax For A Sax – Quoted to say

“A lot of the jazz and rock did abuse the saxophone as far as I'm concerned. I think I gave the saxophone a better deal. It can do very noble things. They recorded it in Bath, England, mostly London musicians. We had been doing some concerts before so we had some music at our fingers and then we just put it together. Sax Pax is a play on the word 'pax,' meaning peace. Ironically, the sax was invented (Adolf) Sax to, what some would say, compete with the brass in military bands. So 'peace' and 'military,' that's a little play on words there. The oboes and flutes wouldn't compete with the trumpets and trombones in a military band. But the saxophone is very loud though it's been abused and misused a lot. Made it sounding almost comical at times by jazz musiciains but it has a serious side too.”

Surf Session

Caribea

Rabbit Hop

Pastoral Suite a. Before the Storm, b. The Storm c. After The Storm

In Germany, Moondog dropped his Viking persona and adopted a more conventional appearance. His music, however, continued to be resolutely out there, and H’art Songs – which contains the wonderful ‘Enough About Human Rights!’ – is among his finest recordings.

Hardin wrote the liner notes to Big Band, his first release on his own Trimba label in 1995. For the song “You Have to Have Hope,” he wrote:

“Bill Clinton lived in Hope, I lived in Batesville, Arkansas. We never met. I heard he played the sax, for which I wrote the piece he hasn’t heard, as yet. ‘Back in Arkansas’ are words that fit a falling bit of melody. I’m harking back sixty years to Batesville Bess and all she did for me,”

referring to his early Arkansas piano teacher, Bess Maxfield

You Have to have Hope …

He returned to New York briefly in 1989, for a New Music America Festival tribute at which Philip Glass had invited him to conduct the Brooklyn Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra. Back in Germany, Moondog continued to record, releasing his final CD in 1996. The current Moondog revival can be traced back to 1998, when his music was used in the Coen brothers movie The Big Lebowski.

In the 1980s and 1990s, musicians such as John Fahey, Kronos Quartet, and NRBQ recorded Hardin’s songs. By then, with his lengthy beard turned white, his reputation amongst musical tastemakers was indelible: he had invented several esoteric musical instruments (the oo, trimba, and ooo-ya-tsu), played with everyone from Charles Mingus to Philip Glass, and influenced the likes of Tom Waits. In 1997, Atlantic issued Sax Pax for a Sax, his first major U.S. release in more than twenty-five years—and his last.

1991/05/26 - 75th Birthday

Moondog Live in Stuttgart 1992

1999 last concert

Beyond covers of his music, certain artists have drawn from the music of Moondog in more modern ways, using his music as the ground work for new musical compositions. Known as sampling, the process involves cutting a musical work into pieces, extracting desired passages and using them as themes for a new work. Unable to find, or perhaps to afford, accompanists, he devised a basic overdubbing technique using two tape recorders. Self-overdubbing remained at the core of his recordings. It’s essential to note that Moondog himself was a fan of sampler technology, having first discovered it in Germany during the 1980s and praising the technology's limitless possibilities (his album "Elpmas", released in 1991, is a simple anagram of the word sample). One notable example is by Mr Scruff, an English producer and DJ, using a sample of Moondog's Bird's Lament in 1999 for his track Get a Move on, which reaped great success and brought renewed attention to the music of Louis "Moondog" Hardin.

Get A Move On

Moondog died in Germany in 1999, but his music has lives on, rapidly gaining popularity as the years go by. Performed long after his death by countless classical and non-classical alike, including Jimmy McGriff, Marc Bolan, Moonshake, Stereolab, and more recently the Labèque Sisters to name but a few, the name Louis "Moondog" Hardin is far from forgotten, by all means.

Katia and Marielle Labèque; 4 movements (Philip Glass)

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More Music from Moondog:

Street Scene

Bird of Paradise

Chant

7 Beat Suite

Tree Trail

Trees Against the Sky

Voices Of Spring

New Amsterdam

Shakespeare City

Thank you for listening and reading .... That's all for now - Bye!

Moondog: Part Two - The Early Years

Moondog in Manhattan, NYC

continuing with Moondog ...

Pre Moondog (Moonpuppy)

• Born to an Episcopalian family in Marysville, Kansas, Hardin started playing drums that he made from a cardboard box at the age of five. His family relocated to Wyoming and his father opened a trading post at Fort Bridger. He attended school in a couple of small towns. At one point, his father took him to an Arapaho Sun Dance where he sat on the lap of Chief Yellow Calf and played a tom-tom made from buffalo skin.

• Hardin played drums for the high school band in Hurley, Missouri before losing his sight at the age of 16 in a farm accident on July 4, 1932, involving a dynamite cap. After learning the principles of music in several schools for blind young men across middle America, he taught himself the skills of ear training and composition. He studied with Burnet Tuthill and at the Iowa School for the Blind

• He then moved to Batesville, Arkansas where he lived until 1942, when he got a scholarship to study in Memphis, Tennessee. Although the majority of his musical training was self-taught by ear, he learned some music theory from books in braille there

(Moon) DOGGY STYLE: Moondog moves to NYC in 1943 – stays 30 years:

By 1946 he adopted the name "Moondog" in honor of a dog "who used to howl at the moon more than any dog I knew of".

Moondog's music took its inspiration from street sounds, such as the subway or a foghorn. It tended to be relatively simple but characterized by what he called "snaketime" and described as "a slithery rhythm, in times that are not ordinary [...] I'm not gonna die in 4/4 time"

Moondog's music took its inspiration from street sounds from the various sounds that surrounded him -- fog horns, street cars, footsteps, echoes, sirens -- and also learned to appreciate the importance of silence in composition. Pairing these influences with his early inspiration from Native American rhythms, Moondog released his first record,

“Moondog’s Symphony,” in 1949.

Moondog - Improvisations in 4/4

Moondog - Improvisations in 7/4

"I'm into swing. I get that from the American Indians like the Sioux, the Arapahoe and the Apache. They have this drum-beat, heart-beat. Bom, bom, bom. They had the walking beat, which is slower, and the running beat, which is faster. I used that almost all the time on this record. I claim that swing came from them. If you listen to Indian music from the plains, you'll hear that there's a steady swing beat and the big tom-tom is syncopated with swing-type melodies. 'rhythmically I'm in the past. Melodically and harmonically, I'm in the present or avant-garde.'

Single Foot

'Rhythmically in the past,' that goes back to the Indians. Even counterpoint comes out of the past. It's goes back to 1100 or 1200. Harmonically, my music is the same as Bach and Beethoven and Brahms and those people. No difference really. Rhythmically, it also goes back to the past- the swing rhythms of the Indians. You really couldn't find anything more syncopated. If you get a chance, listen to some Sioux Indian recordings or Cheyenne or Blackfoot Indians. You see how syncopated their rhythms are.

Using what he called “snake rhythm” (a slithery, complex beat that was a far departure from popular music at the time), Moondog’s creation was unlike anything ever produced: Moondog Symphony

“’Mr. Rhythm’ would be one of his sobriquets, the ‘off-beat’ percussionist who not only created ‘odd’ ditties in 5's and 7's (and who knows what else) and who also fashioned new instruments to lend them greater distinction, thereby, not by accident, attracting even further attention.”

More about snake time here (and otherwise a great window looking upon Moondogs life in general)… http://www.moondogscorner.de/biography/chap3.html

More odd time signatures

Moondog - Rim Shots

Moondog - Hardshoe (7/4) Ray Malone

5/8 In Two Shades

A Moonchild ...

He was married twice and had 2 daughters (June Hardin, and ???)

First married in 1943 and subsequently divorced.

A second marriage, to Sazuko Whiteing, a musician, in the 1950's, ended in divorce in the early 1960's

A second album produced with Guercio featured one of Moondog's daughters as a vocalist and contained song compositions in canons and rounds. The album did not make as large an impression in popular music as the first had.

Moondog 2

Moondog Dogma …

He identified with the Norsemen reflected in his apparel … he’d adopted a full Viking-esque regalia: a horned helmet (his symbol of “virility”), a long, tapered spear (his symbol of “freedom”), self-crafted leather boots, and a flowing, bulky ensemble of blankets, cloths, and capes. As far as religion, "I went along with what they said. I didn't know any different until I was in my late teens. My sister began reading a lot of philosophy to me and that undermined my belief in Christianity. The Greek thinkers and Pythagorus had a big influence on me. Shakespeare had a big influence on me and I was impressed with what Newton did. Then I gave religion up completely. That Christian influence didn't last very long.” ... a free thinker indeed!

Moondog's view on Street Performing:

“I made my living that way and I got exposure. It really worked because I hadn't been on the streets for more than a few weeks of the fall of '49 when I was written up. By January of '50, I was sitting in the doorway of Spanish Music Center on Sixth Avenue (which isn't there anymore) owned by Gabriel Oller. He said 'I like the music you're making. I made records. Would you like to make some singles?' We did three singles together and then I got other offers including a Columbia album. The first one was with a forty-piece orchestra that (producer) Al Brown got together. He really did a lot for me.”

For 30 years until 1972, Moondog lived as a street musician and poet in New York City, playing in midtown Manhattan, eventually settling on the corner of 53rd or 54th Street and 6th Avenue in Manhattan. He was not homeless, however, or at least not often:

he maintained an apartment in upper Manhattan and had a country retreat in Candor, NY(where he moved in 1972). He partially supported himself by selling copies of his poetry and his musical philosophy. (Article on stories of Candor … https://www.ithaca.com/news/past_cover_stories/did-you-hear-moondog/article_8f382258-3e10-11e6-8db3-3f84f4362d9e.html)

Hardin built an 8-by-16 foot log cabin in about 1961, with more help from the neighbors, that was both insulated and had a wood stove. Hardin lived full-time in Candor for about 16 months, starting in 1972.

Photo in NYC dressed like Viking at Candor, NY

Moondog and his cabin in Candor, NY

Moondog - Chaconne in G major

Moondog the Poet:

His poetry and his music share a same interest for rhythm. His couplets – a poem of two lines, of the same meter, that rhyme – can remind of the canons he has been inspired by for his music. As one of the couplets declares: ‘I find the greatest freedom in the stricture of a form/That paradoxes abnormality within a norm’. 50 Couplets is published by Lenka Lente.

From the late 1940's until the early 1970's, Mr. Hardin stood at attention like a sentinel on Avenue of the Americas around 54th Street. Soon after moving to New York City in the mid-1940s, Moondog was granted the rare privilege of listening to Philharmonic rehearsals by director Arthur Rodzinski. Moondog was known first for his appearance, but years of prominence brought people into his life who recognized how serious a musician he was: to give just one example, he lived for a time with the composer Philip Glass, who considered Hardin’s work influential on his own.

He wrote music for radio and television commercials, and one of his compositions was used on the soundtrack for the 1972 movie ''Drive, He Said,'' with Jack Nicholson.

Along the way, Mr. Hardin wrote Bohemian broadsides against government regimentation, the world monetary system and organized religion. He was celebrated by Beat Generation poets and late-1960's flower children.

Poetry examples http://www.moondogscorner.de/poetry/

• A snow-flake landed on my hand and said, as if in fear, "I must be on my way, before I turn into a tear."

• The Whole declared, "You´ll never know the sum of all My parts, so stop your foolish figuring, and mend your broken hearts."

• You like? you like the thoughts? you like the thoughts i think? you do? They're naught to me compared to just one fleeting thought of you.

Viewpoint “I am an observer of life, a non-participant who takes no sides. I am in the regimented society, but not of it.” -- Moondog, 1964

Ostrich Feathers Played On Drum

His passionate unconventionality drew praise from some critics and led to interviews on many television shows, including both ''Today Show” and ''The Tonight Show.''

Surf Session

Caribea

Rabbit Hop

Moondog Pastoral Suite a. Before the Storm, b. The Storm c. After The Storm

Fun and Nonsense … with Julie Andrews

Birds Lament

Extended

Drum Suite

Frog Bog - Moondog/Weiner-Sabinski Duo

Big Cat …

Lullaby … 1956 Prestige Records version

Street Scene

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Stay tuned for ... more MOONDOG!!!

Moondog - Part Three - The Later Years (Coming Soon)