Thursday, May 20, 2010

Bellydancing Beauty with a Power-driven Saw

So yesterday, as I was finishing up S.M. Stirling's A Meeting in Corvalis, the name "Lady Eleanor" pops into my head. Some people in the Stirling books go by "lord" and "lady", but I don't think any of them are named Eleanor, particularly. But it jogged a memory of this name, and that reminded me of this song, which I'm pretty sure I taped off WXPN when I'd first started listening to it, and the depth and breadth of the music they'd play seemed so much vaster than it does to me today. (Granted, I rarely listen anymore, since I'm about 10 miles out of broadcasting range.)

This might have actually been on the same tape as Tim Hardin's "The Lady Came From Baltimore," also a strange, old-timey folk song, though far less trippy. "Lady Eleanor," on the other hand, recalls Cream's "Tales of Brave Ulysses,"or if Fairport Convention were playing King Crimson songs.

Anyway, here's a recording of the band Lindisfarne's 1972 hit "Lady Eleanor," inspired by the Edgar Allan Poe short story, "The Fall of the House of Usher." Along with, improbably, pictures of butterflies.



Rob
(Well, that just bounced from place to place, didn't it? I ain't joking, woman, I got to ramble.)

2 comments:

Greg! said...

I didn't know you were reading the Stirling books. I just started Corvalis. I've been taking big several-book-long breaks between.

Rob S. said...

That might be the way to do it. I read Protector's War after a gap, and I liked it better than Corvalis -- partially, at least, because Stirling is so diligent in reminding the reader who certain people are, and what they've done before, and it gets kind of annoying if you don't need a reminder. Corvalis is structured a bit better than Protector's War, though -- even though Corvalis takes its sweet time to get going. The climax of Protector's Warreally happened about two-thirds of the way though, and most of the rest of it seemed like killing time.