Goodnight Turned Out to Be a Lie

It doesn’t seem that anyone much cared for my archival research on Randy Newman from last week. At least, no one clicked on the links to the BBC documentary. But I think you, hypothetical reader, deserve a second chance. Here’s one of the best video series I’ve found to date: Roy Orbison in concert, Holland 1960.

This sequence has a few big factors going for it. Clearly, Roy is in top voice and at the peak of his otherworldy powers. The band, it should also be said, is fantastic. But we’ve also got some non-canonical songs that are real gems. “It’s Over,” which the Danish host describes as Roy’s first success (in Denmark?), is mini-operatic pop with bombast that’s worlds apart from the sounds of today. Sweeping melodrama in under three minutes. “Goodnight,” another slightly lesser known song, has that same structure and has become a fixation of mine lately.

• Opening: Only the Lonely

• It’s Over

• Oh, Pretty Woman

• Goodnight

Roy Orbison is the musician I listen to the most frequently. By far. Not sure how or when he superseded other iPod mainstays, but it’s been quite some time. If anyone out there has found any sources of Orbison online, please share.

In Circulation Ten Months

I received an email forward tonight, one of those well-circulated political outrages with many generations of sidelines and footers embedded around the message. I don’t get many of these, which might be a generational thing (I get most of mine from Baby Boomers) or it might be something about my particular email peers (thank you, peers). These emails always make me curious to find the source. When did it enter the digital bloodstream? In this case, the answer was June 27, 2007. Prompted by a very short New York Times review of an HBO documentary film about Palestinian prisoners. That link traveled for ten months (!) to get to me, which is intriguing in so many ways.