Celebrity Jukebox #30: Louise Brooks

On Wednesday, George complained about the "recent lurch to modern times" this feature had taken by featuring contemporary celebrities such as Bill Bixby and Nerys Hughes (God help him when I do my Scarlett Johansson post). And so, to keep Celebrity Jukebox's biggest fan happy, I've chosen someone today he should be more familiar with.

Louise Brooks was a Ziegfeld Follies dancer who signed a five year movie deal with Paramount in 1925 and became one of the biggest female stars of the Silent Movie era, although her career never really transitioned into the talkies and her star fell quite dramatically in the 30s.

Coincidentally, I came across a song that I never knew was about Louise Brooks while compiling my Top Ten Greek Mythology Songs last week. The intro to the video of OMD's 1991 single Pandora's Box tells how the Louise Brooks movie of the same name was banned by Adolf Hitler as "degenerate art". I bet he kept a copy for himself though. The song tells Louise's life story far better than I could...

Born in Kansas on an ordinary plain

Ran to New York but ran away from fame

Only seventeen when all your dreams come true

But all you wanted was someone to undress you

And all the stars you kissed could never ease the pain

Still the grace remains and though the face has changed

You're still the same

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark don't mention Louise by name though. To find an actual lyrical mention, we have to listen to 15 minutes of post-Fish Marillion...

Marillion - Interior Lulu

As you lie there on your bed

Beneath the face of Louise Brooks

With your makeup and your teddy bear

And your C.S. Lewis books

Bad seed

You're a bad seed

Alternatively, if you're really brave, you might try Germany's answer to Ultravox...

Deine Lakaien - A Fish Called Prince

And Pious told me even more

About stars that shine forever on

The times of Bara, Gish, Louise Brooks

And above all his queen called June

I presume he's talking about June Whitfield.

Or... you might subject yourself to some Campag Velocet. Now I'm just the right age to have been regularly reading the NME when they proclaimed Campag Velocet the next big thing. Which probably explains why nobody's heard of them since.

Campag Velocet - Sauntry Sly Chic

Louise brooks bob

Rouge red lipstick

Beauty spot

She's got what it takes

What I find most interesting about that track is that it climaxes thus...

I'm on the chaise longue 

I'm on the chaise longue

I'm on the chaise longue 

I'm on the chaise longue

Which makes me wonder if Wet Leg were reading the NME when they were 3.

Wet Leg - Chaise Longue

(Regardless, that's a million times better than anything Campag Velocet ever produced.)

Then we have John "Butter Salesman" Lydon, arriving stateside in his Y-fronts...

Public Image Ltd - Bettie Page

When Bettie Page was on the run

And my west was way out west

And Louise Brooks speak the crooks

The greatest pornographic country in the world

Welcome to America USA

Arriving in my underpants

Land of the free

Home of the naked

And the brave

And for all you 80s kids out there (not George), some Optimus Prime...

Robots In Disguise - Don't Copy Me

Was your hair cut by the council?

Two in one, Louise Brookes and Shirley Temple

One Madonna glove and a jacket too tight

Are you wearing your whole badge collection out tonight?

That made me smile.

But I think today's winner is Nashville-based, Boston born "street rocker" Tom Ovans, who... and I'm just spit-balling here... might own a Bob Dylan record. Or two.

Well, she looked like Louise Brooks from one of them old silent movies

I think it was the one where she gets beaten to death

But when her eyes caught mine down in that city of crime

I knew it was a day I could never forget