When I was a small boy, I drank a whole bottle of Old Spice aftershave and had to go to hospital. Or so the story goes. I'm not entirely sure how this was possible, since in my memory, Old Spice bottles only allowed a few drops out at a time, so I must have been sucking on that white plastic teat for ages. You might well ask "Was Old Spice so delicious to a 3 year old that he wanted to keep on suckling that bottle till he'd drained it dry?" To which I have no real response. An easier question to deal with is, "Where were your parents?" We all know the answer to that one: it was the 70s.
I do wonder if this early escapade put me off alcohol and stopped me joining the teenage drinkers in High School... I was vehemently tee total until I turned 21. Made up for it in the 90s, then quit at the turn of the Millennium for health reasons. Haven't touch a drop since: booze or Old Spice.
Back in the 70s, men only really had the choice of two aftershaves, as far as I can tell. It was Old Spice or Brut... which cost more, because you had to "splash it all over". Old Spice was my dad's choice back then, and it definitely had the classier advert...
The music was O Fortuna, the opening section of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana, which (like many people, it seems) I always thought was used in The Omen. It wasn't, but it was later used in The X-Factor, so there's definitely a satanic connection.
My dad stopped wearing aftershave when I was a teenager. But the scent of Old Spice still takes me back to my childhood... thankfully not my trip to Casualty.
Here are some songs that mention Old Spice... none of them are about Victoria Beckham or Geri Halliwell. (That gag wouldn't have worked for Emma.) This first one is particularly apt...
Sometimes I think about my daddy And his Old Spice grin Cleaned pressed shirts, and a farmers tan
I don't know if I have more respect for Kanye, knowing that he's sampled Billy Joel, or not. Also, "young people" - dude is 46 now. Almost as old as another artist I'll always think of as a "youngster", even though she'll be 50 next year...
But it's John Grant who wins the prize today. A year's supply of Old Spice is winging its way to Iceland... don't drink it all at once, John.
You'd better watch out sugar, 'cause I'm about to get my Old Spice on
John Grant (featuring Midlake) - Chicken Bones
There is a video for that tune, but it breaks the song up to create a (very entertaining) narrative, so I linked to the album version instead. He still gets his Old Spice on in the video though.
As an English teacher, I'm often called upon to pretend I know more about famous writers than I actual do. So what do I know about Henry Miller? Erm... he wrote some mucky books? Oh, wait, no, the U.S. Supreme Court cleared him of obscenity and declared his novels "literature" in 1964, so he wasn't just another sex-obsessed scribe. He did get through five wives though, and spent most of his 80s writing pen pal letters to a Playboy model called Brenda Venus. Make of that what you will. On his death in 1980, the Grauniad declared, "As chief literary anarchist of his day, Miller was a kind of low priest celebrating the last rites of what he regarded as a doomed civilisation"... which might almost persuade me to give his books a go, if someone would be willing to cover my eyes when I got to the mucky bits.
In truth, most of what I know about Henry Miller has been garnered from these songs. Then again, most rock 'n' rolls stars are a bunch of sex-obsessed narcissists too, so no wonder they dig this "low priest of a doomed civilisation".
I'd love it if Doris Day was singing about our Henry Miller in The Deadwood Stage, but as that's set some time before the author was born, it's unlikely. Still, the Henry Miller in question is the owner of The Golden Garter saloon, so he was probably a bit of a perv too...
Anaïs Nin and Henry Miller were, of course, lovers. Nin financed the publication of Miller's first book, Tropic of Cancer, in 1934. You might be surprised to learn that I have read some Anaïs Nin. There was a copy on a bookshelf I used to frequent as a boy. E knows what I'm talking about...
She hides in the library reading Henry Miller books
'Til they flash the lights, it's time to go
When she was a little kid she said
"Dad, I don't know why I feel so penniless inside"
For an actual Canadian band, look no further than The Lowest of the Low. This is from an album called Shakespeare My Butt, which apparently is one of "the ten greatest albums in Canadian music history". I'm not sure what Neil Young and Joni Mitchell have to say about that.
Back to the literary criticism with Jason Gots, who I know nothing about. I mean, he might be Canadian, but the internet has let me down on that. I like his song though...
The city's sleeping, I can't sleep, it feels like I won't ever sleep again
A sense of urgency so keen, unknown to science and to medicine
I thought that this was settled, that I'd settled into some kind of routine
That I gave up all that Henry Miller bullshit for Joseph Goldstein
But now something's happening to me
Oh, something new is happening
I guess I'm not a novelist I never could sit still for very long
And I guess there's supposed to be a verse, a chorus and a bridge in every song
And I only ever had one thing to say but you get bored so easily F
I said it fifteen hundred ways in hopes that one would make it through eventually
Meanwhile, here's another artist I'm hearing for the first time, even though he's made a shedload of records and has at one time or another collaborated with Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, David Johansen and the Violent Femmes.
I was in Sicily reading Henry Miller
You were in New York City you were getting thinner
I was in discos I was listening to Madonna
You were in sweat clothes looking like Jane Fonda
If you're wondering why I do such long posts for this feature (and you're really not, because nobody reads this far), it's because I get to unearth gems like these...
Some say my songs are long and over complicated
But they're very personal I say they're underrated
And in the "even less surprising" category, here's Jane Birkin...
Amour pervers
Me susurre Henry Miller
Dans son Tropique du Cancer
Du Cancer
In case you're wondering, "Amour pervers" means exactly what you think. That clip's worth watching just to hear the way Jane pronounces "'Enri Millay" though.
If you're interested, Henry Miller gets name-dropped in a bunch of other Kozelek rambles. Email me and I'll send a list.
Speaking of lists, I'm going to have to stop there... but the list of songs that name-check Mr. Miller certainly doesn't stop there. I just picked out a bunch of the ones I liked.
To be honest, when I chose him for the 39th edition of this feature, there was only one song I had in mind, so here it is.
Dan Bern has a fantasy that if Marilyn Monroe had married Henry Miller rather than Arthur Miller, she'd have lived a happier life. I'll let him explain in detail why he believe this to be the case. He is, however, at pains to point out that...
This is not a knock against Arthur Miller
Death of a Salesman is my favorite play
But Marilyn Monroe
Should have married Henry Miller
And if she did
She might be alive
This is taken from Dan Bern's 1997 debut album, which I'd really recommend checking out, especially for the song Jerusalem in which he proclaims himself the second coming of Jesus Christ. (He's right about Death of a Salesman too.)
