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May 13, 2009
Retrohump: Just For Me the Church Bells Rang
Nancy Sinatra - "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)"
(unknown television special, mid to late 60s)
As good as the booking on SNL and especially Letterman has been lately, I still mourn a bit for a time I never knew, when music was a marquee draw for mass-media consumption (I mean original music, by recording artists, by the way, not talent shows to sell Cokes). A great proportion of the clips we've posted over several years in this Wednesday feature have been from the variety show heyday. Sure, you gotta a lot of terrible stuff too, of the, "You guys are called the Turtles, and we brought out some cardboard Turtles variety," but it also occasionally made for dramatic staging and memorable performances. Nancy Sinatra could have stood gamely in front of an orchestra for this performance, but the lighting, her solitude, and some competent camera work really wrings more emotion out of an already emotionally saturated track. I think she's doing it live, too? The phrasing seems somehow a little subtler? Anyway, I can't think of a single outlet for something like this in modern broadcast TV, which is a shame. (Maybe the Grammys, but it would likely feature a cameo by T-Pain or something equally noxious.)
Nancy Sinatra - "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)"
Dalida - "Bang Bang"
Hey, while we're at it, care to see the song outsourced to a more statuesque Italian blond, sung in her native tongue, featuring weird nostalgic Fellini memory flashbacks laid over the top of it? I mean, why not, right?
Posted by Jeff Klingman at May 13, 2009 02:25 PM
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