This is your mother. Are you coming home?
April 8, 2021 1:19 PM   Subscribe

 
“There’s no such thing as too far-fetched.”

More so every day. Every damn day.
posted by Splunge at 1:33 PM on April 8, 2021 [4 favorites]


I just recently re-listened to Big Science, and still loved, loved it. It’s still a real treat.
posted by Thorzdad at 1:44 PM on April 8, 2021 [10 favorites]


I haven’t listened to it in 30 years and I think it’s time to revisit. Thanks for posting.
posted by condour75 at 2:00 PM on April 8, 2021 [1 favorite]


This is the time. And this is the record of the time.
posted by treepour at 2:18 PM on April 8, 2021 [23 favorites]


I once "wrote" a high school pen pal a letter that was just a transcription of "Blue Lagoon." She figured out that I was doing a thing, but she had no idea what thing. It took her an extra week to write back after that one.
posted by fedward at 2:41 PM on April 8, 2021 [7 favorites]


This is the time. And this is the record of the time.

Treepour, I listened to that song about a year ago, as we slid deeper in the pandemic with nobody at the controls, and was gobsmacked at how timely it felt.* Not the first time I've felt that way about LA's work. It's why she's one of my very favorite artists.

(*In fact, "From The Air" felt so of the moment that I decided to record a cover version. I'm hoping to release it on Bandcamp Friday next month.)
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 2:41 PM on April 8, 2021 [5 favorites]


And given that the article focuses on "O Superman", I must note that hearing Laurie Anderson perform that song live in NYC, barely a week after 9/11, was... indescribable.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 2:44 PM on April 8, 2021 [17 favorites]


When someone tells you that they cannot get into experimental music, play them Big Science. It absolutely qualifies while being seemingly effortlessly accessible. What a great record!
posted by bigendian at 3:02 PM on April 8, 2021 [7 favorites]


And given that the article focuses on "O Superman", I must note that hearing Laurie Anderson perform that song live in NYC, barely a week after 9/11, was... indescribable.

I have nothing to say but my jaw is on the floor. I can't imagine what that must have been like.

In fact, "From The Air" felt so of the moment that I decided to record a cover version. I'm hoping to release it on Bandcamp Friday next month.

Artifice_Eternity, I'd love to hear the cover!
posted by treepour at 3:05 PM on April 8, 2021 [2 favorites]


Artifice_Eternity, I'd love to hear the cover!

I will be sure to share it in Mefi Music when it drops!
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 3:13 PM on April 8, 2021 [8 favorites]


The live album of United States Parts I-IV, the performance piece that the songs on Big Science was drawn from, is on the streaming services and is worth listening to. It really is a masterpiece, and very, very funny. It would be nice if there were a way for someone to revive it in the way they do revivals of Philip Glass operas.

I'm annoyed to realise it's twenty years since I last saw Laurie Anderson perform, and I wish there were some way of remedying that. It's difficult to convey the magnitude of the esteem in which I hold her.
posted by Grangousier at 3:21 PM on April 8, 2021 [13 favorites]


I'm giving Big Science another listen now (after probably two decades) - it is a marvellously inventive album. Parts of it remind me of Fiona Apple's latest album - Fetch the Bolt Cutters (or the other way around I guess!)
posted by piyushnz at 4:00 PM on April 8, 2021 [2 favorites]


Deep in the heart of darkest America. Home of the brave.
Ha! Ha! Ha! You've already paid for this. Listen to my heart beat.

posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 4:04 PM on April 8, 2021 [6 favorites]


I turned a corner in the record store and I looked right at the display and said "Oh no! Another Laurie Anderson re-issue" (yeah, wrong album, I know)

I remember hearing this back in the early 80's and nothing else I'd heard sounded quite like that. And I thought the idea for the tape bow violin was mind-blowing. So good.
posted by rmd1023 at 4:10 PM on April 8, 2021 [2 favorites]


Also worth seeking out from this period of Anderson's opus is United States Live which I believe was all recorded at BAM. That's a set of shows I'd have loved to have seen.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 4:23 PM on April 8, 2021 [1 favorite]


(Oh, and I owned this on vinyl which came in possibly one of the worst ever multi-LP packages ever. Not 'ELP Triple Live LP bad' but bad.)
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 4:25 PM on April 8, 2021 [1 favorite]


First time I'd ever heard LA was at home during a blizzard when Walk The Dog popped up on college radio. That was something.
posted by ovvl at 4:26 PM on April 8, 2021 [1 favorite]


Not 'ELP Triple Live LP bad' but bad.

I was thrilled by ELP Triple Live when I was around 14 years old. It's definitely not for everyone.
posted by ovvl at 4:40 PM on April 8, 2021


I once fell asllep to Big Science. And I awoke in the middle of Heart of a Dog. I rewound Heart of a Dog. And I cried like I have never cried before. I know it was supposed to be uplifting. (Was it? Not sure) But it moved me like no album/work/spoken amazement ever did before.
posted by Splunge at 4:49 PM on April 8, 2021 [1 favorite]


(Oh, and I owned this on vinyl which came in possibly one of the worst ever multi-LP packages ever. Not 'ELP Triple Live LP bad' but bad.)

What made it bad?
posted by treepour at 4:51 PM on April 8, 2021


I had the good fortune of seeing her perform live in a smallish venue (UC Berkeley Zellerbach theater) and the bad fortune of being in the row behind two women, one of whom apparently had no experience with Anderson's work so the other who felt it necessary to inform her (at volume) about how amazingly cool she was.

As non-confrontational as I am, I eventually leaned forward and said "could you PLEASE keep it down?!"
posted by Lexica at 5:17 PM on April 8, 2021 [4 favorites]


What made it bad?

Big fat slipcase with five 12" LPs inside, each in its own cardboard jacket but no protective plastic film envelopes.
posted by flabdablet at 5:23 PM on April 8, 2021


In one of my few ahead-of-the-curve moments, I saw United States Part II in 1981. Imagine my surprise a year later when I’m sitting in a German nightclub and the “O Superman” video comes on.
posted by doubtfulpalace at 5:32 PM on April 8, 2021 [4 favorites]


I've heard O Superman like 20 times on WRCT in the past year. As a block of automation, but it always seems to be at the start of the song when I tune in. So my kids have heard it as many times, too. (But the video for Sharkey's Day freaked them out, go figure.)

My older brother and I listened to United States Live on cassette on a drive straight from Phoenix to Chicago and nothing else. He got a speeding ticket every time I fell asleep, after the third time I stayed awake and wary. Came damn near hating Laurie Anderson after the 3rd or 4th playthrough. I doubt I could listen to it again.

But I don't get tired of O Superman.
posted by Catblack at 5:34 PM on April 8, 2021 [2 favorites]


1983 was the time, and c22754065143f728504b787f2c31cb890ec095d1 is the record of the time
posted by flabdablet at 6:01 PM on April 8, 2021 [6 favorites]


Laurie Anderson fans should check out the exhibit of her work at Mass MoCA in North Adams, MA if you are in the area. Besides being a fantastic modern art museum, they have an exhibit focused on her work. Check on restrictions on travel, and know that the VR portion of the exhibit is apparently closed.
posted by grimjeer at 6:49 PM on April 8, 2021 [5 favorites]


Big fat slipcase with five 12" LPs inside, each in its own cardboard jacket but no protective plastic film envelopes.

Plus the slipcase itself was constructed without any kind of gluing, everything just fit together, with tabs & folds, like a box that candy (of the period) would come in.

I was thrilled by ELP Triple Live when I was around 14 years old. It's definitely not for everyone.

The recording was fine, in fact quite good for live performances of the time. Problem was the stupid way the discs were held inside with those flimsy 'E' 'L' & 'P' letter cutouts. Had to be super careful when opening the thing up lest the discs fell out.

But this thread is about Laurie Anderson and I just want to heap my praise on her a bit more. I got to see her after 'Mr. Heartbreak' came out and, wow, what a show!
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 6:53 PM on April 8, 2021 [1 favorite]


When I started college, I had absolutely no idea of modern music outside of what they played on the pop stations in New York City. Then I got to college and got to hear Prefab Sprout, Belois Some, and then Laurie Anderson.

I borrowed Big Science from the guy playing it and listened to it all.

When my depersonalization kicks in high, for some reason, that pulls me back and I feel myself a bit more.
posted by mephron at 6:55 PM on April 8, 2021 [1 favorite]


I can't begin to write about how important this Laurie Anderson and her work are to me personally so I'm not going to try, but if you're a fan you should know that she's currently giving the Norton Lectures at Harvard, and you can watch them. Two are done, but available online. Her third is next week. I'm just going to say, you might want to check it out.
posted by The Bellman at 7:19 PM on April 8, 2021 [16 favorites]


God, just got to add:

'Langue D'Amour' is one of the most amazing takes ever on The Fall.

And the woman liked the snake very much. Because when he
talked, he made little noises with his tongue, and his long tongue
was lightly licking about his lips.
Like there was a little fire inside his mouth and the flame
would come dancing out of his mouth.
And the woman liked this very much.
And after that, she was bored with the man.
Because no matter what happened,
he was always as happy as a clam.


Always thought: "Who the fuck wouldn't be bored with the man after that?"
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 7:39 PM on April 8, 2021 [9 favorites]


"Example #22" is probably my favorite song of all time. "Pay me what you owe me!" I will often find that I just can't get it out of my head for weeks.
posted by jwest at 7:55 PM on April 8, 2021 [3 favorites]


I had the good luck to see Laurie Anderson perform in New Zealand on March 4, 2020. (She flew here and back to NYC and did not pick up COVID, apparently, which now seems like a minor miracle.) She worked with local musicians, some of them Māori. One of the pieces was a tribute to her niece who had died in a car crash. It was truly remarkable.

I also saw her perform O Superman a week after 9/11 at Harvard's Memorial Hall. It was absolutely eerie. It was as if she'd written it about the event.

Thank you so much for posting this.
posted by rednikki at 7:57 PM on April 8, 2021 [5 favorites]


About two weeks ago I found a record player at a thrift store, and then a few days afterwards I found a beat-up copy of Big Science at a used record store, and I haven't enjoyed experiencing music so much in a very long time.

Watch her documentary Heart of a Dog if you haven't seen it. Marvellous stuff.
posted by oulipian at 8:09 PM on April 8, 2021 [5 favorites]


I misread this as Margaret Atwood reflecting on Louie Anderson.
posted by deadaluspark at 8:10 PM on April 8, 2021 [4 favorites]


And given that the article focuses on "O Superman", I must note that hearing Laurie Anderson perform that song live in NYC, barely a week after 9/11, was... indescribable.

I have nothing to say but my jaw is on the floor. I can't imagine what that must have been like.


That concert was recorded and an album was released, Live At Town Hall New York City, September 19-20, 2001. Here is O Superman from that album.
posted by hippybear at 8:13 PM on April 8, 2021 [7 favorites]


Also, Anderson wrote actual music for an actual string quartet (sort of not entirely previously in her wheelhouse) and recorded Landfall with Kronos Quartet, and it's about Hurricane Sandy and it is eerie and beautiful and strange and heartbreaking, and brilliant. Here's a sampler YouTube playlist of three tracks, if you want to get the flavor.
posted by hippybear at 8:18 PM on April 8, 2021 [4 favorites]


And then I managed to stumble on O Superman feat. Laurie Anderson (Original Mix) - M.A.N.D.Y and Booka Shade. oO
posted by hippybear at 8:23 PM on April 8, 2021 [2 favorites]


Saw her in spring 1990 at the Beacon in NYC with Robert Frank. Yeah, the photographer, the one who did the Exile on Main Street. No, he wasn't with us—my eagle-eyed mother spotted him in the line.

And the show would have been the best one of the year if that wasn't the year I discovered Phish.
posted by morspin at 8:53 PM on April 8, 2021


.That concert was recorded and an album was released, Live At Town Hall New York City, September 19-20, 2001. Here is O Superman from that album.

Thank you for that! Just listened to it and I think my hair was standing on end the entire performance. I might be projecting but I think I heard a frightened/sad tremor in her voice that I don't usually associate with this song, and that made it so much more powerful given the context. "Here come the planes." I can't imagine what it must have felt like to have heard that line, much less performed it
posted by treepour at 10:08 PM on April 8, 2021 [1 favorite]


Let X, = X

So love Big Science and Home of the Brave...

White Lily
posted by Windopaene at 10:20 PM on April 8, 2021


Well you don't know me, but I know you...

I no longer love the way you hold your pens, and pencils...

God I love this record
posted by Windopaene at 10:33 PM on April 8, 2021 [5 favorites]


It’s just past 2am as I write this. I am feeling very emotional. Maybe I’m just tired because it’s the middle of the night. But I need to comment here and want to share what I’m feeling. If you are turned off by emotion, sentimentality, and a lack of irony, please skip my comment.

First, I want to note that I isten to this song at least once every few months. It feels like every time I do, I end up tearing up a little. To me, the song has this feeling of pure love and emotion seeking to penetrate the cold, repetitive grip of technology. It just slays me. Every single time.

Fast forward to tonight. I am following the thread and clicked on one of the YouTube links posted. As I fall down the YouTube rabbit hole, I find a live cover recorded by David Bowie and Gale Ann Dorsey on the 1997 Earthling tour. I’ve never seen this, and am a huge David Bowie fan, so I settle in to enjoy this.

At first, it’s just an interesting cover. Dosey’s voice is marvelous, and I am enjoying her performing the Laurie Anderson part.

Then David joins in at the 1:36 mark. I gasp with a sharp intake of breath.

And I just lose it Tears come down in buckets.

Next to The Beatles and U2, there’s nobody else that’s had a more profound on me musically, artistically, and emotionally than David Bowie. Hearing his rich baritone join in and sing just utterly melted my heart. The world has been filled with so much sadness in the past year, and now to hear David’s voice on this transformative song about hope and love triumphing over technology and indifference is indescribable.

Thank you, folks, for posting this. Thank you for reminding me how much music means to me. Thank you for the links. Thank you, Laurie Anderson, for creating such an enduring work of art.

And thank you, David, for coming back to Earth for 9 minutes and overwhelming my heart. After all, you never really died. You just went back to your home planet.

“Well, you don't know me.
But I know you.
And I've got a message to give to you:
Here come the planes...”

posted by zooropa at 11:17 PM on April 8, 2021 [14 favorites]


Your Captain says: Put your head on your knees
Your Captain says: Put your head in your hands
Captain says: Put your hands on your head
Put your hands on your hips. Heh heh


That heheh. Fucking gets me. Every time. I just tested it.
posted by away for regrooving at 12:57 AM on April 9, 2021 [9 favorites]


The first time I listened to Laurie Anderson was also the first time I dropped acid. And we listened to the whole album (something about William H. Burroughs) in a pitch black room.

Folks, it was interesting.
posted by zardoz at 1:31 AM on April 9, 2021 [2 favorites]


When my father died we put him in the ground

When my father died it was

Like a whole library had burned down.

I have been fortunate enough to see Laurie Anderson perform three times, and have had the great joy of meeting her once (she was leaving the concert hall, presumably after rehearsals, and we were arriving very early) in 1995. She was very nice in person – she held my ice cream as I fumbled to get out my copy of The Nerve Bible for an autograph ;)
posted by bouvin at 2:36 AM on April 9, 2021 [4 favorites]


Laurie Anderson fans should check out the exhibit of her work at Mass MoCA<>in North Adams, MA if you are in the area

I actually did that in 2019, and it's great. Even though I didn't do the VR part (even pre-pandemic you had to schedule a seating and my trip to the museum was sort of a last minute thing and no slots were open.)

The whole museum is pretty darn cool, too, as it's this huge sprawling complex that used to be sort of the industrial center of that area of Massachusetts, and it's neat to see how the various exhibitions use the spaces of the very unique architecture.
posted by soundguy99 at 3:32 AM on April 9, 2021


When my father died we put him in the ground
When my father died it was
Like a whole library had burned down.


Holy shit, this made me gasp. I've never felt so seen.
posted by h00py at 4:46 AM on April 9, 2021 [9 favorites]


maybe this is a good time to callback Good Morning, Mr. Orwell (previously)... a remarkable piece of media broadcast on New Year's Day 1984, which includes performances by Ms. Anderson.
posted by jackrational at 7:09 AM on April 9, 2021


I quoted Laurie Anderson at my father's memorial service (and you know what I said).

I saw her perform several times in the 1980s. The best show was the first time, under the enormous columns of the Pension Building. Many years later she visited our Air Traffic Control software lab at NASA, when she was their artist-in-residence. Nobody knew who she was, except me! So I got to spend several minutes chatting with her. A waving hand was incorporated into her autograph. Unfortunately I was too star-struck, forgot to ask the burning questions, about Language is a Virus: Who was Geraldine? And did she regret changing the lyric about Japanese, for the movie?


Big fat slipcase with five 12" LPs inside, each in its own cardboard jacket but no protective plastic film envelopes.

Plus the slipcase itself was constructed without any kind of gluing, everything just fit together, with tabs & folds, like a box that candy (of the period) would come in.


These errors were corrected in the CD box-set re-issue. My biggest problem with the original was spreading the four parts out on five discs. Now it's four CDs, appropriately color-coded; my only complaint is Part 1 ends too soon on Disc One, with the rest beginning Disc Two.
posted by Rash at 10:02 AM on April 9, 2021 [2 favorites]


First heard her on that Artforum flexidisc.

Also, I was not aware my parents subscribed to Artforum until literally just now because in my memory, the flexidisc was from National Geographic. I am apparently quite the oblivious tiny/little/big/old chap.
posted by aramaic at 11:52 AM on April 9, 2021


So my actual very first exposure to Laurie Anderson came a few months ago from this mashup by William Maranci on YouTube: Soulja Boy — Crank That (Soulja Boy) but it’s O Superman by Laurie Anderson — which I am pretty sure was linked from here, on a thread about mashups.

Which is just an extremely “I live in the future and it is very weird here” thing. But now I will listen to all of Big Science.
posted by snowmentality at 4:05 PM on April 9, 2021 [1 favorite]


Since some people are sharing their discovery stories, mine was an early 80's Nickelodeon talk show called Livewire. She was talking about Big Science. I remember her using the voice modulator to make her voice low during throughout the whole interview, discussing the eerie photo of the electrical outlet that appeared... on the record sleeve? and performing Walking & Falling. I was absolutely mesmerized. I was probably around 10 at the time.

I wasn't buying records at that age, so I kind of forgot about her. When I did start buying records, I noticed her section in the record bins and decided to give Mister Heartbreak a try. I must have listened to that album hundreds and hundreds of times. Sharkey's Day still transports me to another world.

I had the great fortune of meeting her, very briefly, a number of years ago. She kindly shook my hand and I gushed rather incoherently about how her music had been a constant in my life ever since I was kid. She was as gracious as anyone could possibly be to a starstruck fan. That was such a powerful moment for me -- I felt like something in my life had come full circle. I still feel a little bad for taking what little time I did, but I was left so struck by how genuinely present she seemed in that moment, and how generous. As if she'd said "Oh, I see that you'd like a moment of my time. Ok, I'll give it you. Here it is."
posted by treepour at 8:06 PM on April 9, 2021 [4 favorites]


When I was in middle school I was lucky enough to have a friend my age who played me some of Laurie Anderson’s later work, and to have an older sister who had left behind a cassette copy of Big Science when she went to college. I was hooked. Big Science in particular still makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and pay attention. It’s so lucid, eerie, and funny all at the same time. The way she deploys and delivers deadpan humor is so great, too, punctuating the tension more than cutting it.
posted by en forme de poire at 12:18 PM on April 10, 2021 [5 favorites]


punctuating the tension more than cutting it

I like that formulation. And I can't believe that this stuff is now forty years old asdfghjkl.
posted by away for regrooving at 12:11 AM on April 11, 2021 [1 favorite]


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