[lit-ideas] Re: Facing the Music
- From: "" <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> (Redacted sender "Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx" for DMARC)
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 18:35:30 -0500
In a message dated 1/20/2015 4:36:56 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,
profdritchie@xxxxxxxxx writes:
Help, please. I've reached one of those moments when a familiar phrase
suddenly seems weird. It's like when you realize that hankies could be any
shape at all...and yet they're all square. The phrase which has caused this
state of mind is, "it's time to face the music." The web has rumors about
its origin: that soldiers were being drummed out of their regiment or that
performers had to face not only a potentially hostile audience, but the
orchestra pit too. The web supplies early uses by American abolitionists.
But what music was being "faced," and why is "facing the music" equivalent
to facing reality (to quote the French equivalent, "Affronter la réalité")?
Surely at the time of its nineteenth century origin music tended towards
the opposite of hard reality?
Perhaps the one that grasped best the implicature of the idiom was Berlin,
or should I say Astaire?
There may be trouble ahead
But while there's music and moonlight and love and romance
Let's face the music and dance
Before the fiddlers have fled
Before they ask us to pay the bill and while we still have the chance
Let's face the music and dance
Soon we'll be without the moon, humming a different tune and then
There may be teardrops to shed
So while there's moonlight and music and love and romance
Let's face the music and dance
An American dancer, Jerry Travers (Fred Astaire) comes to London to star in
a show produced by the bumbling Horace Hardwick (Edward Everett Horton).
While practicing a tap dance routine in his hotel bedroom, he awakens Dale
Tremont (Ginger Rogers) on the floor below. She storms upstairs to complain,
whereupon Jerry falls hopelessly in love with her and proceeds to pursue
her all over London.
Dale mistakes Jerry for Horace, who is married to her friend Madge (Helen
Broderick). Following the success of Jerry's opening night in London, Jerry
follows Dale to Venice, where she is visiting Madge and modelling/promoting
the gowns created by Alberto Beddini (Erik Rhodes), a dandified Italian
fashion designer with a penchant for malapropisms.
Jerry proposes to Dale, who, while still believing that Jerry is Horace, is
disgusted that her friend's husband could behave in such a manner and
agrees instead to marry Alberto. Fortunately, Bates (Eric Blore), Horace's
meddling English valet, disguises himself as a priest and conducts the
ceremony; Horace had sent Bates to keep tabs on Dale.
On a trip in a gondola, Jerry manages to convince Dale and they return to
the hotel where the previous confusion is rapidly cleared up. The reconciled
couple dance off into the Venetian sunset, to the tune of "The Piccolino"
It may be argued (by Geary?) that not all music that is faceable is
danceable, but again, it may be argued (by Geary) that all faceable music IS
danceable.
Cheers,
Speranza
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts:
