Tonight, waiting for the bus, a little tipsy, I had a craving for my Secret* Favorite Album Of All Time: Michael Nyman’s Drowning By Numbers soundtrack. It wasn’t on my iPodular device, but The Draughtsman’s Contract was.
So, suddenly, I find myself laughing hysterically at the bus stop. Because the first piece on The Draughtsman’s Contract is fucking hilarious. Why have I not previously noticed how fucking hilarious this song is? Was I not tipsy enough the other times I listened to it? Was I distracted by its formal rigor and its alleged prettiness? Probably both.
But this song, Chasing Sheep is Best Left to Shepherds, is fucking hilarious. It’s Purcell standing at a bar, out of his mind on meth, loudly demanding a snakebite while everybody in the civilized world rolls their blue blue eyes. It’s the decline of the British empire set to Yakety Sax. It’s amazing.
Of course, from there the rest of The Draughtsman’s Contract moves into the territory that would later be more effectively mined by my Secret Favorite Album Of All Time: achingly perfect reminders of the magic you wish didn’t exist in the world.
What now? See Nyman’s amazing power (oh, and Greenaway’s power too; no partnership has ever been more made-in-heaven) is his ability to assure you that there really is magic in the world, there is MAGIC! IN! THE! WORLD! but did I happen to mention that this magic is dissolute and terrifying and will only ruin you? I should have warned you about that, sorry.
Still, that first piece? HILARIOUS.
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* Secret not because I’m ashamed of it — I AM NOT — but because I don’t expect that anybody in this world will understand what this music does to me. My publicly avowed Favorite Album Of All Time (The Cure’s Disintegration) may sometimes cause raised eyebrows or controversy, but it at least fits into most people’s experience. Drowning By Numbers doesn’t, and I prefer raised eyebrows to blank stares. Don’t you?
