{"id":21021,"date":"2014-01-29T08:00:14","date_gmt":"2014-01-29T13:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/?p=21021"},"modified":"2014-01-29T07:26:22","modified_gmt":"2014-01-29T12:26:22","slug":"last-man-standing-calliope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/last-man-standing-calliope\/","title":{"rendered":"Last Man Standing: Songs With Brief, Carnival-Sounding, Calliope-Like Instrumental Breaks"},"content":{"rendered":"<iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/k1p_BRlQySI?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe>\n<p>The calliope, that strange carnival organ that only seems to play goofy, off-kilter, slightly menacing &#8220;carnival music.&#8221; Truth be told, I know nothing about the instrument, such as what makes a calliope a calliope. To be even more truthful, if you can handle it, I wasn&#8217;t even sure if a calliope was an instrument or a style of music. A 12-second scan of YouTube results for the search term <em>calliope<\/em> tells me it&#8217;s an instrument.<\/p>\n<p>Rather than investigate the inner workings of a calliope, I prefer to follow what got me thinking about this thing in the first place. I was listening to a favorite song from childhood that involves a <strong>brief, carnival-sounding, calliope-like instrumental break<\/strong>. I&#8217;m not sure if an actual calliope was used in the recording of this instrumental break, but it has that sound, that rhythm, and those clusters of notes that suggest clowns; rickety amusement rides; the smell of sawdust, animal droppings, and cotton candy; and parents looking like they&#8217;re questioning whether they did the right thing by bringing the kids to this place.<\/p>\n<p>Along with the song that came on my iPod tonight, I thought of one other song that features a definite carnival-style, calliope-like break. It&#8217;s also a song I was fascinated by as a kid, yet it doesn&#8217;t hold up as well as the first one I thought of tonight. Beside those two songs, I strongly doubt that there are more than two or three other examples of this device. <em>BEWARE<\/em>:<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>I will not accept any old Doors song. I know Ray Manzarek&#8217;s organ parts are often played in &#8220;carnival style&#8221; (eg, &#8220;Love Her Madly&#8221;), but that&#8217;s just his style, it&#8217;s not something he cooks up for a particular part of a particular song. <em>BEWARE<\/em>, too, of throwing out any old Tom Waits song. Again, that&#8217;s the guy&#8217;s go-to trick.<\/p>\n<p>This is one of those exclusive Last Man Standing competitions, one seeking quality over quantity. I&#8217;m looking for songs with a distinct, deliberate calliope-style break, one meant to evoke all the regrettable sensations of attending an actual carnival. If I could tell you the most obvious of the two I have in mind, you would see the difference between these distinct calliope breaks and the natural style of an artist&#8217;s body of work. But I cannot provide an example, because that might dry up a shallow pool of eligible entrants.<\/p>\n<p>Send in the clowns!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The calliope, that strange carnival organ that only seems to play goofy, off-kilter, slightly menacing &#8220;carnival music.&#8221; Truth be told, I know nothing about the instrument, such as what makes a calliope a calliope. To be even more truthful, if you can handle it, I wasn&#8217;t even sure if a calliope was an instrument or <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/last-man-standing-calliope\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[55],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21021"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21021\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}