Song Saturday, Dory Previn

I think this lady is first and foremost a poet , an extraordinarly  good poet.

So many people have dismissed Dory Previn as the lunatic ex-wife of world famous Andre Previn. Personally I think if yr ol’ man who is also your working partner and yr salvation from a life of abuse and misuse; dumps your for the utterly gorgeous waif like Mia Farrow; at a time in your life when your mental health is frail to start with. ………….well need I say more? The woman is entitled to a bit of a breakdown. And anyway it all happened so long ago

Dory Previn was the wife of André Previn in the Sixties. Together they worked on music for the films ‘Inside Daisy Clover’, ‘Valley of the Doll’s, and ‘The Sterile Cuckoo’’ , she won an Oscar for that one. When André left Dory for Mia Farrow, Dory had a serious and prolonged breakdown. One way out of her own personal crisis was her song writing. This time she did it for herself not for her husband or for the film industry; she did it just for herself. Already in her mid-forties she released her almost biographical and deeply confessional, ‘On My Way to Where’, which came out in 1970. Her second album of this period, ‘’Mythical Kings and Iguanas’’, (my own personal favourite), was released in 1971. The third album of this period, ‘’Reflections in a Mud Puddle’’.,was voted one of the best albums of 1972

She is quoted as saying “They were all based on true experiences but the music I write for films is not. These songs were for me. I know myself better than anyone else, so it helped me. It was self-revelation.”

She pulled back from music for awhile, and wrote two autobiographies, Midnight Baby: an Autobiography’ (1976, ISBN 0-02-299000-4) and, Bogtrotter: An Autobiography with Lyrics (1980, ISBN 0-385-14708-2). The latter title refers to her Irish heritage: "bogtrotter" is a derogatory term for an Irish person.

Midnight baby a autobiography

                                                             This is the story of her sad childhood and early adult life  prior to her becoming   composer, lyricist, author, playwright and recording artist. She was born Dorothy Langan at exactly midnight into an Irish and repressively Catholic family. She was schooled in an equally repressive Catholic school where she was forbidden to use her left hand for writing, a sad story relived in her song ‘ To a left hand lost’.  She grew up during the ‘depression’ with a father who had been gassed in WWI and left prone to spontaneous rage and deep depression. She was, supposedly the apple of her father's eye but his rages and uncertain behaviour left its mark on her. Dory became a successful lyricist for cinema theme songs in the 1960s and  1970s, she gained three Academy Award nominations for best song. She partnered her then husband on songs written for: Judy Garland, Doris Day, Jack Jones, Sammy Davis, Jr., Frank Sinatra, Dionne Warwick, Bobby Darin and many others. Little wonder she went in to crisis when he left.

 

Lyrics to Mary C. Brown And The Hollywood Sign,

 you know the hollywood sign
that stands in the hollywood hills
i don't think the christ of the andes
ever blessed so many ills
the hollywood sign seems to smile
like it's constantly saying "cheese"
i doubt if the statue of liberty
ever welcomed more refugees

give me your poor
your tired your pimps
you carhops your cowboys
your midgets your chimps
give me your freaks
your whores your harlots
your flunkies your junkies
give me your starlets

mary cecilia brown
rode to town on a malibu bus
she climbed to the top
of the hollywood sign
and with the smallest possible fuss
she jumped off the letter "h"
'cause she did not become a star
she died in less than a minute and a half
she looked a bit like hedy lamarr

sometimes i have this dream
when the time comes for me to go
i will climb that hill
and i'll hang myself
from the second or third letter "o"

when mary cecilia jumped
she finally made the grade
her name was in the obituary column
of both the daily trades

i hope the hollywood sign
cries for the town it touches
the lady of lourdes in her grotto
saw fewer cripples and crutches

give me your poor
your maladjusted
your sick and your beat
and your sad and your busted
give me your has-beens
give me your twisted
your loners your losers
give me your black-listed

you know the hollywood sign
the witness to our confusion
a symbol of dreams
turns out to be
a sign
of disillusion.

 

The pre-amble to this next song, ‘The left hand song’, is a sarcastic review of the nuns forcing her to use her right hand rather than her left.

 

Lyrics to Left Hand Lost :

the left hand is
we always say
the demon devil's side
the left had does
the dirty work
the shameful things
you hide
judas kissed the left cheek of christ
it's satan's special mark
there were no left-footed animals
allowed on noah's ark
left-handed people are impure
they go against the grain
left-handed children
play with themselves
and drive themselves insane

i was born left-handed
but the nuns where i went to school
they said it wasn't right so they
broke me of it
and now i'm right-handed
just like i'm supposed to be
and now
i'm fine
i'm just fine
really
really

but sometimes
i get so low so low
sometimes
i get so depressed
as though i lost
a part of me that loved me
the part that knew me best
the child in me that cried
to be cherished
the side of me
that tried to be my friend
in the heart of me was living
and loving
but it perished
and i'll never be
completely me again

my right had fills the china teacups
and needlepoints with old maid aunts
my right hand clings to rosary beads
and waters dying plants
but it's never painted a picture
nor has it run for president
my left hand
might have done these things
if its roots
had not been bent
a sculptor
a poet
it might have been
instead of a useless thing
to decorate with bangles and bracelets
and my mother's wedding ring

something
it might have accomplished
or nothing
but now i'll never know
oh
my lost
my left
my natural hand
my god
i miss you so