Tag: Why

RIP Diane Keaton – “You Don’t Own Me” and Parallel Lives

My jury duty is now over, so back to my routine of posting something new weekly. Little did I think last time, that I would be writing a tribute for one of my favourite actresses of all time, Diane Keaton. With Robert Redford I didn’t really get a shock when I heard of his death, but with Diane Keaton I most certainly did. First of all I hadn’t realised she was as old as she was (79 when she died), as we have kind of grown up together with her film roles often reflecting what my life was like at the time. Also, although she did have more lines on her face as the years went by (as do I), she always seemed to be smiling which gave her a really youthful appearance.


The first film you think of when reflecting on Diane Keaton’s legacy is Annie Hall, the film made in 1977 that was written specifically for her, and in which she starred with Woody Allen. Diane had frequently collaborated with Woody prior to this and had also played Kay Adams in the Godfather films, but I don’t think I had actually seen them at this point so Annie Hall was my first introduction to her, and what an impact she made.

I had gone to see the film in Aberdeen’s Capitol Theatre one Saturday afternoon in 1978 with my best friend of the time. We had recently left school for University, and as we now lived in the big city, we were able to enjoy all that it had to offer. After watching Diane Keaton in Annie Hall we trawled the very few charity and vintage shops that were available at the time, and kitted ourselves out in baggy trousers, shirts and waistcoats. Such apparel would have looked ridiculous in rural Aberdeenshire but now that we were students it fitted our new personas perfectly. Also, despite looking outwardly quite quirky and different, if an older student or lecturer had entered into conversation with me, I would have become a gibbering wreck, not having yet acquired the confidence needed for such encounters. Inside, I was still that girl from a country school. Like Annie, I would have probably gone down the La-di-da, La-di-da route before making an embarrassing exit.


After watching the clip above last Sunday I kept having the song line, “La-di-da-di-da”, swirling around in my head. I couldn’t remember for a start what the song was, and it certainly wasn’t from the film, but it didn’t take long to work out it was Why, a song from 1982 written by Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards and performed by Carly Simon.


But back to Diane Keaton. Throughout the rest of the 70s, the 80s and beyond she appeared in many, many films, some with Woody Allen, but as time went by, mostly not. She could tackle the serious roles (Reds) just as easily as the romantic comedy ones (Baby Boom), and I loved her in everything she did. In terms of her style, the clothes had changed in the films she made, as did my style as serious jobs and motherhood had entered my life. And this is when a really special moment happened in my life. In around 2010, DD’s good friend Jamie who was a frequent visitor to our house, sent her a film clip with this message: “Omg, I’ve just been watching this film, and one of the actresses looks just like your mum”. Yes, DD’s friend had likened me to Diane Keaton! Although I knew she was a lot prettier than me, I was very flattered, as she had always been the actress I most wanted to be like in real life.

This was that clip from the 1996 film The First Wives Club. I did wear my glasses a lot more around that time, and my hair was of a similar style and colour, so I can see how he thought of me, but I don’t think he ever realised just how big a compliment he had just paid me.

You Don’t Own Me by The Blow Monkeys:


You Don’t Own Me was a pop song recorded by Lesley Gore in 1963, when she was just 17 years old. The song was her second most successful recording and her last top-ten single. It expressed emancipation, as the singer tells a lover she doesn’t want to be held to his hypocritical gender standards, such as not being able to see other men, when he sees other women. The song’s lyrics became an inspiration for younger women and are sometimes cited as a factor in the development of the second wave feminist movement. I don’t have the Lesley Gore version of this song in my library, but I do have this interesting version by The Blow Monkeys, recorded for the film Dirty Dancing which was set in 1963.

My final “Alyson/Diane lead parallel lives” story came about after I watched her in the 2003 film Something’s Gotta Give, with Jack Nicholson. Diane played Erica Barry, a successful writer who lives in a beautiful beach house overlooking the ocean. Although we don’t earn anything from this blogging hobby of ours, I have always been a frustrated writer so it’s a great outlet, also, my dream house would be one by the coast, overlooking the sea. But the big parallel between myself and Erica’s character is that she always wears polo-necks, or turtle-necks as they call them in North America. It’s a standing joke throughout the film, as it is with most of my friends who know that between the months of September and May I only wear cream or black polo-neck jumpers. Between June and August I change into striped T-shirts and shirts, but I never show much flesh.


Having read a lot about Diane since she died last Saturday, it seems her propensity for wearing polo-necks and hats with her quirky outfits in real life, was because she had suffered from recurring bouts of skin cancer, as have I. Not for us the sundresses and skimpy tops of our naturally darker skinned friends, and come September, when I become alabaster white again, I have to add a bit of artificial colour to my face. Having a tanned face but a white neck looks ridiculous, thus the polo-necks. I’ve even managed to source polo-necked evening dresses in the past for posh events!

So, “What’s It All About?” – I am beyond sad that Diane has left us and I hope I have explained in this post just why. She was the actress I most admired and felt close to because of the similarities between us. She will never pop up in anything new again but at least we still have all those great films to revisit time and time again.

RIP Diane Keaton xx


Until next time…

You Don’t Own Me Lyrics
(Song by John Madara/Dave White)

You don’t own me
I’m not just one of your many toys
You don’t own me
Don’t say I can’t go with other boys

And don’t tell me what to do
Don’t tell me what to say
And please, when I go out with you
Don’t put me on display ’cause

You don’t own me
Don’t try to change me in any way
You don’t own me
Don’t tie me down ’cause I’d never stay

I don’t tell you what to say
I don’t tell you what to do
So just let me be myself
That’s all I ask of you

I’m young, and I love to be young
I’m free, and I love to be free
To live my life the way I want
To say and do whatever I please

And don’t tell me what to do
Oh, don’t tell me what to say
And please, when I go out with you
Don’t put me on display

I don’t tell you what to say
Oh, don’t tell you what to do
So just let me be myself
That’s all I ask of you

I’m young, and I love to be young
I’m free and I love to be free
To live my life the way I want
To say and do whatever I please

Reunions, Raincoats and Rock & Pop Memorabilia

A couple of Saturdays ago I got up at the crack of dawn and caught the first train south to Edinburgh. An ex-flatmate from student days had recently been back in touch – inevitably via Facebook – and she was keen to have a bit of a reunion. As one of the other girls from the flat (we’ll always be girls however old we get) was coming up to Edinburgh for the Fringe Festival, a meet-up there seemed to make sense as the rest of us all still live in Scotland. As an aside, another thing that precipitated this reunion was that one of our number has recently been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease, which came as a massive shock to all of us. It’s too easy to put off these kind of reunions as it can be tricky finding dates that work for everyone, but this news certainly galvanised us into action, for obvious reasons.

There certainly was a lot going on in Edinburgh the Saturday I arrived at Waverley Station. We knew however that much of our time would be spent just catching up, as we hadn’t actually met up with the instigator of this reunion for 37 years. She’d left a year earlier than the rest of us to coincide with her student boyfriend’s departure, as he was a year older. They got married within 12 months, and wait for it, are still together! I suppose I shouldn’t be so shocked, but it just didn’t work out that way for the rest of us, so full of admiration for anyone who has gone the distance so to speak.

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After the mid-morning coffee and the boozy lunch, it had been suggested we head along to the National Museum, as the much-publicised exhibition entitled Rip It Up, The Story of Scottish Pop was currently running. It certainly did chronicle the music we Scots have been responsible for inflicting on an unsuspecting nation (world?) over the last 60 years or so, taking us right back to Lonnie Donegan and ending up with the Chvrches by way of Lulu, The Rollers, Deacon Blue, the Soup Dragons and Franz Ferdinand to name but a few.

Only the previous week however I had finally caught up with all three episodes of the BBC 2 documentary series also called Rip It Up (link here), so I was already familiar with “the story” and had seen most of the audio-visual material used as part of the exhibition. Also, there was a strict no taking pictures policy in operation so that kind of ruined my chances of creating a blog post out of my visit (but I’m still going to try). What was great however was to see all that rock and pop memorabilia, donated both by fans and the pop sensations themselves, which had been pulled together for the exhibition.

My last blog post before this visit was as a result of having been set the challenge of writing about James Yorkston (link here) which is when I found out about Fence Records, set up by Kenny Anderson (aka King Creosote). One of the items on display was the actual fence used as inspiration for the artwork for Kenny’s album, still boldly displaying the words KC RULES OK.

Display cabinet with that very fence
Fence Records

There were of course an awful lot of guitars, records and sheet music filling up the glass cases but for me it was the clothes I enjoyed looking at most. Considering I was meandering around these displays with people I had shared a flat with in 1980/81, a few memories invariably came to mind. Both myself and the instigator of the reunion had been lucky enough to receive little black and white portable tellies from Santa that academic year, so from January 1981 onward we took turns in hosting the viewing of TOTP on Thursdays at 7.30pm. That was of course the era of New Romanticism and the charts were littered with acts who were very prone to dressing up in elaborate frills and falderals.

POP-COMP

A band who will always be remembered for producing a highly pretentious, airy fairy video at that time was Ultravox, headed up by Scottish singer Midge Ure. The song it accompanied was of course Vienna, which became infamous for losing out on the UK Singles Chart’s top spot (for weeks on end) to an Australian called Joe Dolce with his novelty song Shaddap You Face. Along with many other iconic outfits in the exhibition, there was the very raincoat Midge wore for the video.

Vienna by Ultravox:

Other panels of interest contained a display of some of the many albums made by Scottish acts over the years – I can only identify a few of the less obvious ones, but I’m sure a fair few of the blogging buddies could identify many more. Some interesting snippets of info up there too – Did you know that in 1975, the Average White Band was the first Scottish band to get to No. 1 in both the US Singles and Album Charts simultaneously? No, me neither, but I do now courtesy of the exhibition.

Last stop was of course the gift shop, and although I didn’t actually buy this Bay City Rollers badge (because I already have one!), it was worthy of a picture. Plenty of nice new T-shirts on offer as well for those of us whose originals have perhaps seen better days (or perhaps that’s the point).

I will leave you with a link to the playlists of songs inspired by the exhibition – From Scottish pop classics to the tracks that mean the most to the people involved in creating the exhibition. Also, one last image, this time of the iconic outfit worn by Annie Lennox during her Eurythmics partnership with Dave Stewart. Considering our little reunion was the result of having once-upon-a-time shared a student flat in Aberdeen, where Annie was born and brought up, it would be fitting to include something by her. I used to find it quite amusing that during my decade of living in Aberdeen, just about every female I encountered had either been to school with her or knew her – Looking back, if you were 5 years older or 5 years younger you probably did attend school at the same time, but highly unlikely you will still be in touch. Just sayin’.

Neil Hanna Photography www.neilhannaphotography.co.uk 07702 246823

Here Comes The Rain Again by the Eurythmics:

So, “What’s It All About?” – First and foremost, if the chance comes up to reconnect with old friends, don’t keep putting it off as to my cost I have found that some of my old friendship groups are now reduced in number. Not something you really want to think about, but now that people are starting to retire, it should mean get-togethers are logistically a bit easier to organise, but it also means we are all getting older. Enough said.

As for the Rip It Up exhibition, it is on until November, and well worth a visit if you have any interest at all in the history of Scottish Pop. If like me you have already watched the Rip It Up documentary, there is a big overlap, but still lots of memorabilia to bring on a dose of nostalgia. We are used to our museum artefacts from ancient cultures presented to us in the form of pottery, jewellery and crafts. In the future, the artefacts attributed to our time on the planet will be vinyl, trousers with tartan down the sides and button badges. What will they make of us as a culture I wonder, in the year 3000AD?

Until next time…. , Shang-a-Lang!

Vienna Lyrics
(Song by Warren Cann/Chris Cross/Billy Currie/Midge Ure)

Walked in the cold air
Freezing breath on a window pane
Lying and waiting
A man in the dark in a picture frame
So mystic and soulful
A voice reaching out in a piercing cry
It stays with you until

The feeling has gone only you and I
It means nothing to me
This means nothing to me
Oh, Vienna

The music is weaving
Haunting notes, pizzicato strings
The rhythm is calling
Alone in the night as the daylight brings
A cool empty silence
The warmth of your hand and a cold grey sky
It fades to the distance

The image has gone only you and I
It means nothing to me
This means nothing to me
Oh, Vienna

This means nothing to me
This means nothing to me
Oh, Vienna