The intro section of Crowded House's Wikipedia article mentions "Their most recent album, Dreamers Are Waiting, was released in 2021." The recurrence of the "dream" theme made me click the link. Here's the cover art:
Why is that significant? Because the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival fell on September 29 this year, and two of the symbols most closely associated with that holiday are the rabbit (usually white) and a big green citrus fruit called the pomelo. I assume that's meant to be a shrub on the Crowded House album, but its shape and color sure suggest a pomelo.
The appearance of a rabbit on an album called Dreamers Are Waiting made me think of a line from The Code of the Woosters where Stephanie "Stiffy" Byng thanks Jeeves for his assistance by saying, "Jeeves, you really are a specific dream-rabbit!" to which he replies, "Thank you miss. I am glad to have given satisfaction."
I watched the music video for "Don't Dream It's Over," and idle curiosity as to the ethnicity of the lead singer -- I couldn't quite tell from his physiognomy -- led me back to Wikipedia to early-life him. Neil Finn, Irish. "He is best known for being a principal member of Split Enz with his brother Tim, the lead singer and a founding member of Crowded House, and a touring member of Fleetwood Mac."
Really, Fleetwood Mac? I clicked the link. And wait, isn't Stevie Nicks's real name Stephanie, just like Stiffy Byng in the Wodehouse novel? I clicked that link, too. Yes, Stephanie Lynn Nicks. The intro to her Wikipedia article mentioned (as the band's article had not) that Fleetwood Mac's only number one hit in the U.S. had been the song "Dreams."
Today I happened to think about the website Clickhole, which I hadn't checked for ages because it hasn't been funny for ages. I visited it just in case. Nope, still not funny. One of the recent articles, posted on September 25, was "Stevie Nicks And CNN, Ranked." It featured the same photo of Nicks I had just seen on her Wikipedia page and consisted of a list of reasons why Stevie Nicks isn't as good as CNN. One of the tags at the end was "She Can Sing But Wolf Blitzer Is On CNN." That made me check Wolf Blitzer's Wikipedia article -- no, not because I'm so clueless I need to early-life Wolf Blitzer! I just wondered if that was his real name. Apparently I'm not alone:
Blitzer has said he has frequently been asked about his name, which has been characterized as seemingly made for TV. He explained that his surname goes back for generations, and that "Wolf" is the same first name as that of his maternal grandfather.
The words "made for TV" were a link to the article "Stage name," which I scrolled through. Of all the thousands of examples they could have chosen, this one made the cut:
Members of New Zealand art-rock band Split Enz all took their middle names as stage names, so as to keep their private image separate from their public personae.
Two days ago, I had never heard of Split Enz. Today I knew it was what Neil Finn was in before Crowded House and Fleetwood Mac.
1 comment:
"Don't Dream It's Over", great song. Practically an anthem for many Aussies. Contrarily the down side of its ambiguity can knock me around when I'm already a little low, tonight included. Examining the lyrics just now, along with a few other search results -- like this one -- reemphasised its actual meaning.
Two other things I noticed while Wiki reading. First, on recurrence of "dream", it seems "Recurring Dream" is both Crowded House's first greatest hits album and a very early song, first seen on a compilation of unreleased tracks, then the 2016 deluxe edition of the band's first album (also containing, of course, "Don't Dream It's Over".)
And for another degree of Finn, Mike Campbell -- of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers fame -- joined Fleetwood Mac at the same time. (Hah, he also co-wrote a song called "Runnin' Down a Dream".)
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