Well I got that lot off my chest yesterday didn't I ?.... and now it's back to 'normal' so I thought I should give you all a treat....of sorts.
Now, strictly speaking dear reader, I don't think this is, per se, a dreadful song. I adore the 60s version by Big Dee Irwin and Little Eva BUT ...and it is a big BUT..this version by Lena Zavaroni is the absolute pits...and it also epitomises everything I detest about child perfomers. Poor little devils. They may love to sing but I always wish that for their own sake and ours they would keep their love of singing to the family fireside and taunt their grannies and aunts rather than us, the public. I particularly detest children who sing like Big Mama Thornton or George Melly.
This clip that I found is doubly nauseous since it will also remind the more 'mature' U.K. reader of a nightmare in their televisual childhood: 'Junior Showtime'.
I had forgotten quite how queasy that show was but I DO rememeber that even at a tender age, if I even caught a glimpse I was ready to heave.
Poor Lena. I may joke but that 'Big Time' in Showbiz, helped by Uncle Hughie did for her. Wrenched from a small Scottish village and a home near or above a chippie, she was thrust into the limelight, staying with a chaperone/manager Up the Smoke, packed off to Stage School with all the other shreakers and perished by the mighty sword that is anorexia. A horrible way to go and a waste. I genuinely feel for the poor little soul. She was so lost.....
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Rant Over !!!! On with the Motley. Dreadful Songs No. 5: Lena Zavaroni Sings 'Swinging on a Star'
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
I liked the first bit with all the old neon, but it's funny that they show a whole bunch of Vegas signs as a prelude. The "Junior Showtime" show was so creepy... a "lady we all love." A lady? She's 8 or younger. Ew. And who the heck is the yellow duck in the crowd? I prefer Bing Crosby's version to little Lena's.
Is that last bit true about her? If so, it's not just a crappy performance, it's sad and poignant. But still annoying. Oh, the rollercoaster!
Oh yes it's true all right. I should maybe explain for non-UK readers that the 'Uncle Hughie' I mention was Hughie Green (i.e. not actually Lena's uncle) the host of the talent show 'Opportunity Knocks' which seemed to run forever in the 60s and 70s. Even as a child I found him creepy and my intuition was correct because he was very creepy and turned out to be the father of Paula Yates (former wife of Bob Geldof)...except he didn't reveal that to anyone until after his death in his Will...so poor old Paula had a bit of a shock and another sad end.
The bit at the end of the post about anorexia is indeed true and Lena Z had a terrible, terrible battle. It was pitiful to see her last few interviews. I kind of followed those, not because of any love for her singing, but because I had two friends who died from anorexia and so there was a connection there for me. Lena died from the same condition eventually.
I'll give you this one, Cusp - grotesque. But particularly in the light of what one knows about how things turned out for the poor girl.
One night I stayed up late watching a documentary on Lena Zavaroni which was posted on YouTube. It was heartbreaking. Before her premature death at the age of only 34, she was living in a council flat in Hertfordshire, existing on welfare benefits, painfully frail with anorexia and suffering with severe clincal depression.
This poor girl had no childhood, having been wrenched from her home to live in London with her managers - a very odd husband-and-wife team - and was attending stage school. She was nothing more than a 'product' to be bought and sold. Her manager, Dorothy Solomon, was clearly enjoying a comfortable lifestyle whilst Lena was seriously ill, living in a one bedroom flat in a tower block, claiming benefits from the state. Where did Lena's earnings go, I wonder? What should have been rightfully hers was obviously siphoned off to someone else's bank account. I guess her contracts were probably all legal and above board but the words 'ruthless exploitation' come to mind.
the lena zavaroni story is horribly sad, we were the same age, & seeing clips of her takes me right back to childhood.
there is a good article here on what the poor girl's life was like.
I think as I kid I had to sing this song once at a school 'thingee'
Poor me! lol!
Thanks for your comments. It's interesting that I started this post as a kind of joke --not about Lena but about the song and the awful nature of Junior Showtime and its ilk. Actually, as I wrote the post, and subsequently, it has become a more serious discussion.
I think poor Lena was treated as a sort of abberation --- this little girl all twirled up in a big frilly frock like a doll with a big gutsy voice. Later the dream certainly turned bad and she was sort of tossed aside; just like an old dolly.
As I said, I always felt a connection because my friend had died form anorexia and its complications and I watched Lena's last few interviews with a kind of knowing dread. Somehow, beneath the plastered TV make-up and the carefully chosen (bulking out)clothes, you could see this haunted skeletal shell and you just knew she wouldn't, couldn't make her way back up.
Thanks Nasim for the link to an interesting article
Post a Comment