The Oxford American Book of Great Music Writing

Greek to Me
by Van Dyke Parks
1 April 2008

Mathematician-Philosopher Pythagoras was born and raised in the country, but he hit the road early. He hit Memphis (the Egyptian one), Cairo (not Illinois), and even met the Pharaoh (though not Sam the Sham). In short, Pythagoras was as global as one could be. He met all the Who that were Who in those days (sixth century B.C.) because he was a giant with Charisma, Warmth, and Charm galore. Star qualities.

They were quieter times for sure. You could hear yourself think. Pythagoras dug music the most, so he took time to design the Octave and the Fifth. He figured it all out: How we would sing to the Gods and each other by codifying the modes. Some modes were rosy (“Onward Christian Soldiers,” Ionian). Some were blue (“My Yiddishe Mama,” Aeolian, now the modified Hungarian minor). Rules governed modal use and gave music its traction and purpose. One such rule, introduced by Rome, that decreed the tritone leap taboo (“Diabolus in Musica”), was unlocked only after many medieval ghosts had been exorcized from the mind of Western man. Enlightenment of that sort was the direct result of movable print. Yet, I digress.

One day, Pythagoras, now enrobed with his students at the Acropolis, paused among the temples on that sacred hill. As Zephyrs gently caressed them, each structure shuddered with a barely audible tone. The students heard these tones, which Pythagoras named “fundamentals.” Thus, modal music, fit to please the ear of some God or another, was born.

Just one Greek made up all that we call Music! Such a brainstorm could only have been generated in a time when you could hear yourself. Think of it! Someone invented Music. This musical-history anecdote would be lost entirely on a rock audience attending Yanni’s recent gig at the Acropolis. Doubtless, it’s safe here.

It would take a millennium for attorneys and accountants to learn how to cook the books. About the time these camp followers perfected their racket through the legal Ebonics in recording contracts, I’d gotten my ears wrapped around canned music. Actually, my first memory of canned music was in 1948: Spike Jones’s phenomenal “William Tell Overture.” His sonorities had a profound
effect on my future.

Shortly thereafter, they started pumping the power of song into New York elevators to beef up the urban audio environment. I was there. I got my Muzak memories in Otis Elevators. It was in one such elevator that my own Uncle Sam introduced me to his boss. Uncle Sam placed advertising for the music behemoth RCA. His boss was David Sarnoff, “The General.” (Sarnoff liked folks to call him “The General.”) Before “The General” came up with the idea of broadcasting music on commercial radio, most Americans’ musical entertainment was some hard-backboned hymnal, in hand but once a week, or an occasional holiday parade.

We rode up with that man.

Below, on the ground outside at Rockefeller Center, a monument to a gilded Prometheus reminded us who had stolen the flame from the hearth of Zeus and brought fire to mortal mankind. Inside the spacious elevator, all was mellow. Hardwood and mahogany. Our ascent was faintly scored with a narcotic string arrangement. Just as I recognized it as a version of “The Song From Moulin Rouge,” it dawned on me: They’re telling us what to think and feel. I was ten years old, a naturally skeptical age. But I’d read Orwell. I knew one thing for sure: Things were getting louder.

Before we hit his floor, “The General” asked Uncle Sam what kind of music appealed to him, and by what means did he hear it. Uncle Sam admitted to classical music, Fats Waller, some Duchin and Shearing, but added that he didn’t have a record player.

My Uncle Sam must have been some good ad-man for “The General,” for it wasn’t long after that “The General” sent him hundreds and hundreds of records, the entire Red Seal catalog in fact, to his home in Long Island. It spoke volumes that “The General” also included a competitor’s state-of-the-art record player, a Magnavox.

That was back in 1953, the year Elvis took his first acetate home (“My Happiness”) to his mother, as a belated birthday present. He would shake things up. Like the Psalmist David before him, he’d take on giants.

Elvis made a blip on our national radar. Many of the artists featured here did not. To read on is to Discover America.