Bonus pictures and video.  The peonies are open in the yard!

first day opening for the one above

Happy Sunday.  I spent most of the evening in GR with my kids and got home late, which puts me behind today.  Today is gorgeous out there, sunny, warm breeze, second or third day in a row.  The pepper plants and the tomato plants are developing blossoms. I hope you enjoy the pictures and video of the flowers.  They smell like ginger, which gives instant euphoria when you smell them.

Now, on to the music!  I listened to Hunky Dory on the way to and from GR.  What a wonderful collection of songs. Hunky Dory is the fourth studio album by the English musician David Bowie, released on December 17, 1971. Hunky Dory has been described by AllMusic’s Stephen Thomas Erlewine as having “a kaleidoscopic array of pop styles, tied together only by Bowie’s sense of vision: a sweeping, cinematic mélange of high and low art, ambiguous sexuality, kitsch, and class.”

The style of the album cover, photographed by Brian Ward and air brushed by Terry Pastor, was influenced by a Marlene Dietrich photo book that Bowie took with him to the photo shoot.

Bowie paid tribute to his influences with the tracks “Song for Bob Dylan”, “Andy Warhol” and the Velvet Underground inspired “Queen Bitch”.

The album has received critical acclaim since its release, and is regarded as one of Bowie’s best works. Bowie himself considered the album to be one of the most important in his career. Speaking in 1999, he said: “Hunky Dory gave me a fabulous groundswell. I guess it provided me, for the first time in my life, with an actual audience – I mean, people actually coming up to me and saying, ‘Good album, good songs.’ That hadn’t happened to me before. It was like, ‘Ah, I’m getting it, I’m finding my feet. I’m starting to communicate what I want to do. Now: what is it I want to do?’ There was always a double whammy there.”

per wikipedia:

“Andy Warhol” is a song written by David Bowie in 1971 for the album Hunky Dory. It is an acoustic song about one of Bowie’s early artist inspirations, the American pop artist Andy Warhol. The album track opens with a series of strange electronic tones which fades into studio chatter in which producer Ken Scott mispronounces Warhol’s name and Bowie repeatedly demonstrates how to say it properly. Scott then solemnly reintroduces the take with the correct pronunciation, and Bowie asks if the tape is rolling. Upon realising he is indeed being recorded, Bowie bursts into laughter and the song proper begins.

The song is memorable for a distinctive repeated flamenco-sounding riff played by Mick Ronson on acoustic guitar. Originally the song was written for Dana Gillespie, who recorded it in 1971, but her version of the song was not released until 1973 on her album Weren’t Born a Man. Both versions feature Mick Ronson on guitar. Bowie, an admirer of Warhol, sent the artist an advanced copy of Hunky Dory and performed Andy Warhol for him in person at Warhol’s The Factory in New York in September 1971, before the album had been released. But due to Warhol’s typically minimal reaction, Bowie was never sure if he liked it or not.

Like to take a cement fix
Be a standing cinema
Dress my friends up just for show
See them as they really are
Put a peephole in my brain
Two New Pence to have a go
I’d like to be a gallery
Put you all inside my show

Andy Warhol looks a scream
Hang him on my wall
Andy Warhol, Silver Screen
Can’t tell them apart at all

Andy walking, Andy tired
Andy take a little snooze
Tie him up when he’s fast asleep
Send him on a pleasant cruise
When he wake up on the sea
He sure to think of me and you
He’ll think about paint and he’ll think about glue
What a jolly boring thing to do

Andy Warhol looks a scream
Hang him on my wall
Andy Warhol, Silver Screen
Can’t tell them apart at all

Andy Warhol looks a scream
Hang him on my wall
Andy Warhol, Silver Screen
Can’t tell them apart at all

Songwriters: David Bowie