I used to spend crazy Saturday nights living it up rock and roll style until fifteen in the morning, and then I would sleep all day and wake up in time to watch the sun go down and the Lawrence Welk Show. There was never anything more soothing, humorous, and comforting for my aching head and body than a good dose of Lawrence Welk.
A few weeks ago I posted a Sergio Mendes video with the caption “the Brazilian Lawrence Welk.” That was not a negative comment on Mr. Mendes, quite the opposite. For a lot of people Mr. Welk has come to represent something negative in music. I sort of understand that because many people want a lot of something-to-follow in their music, and Mr. Welk, never gave much in terms of cool stuff to follow, except maybe champagne and bubbles.
I’m more with Tom Robbins, who said that a mockingbird “was heard to blend the songs of 32 different kinds of birds into a 10 minute performance, a virtuoso display that served no practical purpose, falling, therefore, into the realm of pure art.” In some movie I didn’t like I then saw Mr. Robbins expand on this idea of pure art as being basically pointless. I didn’t like the movie, and I haven’t particularly liked all that much his books that I’ve read, but I liked what he said in that movie. He was not being negative, he was praising this pointlessness of art as the only way we have to experience the world without the weight of reason (or reasons). To me this is the beauty of art and the reality of beauty, which is ultimately more real than anything encumbered by human reason. (Something like that.)
Something like that is what I feel when I watch the Lawrence Welk Show, which I still enjoy when I can and I always get that pure pointless joy from watching all those polyester suited gentlemen dancing with their blue-hair ladies while listening to that unpretentious band doing their silly numbers. Pure pointless joy.
But I’ve been watching the show for years and years. Until recently, the Lawrence Welk Show seemed like the only consistent good music show on TV that was readily available. It was a show, unlike American Bandstand and most other music shows on TV, where musicians did not lip-sync and fake play along to pre-recorded tracks, and which featured music performance from beginning to end. It was also a show that had nothing to do with superstars or personalities. Sure, Welk was a household name and maybe some of the performers in his show went on to have careers outside the show, but no one ever seemed to be on the show based on their popularity or star quality.
If anything, the performers seemed to be selected for their easy forgetability. In all the 20+ years I’ve been watching the show I never wanted to know anything else about these people, they were all interchangeable, and it was the music that mattered. Until writing this post and actually looking up some info about Welk, I didn’t even know he was from North Dakota, how glamorous. These are all lessons that a lot of rock bands have tried to emulate (though in different ways), from the early Beatles to the Ramones, however in the end their own popularity ends up undoing their attempts at anonymity within the group. Not so with the Lawrence Welk band. Of course these were also the late days of big bands, and the early days of the media machine that today would’ve probably made a superstar of people like Anacani.
And then there’s this SNL sketch.
And even better, this blog.
awesome. a man after my own heart. do you watch the golden girls too?
for a brief amount of time I was a ballroom dance teacher. and I do mean brief. I think it lasted one month. I trained for 2 weeks, without pay, and it was intense and fun and I learned some fancy footwork. It was all for nothing, just for fun and to put form to music, to put something to see and watch to music, too, but nothing like martha graham to some jazz master. Just simple music and rhythms.
I was fired for not tweezing my eyebrows, going out in the rain without an umbrella and something else similar. Dallas. But then again, everybody was fired from that studio, but that’s another story.
In the end, I am a fan of something similar, but you put in words that are well written and cause me to think, different than the actual show. Or are they?
Interesting thoughts on being famous. Kind of like the difference between a good hamburger joint and McDonald’s maybe?
Anyway, makes me want a rum and coke and the time to sit back and watch the show too.
My grandmother would cut off a limb to catch Welk every damn night. She would pretend to know nothing of our newfangled “remotes,” yet would always be able to find the Lawrence Welk show on any television without any trouble whatsoever.
That SNL skit kills me every time I watch it, and I’ve watched it way too many times.
I never wanted to know anything else about these people
Even the Lennon Sisters?
Honestly I could hardly ever understand Welk’s introductions, to me it always sounded like, and now here’s jasldhflsk with a lovely song.
And Stacey, no i dont watch the Golden Girls… they dont really sing and dance do they?
Cramer, Fred Armisen’s reaction when the camera goes back to him at the end of the song is what i consider comedic genius. the little hands too. haha, that shit cracks me up just thinking about it.
Yes, Mr. Welk is one of the famous North Dakotans. For some reason, I’m not listed. I always found it weird how everyone had to constantly smile those huge unnatural smiles.
yeah, those smiles were weird, kind of like cheerleader smiles. But it all seemed to fit with the anonymity of the performers. It was not about them and whatever they were feeling. Using music as a means for personal expression can sometimes be overrated.