Sunday, June 26, 2011

Biosong: "Mary Pickford"

Picture book biographies and biopics are fairly common. Biosongs, however, seem relatively rare. In fact, I may have just made up the word.

One song I have long loved is Peter Gabriel's "Family Snapshot," though I only just now learned (from Wikipedia) that it was not, as I have long believed, inspired by Lee Harvey Oswald.

A truer biosong, and the inspiration for this post, is "Mary Pickford" by Katie Melua. It's almost a companion piece to Don Brown's nonfiction picture book Mack Made Movies, about silent film director and comedy pioneer Mack Sennett.

I have no plan to write about Pickford, or Melua, but encourage you to check out the song, both for the bio-aspect and for the music and lyrics themselves.

1 comment:

Richard said...

What a great idea for a song! Thanks for sharing that clip.

"Family Snapshot" is one of my all-time favorites as well. The eponymous Peter Gabriel album including that song is one of those records like Kind of Blue or Pet Sounds that literally shifted the direction of music -- perhaps less famous among the general public than those, but its impact on musicians and songwriters when it came out can't be overstated.