Surely somewhere in this great galaxy of ours is a room more hallowed, more historic, more celebrated than the Great Master's conservatory. Shakespeare's loft at Stratford-On-Avon perhaps, or DaVinci's studio, or Curie's laboratory, or Ciccone's bedroom. But to a true Stewartian scholar like myself, none could top this spacious, airy chamber with its full windowed wall overlooking the garden. History fairly echoed from the rafters!
The centerpiece of the conservatory was a beautiful grand piano on which many of the Great Master's magnificent strains were first given voice. Slingsby sat down at the keyboard and charmed us with a few bars of 'On The Border'.
"Many visitors are surprised to learn that the Great Master frequently composed his songs on the piano. His fame is as a guitarist, of course, but he found a keyboard instrument better suited for working out the intricate nuances of his melodies. He purchased this piece with his royalties from The Scottish Album soon after he moved to Greater Los Angeles."
The little girl with the ice cream cone walked up beside Slingsby. She shut her eyes and scrunched her face for a moment, then looked up with a puzzled expression. "How come it's not making any music?" she asked.
"This is an old-fashioned piano, honey. It doesn't read brain waves like our modern instruments do. Back in the 20th century it took patience and practice, not to mention a great deal of talent, to become a professional musician. That, or a sexy body and a good public relations agent."
Ah, I thought. That explained Jon Bon Jovi.
While Slingsby launched into a ragtime rendition of 'Warren Harding', I slipped away to check out some of the instruments. There were guitars everywhere, of course, ranging from handmade wooden acoustics to solid polymer electrics in day-glo scarlet. A drum set sat by one wall, with saxophones and flutes and tambourines and even a tuba nearby. Primitive electronic amplifiers were hung in strategic locations, connected by thick black cable to an engineer's mixing board in one corner.
On a rusty metal music stand, was a handsomely bound collection of guitar tablatures for the Great Master's songs published by Resseman-Hewitt-LaPlagne, Ltd. -- a staple of elementary school music classes since the mid-21st century, of course. This edition looked to be an original. I gently flipped through the faded yellowed pages.....
....and at the bottom of page 295, just after the entry for 'Where Are They Now', I found the following words:
1995 ASML BOAP: Best Melody
# Song Album Votes --------------------------------------------------- 1 Year Of The Cat YOTC 11.50 2t Charlotte Corday FLW 7.00 2t Fields Of France LDOTC 7.00 4t Clifton In The Rain BI 6.00 4t The Dark And The Rolling Sea MT 6.00 6 End Of The Day TP 5.00 7t Merlin's Time 24C 4.00 7t On The Border YOTC 4.00 9t Apple Cider Reconstitution MT 3.00 9t Flying Sorcery YOTC 3.00 9t Night Train To Munich BTW 3.00 9t Samuel, Oh How You've Changed BI 3.00
And that wasn't all. In the left margin, just inside the binder, was this:
1995 ASML BOAP: Best Instrumentation
# Song Album Votes ------------------------------------------------ 1 Year Of The Cat YOTC 17.00 2 On The Border YOTC 6.00 3t Last Days Of The Century LDOTC 5.00 3t Modern Times MT 5.00 5t Fields Of France LDOTC 4.00 5t Old Admirals PPF 4.00 7t Antarctica LDOTC 3.00 7t Broadway Hotel YOTC 3.00 7t End Of The Day TP 3.00 7t Night Of The 4th Of May O 3.00 7t Timeless Skies TP 3.00
Quite interesting, I thought. 'Cat' won both categories handily. 'Best Instrumentation' was certainly no surprise, but I would not have predicted 'Best Melody'. A tribute no doubt to its co-writer, the great Peter Wood, whose tragic death early in the 1990's robbed his generation of a splendid talent.
Across the room, Slingsby was leading the tour group in a rendition of 'A League Of Notions', the popular campfire song. I was tempted to join in, but of course our country, like all civilized societies, mandates long jail sentences for anyone who sings off-key in public. A good law, that. I wonder how our ancestors lived without it.
I scanned one of the acoustic guitars with my TSR. On the soundboard I read the following inscription: 'To Al, Happy 75th Birthday and Many Happy Returns! (signed) Jimmy, Tim, Peter, Laurence, and Vlad.' Ah, yes -- the Five Virtuosos. Their concert at Wembley Stadium in 2011, watched by three billion people worldwide on closed-circuit TV and capped by a five-part acoustic rendition of 'Princess Olivia' -- OK, so only one person applauded -- remains to this day the highest rated musical special of all time. Remarkable that all five had played with the Great Master earlier in their careers.
I gently replaced the guitar in its stand. Too bad they didn't give it to him for his 50th birthday, I thought. It would've been a natural place to hide a poll result. Then it struck me that there was something funny about the pick wedged high in the strings . I ran the TSR across it and sure enough, etched onto the plastic, was the following:
1995 ASML BOAP: Best Guitar Solo
# Song Album Votes ------------------------------------------------- 1 On The Border YOTC 12.33 2 Trespasser FLW 9.33 3 Nostradamus PPF 7.25 4 End Of The Day TP 6.50 5 Apple Cider Reconstitution MT 6.00 6 A Small Fruit Song ZSF 5.50 7 The Dark And The Rolling Sea MT 5.00 8 Modern Times MT 4.50 9 Time Passages TP 4.00 10 Year Of The Cat YOTC 3.33
Soon, we were all assembled in one corner of the conservatory. Slingsby was using an old reel-to-reel magnetic tape to demonstrate how the mixing board worked.
"Back in the Stewartian Era, recordings were limited solely to sound and single-POV video. Quite primitive compared to today's Full Sensory Capture systems, but effective nonetheless.
"Sadly, we will never know what the Great Master was thinking and feeling when he performed his music as neurological recordings had not yet been perfected. Considering the frequent controversies they spark today, perhaps that is a blessing in disguise."
"Wasn't there some sort of dispute regarding his music anyway?" asked one young man.
"Indeed -- the infamous Retro-Rock Controversy of 1999. A shadowy right-wing fringe group claimed that they had found evidence of sinister backward messages in the recordings of certain pop stars. They claimed that the messages could be picked up subconsciously during normal playback and thus lead to the corruption of young listeners. Cited among others were Black Sabbath, AC/DC, Ozzy Osbourne -- this before his election to British Prime Minister of course -- Led Zeppelin, Guns 'N' Roses, ...
A snicker ran through the group. "Weren't their forward lyrics enough reason to worry?" asked someone.
"One would think so. Allegations of that sort were actually quite common, but they were generally dismissed out of hand as irrational rantings. But the 1999 controversy caught the public's eye when two of the claims were verified by independent, non-partisan sources.
"On the Rolling Stones 1996 album, 'Rich Old Men In Tights', it was found that the chorus of the song 'Don't Bruise My Dentures, Hot Mama', when played in reverse, was: 'Windows 95 Sucks, Buy Apple Instead'. Historians are still unsure what that referred to. In a possibly related incident, $12 million disappeared from the Swiss bank account of Mick Jagger the next day, stolen by a computer hacker whose locale was traced only to Washington state, U.S.A.
"The other confirmed message was on Between The Wars. Played backwards, the second verse of 'Always The Cause' becomes, 'Give Hipposong a 10! Give Hipposong a 10!'. Clearly, he was trying to influence the subconscious thought processes of at least some of his listeners, although exactly who and why is not clear."
Oh, I had a pretty good idea
"In any event, the zealots were outraged. They claimed the lyrics promoted animal worship and numerology, among other pernicious things. A few went so far as to call for the Great Master's deportation and the burning of all his works.
"Then, a professor at the University of Virginia released a study showing that average SAT scores among listeners of the Great Master's albums increased dramatically as a result of the exposure to history. The Great Master's reputation was vindicated and his accusers were humiliated and disgraced."
Slingsby mounted a new tape onto the playback machine. "Much later, other retromessages were found hidden on 'Betewen The Wars'. Here, let me play 'The Age Of Reason' in reverse. You'll hear an account of the Yalta Conference of 1944 as told by an aide to Franklin Roosevelt, though I doubt anyone will be able to understand it. It's in Old English of course."
"I speak Old English," I said. "I'd be happy to translate."
"Splendid!" said Slingsby. "Here goes." He pushed a button on the console, frowned, and pushed another. "Sorry, folks. I seem to have mounted the wrong tape. Let me grab the...um, sir, are you all right?"
He was referring to me. I was panting and gasping and trying to enunciate six different things simultaneously. One lady said later my eyeballs had practically jumped out of their sockets. "Play that again!" I demanded when I regained the power of speech.
"Sir, as I said, I made an error. Listen." He pushed a red button and played the tape forward. "While I do not understand Old English, like everyone else I can certainly recognize the melody of 'Happy Birthday To You'. This was no doubt one of the Great Master's home recordings."
"Just play it backwards again!" I demanded. I must've sounded sufficiently menacing because Slingsby decided to humor me. No, the phonemes of 'Happy Birthday' didn't make any sense in reverse. But clearly audible over the garble was a woman's voice reciting the following words:
1995 ASML BOAP: Best Album Production
# Album Votes ----------------------------------------- 1 A-Year Of The Cat 31.00 2 A-Between The Wars 15.50 3 A-Last Days Of The Century 12.00 4 A-Famous Last Words 7.00 5 A-Modern Times 6.50
"Satisfied?" said Slingsby, a bit irritatedly.
"Quite," I said. "Thank you very much." I sat down behind the drum kit to catch my breath. Four more results uncovered, ten in all. I had a feeling I was nearing the halfway point of my search.
I checked my tour guide. The next stop was the Great Master's den....