By Emmanuel Pajon
By Guido Bajas
By Laia Ferran
Laia Ferran
By Laia Ferran
| Édouard Manet (1832-1883) France, 1867 Signed: Manet Oil on canvas 100.5 x 81.4 cm Inv. no. 2361  In this painting, Édouard Manet offers an individual interpretation of the subject of this painting: vanitas, the ephemeral nature of life symbolised by the soap bubbles. Aspects such as the dark background, the simple forms and the restrained composition recall another work on the same subject by the eighteenth-century French painter Jean-Siméon Chardin. Yet the allegorical content does not here dominate the artistic autonomy of the visual discourse. Manet creates his own form of expression and uses the motif to introduce his sensorial perception and subjectivity. The theory that this painting may be the artist’s reflection on the immortality of art cannot be discarded. The model for this painting was Léon-Édouard Koëlla – Manet’s stepson – who appeared in the painter’s work for several years. The work’s free and direct style, with the clearly defined figure, also recalls the genius of such great masters as Murillo and Frans Hals. |
By Jean Baptiste Simeon Chardin
Lyrics
I'm forever blowing bubbles,
Pretty bubbles in the air,
They fly so high, nearly reach the sky,
Then like my dreams they fade and die.
Fortune's always hiding,
I've looked everywhere,
I'm forever blowing bubbles,
Pretty bubbles in the air.
I'm dreaming dreams, I'm scheming schemes,
I'm building castles high.
They're born anew, their days are few,
Just like a sweet butterfly.
And as the daylight is dawning,
They come again in the morning!
[Chorus]
When shadows creep, when I'm asleep,
To lands of hope I stray!
Then at daybreak, when I awake,
My bluebird flutters away.
Happiness, you seem so near me,
Happiness, come forth and cheer me!
Chorus
The music was written by John Kellette. The lyrics are credited to "Jaan Kenbrovin" actually a collective pseudonym for the writers James Kendis, James Brockman and Nat Vincent. The number was debuted in the Broadway musical The Passing Show of 1918, and it was introduced by Helen Carrington.
The copyright to "I'm for ever blowing bubbles was originally registered in 1919, and was owned by the Kendis-Brockman Music Co. Inc. This was transferred later that year to Jerome H. Remick & Co of New York and Detroit. When the song was written, James Kendis, James Brockman, and Nat Vincent all had separate contracts with publishers, which led them to use the name Jann Kenbrovin for credit on this song. James Kendis and James Brockman were partners in the Kendis-Brockman Music Company.
Becomes a hit
The walz was a major Tin Pan Alley hit, and was performed and recorded by most major singers and bands of the late 1910s and early 1920s. The song was a hit for Ben Selvin's Novelty Orchestra in 1919. The Original Dixieland Jass Band recording of the number is an unusual early example of jazz in 3/4 time.
The writer Ring Lardner parodied the lyric during the Black Sox scandal of 1919, when he began to suspect that players on the CHicago White Sox (a United States based baseball team) were deliberately losing the World Series to the Cincinnati Reds. His version began: "I'm for ever blowing ballgames."
The song also became a hit with the public in British music halls and theatres during the early 1920s. Dorothy Ward was especially renowned for making the song famous with her appearances at these venues. The song was also used by English comedian "Professor" Jimmy Edwards as his signature tune - played on his trombone. Harpo Marx would play the song on the clarinet, which would then begin emitting bubbles. The melody is frequently quoted in animated cartoon sound tracks when bubbles are visible. The title air, or first line of the chorus, is quoted in the 1920s song "singing in the Bathtube" also a popular standard in cartoon sound tracks, including being repeatedly sung by Tweety Bird.
The song features extensively in the 1931 prohibition gangster movie The public Enemy staring James Cagney. It also was sung by a white bird in the Merrie Melodies cartoon I love to Singa, The song is also sund in the 1951 film "On Moonlight Bay" starring Doris Day and Gordon MacRae, which was the prequel to the 1953 film "By the light of the silvery moon". A parody of the song was written and performed as "I'm forever Blowing Bubble-Gum" by Spike Jones and his City Slikers. In Ken Russell's 1969 film Women in Love the song is featured in an unusual scene where two sisters, played by Glenda Jackson and Jennie Linden wander away from a large picnic gathering and are confronted by a large herd of bullocks. In the early 1970s, The Bonzo Dog Band¡s stage show featured a robot that sand the title air while blowing bubbles. A solo guitar rendition is periodically featured within the action of Woody Allen's 1999 film Sweet And Lowdown Director Brad Mays paid homage to that scene in his 2008 film The Watermelon, in which actress Kiersten Morgan sing the song while dancing on a Malibu Beach.
WEST HAM connection: The song is now better known in the UK as the club anthem of West Ham United, a London based football club.
"I'm forever blowing bubbles " was introduced to the club by former manager Charlie Payner in the late twenties. A player, Billy J"Bubbles" Murray who played for the local Park School had an almost uncanny resemblance to the boy in the famous "Bubbles" painting by Millais used in a Pears soap commercial of the time.
Headmaster Cornelius Beal began singing the tune "I'm forever Blowing Bubbles" with amended lyrics when Park players played well.
Beal was a friend of Paynter, while Murray was a West Ham trialist and played football at schoolboy level with a number of West Ham players such as Jim Barrett. Through this contrivance of association the club's fans took it upon themselves to begin singing the popular music hall tune before house games, sometimes reinforced by the presence of a house band requested to play the refrain by Charlie Paynter.
In 2002 there was speculation that "I'm forever blowing bubbles" was sung at the Boleyn Ground by visiting Swansea City supporters during an FA Cup-tie in 1921-22. After a goaless draw away at Vetch Field the two teams met at Upton Park only to share two goals in the replay which resulted in a further replay at Ashton Gate, Bristol, which the Welshman won by a solitary goal. After such a marathon it is perhaps not surprising that a number of Hammers fans remembered the distinctive refrains and took the words as their own, if indeed the song had been sung by the opposing supporters.
To perhaps add som substance to that theory, David Farmer in his history of Swansea City FC does state, when recounting the period between 1920 to 1926, that in match reports "Bubbles" was sung at all home games. In one particular newspaper report of a match versus Bury on 8 January 1921 the comment is made: "A 2.20 pm came the ever popular singing of "Bubbles" from the main bank with one tremendous sway"
Millais
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