Music Box Dancer, Beowulf

Currently Reading: Beowulf translated by Seamus Heaney

Well it's been a pretty dull week so I didn't really have anything worth blogging about until today. I woke up this morning with a tune in my head I couldn't identify. Oh I knew I'd heard it and heard it a LOT at one point. I was even able to lock it down to the 1970's. I just couldn't remember what it was called or who performed it.

Now, in the old days about all you could really do is hum a few bars for people and see if anyone remembered it. I tried that with CC and she suggested it was something called Ballad for Adeline. So, using that wonderful tool the Internet, I did a search for it. Came up with a BUNCH of clips of people performing it but no, that wasn't it. I knew right away. So I did some more searching for 70's pop and piano solos and still came up empty. Then I remembered something CC had said. She said the song sounded like something you heard in a music box.

A HA! Music box! That's it! SO, I did a search for music box and came up with . . .



The song is called Music Box Dancer by Frank Mills and it was REALLY popular back in the 70's. They used to play this on the radio all the time and I REALLY loved it. Apparently so did a LOT of other people my age.

And from there to the 21st century, they've done a cgi movie of Beowulf. You may remember having to read this in high school. It's the story about the viking guy who ripped off the monster's arm and nailed it over the door of the great viking hall. Ok, that's the short version and not very accurate but that's probably what you remember.

After seeing the previews I've decided that this is something I want to check out. It also made me go back to the text to check out something else. You see, Angelina Jolie is playing Grendel's (the monster) mom. First Beowulf rips off Grendel's arm, then later he has to go deal with Grendel's mom, who I remember to be a serpent or dragon or something like that. I do NOT remember anything in there about Grendel's mom being hot. So I'm reading it again.

If you're interested in it yourself, I suggest the version by Seamus Heaney. His translation is EXCELLENT and a WHOLE lot easier to read than you probably remember from high school. Definitely worth checking out if you're into vikings or Old English literature or epic poems.