When Van wormed out
QUESTION Did Van Morrison release a song called Ring Worm to get out of a record contract?
VAN Morrison did release the Ring Worm song, as part of a hastily recorded album, to get out of one recording contract and move to another one.
The legendary performer was born in east Belfast in 1945 and in 1967, he had his first big hit, Brown Eyed Girl.
Morrison had signed up with a noted New York record producer, Bert Berns, whose real name was Bertrand Russell Berns. Apart from being known as Bert Berns, he also went under the name of Bert Russell, and sometimes Russell Berns.
While Berns had been a pioneer of rock ’n’ roll in the 1960s and was considered an outstanding person on New York’s music scene, Morrison found it increasingly tiresome and overbearing to work with Berns.
Bert Berns had set up his own record label, Bang Records, in 1965, and Morrison signed up with him. But the contract was restrictive and Morrison was banned from performing on stage or recording with anyone else in the New York area.
The disagreement between the two men reached its height when Morrison’s song, Blowin’ Your Mind!, was released in September 1967. Morrison had had no say in its release and only found out about it when a friend called to say he had just bought a copy of the record in a record store.
Berns died from a heart condition on December 30, 1967, and Morrison found himself dealing with Berns’s widow, Ilene. Morrison had already determined that he was going to move to Warner Brothers, with whom he eventually recorded his masterpiece, Astral Weeks.
But before he could cut his ties with Bang Records, he had to record one more album. No-one is quite sure when he recorded it, but it was sometime between late 1967 and mid-1968.
Morrison recorded the whole album in a single session that didn’t take much longer than the 35 minutes’ running time of the 31 songs; the longest song lasted for one minute, 36 seconds, while the shortest ran for a mere 53 seconds.
Among the songs on this album were Ring Worm, Chickee Coo, You Say France And I Whistle and The Big Royalty Check. In the songs, people can feel the contempt Van Morrison had for Berns and he regarded all these songs as ‘rubbish’.
One song, Blowing Your Nose, is a cutting reference to an earlier album he had recorded for Berns, Blowin’ Your Mind!.
The LP was duly released and Van Morrison was free to take up his new contract with Warner Bros. The rest is musical history. David O’Ceallaigh, Wicklow.
QUESTION Why did German SS officers dress in jodhpurs and riding boots?
THESE were breeches rather than jodhpurs and were instituted for historical and practical reasons. In 1932, the SS introduced the black ensemble designed by Professor Karl Diebitsch and graphic designer and SS member Walter Heck. The change was instituted by Himmler to distinguish the Schutzstaffel (SS) from Hitler’s stormtroopers the Sturmabteilung (SA), the brownshirts.
Diebitsch and Heck based their new design on the Leibhusaren Brigade, the Prussian cavalry (hussar) brigade who served as the Emperor’s personal guard. The shirt remained brown as a nod to the SA, of which the SS was still nominally a part.
The 1932 pattern service dress uniform was a peaked cap with eagle and swastika badge and Hussar-style death’s head (Totenkopf), black tie, black fourpocket jacket with armband, black breeches, belt and cross brace and riding boots.
The breeches weren’t mandatory except on parade but were worn by cavalry and panzer units, and anyone who would ride a horse such artillery and supply men.
Jodhpurs are full-length trews. Breeches, on the other hand, stop just above the ankle. They tend to be more tapered at the bottom, and in the case of the SS uniform have a touch and close fastening to ensure a close fit around the calf. The intent of both riding garments was to allow flexibility in the hip and thigh while the narrow lower portion worked well with riding boots and didn’t get caught up in stirrups. Richard Hansen, St Ives, Cornwall.
QUESTION Was any British monarch known to be a good joke-teller?
THE popular image of Queen Victoria is one of a dour, unsmiling widow, but this is a false impression. In most of her photographs she is serious, yet this was quite normal at a time when long camera exposure times meant subjects had to remain still for several minutes to get a clear shot.
Victoria was associated (incorrectly) with the grim phrase ‘We are not amused’ and maintained a controlled expression in public so as not to appear frivolous.
In private, she is said to have often ‘roared with laughter’. She would joke about her diminutive stature (‘Everybody grows but me’) and indulge in wordplay (She once referred to the daughter of a Mr Gunn as ‘little Miss Pistol’).
She would even laugh at danger, once commenting after an assassination attempt that it was worth being shot at to see how beloved she was to her people. Her prede- cessor William IV was known for his bluff humour. When the members of the Privy Council was first brought in to him and collectively dropped to one knee, he asked: ‘Who is Silly Billy now?’
Instances of humour are few and far between in medieval times. But it appears Henry III (12071272) was a practical joker. In 1242, he was returning from France having sealed a peace with his brother-in-law King Louis IX, when he put the wind up his clerk Peter the Poitevin, who’d been in his service since at least 1229.
During the voyage home he had a note entered into the Crown records, recording that Peter owed Henry an enormous list of debts, including ‘five dozen capons for a trespass onboard ship’ and ‘34 tuns of wine’. The roll was left out for Peter to see and he was panicked. Henry had the entries struck through as soon as Peter had seen them, but the joke was said to have been maintained with concerned men asking Peter what he intended to do about the great debt that he owed the King.