Thursday, July 27, 2017

Jazzmeia Horn: East of the Sun (and West of the Moon)-Fairy Tale Titles


I was excited to see a fairy tale title-and a refreshingly not overused one at that-as the title of a new jazz song by Jazzmeia Horn. The lyrics don't really have much to do with the plot, other than being a love story-other words repeated throughout the song are "closer to the sun in the day and nearer to the moon at night." Still, it's a great song if you're a fan of classic jazz, and there's some level of fairy tale inspiration.

Although it is interesting to use the title but seemingly nothing else of the story...sort of like David Bowie's "Beauty and the Beast," although that title has more mass appeal than "East..." does. There's probably many more songs, and other forms of media, with this phenomenon that I'm not even aware of (share in the comments?). The vague idea of being "fairy tale inspired" is also popular in fashion but rarely has specific references. Why does the title itself appeal to people? You would think those who were drawn to a fairy tale name would also want other connections? Or do we just like the vague connection to folklore? (Or are the artists themselves aware of the fairy tale, or do they just use the name for the sound of it? "East of the Sun and West of the Moon" is a very poetic phrase, but Jazzmeia Horn seems a little more likely to research titles than other pop artists.)

2 comments:

  1. Well there's the 2011 Sleeping Beauty which is an erotic drama that has nothing to do with the source material exceptfeaturing a woman who is sleeping a lot on screen. Not sure if Rosenrot by Rammstein counts.

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    1. I think I've seen that on Netflix, and wondered, because I was interested but it didn't seem to be very fairy tale inspired!

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