What are you listening to? Track 5

[campy]

Lets give you some perspective. It's really nice morning and I'm in the car with my father. Its nice outside, the weather is not that warm, heck it's even a little windy and cold for the season!

And The Carpenters play, a nice song called "we've only just begun". nice song and I know of them from some Simpsons episodes. Like all Carpenters songs it's positive but melancholic at the same time, really nice moment of reflection on the past and the future.

I search a little bit on wikipedia, only to discover that the woman died of anorexia, one of the first known cases that brought the public opinion to the issue...

to the internet, and the world in general, why?.....

That was mr. & mrs. campy's first dance at our wedding.

[TransWarpDrive]

What happened to Karen Carpenter is this: She became obsessed with her weight in the early 70's, after an acquaintance casually remarked that Karen looked as though she was getting fat. She literally starved herself for years before finally getting help from a doctor in New York who succeeded in getting Karen back on a healthy eating regimen. She had actually gained weight back, and was living and eating normally, when her heart suddenly failed in early February 1983. It seems all those years of starvation had weakened Karen's heart to the point where it just couldn't keep beating any more. Her death brought massive public awareness to anorexia nervosa as an eating disorder; previously it had been one of those conditions that folks just didn't talk about outside of family circles.
I was saddened by the news of her death. IMHO, Karen Carpenter was one of three great female popular vocalists of the Twentieth Century - the other two being Deborah (Debbie) Gibson, and Judy Garland.

[tweeb²]

I also read that on the wiki article Campy! I don't know nowadays, but it was really popular on weddings and high school & college graduations.

I recall reading on the youtube comments Transwarpdrive that maybe her brother was to blame too, because at first she was behind the drums, but later as she was on the stage she was forced to be really slim. On some of the live videos, even on the early 70s, she seems really thin, even at that age, really hollowed cheeks and all...

[jeriddian]

Karen Carpenter did suffer severely from Anorexia Nervosa. She was on the road to recovery with strong psychiatric support and starting to gain weight back, as TWD noted. It is during that period of time of starting to regain the weight that is actually the most dangerous for the anorexic. If they try to gain the weight back too fast, they can suffer acute heart failure, as she unfortunately did. I consider it a great loss as well. Hers was the richest, most mellow deep contralto I ever heard.

[TransWarpDrive]

Karen Carpenter did suffer severely from Anorexia Nervosa. She was on the road to recovery with strong psychiatric support and starting to gain weight back, as TWD noted. It is during that period of time of starting to regain the weight that is actually the most dangerous for the anorexic. If they try to gain the weight back too fast, they can suffer acute heart failure, as she unfortunately did. I consider it a great loss as well. Hers was the richest, most mellow deep contralto I ever heard.

How true! And, contrary to what tweeb reported seeing on YouTube, Karen's brother Richard was not to blame for her illness - if anything, he urged his sister to seek medical help for her condition once it became apparent what she was doing. And when she did get help, he was her strongest supporter. He was hoping she'd recover - not for the sake of prolonging their musical career, but simply out of love for his only sibling. And Richard himself was battling an addiction to pills during that time, as well.
I have a copy of a book about them, titled The Carpenters: The Untold Story by Ray Coleman, published in 1994 by HarperCollins Books (ISBN 0-06-092586-8). This tome pulls no punches - it talks about both Karen's struggles with her weight issues, as well as Richard's battle with pill addiction. It may not still be in print anymore, but you might be able to find a used copy on-line via Amazon.com or some other internet booksellers. I highly recommend it - and I also suggest taking anything seen on YouTube with a grain of salt. Like Wikipedia, anyone can post whatever they want (most anything, that is), and they usually do so without checking their facts first. That seems to be the case with that video that tweeb saw. Some conspiracy theorist posted a bunch of rumors about the Carpenters on that website. Sadly, though, because it's on the internet, there are folks out there who believe it to be true. Just like there are people who believe everything they see on TV, or read in the newspapers, is the gospel truth.

[tweeb²]

Thats why I said where I found that, you know, also I don't know much about them. I heard a few of their songs and I liked them a lot, it was the first time I searched anything about them and found such a sad story...

Also yeah, Like jeriddian said, her voice is beautiful! She set such a great mood for their songs.

OH, listening to Roxanne by The Police right now, a band that's always been "there" for me, but I'm really discovering right now, specially with their live concerts, that made me pay attention to how sick Stuart Copeland's drumming is.

[TransWarpDrive]

(They Long To Be) Close To You by the Carpenters, off their Gold: Greatest Hits album.

[campy]

In honor of the Cubs' victory parade: "Chicago" from the musical Pal Joey by Rodgers & Hart. Mary Cleere Haran (accompanied by Richard Rodney Bennett) from her 1995 R&H album This Funny World.

There's a great big town
On a great big lake
Called Chicago.
When the sun goes down
It is wide awake.
Take your ma and your pa,
Go to Chicago.

Boston is England
N'Orleans is France,
New York is anyone's
For ten cents a dance

But this great big town
On a great big lake
Is America's first
And Americans make
Chicago

[jeriddian]

Nicely done, Campy. Listening to Brandenburg Concerto #2 by J. S. Bach. This is the one with high trumpet part.

[campy]

Symphony No. 5 in B-flat, D. 485 by Franz Schubert. Sandor Végh leading the Camerata Academica des Mozarteums Salzburg in a 2009 recording.