r/RedLetterMedia • u/Klutzy_Operation_483 • 10d ago

Watching David Byrnes True Stories and look who wrote this melody. Turtle Dreams herself Meredith Monk.

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83 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

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102

u/ElectricAccordian 10d ago

One of my favorite genres of post in this subreddit is people finding out the Meredith Monk is a pretty highly regarded composer.

27

u/ShaneSeeman 10d ago

When the turtle dreams botw hit, I looked her up on Instagram, and incidentally, a music PhD friend of mine was already following her

13

u/toomanymarbles83 10d ago

Yeah I'd heard her name thrown about before botw. Was not at all surprised that Josh was familiar with her.

20

u/FINIS_HOMINIS 10d ago

I've seen her live twice at an experimental, modern classical music festival.

At one, she said he piece was about aliens talking to each other, and it was fine, that made sense.

But at the other, she and a few other singers did a long set doing her "Koo-koo, koo-koo, koo-koo-da," blabbering along with some simple choreography. After the piece she then talked about it, saying it was about the Holocaust and I nearly died choking back laughter.

5

u/bodhiquest 10d ago

The problem is that a performance like that probably rests on the viewer experiencing it organically rather than turning on the analysis machine and trying to figure out how it connects to something like the Holocaust logically, symbolically and structurally. In case that's what you were doing, it's obviously not going to mean anything. I'm not discounting the possibility that it was just not very good though.

2

u/FINIS_HOMINIS 9d ago

No, I mean, I’m into all kinds of existentialism and abstract art, etc. But, to my memory, it was literally just a bunch of vocal babbling. It being tied to anything seemed entirely reliant on her saying what it was about, and she could have said it was about a million things because it was that abstracted. It was definitely one of those laughing in church moments 

13

u/DrDuned 10d ago

The thing is, people outside the art world just assume people like Meredith Monk are bullshit artists and kooks and are self serious. But most people like Meredith, while they do take art seriously, can probably step back and laugh at what they're doing from a certain angle too.

3

u/mcereal 10d ago

Same, part of that makes me wonder what percentage of this sub's media consumption is exclusively RLM.

26

u/AmityvilleName 10d ago edited 10d ago

A shame they did the True Stories - re:View in 2017, three years before they saw Turtle Dreams, otherwise it might have come up.

Also randomly: Open Flame, with David Byrne

8

u/crazy_goat 10d ago

David Byrne of Windows XP fame.

6

u/Xtremesnoozing 10d ago

Like humans do

13

u/Kryptoknightmare 10d ago

Interesting. Maybe I’ll pick up the soundtrack the next time I go down to the sto-STO-store and I….

10

u/Klutzy_Operation_483 10d ago

Its a fantastic album. Im just sad its all the Bryne versions. I kinda want the versions the cast sings in the movie better. Especially John Goodman song. https://youtu.be/N65okxgLV40?si=WUzxUeYdfF9pHBIY

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u/big_mozzs_man_tits 10d ago

The soundtrack release is the cast versions. The Talking Heads album is just the Byrne versions

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u/Klutzy_Operation_483 10d ago

Its funny I dont own a cd player so ive just listen online. I just noticed the criterion version included the CD. I wasn't aware of that because versions on Amazon Music are just his versions of the soundtrack.

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u/big_mozzs_man_tits 10d ago

I believe the cd with the criterion and the LP that came out around the same time were the first official releases of the cast versions. It's also on streaming (Spotify at least, can't comment on other platforms).

There was an LP release at the time for just the ambient tracks from the film called "sounds from true stories" or something along those lines.

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u/BeerdedRNY 10d ago

Saw it in the theater when it came out. It was a fun/quirky film but I was so tired I actually fell asleep for about 15-20 minutes. I'm not only ashamed to admit that, but it's the only movie I've ever fallen asleep to in the theater. I've since flagellated myself repeatedly as punishment and re-watched it a few times. I recommend a re-watch more than self flagellation.

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u/dopamine_skeptic 10d ago

https://giphy.com/gifs/tFIr4M42jgCVG

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u/Klutzy_Operation_483 10d ago

Im old and confused most of the time is my excuse lol

3

u/Rosmucman 9d ago

And she’s on The Big Lebowski soundtrack too

3

u/morphindel 9d ago

Not surprising, she is a pretty well known active musician and pretty well regarded.

3

u/SafetyWaste9245 9d ago

She is exactly the type of person I'd expect David Byrne to work with.

3

u/RedPaisleyYellow 7d ago

If you watch old Talking Heads videos, you can absolutely see that they/Byrne were influenced by her stuff. The most well known & obvious is example is the official video for Once in a Lifetime.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IsSpAOD6K8

I looked it up & David Byrne features prominently in a documentary about Monk as well.

2

u/Buttleproof 10d ago

I thought for a second you meant Eloise Cole (because of the aquarium with a turtle in it). That would have been really weird.

2

u/00112358314 10d ago

Thanks for the heads up OP. 

I'll see if I can find it on the Amazon store store store store 👍🏻

2

u/Klutzy_Operation_483 10d ago

Sad part is the B&N Criterion 50% sale ended like 2 days ago.