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Marie Osmond’s Dada freakout on ‘Ripley’s Believe It or Not’ TV show
03.20.2018
12:49 pm
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In 1993, Rough Trade records put out Lipstick Traces, a “soundtrack” to the book of the same name by Greil Marcus. It’s one of my favorite CDs of all time, with tracks by The Slits, Essential Logic, The Raincoats, The Mekons, Buzzcocks, The Gang of Four, Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers, Situationist philosopher Guy Debord and others. It’s an amazing collection, but there is one track in particular that stands out from the rest, a recitation by none other than Marie Osmond, of Dada poet Hugo Ball’s nonsensical gibberish piece from 1916, “Karawane.”

Hugo Ball was a follower of anarchist philosopher Mikhail Bakunin and became one of the founders of the Zurich nightclub, Cabaret Voltaire, the nexus of the Dada art movement. He would go onstage dressed like this and basically, uh, do you know, avant garde things:
 

 
Ball’s unusual costumes were later ripped off by David Bowie, and then Klaus Nomi after him. Another of Ball’s Dada poems, “Gadji beri bimba” was adapted into the Talking Heads number “I Zimbra” on 1979’s Fear of Music album.

Here’s the story behind this, I think you’ll agree, most excellent clip. From the Lipstick Traces liner notes:

As host of a special (Ripley’s Believe It or Not) show on sound poetry, Osmond was asked by the producer to recite only the first line of Ball’s work; incensed at being thought too dumb for art, she memorized the lot and delivered it whole in a rare “glimpse of freedom.”

Believe it or not…

Some additional insight into how this unlikely TV event transpired via Professor Jed Rasula (author of Destruction Was My Beatrice: Dada and the Unmaking of the Twentieth Century) who was then working as a researcher for the show:

The one other byproduct of my “Imagining Language” file at Ripley’s came later, when Marie Osmond became co-host with Jack Palance. In the format of the show, little topic clusters (like “weird language”) were introduced by one of the hosts. In this case, the frame was Cabaret Voltaire. Marie was required to read Hugo Ball’s sound poem “Karawane” and a few script lines. Much to everybody’s astonishment, when they started filming she abruptly looked away from the cue cards directly into the camera and recited, by memory, “Karawane.” It blew everybody away, and I think they only needed that one take. A year or so after it was broadcast, Greil Marcus approached me, wanting to use Marie Osmond’s rendition of Hugo Ball for a CD produced in England as sonic companion to his book Lipstick Traces; so I was delighted to be able to arrange that.

 

 
After the jump, Marie sings “Paper Roses”

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Posted by Richard Metzger
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03.20.2018
12:49 pm
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