the corner office

So this is a story about coincidences and connections. Last night Ronwen sat down to watch The Painted Veil on TV (stop reading if you don't like spoilers). I watched the opening part of it until she gave me the rough plot about the betrayal and how they eventually fall in love, and I said "in that case, the dude has to die at the end, right?" and Ronwen said "dunno" and checked on Wikipedia, and of course the dude dies at the end. With an apology for ruining the movie for her, I decided to stop watching and do some late-night surfing instead.

In the beginning of the movie, though, someone plays a tune on the piano. I recognised the tune, soon remembering that it's used in the beginning of a song called Dull Day by the Dead Brothers, an obscure Swiss (mostly) band who are something of a guilty pleasure of mine. Heading off to YouTube, I discovered that the tune was in fact the same, and is called Gnossiennes No 1 by composer Eric Satie.

It doesn't stop there. Reading a comment to the video, I discovered that Dull Day was originally performed by The Birthday Party, an early and influental post-punk band notable for a few reasons, one of which was that their lead singer was Nick Cave. Their original version is quite different but no less excellent. I own one Birthday Party CD which I bought about a decade ago and listened the hell out of for a month or two; I'd intended to get the rest of their stuff, but as with so many bands, never got around to it and apart from an every-few-years 'oh yes, should add them to my wishlist' recollection and mental note, have explored no further.

Just to add another twist, though, I was digging around tonight read, sadly, that Birthday Party guitarist Rowland S Howard, who wrote Dull Day, died two days ago of liver cancer.