By The Landlord
“The best things in life make you sweaty.” – Edgar Allan Poe
“Good music comes out of people playing together, knowing what they want to do and going for it. You have to sweat over it. You can't do it by pushing buttons and watching a TV screen.” – Keith Richards
“A pint of sweat saves a gallon of blood.” – George S. Patton
“Everything that you do in your life that helps you sweat is good for you. Whenever you're sweating, you're adding to your potential to enjoy the day or enjoy the moment or enjoy your life.” – Wayne Coyne
“The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea.” – Karen Blixen
Elvis sweated rhinestone droplets between hits.
Besides wet towels to crowds from brow and pits,
His source, for fountains of fame, and inspiration,
Flowed from mountains of stressed perspiration.
Elvis hot performance
Sweat is the river of work and detoxing,
A system of cooling, sluicing, unblocking,
Small cisterns of water to drops on the skin
Meeting the air and evaporating.
From groin to the forehead, shoulders to hands
The system’s controlled by two certain glands.
The eccrine is mostly the one that produces,
While under the armpits, come apocrine’s juices.
Subcutaneous sweat system featuring two key glands
But sweat doesn’t smell, that odour inferior
Comes from the buildup of on-skin bacteria.
And sweat is quite natural, it’s healthy, has power,
The body can pour up to to six pints an hour.
But excess is stressful, when things go amiss
Welled up in forms of hyperhidrosis,
In certain conditions, night fever, or cause
In hormonal changes from pre-menopause.
But now to music, hot from the vault,
And which songs and artists are worth their salt?
Fame’s dance teacher, Miss Grant, made her threat:
"Right here is where you – start paying – in sweat.”
So sweat covers contexts in lyrics that vary:
Hard work to play, and moods pulling contrary,
Cold fear to stress, extreme apoplexy,
Joyful excitement to down-dirty sexy.
Performers of course can be very fluid,
On stage sharing, and shedding much liquid,
James Brown? Or Prince? Always looked cool,
But during a gig must have created a pool.
James Brown
Iggy to Whitney, a shirt-soaked Springsteen?
Hot Louis Armstrong showed more than a sheen.
But Diana Ross has a very cool plan,
Hair blowing back from her number one fan.
Hair blow: Diana Ross has lots of fans
Meanwhile on TV, there was, it appears,
Idle debate at another bar – Cheers!
Which is the sweatiest movie out there?
Boxing to prison plots hotly compare:
Rocky or Top Gun, Apocalypse Now?
Ice Cold in Alex, Deerhunter’s wiped brow?
De Niro again in the great Raging Bull?
Whiplash and Scarface are sweatily full:
Rock-breaking scenes in Cool Hand Luke?
(Not though as ‘sweaty’ as Prince Andrew the Duke…)
But surely the best jokes poured from the gland
Is Striker in Airplane when forced in to land.
So then, as heatwaves swell all around,
It’s time for some brainwaves in lyrics and sound.
As long as there’s mention of some perspiration
Let’s soak up the beads that bring inspiration.
Louis Armstrong
Things are generally hotting up everywhere. But here at the Bar we have buckets of ice for your drinks. And helping to serve these, but more importantly pick the best sweat-related songs into playlists, is the healthily perspiring guest, pejepeine! Place your songs in comments below in time for the bell on Monday at 11pm UK time, for playlists published next week.
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