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Don't know if anyone here has seen Robert Altman's odd,quirky,mythic and sarcastic film, "Brewster McCloud" (1970); I was gonna say that this clip doesn't make sense out of context, but I'm really not sure that watching the entire movie would help make things any clearer, !

It's just here because I love the second piece of music here, "White Feather Wings", which is also repeated at the end of the clip; Sung by Merry Clayton, with arrangement and Orchestration by Gene Page (of Barry White fame), and written by John Phillips (Mamas and The Papas)...

The story's plot(?) is ostensibly about a boy named Brewster McCloud(Bud Cort) who, with the help of an angel, manufactures wings to be able to fly. The odd thing is, anybody who crosses him ends up murdered. The police trace all this to Brewster, but his guardian angel (Sally Kellerman) helps him elude the authorities...at least, until he ends up turning his back on her and losing his virginity to the character played by Shelley Duvall. The shunned angel leaves, and Brewster is no longer protected. The police track Brewster to the Houston Astrodome,where he's preparing to make his test flight...unfortunately, trapped with nowhere to go inside the dome, he ends up taking a plunge like Icarus....I did get a sense that the story outline is really the basis for a sarcastic look at Nixon-era America and all its' limitations. The end is presented as part of a Three Ring Circus, with the Ringmaster introducing the cast...

Anyway, all that's to say: odd movie, bizarre ending, but I really like the song. It brings to mind a quote from Percy Shelley's poem, "To A Skylark":

"Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought."









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[Edited 5/29/08 14:00pm]

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I managed to hunt down the vinyl soundtrack years ago... then it was released on disc in the late 90's....






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