This might be my favorite cover art from any piece of sheet music! A Signal from Mars published way back in 1901 and composed by Raymond Taylor and arranged by Edward Taylor Paull. It's a ragtime march – not sure if that's particularly Martian – and the tune has a lovely simplicity about it that the cover's complex, sci-fi look doesn't reflect in the least.Edward Taylor Paull grew up in pre-Civil War Virginia and worked selling organs (instruments, not kidneys). Mr. Paull and I have a strange, Kevin Bacon-esque connection – recently I've been travelling to VA on business, specifically a placed called Middletown which is near Strasburg, VA. The snippet from The Music Critic and Trade Show (February 20, 1882) shows the our connection:
"MARTINSBURG, W. VA., February 9, 1882
I have nothing special to report to you from this section of the country, as far as musical entertainments are concerned.
The demand for musical instruments here and throughout the valley of Virginia is becoming much better than it was heretofore. I do a good business with the Estey organ and Weber and Fischer pianos. I flatter myself that I sold the last piano that was sold in the year 1881. I sold it and closed the bargain just one hour and a half before New Year's day, or half past ten o'clock at night. The piano I sold was a J. & C. Fischer square, the purchaser being Mr. Phillip Rodes, of Strasburg, Va. There may have been a piano sold later in 1881, but I doubt it.
Yours, very respectfully, EDW. T. PAULL."
I'm going to try to look up the Mr. Phillip Rodes of Strasburg, VA mentioned in the letter in a census to see if I can find where he lived and then correlate Mr. Paull's account with some pictures of the address as it stands today. Wish me luck, as I know from being a fan of Lilkes work on his home town of Minneapolis, the present has a way of utterly obliterating the past! Another bizarre connection is that E.T. Paull's first piece was The Chariot Race or Ben Hur March which was based (of course) on the Lew Wallace novel Ben Hur – a Tale of the Christ. The connection with me? Here in Indianapolis, I attended IPS 107 Lew Wallace grade school. E.T. Paull was a very successful composer and his (extensive) biography is available on Perfessor Bill Edward's website.
Oddly enough, Raymond Taylor, the composer of A Signal from Mars, seems to have completely vanished into history. Maybe this was a one-off composition or maybe he composed later under another name. Whatever the case I find no evidence of him on the net (not that the net is the end-all-be-all of information sources – it's just the one I have available to me at the present moment). Hopefully, I'll turn up more information Mr. Taylor soon.
The sheet music artwork is absolutely striking. Glittering stars float on a blue-black background while in the foreground sits blood-red Mars. Two Martians (I suppose – actually they look like Greeks or maybe Bedouins) stare at a distant (and oddly longitudenized) globe, onto which they project their 'signal'. Apparently in 1901 folks figured we'd get our first evidence of extraterrestrial life via semaphore or Morse code flashed over navy-style signal lamps. Seems a little inefficient to me, what with all that distance and those atmospheres in the way and all, but then I'm no Mars expert. I think it's interesting that the Martian light illuminates the Americas while Asia and Europe languish in the dark.
The lettering on this piece makes me think of the great art nouveau posters by Mucha, where the message becomes a part of the aesthetic. The lettering would be art on its own but teamed with the graphic element they form a poetic rhyme. They belong together.
It's sad that this kind of aesthetic doesn't exist today. Advertizing is totally throwaway any more – 6o second sound and video bites that titillate or amuse can't really last. Nobody will be paging through the 22nd Century version of the Internet, listening to commercials for Walmart or Survivor because those commercials are so bland, banal, and empty of style their nearly forgotten while they're still on the air. The Signal from Mars march may not have stood the test of time or the Billboard charts, but the graphics and the genius that went into the creation are eternal.
The demand for musical instruments here and throughout the valley of Virginia is becoming much better than it was heretofore. I do a good business with the Estey organ and Weber and Fischer pianos. I flatter myself that I sold the last piano that was sold in the year 1881. I sold it and closed the bargain just one hour and a half before New Year's day, or half past ten o'clock at night. The piano I sold was a J. & C. Fischer square, the purchaser being Mr. Phillip Rodes, of Strasburg, Va. There may have been a piano sold later in 1881, but I doubt it.
Yours, very respectfully, EDW. T. PAULL."
I'm going to try to look up the Mr. Phillip Rodes of Strasburg, VA mentioned in the letter in a census to see if I can find where he lived and then correlate Mr. Paull's account with some pictures of the address as it stands today. Wish me luck, as I know from being a fan of Lilkes work on his home town of Minneapolis, the present has a way of utterly obliterating the past! Another bizarre connection is that E.T. Paull's first piece was The Chariot Race or Ben Hur March which was based (of course) on the Lew Wallace novel Ben Hur – a Tale of the Christ. The connection with me? Here in Indianapolis, I attended IPS 107 Lew Wallace grade school. E.T. Paull was a very successful composer and his (extensive) biography is available on Perfessor Bill Edward's website.Oddly enough, Raymond Taylor, the composer of A Signal from Mars, seems to have completely vanished into history. Maybe this was a one-off composition or maybe he composed later under another name. Whatever the case I find no evidence of him on the net (not that the net is the end-all-be-all of information sources – it's just the one I have available to me at the present moment). Hopefully, I'll turn up more information Mr. Taylor soon.
The sheet music artwork is absolutely striking. Glittering stars float on a blue-black background while in the foreground sits blood-red Mars. Two Martians (I suppose – actually they look like Greeks or maybe Bedouins) stare at a distant (and oddly longitudenized) globe, onto which they project their 'signal'. Apparently in 1901 folks figured we'd get our first evidence of extraterrestrial life via semaphore or Morse code flashed over navy-style signal lamps. Seems a little inefficient to me, what with all that distance and those atmospheres in the way and all, but then I'm no Mars expert. I think it's interesting that the Martian light illuminates the Americas while Asia and Europe languish in the dark.
The lettering on this piece makes me think of the great art nouveau posters by Mucha, where the message becomes a part of the aesthetic. The lettering would be art on its own but teamed with the graphic element they form a poetic rhyme. They belong together.
It's sad that this kind of aesthetic doesn't exist today. Advertizing is totally throwaway any more – 6o second sound and video bites that titillate or amuse can't really last. Nobody will be paging through the 22nd Century version of the Internet, listening to commercials for Walmart or Survivor because those commercials are so bland, banal, and empty of style their nearly forgotten while they're still on the air. The Signal from Mars march may not have stood the test of time or the Billboard charts, but the graphics and the genius that went into the creation are eternal.
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