This Spotify playlist consists of music relating to Boty in three main ways:
– as titles or subjects of her work
– as soundtracks to her appearances on TV, film and radio
– and to the collaged walls she created in her flats in west London.
Please see below for further information behind the choosing of the tracks.
Thoughts, suggestions and feedback on the selection would be appreciated as ever via the Contact page here: [link]
Titles/subjects of works
Darn That Dream
Benny Goodman, Mildred Bailey
Collage of the same name created c. 1960/61
Goodbye Cruel World
James Darren
Collage of the same name created c. 1960/61. The track was also used as part of the soundtrack to Pop Goes the Easel [please see below]
I Surrender Dear
Gus Arnheim and His Cocoanut Grove Orchestra with Bing Crosby
Collage of the same name created c. 1960/61
The Firebird – Suite (1919): Finale
Igor Stravinsky
Boty created a costume design in c.1961 for the main character in The Firebird ballet choreographed by Michel Fokine for Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes
Rhapsody in Blue
George Gershwin
Gershwin is the title of a 1961 abstract painting by Boty
My Coloring Book
Barbra Streisand
Boty’s 1963 painting My Colouring Book includes fragments of the song’s lyrics applied onto the painting and her 1962 homage to Marilyn Monroe, Colour Her Gone, references the song’s final line
Sonata No. 14 “Moonlight” in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 27 No. 2: I. Adagio sostenuto
Ludwig van Beethoven
In Pop Goes the Easel Boty points out Beethoven’s pen to Peter Blake in her collage Picture Show
A bout de souffle
Martial Solal
From the 1960 film by Jean-Luc Godard starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg. The former is the subject of the 1962 painting With Love to Jean-Paul Belmondo and also on the collaged wall [please see below]
Eclisse Twist
Giovanni Frusco.
From the 1962 Michelangelo Antonioni film l’Eclisse starring Alain Delon and Monica Vitti. The latter is the subject of the 1963 painting Monica Vitti with Heart and both appear on the collaged wall [please see below]
I’m Through With Love
Marilyn Monroe
From the 1959 Billy Wilder film Some Like It Hot. The 1963 painting The Only Blonde in the World features Marilyn Monroe in her role as Sugar Kane
She Loves You
The Beatles
The 1964 painting It’s a Man’s World I includes Ringo Starr and John Lennon. Boty also had The Beatles as guests on The Public Ear, a fortnightly radio programme she hosted from 1963–64, and told best friend Natalie Gibson how much she loved the band, particularly John Lennon. The photo Boty used in the work was taken at Arlanda International Airport in Sweden on 23 October 1963, She Loves You having been released in the UK on 23 August 1963.
La Dolce Vita
Dino Verde, Nino Rota
From the 1960 film by Federico Fellini starring Marcello Mastroianni. The 1964 painting It’s a Man’s World I includes Fellini and Mastroianni, who appear in the same image on the collaged wall [please see below]
(Marie’s the Name) His Latest Flame
Elvis Presley
Both the 1964 painting It’s a Man’s World I and Celia With Some of Her Heroes include Elvis Presley, who is also on the collaged wall [please see below]
Further information on Boty’s works is available here: [link]
Onscreen
Pop Goes the Easel
Unless otherwise stated the following all appeared as part of the soundtrack to Ken Russell’s 1962 documentary Pop Goes the Easel, commissioned by BBC Television for its Monitor series, which featured Boty and her fellow Pop artists Peter Blake, Peter Phillips and Derek Boshier
Serenade For Strings: Op.11: 4, Marcia
Dag Wirén
The opening soundtrack to the programme, playing as a spinning graphic reveals the Monitor ident followed by the camera panning across and down Pauline Boty’s Collaged Wall to Huw Weldon, fading out as he introduces the four artists
Goodbye Cruel World
James Darren
Playing as the four artists visit the Bertram Mills Circus in the Grand Hall, Olympia
A Foggy Day
Fred Astaire
Boty’s sequence begins with the recreation of a nightmare she’d had (accompanied with background sounds from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop) followed by her waking to her alarm and Derek Boshier ringing the bell to the house in Addison Road where she rented a room. A Foggy Day fades out as she gets up and the the three other artists join her, getting louder as she back-combs her hair, fading again as her voice-over begins
What’d I Say, Pt.1 & 2
Ray Charles
In Boty’s room Derek Boshier goes over to a pile of LPs scattered on a table, picks an album and asks Boty if it’s new from Ray Charles, whereupon she informs him “no, it’s quite an old one”
Final (La Valse Grise) (From Un carnet de bal)
Maurice Jaubert
Playing (beginning with Générique et ouverture (also from Un carnet de bal)) as a sequence of Boty’s collages are shown, prior to her discussing a number of them with Peter Blake
They All Laughed
Fred Astaire
Playing as a sequence of Boty’s abstract paintings are shown, intercut with large-scale Hollywood musical dance routines, Fred Astaire and Shirley Temple. In a voiceover Boty describes how she’d always enjoyed ’30s musicals and how the shapes and atmosphere she’d absorbed from them had come out in her paintings
On the Good Ship Lollipop
Shirley Temple
Playing as Boty emerges from within a starburst miming along in top hat, white tie and gloves
Duke of Earl
Gene Chandler
Playing as the four artists walk along a street market (presumably Portobello Road) stopping to look at comics
Twist Around the Clock
Clay Cole
Playing as the four artists join other RCA peers twisting away at a party held in Richard Smith’s studio. David Hockney makes a brief appearance, hopping across the screen
Concerto for 4 Keyboards in A Minor, BWV 1065 (arr. of Vivaldi’s Concerto for 4 Violins in B Minor, Op.3, No.10, RV 580): III. Allegro
Johann Sebastian Bach
The programme ends showing all four artists at work, concluding by focusing in on Boty’s face as she adds to one of her large abstract paintings
Paris B.B. (From Une Parisienne)
Pete Rugolo and His Orchestra
Plays over closing credits
NOTE
Not included on this playlist, but also featuring in Pop Goes the Easel, are these tracks accompanying the other three artists:
Peter Blake
Brigitte Bardot Achilles And His Heels
Got a Girl The Four Preps
Her Royal Majesty James Darren
Peter Phillips
This Here Cannonball Adderley
Folk Forms, No. 1 Charles Mingus
Embraceable You Ornette Coleman
Derek Boshier
Everyday Buddy Holly
Ready Steady Go!
Boty appeared as a dancer on the programme with Derek Boshier in a number of episodes, and was in a competition in the first episode to dance The Twist, which she won
Wipe Out
The Surfaris
This was the programme’s original theme tune
Twist and Shout
Brian Poole and The Tremeloes
Appeared as one of the acts in the first episode with their version
5-4-3-2-1
Manfred Mann
This became the programme’s theme tune from January 1964
Béla Bartók documentary
Romanian Folk Dances
Béla Bartók
Boty appeared in Ken Russell’s 1964 documentary Béla Bartók, also for the BBC Monitor Series
Film
Alfie’s Theme from “Alfie” Score
Sonny Rollins
Boty made a brief, uncredited, appearance in Lewis Gilbert’s 1966 film Alfie as the manager of a dry-cleaners and one of Michael Caine’s girlfriends
Radio
The Nursery Blues
The Shake Keane Fivetet
Theme tune to The Public Ear, a fortnightly BBC radio programme on culture and entertainment co-presented by Boty from October 1963 – March 1964
Further information on Boty’s onscreen, onstage and radio appearances are available here: [link]
Collaged Wall, c. 1961–64
The collaged wall created by Boty created at her flat in west London included a number of her favourite figures from stage and screen and was chosen as the beginning backdrop for Huw Weldon’s introduction to Pop Goes the Easel. Its ever-changing content was also captured by numerous photographers including, Lewis Morley, Michael Seymour and latterly Roger Mayne in 1964
Roslyn (aka Misfits Theme)
Alex North
The 1961 film by John Huston starred Clark Gable, Montgomery Clift and Marilyn Monroe. The latter appears photographed by Eve Arnold in a page cut from the Sunday Times Magazine
The Seven Samurai Main Title
Fumio Hayasaka
A cutting features Toshiro Mifune in Akira Kurosawa’s film 1954 film
Blowin’ in the Wind
Bob Dylan
Dylan appears in a 1963 photograph by Barry Feinstein. Boty collected the musician from the airport in December 1962 on his first visit to the UK and escorted him around London prior to his appearance in the BBC Sunday Night Play The Madhouse on Castle Street where he performed the song
Further information on Boty’s collaged wall is available here: [link]
Pauline Boty 