Sunday Funday | Sir Walter Scott | YouTube Rabbithole
Alright @YouTheReader,
Sunday Funday by Toledo was released on February 8, ‘21 and I first heard it because it was one of those Spotify recommendations you get weekly. Toledo the band is an indie rock duo of Daniel Alvarez de Toledo and Jordan Dunn-Pilz that are based in Brooklyn, New York.
According to the Urban Dictionary commenter username “McFishy”, Sunday Funday is “Drinking heavily starting as early on Sunday as physically possible. Sunday Funday starts with Unlimited Champagne Brunch and continues until you pass out in a gutter, on a bar stool, in the bathroom, or face down in the sand.” When Urban Dictionary asked “McFishy” how to use Sunday Funday in a sentence they replied, “Sunday Funday ended with me waking up face down in the sand at 6 pm Sunday Night.”
@YouTheReader McFishy sounds about right.
Toledo the duo refers to themselves as a “pillowcore” rock. “I think it just means everything is somewhat downtempo and chill,” says Álvarez. “It stems more from us not being able to play fast enough,” adds Dunn-Pilz. “I was thinking about this yesterday. [Our music] is still slower than it’s probably meant to be. I think [pillowcore] literally means we’re not capable of playing fast enough yet. So, the next record is going to be at breakneck speed...Nah, I wanna push the boundaries and go even slower.” (Source: WBUR)
The song’s unique slowness and melancholy feel are why I think it is an effective Sunday Scaries tune worth adding to your Sad Song Sunday playlist at home.
My Sunday Fundays now are a bit different. Drinking Guinness Pints responsibly just doesn’t give me see the same crippling anxiety-driven-can’t-get-out-of-bed-hungover Sunday Scaries that I used to have. I’m disgusted with myself, what have I become?
On to the Stumblin’ Along…
Sir Walter Scott
Walter Scott was born on August 15, 1771, in Edinburgh, Scotland. The son of a father who was a lawyer and a mother who was the daughter of a physician, Walter Scott was the 9th child (4th surviving) of an ordinary middle-class family in those days. At 2 years old, baby Walt contracted polio which made his right leg lame for the rest of his life. His parents sent him to live with his grandfather at Sandyknowe Farm in the Scottish Borders. He would spend most of his childhood to adolescence life at Sandyknowe Farm where he would fondly listen to his grandfather and elderly relatives’ stories of the Scottish Border. Since Walter Scott couldn’t do too much running around as he walked with a limp, he went down the path of becoming a huge reader of poetry, history, drama, and fairy tales.
When Scott was 8 years old, he attended Royal High School, Edinburgh. This famous “high school” was established in 1128 and is considered the 18th oldest school in the world. @YouTheReader I’m sorry but this bit of information had me taken aback, we over in the US of A think of Harvard as this prestigious institution because it was founded in 1636 but Royal High School was around 5 centuries prior. Royal High School is still a state school today, with about 1,400 students. Wild. Anyway, Walter Scott attended this old ass school starting in 1779 and by 1783 his parents decided to send him to live with his aunt Jenny Scott. Aunt Jenny is pretty important because she originally taught young Walter how to read at Sandyknowe Farm.
1783 was also the year that Walter Scott first met his future friend and business partner James Ballantyne. In 1786, Walter became an apprentice for his father as a writer to the signet, which means he was preparing warrants, writs, and other lawyer documents that teenage Walt found boring. Although he still enjoyed reading works of fiction, Scott would aim to become a lawyer and attended Edinburgh University. He became a qualified lawyer in 1792, but still on the side would translate German gothic poetry into English for his buddy James Ballantyne’s publication. This would be the first work of literature that Walter Scott would ever publish in 1796. Walter Scott would wrap up the 90s (of the 1700s) by meeting and marrying his wife, Charlotte Charpentier in 1797, becoming a father in 1799, and also taking on another job as an appointed Sheriff-Deputy of Selkirkshire.
Walter Scott would continue to mess around with translating German and writing, but it wasn’t until Scott started making up his own stories did he become much more widely known. Walter Scott’s Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, (Vol 3) came out in 1802 and was filled with the stories his elder relatives would tell him at Sandyknowe Farm. He followed up his collection of stories from his childhood farm with a famous poem called The Lay of the Last Minstrel (1805), which drew even more widely positive reviews. In 1809, Scott became half-owner of James Ballantyne’s publishing company. The man was on a complete heater when in 1810 he wrote The Lady of the Lake which sold 20,000 copies in the first year and broke all kinds of records for a poem at the time. Imagine trying to move your verses like that via horse and buggy, sheesh.
1813, however, was not Walter Scott’s year as Ballantyne’s publishing firm was on the brink of financial disaster because James Ballantyne’s brother, John, was apparently responsible. The company got bought by Archibald Constable & Co, who Scott would publish for until 1826. Walter Scott’s first novel, Waverley, wouldn’t come out until 1814 and it was published anonymously. Again Scott was hot in the streets of Scotland as Waverly at the time became the most successful novel ever published in English. Next in 1815, Scott wanted a challenge away from the fictionalized historic pieces he had been writing so he went to the Battle of Waterloo and went full-on war-time journalist. Seeing the battlefield must have influenced Scott a bit as his next novel would be Rob Roy (1817). A real Rob Roy McGregor did exist from centuries prior to Scott, but Walter Scott was responsible for playing up the fact that Rob Roy was a chivalrous outlaw - the Scottish version of Robin Hood.
Naturally, once somebody writes their own version of Robinhood, you then petition the Prince Regent for access to find Crown Jewels that were lost & locked away in Edinburgh Castle. Walter Scott led a team that recovered the large locked box in the castle and they opened up the box for the first time in 100 years. Then in 1819, Walter Scott published Ivanhoe, which would go down as his most notable work of literature. Once I saw that Walter Scott wrote something titled that I immediately said I had to make this the Stumblin’ Along. 133 years after its publishing, Hollywood made a movie called Ivanhoe in 1952 where Loyal British knight Wilfred of Ivanhoe (Robert Taylor) sets out on a mission to free the kidnapped King of England, Richard the Lionheart (Norman Wooland), in this rousing adventure tale. The brave Ivanhoe must eventually confront the devious Prince John (Guy Rolfe) and the fierce Norman warrior Brian de Bois-Guilbert (George Sanders), while also juggling the affections of the beautiful maidens Rowena (Joan Fontaine) and Rebecca (Elizabeth Taylor). (Source: IMBD) Full disclosure I have not seen this movie but critics gave it a 79 on Rotten Tomatoes, so above average. The original Ivanhoe along with all his other accomplishments got Walter Scott knighted so he became Sir Walter Scott. (Source: Historic UK)
By 1825, the polio illness that Sir Walter Scott was suffering from since he was a toddler had caught up to him. His health started to worsen and he also had some poor luck. His wife Charlotte would pass away in 1826 and despite his incredible success as a writer, his publishing firm became insolvent that same year. In 1827, Walter Scott finally publically admits to authoring the Waverly series, and just 5 years later in 1832, Walter Scott would be buried alongside Charlotte. All in all, Walter Scott was the author of 27 novels, a Scottish historian, poet, and playwright. While he ended up dying in debt, his work from stories he heard at Sandyknowe Farm ended up “inventing many English legends” as the Guardian would put it. On the 100th Anniversary of Scott’s birth (1871), Scottish Americans gifted Central Park in The City a statue of Walter Scott that can still be found on “Literary Walk”, which is where Week to Week Notes had gone Stumblin’ Along.
Lastly and most importantly in regard to why after doing some reading up on Sir Walter Scott, he’s good in my book - Sir Walter Scott was a big dog guy. The North Platte Tribune Noted, “Of all the great men who have loved dogs, no one ever loved them better or understood them more thoroughly than Sir Walter Scott. One of his friends said: ‘He was a gentleman even to his dogs and he considered not only their bodily wants but their feelings as if they had been human.’”