"No Time At All"

March 15, 2022

Ron

"NO TIME AT ALL"

Irene Ryan, from the musical "Pippin"

I bought this album in high school just on a feeling, knowing nothing about it, at a time when I was really more prepossessed with Styx and Van Halen and Molly Hatchet and Kansas. It was strange. But it jumped out at me.

"No Time At All" derives from a Broadway musical entitled "Pippin" from the early 1970s when Broadway was expanding its perceptual boundaries, and its story intrigued me. Pippin is the young prince son of King Charlemagne, he of the Holy Roman Empire, who runs in his angst-filled teen confusion for advice to his grandmother, the irrepressible Bertha (played by Irene Ryan). "No Time At All" is the solace Bertha gives Pippin, and it was the big show-stopper because everyone knew and loved Irene as Granny in "The Beverly Hillbillies" on TV. And funnier is that her advice basically instructs Pippin to calm down and go get laid. (And he does; the next segment is Pippin on a debauched journey of sexual over-indulgence.) "No Time At All" should be an anthem, I think, for the elders who are all still too busy loving and living to bother slowing down. I love its message. It speaks of relishing each treasured moment of life and really sinking your teeth in. Fabulous. [Ironically, Irene died during the run of "Pippin". She had a stroke onstage during a performance and died a few days later, proving (as the song says) how precious each moment really is.]

IRENE RYAN

Demo

https://youtu.be/y_uHZggFS8U

Live

https://youtu.be/xLIpCWEHUaA

For those too young to know, Irene Ryan played Granny in the long-running 1960s prime-time mega-hit, "The Beverly Hillbillies" — and I lived for it. I especially loved Granny. She was feisty and magical, I thought, at a time when all the female leads on TV had magical powers of some kind, and I loved Granny's home remedies and potions and colloquial wisdom. And her irascibility. She reminded me of the powerful and sage old country women surrounding me as I grew up. I had a favorite episode of "The Beverly Hillbillies" (a two-parter) that I referred to as "The Boston Strong Girl", and I'd be apoplectic when it would re-air (the show had already started to run in morning syndication while still airing in first-run during evening prime-time).

Part One

Season 6, Episode 22

"The Rass'lin Clampetts"

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3w1aws

Part Two

Season 6, Episode 23

"The Great Tag-Team Match"

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x82oz0n

In my later teen years when I stumbled upon the "Pippin" cast album with Irene Ryan singing I knew I had to have it. I loved her number. And I fell in love with the whole score. And then, as fate would have it, years later I ended up playing "Pippin" onstage and got to perform this number with my onstage "granny" every night for many months. Mary Agnes was a glorious good substitute (my onstage granny), but I wish it could've been Irene.

My Bertha.

My Pippin.

Lewis and Pippin

PIPPIN'S CHOICE

KING PIPPIN

PIPPIN and CATHERINE

"CORNER OF THE SKY"

from "Pippin"

https://youtu.be/voXebj9M9Jo

Pippin launches the play with "Corner of the Sky", his manifesto to the heavens and his tutors announcing that he intends to find meaning in his life, and he then embarks upon his journey to find the magic "it". It's a beautiful song and the one most people remember from the show — and even Michael Jackson and Diana Ross recorded very popular versions of it in the 70s.