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FLARES IN THE MEDIA

Flares and bell-bottoms seem to have always sparked some degree of argument. It seems you either love them or you hate them (if you don't know our opinion on the matter by now, then you haven't been looking very carefully). For some people, flares seem even to have been inspiration for their creative energies, and have helped give rise to a number of songs, books and even films. To show the great diversity of the flare-inspired corpus, and to give you somewhere to start in turning your entire collection of books / records / videos [delete as applicable] into a flare zone, we have listed some of the more prominent works below. We will work from the least flare–popular medium to the most, and so we begin with cinema.

Films about Flares

Title Country Star Year Bell Bottom George (soundtrack available) Britain George Formby, Anne Firth 1943 Bell Bottom Trousers USA   1947 Of course, a great many films will include flares and bell-bottoms, particularly those made during (or set in) times when they were popular. I would expect most films about normal people from the late 1960s and early 1970s to show flares somewhere, and probably those made in the late 1990s and now as well. Some films go that little bit further in taking flares as their main subject, their raison d'être (if you use French words when describing art, it makes you sound more impressive and knowledgable).

Books about Flares

Author Title Year Details Pierre Fallot La patte d'éléphant 1935 Broché David Divine The Three Red Flares 1972 Thomas Y. Crowell, New York Jim Young The Flare of a Match 1981 Breakwater Books Roger Zelazny & Thomas T Thomas Flare 1992 Baen, Riverdale, New York Max Cabanes Les Années Pattes d'Eph' ???? Albin Michel Maria Blyzinsky & Michael Barrett Aliens in Flares 2000 National Maritime Museum / Royal Observatory Greenwich Although most of us consider flares a vital addition to the wardrobe, some people also see them as an important ingredient of a good bookcase, and have written books around the themes of flares and bell-bottoms. We've no idea what any of these are like — we'll gladly accept book reviews on our message board, or by e-mail (see contact page for details).

— We are now able to present a short story sent to us by a visitor to our site, under the title "Velvet Flares in the Snow". If anyone else feels inspired to write about flares, please send your stories in, and we'll get them up online for you. Fiction, autobiography, fantasy, whatever, we'll publish it here. Any questions, contact us, and we'll try to answer you as best we can.

Songs About Flares

Artist Title Year of Release (traditional sea shanty) Bell Bottom Trousers c. 1865 Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians Bell Bottom Trousers (b/w Oh! Brother) 1945 Merrill Moore Bell Bottom Boogie 1953 Alma Cogan Bell Bottom Blues 1954 Derek and the Dominoes Bell Bottom Blues (guitar tab) 1970 Duane Allman and Gregg Allman Bell Bottom Britches 1973 Cockney Rejects Flares 'n' Slippers 1985? The Housemartins Paris In Flares (b-side of 'Build') 1987 The Beautiful South Bell-bottomed Tear 1992 Chad Wackerman Flares 1993 Dave Morgan Trio Bell Bottom Boogaloo 1995 Jeff Foxworthy Bell Bottom Leisure Suits 1995 Bert Kaempfert Bell Bottoms 1998 Christie Ralsen Gypsy Bellbottom Kiss 1998? 59 Times The Pain Flares N' Slippers 1999 Kenny Bartley Purple Flares (album) 1999 Invisibl Skratch Piklz Flare Flesh Flare 1999 Rod Bernard Bell Bottom Bayou 1999 Nobodys Bell Bottom Pants 2000 [unknown] Flares Cuts Bells 2000 Neil Zaza BellBottom 2001 Phil Alexander / Queen Bell-Bottomed Flares (parody of Fat-bottomed Girls) 2003 A huge variety of performers and bands have sung about flares. From the old sea shanty to punk rock / Oi! music, all styles are covered. The list so far includes: electronica, cajun, acoustic, jazz, comedy, and rap. Two songs far outstrip the rest for popularity. Eric Clapton's "Bell Bottom Blues" and the shanty "Bell Bottom Trousers" have each been covered by a large number of people and groups, of which only a few are reported here. It is also assumed that 59 Times The Pain are performing a cover of the Cockney Rejects song, although this is unconfirmed. Alma Cogan's "Bell Bottom Blues" was written by Hal David, and is quite different to its Clapton-penned namesake, by the way. We wouldn't like anyone to get confused.

Flares in the Visual Arts

Brenda K. Bredvik muna zuberi John Sandell Shannon McNeill Lorna Brown Mackenzie Thorpe Bell Bottoms Size: 14" × 18" (356 × 457 mm) 2000 my sis in flares Limited Edition Giclee Print (50) 2002 Size: 297 × 420mm Price: £60.00 GBP Flares untitled? untitled? Man in Flares Size: 12" × 15" (305 × 381 mm) Price: $20.00 USD Flares have also inspired artists working in visual media, especially painting. We will try to compile an online gallery of such works here, as we find such artworks. We hope that the artists won't mind our putting their work here (in thumbnail form only). Indeed, they might even see it as free advertising.

Quotations, Maxims, and things taken out of context

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