Bette Midler: Mud Will Be Flung Tonight! (1985)

Late 1985 saw the release of a new album from the Divine Miss M, not to mention someone who's been a fan of her music more or less since the year 1998 (the first Bette albums I ever heard: the 1996 version of "Experience the Divine: Greatest Hits" and the underrated 1998 classic "Bathhouse Betty".) Following on from 1983's "No Frills" (which really deserved more than what it got), the new album was in fact a comedy album consisting mostly of spoken word. The closest you get to something like this in Bette's catalogue is the 1977 release "Live at Last". In a sense, this could almost be a sequel. (There's less spoken dialogue in "Divine Madness" and "The Rose" is a movie soundtrack.)

The album was called "Mud Will Be Flung Tonight!" (Note: an emphasis on the word "Will" there). It was recorded 30 April and 1 May at one of Bette's performances at Budd Friedman's Improvisation in Los Angeles. Marc Shaiman (who I am a fan of just on the basis of "Beaches" and "Sister Act" alone, not to mention he composed the hit musical "Hairspray") provided the piano accompaniment. Included in this act was the original piano and vocal version of a song many "Beaches" fans will be familiar with: the sad tale of "Otto Titsling". While waiting for this CD to arrive in "my hot little hands", this was the moment I was looking forward to hearing the most. How would it actually sound?

So how did this project come about? Reviewing the history here: Bette had a tough time on the 1982 Don Siegel film "Jinxed!" which seemed to have all but destroyed her Hollywood career, after the huge success of "The Rose". "No Frills" had hit the Top 10 in many places in Europe but was Bette's second lowest charting album in the US since the release of her debut in 1972.

Bette found new happiness in her personal life when she married Martin Von Haselberg in 1984, but she was still worrying about her career. This March 1987 story from Richard Corliss in Time reveals: "I would whine to Harry," Bette says. "'Why can’t I get a job? What's wrong with me?' And he asked what I really wanted to do. Singing? Comedy? I realized I didn't care that much about singing anymore. Nobody else seemed to like it either. But I knew they liked me when I was funny. I said, 'I think my best work is my funny work. And if I could, I'd like to be the funniest woman in the world.' He said, 'Go make a comedy album.' And that was Mud Will Be Flung Tonight."

And there you have it basically. Bette wrote it with additional material from Jerry Blatt, Frank Mula, Lenny Ripps, Marc Shaiman, Charlene Seeger and Bruce Vilanch and she produced it too with Bob Kaminsky and Jerry Blatt.

Commercially speaking, the album peaked at #183 on the US Billboard 200 chart and #94 in Australia. According to the Billboard 200 webpage, that makes it the lowest charting album Bette released, but kind of ridiculous really when you consider it was a comedy album that wasn't exactly abounding with "Wind Beneath My Wings" or "I Know You By Heart" (that wasn't going to happen for another three years.)

As an album, this and "Live at Last" for me are the definitive audio recordings of Bette's comedy work. Most of the material was performed for 1985 audiences, so it doesn't exactly sound as timeless as something like the soundtrack for "Beaches", but dammit! Is this material hilarious!

The theme would appear to be mudslinging. It's called "Mud Will Be Flung Tonight!" at all. Though Aunty Wiki had prepared me for some of these quotes, they didn’t manage to diminish the effect. There are references to the song "We are the World" which Bette had just recorded with super group USA for Africa ("We are the rich," she sings here, "We are the famous".). There are references to Madonna (I'll just include the one from Wiki: "Like a virgin... touched for the very first time today!"), Bruce Springsteen, Meryl Streep, and even Olivia Newton-John (which results in this riotous line: "Let's get physical. Let me hear your body talk. My body says: Fuck you!").

Let's have a look at the songs or the different spoken sections, as most of this was spoken with about, say, three or four songs interspersed throughout. Marc Shaiman provides piano accompaniment for the whole performance.

"Taking Aim"---we get this opener from Bette. Within minutes, we know what we're in for. This whole thing is a riot and I could almost end the post here. I won’t though. Bette warns us there'll be no mermaid costumes and backup singers and songs about the sea in this show. And Mud Will Be Flung Tonight!

"Fit or Fat (Fat as I Am)"---this is one of the three songs on here. This sounds like something from a musical and eventually fans who wanted to hear more of Bette in this genre would get their wish with "Gypsy" and "Hello, Dolly!" unless they'd actually seen her in the original "Fiddler on the Roof".

"Marriage, Movies, Madonna and Mick"---OMG, the stuff she says about Madonna. You just have to listen to it. This and Sir Elton's explosion at the Q Awards just make me wonder what Madonna's comeback to this actually would have been.

"Vickie Eydie/I'm Singing Broadway"---it's time for Vickie Eydie, who album listeners will recognize from "Live at Last." Here she is in the 1980s recording a new album and they're not even all in the studio at the same time. Again, the song is like something from a musical. One finds themselves wondering why Bette didn’t reuse more of this material besides "Otto Titsling". That is, on an album or film.

"Coping"---again, this whole thing is a riot. The line about snorting your own bicuspids after grinding your teeth!

"The Unfettered Boob"---and here is Bette talking about tits. She's talking about weighing them at one point. This leads into...

"Otto Titsling"---yes! This is the original piano and vocal version! I actually hear another version of this song with Bette, including: "And the sigh of relief that issued forth from the diva's mouth was so loud that it was mistaken by some to be the early onset of the Siroccan winds which would often blow through the Schwarzwald with a vengeance!" The delivery is somewhat different but it's still my favourite line! How many of you remember that old tongue twister ad from McDonald's in the 90s? They should have given you something for reciting this one too! Fantastic hearing this!

"Why Bother?"---and this is my favourite moment, if it wasn't for "Otto Titsling" before it. I actually wouldn't have minded if this had gone on four minutes longer. Every line ends with "Why bother?"

"Soph"---but this, this is the piece de resistance. But it happens right at the very end of the track, before she bows to the audience screaming: "They like me! They really like me!"

This was not an easy album to find. It was issued on CD in 1989 but as far as I'm aware, never reissued. Considering this, I managed pretty fine in the end, scoring both the vinyl and the CD. You find yourself wishing that the record company would go back after the deluxe edition of "The Divine Miss M" and put out... well, everything. If you can get a hold of this, ladies and gents, I hope you get a real laugh out of it the way I did, and it's Bette Midler. If you enjoyed "Divine" and "Live at Last", chances are you'll come on board for this.

Thank you,

Ryan.