Judy Speaks!

Toward the end of her life, Judy Garland sat down with a bottle of gin and a tape recorder and began preparing for an autobiography that she would never write. The aftermath of these home recordings is perhaps the greatest audio archive of the soul of the tormented star.

Instead of outlining the memories and chapters of her life that would translate into chapters of her book, a barely lucid Judy Garland slurs into the microphone, railing against her ex husband Sid Luft and the callous public that demanded so much of her but gave so little back.

The collection of recordings were compiled into a bootleg that was released called Judy Speaks. If you ever see it in a record store, snatch it up but good luck finding it...I had to order mine from a punk record shop in Vancouver. The track listing is as follows...

1. Obvious Nazi Machine
2. Plane Crash
3. Outraged (Long rant)
4. Don't Make a Joke Of Me Anymore
5. In Love With People
6. Get the Hell Out of My Life!
7. Humor, Tears, Fun, Emotion & Love
8. And Now, Ladies & Gentlemen
9. All I Want Is Money
10. They Must Pay
11 How Do You Feel?
12. Since I Lost My Man
13 Absolutely Outrageous

The best clip is "Get the Hell Out of My Life" is by far the best clip (and it provided the soundtrack to my winning entry in last year's Ten Second Film Fest). Here the gin has lit a fire in her belly and she rants about the cruelties of the public, which treated her like a wind up toy!

"I've laughed at myself when I should have cried...and I've cried...because I had every reason--I'm goddamn mad!"..."I'm the one whose had to live with me"..."I am the result of an audience!"..."I'm a good cook. I am a good mother. I do believe in going to church. I love music."...All my forty four goddamn marvelous, failing, successful and hopelessly tragic and starlit years..."