Season 178: "Tell me a story"

Hey geoff, thank you for hosting this week. For storytelling i picked this classic by the kinks. I have to use an ipad so apologies for the low sound, and the youtube app doesnt seem to have a video manager either. Ah well, whats worse, excuses or gripes?

This is a Richard Thompson song. "From Galway to Graceland."

First batch of comments.

Pabrizzer: Wrong Black Mare - That's a cracking song, Pa and a tragic tale too. Great stuff.

Jazzbanjorex: Twilight Zone - An interesting tale and a powerful performance.

IamNoMan: The MTA - I've heard other songs on a similar theme, but not this one. The tune is familiar, though as I'm sure it's one from a well known ballad but I can't remember which. Still it's a good choice and I enjoyed your version.

Redpaul101: Johnny99 - Good on you, Paul for choosing a less obvious Springsteen song. I liked this one, you maintained a nice steady rhythm on your uke there. Good job.

UkeFoot: Don't Take Your Guns To Town - A classic song and superbly performed. I like the way you varied the pace to emphasise the key lines in each verse rather than the standard rhythmic treatment you usually hear.

YorkSteve: Delilah - A tragic tale of betrayal and jealousy. I loved the way you varied the accompaniment and that was a truly wicked laugh just before the climax of the story. It's interesting how people latch on to a song and know the chorus and don't realise what the song is really about. Great stuff.

The Gas Man Cometh - I love Flanders and Swann. This really did justice to a classic tale of domestic something or other. I forget the rest and I haven't a clue where my F&S CDs are.

TCK: Dandy - Not familiar with this song but it was nicely done.

Wee_ginga_yin: World Turned Upside Down - Fabulous Rob. It's a great song and I loved your arrangement.

AlanDP: Tabernacle Tom - Excellent song and a stellar performance. Was this based on a true story, by any chance?

Bonesoup: Lola - Some classic Kinks and very nicely done. I find the iPad/Android apps for You Tube, F'book etc. are a bit lacking in features.

Uke4ia: From Galway To Graceland - Excellent, Jim. Great song choice and very well sung and played.

put it in 2/4 rather than the usual waltz time
8 string tenor ukulele

The first colony never settled at Botany Bay.
It was founded at the much more suitable Port Jackson (Sydney Harbour) a little further north (which Cook had sailed right past).

Kenny Rogers

I think the line between narrative and lyrical is quite clear but then again...I've listened to A LOT of Country Music

SOTU 128 Entry #2

Geoff Asked me to do a Child Ballad Here it is Child Ballad 130. All but two of the Traditional Robin Hood Stories are found in the Child Ballads.

178th Entry 2:

This is a story of injustice.

Well, let's see, I did "The Waterman's Reggae" in Season 127. And I did "Mary March and Nancy April" for alemarco's Songs That Tell True Stories theme in Season 74. And other story songs like "Community" and "No One Cool Ever Came from Hufflepuff" in other Seasons. I think this is my only finished original story song that I haven't used in the Seasons yet. This is a proggy horror story thing I wrote on keyboard back in the early '80s. I learned it on uke to play at open mics a few years back, but it's probably been three years or more since I had reason to play it. I was using a trippy sound effect that I kept lowering the volume on as I did takes, you can maybe hear it burbling in the background. On keyboard, the bit at the end was a Supertramp-y sort of thing.

Lyrics:

It's wet outside
Remember the night we watched raindrops hit the sidewalk from a view an inch above the ground?
Hard rock and gin
And a voice in the shadows warning "Murky's off again"
Hate and vanity, he's followed that knife
For half his life, and you followed him
Hustled him off down some dark side street
And tied him down in bed, one more lost weekend

Lot of sirens tonight
And that same glare's on the pavement, and it's in your eye
Without a word, you ran for the bridge
Leaving me there in the alley looking dumb
And after what he'd done the last time
I thought you'd never smile again

"Silas, get the silver bullets and the garlic,
Murky's on the rampage again
Keep his sister under lock and key
This time it's near the end
Clear the neon from your brain and run"
But it's like the hammer striking on an empty gun
The game's all over

The crowd's all out there
To check the bodies, make sure it's not them who's lying on the ground
You stood beneath the fire escape shouting
Till the shot from above grazed your cheek
Staring rages at the impotent crowd
Like tonight it's their crime to survive

Murky's on the rampage tonight
Get your children off the street
Take your terror where you find it, love
Does it make you feel complete?
Then let the rain wash it all away
Turn the crimson back to gray
Turn us back into stone

Can't you hear now how they'll talk about it
For a year or two, at least
Like it's some kind of club? "Remember how it was
The night they took the beast?"
But there's a girl looking 'bout three years old
No way to ever reach her, watch her eyes turn cold
The game's all over
God help us all, at last this time I think it's really over

I finally figured out how to share my video to my iPhone via airdrop and then uploaded my video from my phone. This time it only took about 15 minute for a three minute song to upload. Much better than a day for a three minute vid

When I was little I was highly influenced by The Womenfolk and possibly picked up on how to harmonize from wearing out their record. This was one of my favorite songs on the album.

No harmonies, just a straight forward take.

Thanks for the week Geoff. My first song for 178 is an English ballad dating to around the 17th century, 'John Riley'. A tender story where, as in a number of traditional folk tales, the true identity of the beloved is hidden in order to test the honour and fidelity of the partner. I first learnt this as an acappella thing so decided to record it this way, then added some gentle uke accompaniment underneath. (I'll hopefully have another story song for later in the week that dates to a similar period and again has the hidden identity of the lover as the main theme). Cheers all.

You will all be surprised to know that one of my favorite bands is the Byrds...precisely why I had to play this when Sean (Ukuleledaddy) started telling me his theories about alien abduction and talking about crop circles today.
Really that is just malarky and you all are witness to some piss taking. Sean is pretty level and has never been abducted...I dont think.
But there is a song about the whole thing and I could not resist.

New uke day for me. Here's "The Love Me or Die" played on my new 3G Woodworks Concert scale ukulele I purchased through Aaron Keim. I used a Hohner melodica also.

"tempted"

by squeeze

Had Me A Real Good Time

An old, old tale of a drink leading to young man's descent into debauchery and resulting social disgrace, this version dating all the way back to 1971:



If you're wondering about the T-shirt, it's a map of all Mark Cavendish's stage victories in the Tour de France

Tootler said:

Well yes, you could stretch the definition* of story to encompass any song. However I think that would be against the spirit of the theme. For the purpose of this theme, a story is a sequence of linked events. I'll edit the OP to reflect this.

Blowing In The Wind, for example does not count as a story in my view as it is basically a set of questions, linked - yes but not a series of events.

* Story definition: An account or recital of an event or a series of events, either true or fictitious

Click to expand...

Aren't these called 'Ballads' Geoff ?

Cool theme

Spare Parts

I am another big Springsteen fan, and believe he is one of the great storytellers of our time. My second favorite album of his is Tunnel Of Love, and this is one of my favorite songs off of that album.

Powerful story, if you ask me, and a real thrill to do.

My second story is something of a companion piece to my first, 'John Riley'; however this time the roles are reversed, with the lady assuming a hidden identity in order to test her lover's honesty and fidelity. 'The Half Hitch' is another song I learnt many years ago from Pete Seeger, one of my very favourite songs ever and bloody hilarious. " - Husband!!!! Oh, husband!!!!...." Simple 3 chord melody in 3/4, key of Eb. Cheers all. xo

mythinformed said:

Aren't these called 'Ballads' Geoff ?

Cool theme

Click to expand...

Interesting point. In the folk tradition, all ballads tell stories but not all songs that tell stories are ballads. Ballads tend to a common form of rhyming couplets with a refrain between each line but not all ballads take this form and the boundaries between a ballad and other forms of narrative song are very blurry.

That's leaving aside the debased use of the term "ballad" for a slow, sentimental love song.

The classic collection of folk ballads is that of Francis James Child, a Harvard Literature professor who published a collection of 305 traditional ballads with a commentary on them under the title "The English and Scottish Popular Ballads" in the late 19th century. There are a number of narrative songs that are generally agreed to be ballads but were not included by Child. Unfortunately, Child died before his work was complete and his overall commentary with his criteria for selecting which songs to include was never written. Child's Ballads can be viewed online at http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/child/ Beware though, they do not always make for easy reading as many are in archaic English. There are plenty of recordings on You Tube. Searching by Child number should bring a good few up as most folk singers will include the Child number in the title.

Modern English versions of many Child ballads can be found at Mudcat Cafe in their Digital Tradition Database

A science fiction story.

I have to dedicate this song to a courageous friend who just got rid of her old hound dog. It is not necessarily in sequence, but it definitely tells a story...