frisbee fred
Well-known member
Some rough noodling on Crossroad Blues by Robert Johnson.
Season 260 : Roads Girdle the Globe
- Thread starter uke4ia
- Start date
OP
OP
Some comments:
strumsilly - Sunny Side of the Street - Hey, Andy! Nice to see you. I'm liking this one. Looks beautiful where you are. I live on the shady side of the street myself. The driveway is on the north side of the house.
29moons - 59th St. Bridge Song - Nicely done. I was hoping someone would do this song. I almost gave it a mention in the themepost as one of the examples. I remember being a kid, and one year this song always playing on the radio when we were in the car.
Harry122 - Marchin' Down Broadway - This is an inspired choice of song, Randy. I would have never guessed this was a Nilsson song. Wikipedia says it was based on a song his mother had written.
hendulele - Blue Highway - I like it, Rick. I haven't heard this one before -- I don't know many Thorogood songs other than "Bad to the Bone" and "I Drink Alone". Looks beautiful there. I'm writing this after clearing three inches of snow from the driveway.
AlanDP - Gulf Coast Highway - Very nice, Alan. Both the singing and fingerpicking are very expressive. This had me Googling bluebonnets. "Really? That's the only place they grow?"
Markwo - Stuart and the Ave. - Great choice, Mark. Congrats on getting it in one take. I was expecting we might get some Green Day this Season, but this isn't the song I was figuring on. One of the names I considered for the Season was "The Boulevard of Broken Strings". (If you tend to listen to the Season's playlist with kids, be aware this contains F-bombs.)
turtledrum - Country Road - Beautifully done, Linda. We once had a Season theme of playing percussion on the body of the uke. Too bad you weren't a Seasonista yet, you're great at it. And you may have just broken wee_ginga_yin's record for most reverb on a video.
pabrizzer - Avenue of Broken Dreams - Wow, you and turtledrum have been buying your reverb in bulk! This is a great original. There's some very nice lyrics there. I especially liked "Lots of backs with lots of knives".
Demimondaine - Driving on 9 - Way to go, Chelsea! This was always my favorite Ed's Redeeming Qualities song. I always thought it referred to Rte. 9 in Mass. I played the ERQ version of this back in the original Six Seasons of the Ukulele.
TheOnlyUkeThatMatters - Electric Avenue - You had me singing along with this. This is one of the songs I was hoping to hear this week. Thanks for playing it, Ralf. This was great!
TCK - - Wow, that's a nice one, Dave. I've never heard of this band before, let alone the song. But that's a hell of a song. Even if it doesn't mention Georgia.
Tomcat Wombat - Positively 4th Street - What a great rhythm to put behind this song. It's like if Dylan had the English Beat as his backing band. This is one of my favorite Dylan songs. Thanks for doing it.
strumsilly - Sunny Side of the Street - Hey, Andy! Nice to see you. I'm liking this one. Looks beautiful where you are. I live on the shady side of the street myself. The driveway is on the north side of the house.
29moons - 59th St. Bridge Song - Nicely done. I was hoping someone would do this song. I almost gave it a mention in the themepost as one of the examples. I remember being a kid, and one year this song always playing on the radio when we were in the car.
Harry122 - Marchin' Down Broadway - This is an inspired choice of song, Randy. I would have never guessed this was a Nilsson song. Wikipedia says it was based on a song his mother had written.
hendulele - Blue Highway - I like it, Rick. I haven't heard this one before -- I don't know many Thorogood songs other than "Bad to the Bone" and "I Drink Alone". Looks beautiful there. I'm writing this after clearing three inches of snow from the driveway.
AlanDP - Gulf Coast Highway - Very nice, Alan. Both the singing and fingerpicking are very expressive. This had me Googling bluebonnets. "Really? That's the only place they grow?"
Markwo - Stuart and the Ave. - Great choice, Mark. Congrats on getting it in one take. I was expecting we might get some Green Day this Season, but this isn't the song I was figuring on. One of the names I considered for the Season was "The Boulevard of Broken Strings". (If you tend to listen to the Season's playlist with kids, be aware this contains F-bombs.)
turtledrum - Country Road - Beautifully done, Linda. We once had a Season theme of playing percussion on the body of the uke. Too bad you weren't a Seasonista yet, you're great at it. And you may have just broken wee_ginga_yin's record for most reverb on a video.
pabrizzer - Avenue of Broken Dreams - Wow, you and turtledrum have been buying your reverb in bulk! This is a great original. There's some very nice lyrics there. I especially liked "Lots of backs with lots of knives".
Demimondaine - Driving on 9 - Way to go, Chelsea! This was always my favorite Ed's Redeeming Qualities song. I always thought it referred to Rte. 9 in Mass. I played the ERQ version of this back in the original Six Seasons of the Ukulele.
TheOnlyUkeThatMatters - Electric Avenue - You had me singing along with this. This is one of the songs I was hoping to hear this week. Thanks for playing it, Ralf. This was great!
TCK - - Wow, that's a nice one, Dave. I've never heard of this band before, let alone the song. But that's a hell of a song. Even if it doesn't mention Georgia.
Tomcat Wombat - Positively 4th Street - What a great rhythm to put behind this song. It's like if Dylan had the English Beat as his backing band. This is one of my favorite Dylan songs. Thanks for doing it.
wee_ginga_yin
Well-known member
I was reading about Blackberry way and found they had this to say.
Written by Roy Wood and produced by Jimmy Miller, "Blackberry Way"
was a bleak counterpoint to the sunny psychedelia of earlier recordings.
It nevertheless became the band's most successful single, reaching
number 1 on the UK Singles Chart in February 1969.
Richard Tandy, who later played keyboards with Wood's next band Electric Light Orchestra (ELO),
played harpsichord on "Blackberry Way". Despite the success of the single, the style of
psychedelically tinged pop sat uneasily with bassist Trevor Burton. He left the group shortly after.
It is cited as inspired by The Beatles' "Penny Lane".
So I decided to do Penny Lane as my third entry (if Endless Road is discounted)
Written by Roy Wood and produced by Jimmy Miller, "Blackberry Way"
was a bleak counterpoint to the sunny psychedelia of earlier recordings.
It nevertheless became the band's most successful single, reaching
number 1 on the UK Singles Chart in February 1969.
Richard Tandy, who later played keyboards with Wood's next band Electric Light Orchestra (ELO),
played harpsichord on "Blackberry Way". Despite the success of the single, the style of
psychedelically tinged pop sat uneasily with bassist Trevor Burton. He left the group shortly after.
It is cited as inspired by The Beatles' "Penny Lane".
So I decided to do Penny Lane as my third entry (if Endless Road is discounted)
Killermont Street is where the main bus station is in Glasgow, where people leave to seek fame and fortune in the South (as well as visiting their Aunt in Edinburgh, but that's not such good song material). Roddy Frame wrote this one for Aztec Camera, probably when he was still a teenager. I think someone once gave him a copy of The Bumper Book of 5001 Guitar Chords, and he thought you had to use all of them. So this is a simplified version.
Apologies for the voice. I really shouldn't sing with this cold, but I do love this song...
Apologies for the voice. I really shouldn't sing with this cold, but I do love this song...
My first offering this week was written this morning. It's a true story that explains why I reserve a certain amount of loathing for a particular stretch of the M54 Motorway in the Midlands of Britain.
I have actually written a lot of songs that deal with this theme - road movies in a few verses, etc. But I have already recorded most of them on YouTube. So, my muse sought to approach this week's theme from a tangential perspective. The song above deals with the impact of roads on the environment, especially near pristine woodland. This next song remembers that while roads go from place to place, streets form the fabric of a city and on those streets these days are a whole host of homeless people trying to survive one more night.
This latest offering (another new one especially for 260) came to me after watching a hard hitting film called "Hector" about an aging Scottish down and out. In that film there is a young man who is at a homeless shelter,. His character is there to remind you that this is not just a problem affecting older people, there are young people on the streets too. Britain today needs a new Dickens - The Tory party have manged to take Mrs Thatcher's nostalgia for Victorian values to its extremes. We have a whole Dickensian underclass in GB today and there are more people dependent on food banks than at any time since the 1930s.
My "hero" in this song is a young man who has suffered abuse and has acted in a way many of us would consider irrational. However, within his own logic his actions make sense. Even though we might feel we'd like to point out to him that his Mum is probably more frantic from not knowing his whereabouts than she would be worried about the narrator's concerns as expressed in verse two.
Anyway, enough from me. Let me play Charles Dickens for a moment and present you with my unnamed 21st Century "Oliver".
Warning - adult themes - although no explicit language is involved. If any kid does pick up on what this is about, or what certain obscure phrases imply, then they really weren't as innocent as the guardians of morality claiming to protect them have assumed.
This latest offering (another new one especially for 260) came to me after watching a hard hitting film called "Hector" about an aging Scottish down and out. In that film there is a young man who is at a homeless shelter,. His character is there to remind you that this is not just a problem affecting older people, there are young people on the streets too. Britain today needs a new Dickens - The Tory party have manged to take Mrs Thatcher's nostalgia for Victorian values to its extremes. We have a whole Dickensian underclass in GB today and there are more people dependent on food banks than at any time since the 1930s.
My "hero" in this song is a young man who has suffered abuse and has acted in a way many of us would consider irrational. However, within his own logic his actions make sense. Even though we might feel we'd like to point out to him that his Mum is probably more frantic from not knowing his whereabouts than she would be worried about the narrator's concerns as expressed in verse two.
Anyway, enough from me. Let me play Charles Dickens for a moment and present you with my unnamed 21st Century "Oliver".
Warning - adult themes - although no explicit language is involved. If any kid does pick up on what this is about, or what certain obscure phrases imply, then they really weren't as innocent as the guardians of morality claiming to protect them have assumed.
redpaul1
Well-known member
On Raglan Road
wee_ginga_yin
Well-known member
You know out in Tibet they have prayer wheels... you spin a big wheel and you have a prayer said for you
Well it is a little known fact that in the UK the devil has made a curse wheel and it is called the M25
which is not so much a motorway but more of a big parking lot. When cars are stuck on the M25
this puts a curse on the whole of London... true!!!
xommen
Well-known member
I thought I would also do the obvious U2 song for this season. Here is another take on Where the Streets have no Name.
Jazzbanjorex
Well-known member
260-3
I recorded another song for my third but while looking for another ukulele song swap I'm in I ran across this song and it replaced my third entry for 260.
I recorded another song for my third but while looking for another ukulele song swap I'm in I ran across this song and it replaced my third entry for 260.
TCK
Well-known member
Number three...Lost Dog Street Band cover because if you have noted yet, I dig these guys. In any event, we slapped this one all over with Cloverdale...
Now I will sit idly by and wait for someone else to do a rocking version of "Life is a Highway", because the world needs that. Thanks for the week Jim.
Now I will sit idly by and wait for someone else to do a rocking version of "Life is a Highway", because the world needs that. Thanks for the week Jim.
OP
OP
I thought about calling this Season "The Street Where You Live", but I thought some people might think they were supposed to sing about the area where they live. I thought about calling it "The Boulevard of Broken Strings". I ended up going with a noisy, obscure XTC song called "Roads Girdle the Globe". So I figured I should go ahead and play it.
IamNoMan
Well-known member
This side of the Pond there is a nightmare road too. It is called "The Cross-Bronx Expressway. it is truly a Highway from Hell.
frisbee fred
Well-known member
One of my fav America songs.
IamNoMan
Well-known member
LimousinLil
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Oh, yes .... nightmare road! Then it's the dreaded Dartford Crossing, followed, for us, by the A12 (another nightmare road). I often wonder how our French neighbours, who drive with the gay abandon which comes of not encountering very much traffic, would fare if they were suddenly plonked down on either of these appalling highways!
frisbee fred
Well-known member
Thanks, Tommy. I fixed it.
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