Season 294

This was recorded by Bessie Smith around 1926. I added melodica, claves and shakers because it was fun.

This cover was based on an acoustic performance by Ghost I saw on youtube. They are my favorite band so check them out!

Here is my take on a beautiful Gordon Lightfoot song from the 1970s called If You Could Read My Mind. I think it fits the ESP category...if I stretch it a bit. I hope you enjoy my take on it.

thank you for this week Alan, and for the awesome theme.
this is a song my friend jas showed me a few years back.
written by the Buchanan Brothers in 1947.
it's several soprano ukulele tracks, a voice and a harmony.

Many strange phenomenons occur in our universe. I've limited the choon to two verses else the repetitiveness of the song almost becomes like a mantra and its hard to stop playing ............spooky !!

My first contribution to this week was originally written a couple of years back in Catalan, but I did a translation of my Catalan original into English especially for 294. The original was issued as a track (by my band "The Saturday Blues Project") on a charity album sold to raise money for a Catalan family with an autistic child. Meeting him was like meeting a child from some totally alien culture. I took that thought home with me.... And then I remembered something.... From age 8 to 10 I had what I could probably call "an imaginary friend" - except this friend was not singular. It was a whole alien race to which I was told I belonged. I remember daily briefings with different controllers - all held by telepathic communications in my head. I was advised not to tell anyone about them. And I didn't for years.

The phenomenon just started one day in class (presumably while I was bored). There was a soft buzz in my head and a feeling of local heat, then a clear voice came on line with a slightly robotic quality (I don't think I had seen any SF shows that would have led me to add that detail back then). "Greetings, Berni!" The voice said. "You are showing signs of destabilisation. We are here to reveal why you do not feel at home here among the humans. It is because you are not one of them. You are one of us. Your mission is to blend in with the humans and report on them. Remember, if you do not understand any of their behaviour and it seems alien to you, that is because it is alien. You are not of their kind."

That was my first briefing. Many, many more were to follow, until sometime in my pre-pubescence, they suddenly ceased and i was left with silence. I ached for months at that loss.

Remembering that, and having just met the boy we were doing the album for, I immediately sat down and wrote the Catalan version of this song.

I hope you feel it fits the theme.

Later in the week I have a song about real life witchcraft that I witnessed in Nigeria.

Meanwhile, here is:



PS The programme closed unexpectedly when I was near the end of editing the video and when I opened the saved version, it had those vertical black lines on either side of the image. Not having the luxury of enough time to start from scratch, I decided they were symbolic of the protagonist's feeling of being hemmed in on all sides and left it at that.

Rick's beaut version made me realise this would be uke doable. Thanks Rick!

Here is an Original, written and finished recently over the last couple of days, I got motivated to get it happening ..
I haven't done a Multi-Track Recording, so far only this Video.
The Song is called "Shadow Creeps" , I've written some comments under the YT Vid which can be read, and included the Lyrics for reading also
Not sure how well it fits the theme, but I think it's around there somewhere ...



Hope you like it, I'm hoping to get around to checking out some of the other songs soon, this one has kept me busy , as well as housework, coz you know there's always mundane things like housework

Happy Ukeing

This traditional ballad, one of over 300 collected by Francis James Child in the late 19th century, deals with two folk beliefs.

That an excess of grieving will prevent the soul of the departed from "passing over" to their final rest.

That if you kiss a corpse, your own death will follow soon after.

It does have rather an attractive melody, though.

Go here for the sonic techno version of She moved through the fair.
This time I decided to do it in a minor key. Some versions say
young love and other versions say dead love. I have always gone
with the latter. Thwarted loved and the ghost of a girl visiting
the man she loved after her death.

Geoff no doubt will give the correct interpretation of the song

a homemade song about the very real and powerful feeling people can get, of their beloved being close by, even when they are seperated by many many miles

What would your Season be without a Jimmy C Newman song Alan! This exceedingly morbid tale was co-written by Jimmy Newman and Tom T Hall.

294-1

Found this beautiful song today. Wish I could do it justice but I'll play it anyway.

Check out the backdrop. It's a picture my sister took while on my parent's farm. Good shot of it at the end when I fade out and leave the picture up for a moment.

Genesis wrote a song called "Squonk" about a creature that's always weeping because of it's extreme ugliness, and if caught will cry until it dissolves into a puddle of tears. Until today, I always thought they'd made this up, but it turns out that it's an old legend from the hemlock forests of northern Pennsylvania that was first written about in a 1910 book called "Fierce Creatures of the Lumberwood". In fact, a couple of years before the Genesis song, Steely Dan had a line in "Any Major Dude Will Tell You" that went "Have you ever seen a squonk's tears? Well, look at mine." (I always thought they were saying something else.)

Here's a Shel Silverstein song from 1965. Some interesting cryptozoology going on here! I multi-tracked two ukes and two vocals. No synths, but enough vocal flubs and track patching that I decided not to use a performance video. I gave you some ocean and fish instead!

paoriginal

The love me or die

C. W Stoneking song about hoodoo/voodoo going wrong. (Only two chords he uses Ebm and Bb7, I used Dm and A7)

I studied evil, I can't deny
Was a hoodoo charm called a Love Me or Die
Some fingernail, a piece of her dress
Apocathery, Devil's behes'
I will relate, the piteous consequence my mistake
Fallin slave to passin desire
Makin' the dreaded Love me or Die
Against a Jungle primeval green
She had the looks of a beauty queen
No bangles or chain, wearin' broken shoe
Seventy-five cent bottle perfume
I said, "Good mornin", I tipped my hat
All the while I was cunning like a rat
Smilin gaily, looked her in the eye
I felt in pocket, the Love me or Die
My past history, one to behold
I studied magic from days of old
Membership, secret societies
Power and wealth in my family
But Matilda, Darling
Why you don't take my wedding ring
Like a demon under the floor
I buried the hoodoo down the back door
Lawd, word broke through the town
That a fever strike Matilda down
Nine thirty, the doctor arrive
Priest come runnin, quarter to five
Standin in the weeds early next day
I saw the meat wagon rollin away
I seen Matilda layin in the back
Her old mother wearin a suit of black
Sound the trumpet, and bang the drum
I wait for me judgement to come
I know her spirit is down beneath
I hear the weepin and gnashing of the teeth
Flames of Hell licks at my feet
In the shadow of the Jungle I feel the heat
Matilda's waiting in Hell for me too
All cause she died from a bad hoodoo

Greetings,

The photos were taken on eclipse day and I thought they fit nicely with the theme and this song by Train. "Drops of Jupiter" is the tune. I couldn't merge my audio files so I had to play over the vid. It's interesting and has a sort of twist for the week I think. I do LOVE the strange.


Ciao

I had some trouble finding a song I like that fit, but I guess this one fits the bill. Rockwell - Somebody's Watching Me