Season 495: That Perfect Moment

There ain't no cure for love. It is strange but true that very often the object of our desire has no redeeming qualities. Women are always trying to redeem bad boys, and men are always falling for femme fatales. At times love makes no sense, but it seems perfect to those under its spell.



I don't like the way you snore in bed
I don't like the way you shave your head
Or the way you slurp your soup with a spoon
and I hate it when you whistle out of tune
But honey you know its true, I love you.
You need to change your socks cos your feet smell
The odour from your armpits is a living hell
Please brush your teeth because you've got bad breath
and when you try to kiss me it scares me half to death
But honey you know its true, I love you.
You spend all my money frink all of my booze
Buy useless kitchen gadgets that you never use
You watch TV on the sofa in your Sports Active Wear
Your fat, unhealthy and overweight but you just don't care
But honey you know its true, I love you.
 
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Here's another one Liz. It's by the Cure. Spooky lyrics, cool chord progression, bit of dissonance mixed with reverb and delay. Ear candy.

My Flight uke was practically built to play this song so I did.

 
Loved watching and hearing Corey Fujimoto play this tune while demonstrating instruments on The Ukulele Site. Thanks, Liz!

 
What makes the perfect song? For me it’s simple - any song you never tire of, however much you hear it.

This is one such song, and ironically it has the word ‘perfect’ in the title too. I love its message - that we actually don’t need a perfect body size, shape or appearance to be considered attractive by others. It’s also very suggestive in parts, which only adds to its appeal. ;)

And this one is lifted enormously by our glorious host’s own particular brand of perfection - thank you soooo much for collaborating with me on this, Liz! Totally in awe of everything you did here! And thank you for being such a wonderful host! :)

 
Okay, one more...

If I've counted correctly, McCartney is way ahead of Lennon for this season, and in fact I don't think we've heard from Lennon at all! Here's one of my favourites of his. I thought of it this morning and it's been stuck in my head all day, so this is how I'm getting it out again.

He wrote it, the story goes, after being stuck for hours trying really hard to come up with a song. Then, after giving up, it just came to him. And that's kind of what the song is about. It's certainly a familiar feeling to me. Not in songwriting, but in problem solving and technical pursuits like computer programming, which you might imagine are totally logical, sometimes you can try too hard to find the answer and just stepping away for a bit gives you the flash of inspiration you need.

I tried doing some harmony. I hope I got away with it.



As for whether it's perfect, well, apparently McCartney thought it was very good, and he's as good a judge as anyone, so that's good enough for me :).
 
Last one for this season. This song means a lot to the family. In the past, I've accompanied my wife while she sang it. Thanks.

 
So many excellent songs this week. This one is from the perfect(?) songwriter, Ray Davies.

 
take a silly poem and two enthusiastic grandkids... give them a camera and some plasticine and make a short stop motion film. Looking back on it it was one of those perfect moments of togetherness and creativity.

 
Hi all and welcome to the end of Thursday! Today we had 10 entries, for a total of 51, so far. 3 days to bring me your perfect songs. It is so interesting for me to learn what you find perfect. You know what would be perfect? A few more originals. You know what else? Some women. I do love women. Men, too. But, it would be nice to see some entries from the fair sex this week. Thanks to Val and Liz/Cua for joining in.

Here is today's re-cap:
Rob/wee started us off with an original :- D called Honey, You Know It's True, about imperfections and how they still add up to the perfect mate.
Ryan/RABII gave us The Cure's A Forest. Be sure to notice both the intro and ending, as you watcch.
Kevin/good_uke_boy played a beautiful chord melody piece called Smokey Mountain Lullaby.
Del/DelGriff brought a really fun tune with Perfect in the title: Perfect 10, by Beautiful South. Check out his dance moves, for sure.
Rob/wee posted We'll Meet Again, the beautiful tearjerker that was popular during WWII.
Edwin/JTSteam added a John Lennon piece to the growing list of Beatles tunes this week, Nowhere Man. With harmony.
Kevin/good_uke_boy adds his third piece for the week, Time In A Bottle, the Jim Croce classic...and he SINGS!
Rick/hendulele plays us a Ray Davies classic, Waterloo Sunset.
Del/DelGriff comes back to give us a touching rendition of Only You, the Yaz(in the US) Yazoo(in the rest of the world) hit from 1982.
Rob/wee sandwich! Again! He strikes again with an original tune written with grandkids, Noa and Elli, Goodbat Nightman. Must watch. Go. Now.

That's all the news that's fit to print. Looking forward to tomorrow, seasonistas,
Liz
 
You asked for originals, here's one I've been sitting on for a little while. Actually took me weeks to write. Like the last time you hosted Liz, I was messing around with a few riffs/chord progressions and then sat down to turn it into a song and it took a while to come out but I'm really happy with the end product. First time I played it for ANYONE was at my first proper gig a few weeks ago but I haven't got round to recording it until now.

I'm gonna shoehorn it into theme by saying it's a song about me striving for perfection in my homelife and realising it's not gonna come but that doesn't mean that my life isn't great. Around the time I wrote it, my wife had just been promoted, I was happy in my job, the kids were doing great in school and we'd just moved into this brilliant house and I thought finally, after years of struggle and compromise we'd finally made it.

Then my car blew up a week later which set us back quite a bit, we're still getting used to our rent being double what it was previously and a couple other bumps have happened but on the whole, we're still where we need and deserve to be I think.

Enough waffle, here's the song.

 
Hello again, Liz! Token "woman" back by special request! I have always thought this song was "perfect." When I first heard it, I was really quite young, but it made a lasting impression on me. (My version is FAR from perfect.)

 
SOTU 495 - "Truckin'" - Grateful Dead 1970. I've been meaning to do this one for a while and finally bashed it out yesterday. I was thinking of doing another take but in the interest of time left for for this Season I went with it. It's the final song on their American Beauty album. I think it's the fifth song I've done from that record, so obviously it's been a big influence.

 
Next week or next month I may have another preference, but this week "Ooviiul" (Night Violin by Debora Vaarandi and Valter Ojakaar, 1961) seems like a perfect song for me. It's the quintessence of summer and romance - white nights, two lovers meeting and a white flower blooming.

When I first heard this song years ago, I was kind of disappointed - no verse and chorus structure like in "proper songs", the melody is slow and contemplative. But here, the lyrics come first - gentle, feminine yet not too sweet, with rhymes and assonance. Perhaps my all-time favorite phrase from a song in English is "laugh that wrinkles your nose / touches my foolish heart" (by Dorothy Fields). In this song, my favorite is a perfect phrase that translates approximately as "My love, your hair is foliage / let me be its wind".

"Night violin" is a common name for the lesser butterfly-orchid in Estonian.
The original song is grand and elegant, my version is much lesser. :)

 
Felt a little adventurous this morning and mashed up two classics. I'm almost apprehensive about it since I don't want to mess up one epic tune, let alone two!

Here's my take on Bob Dylan / Hendrix's All Along The Watchtower. It's such an iconic song. I can hear the notes in my head clear as day. That said, I'm no Jimi (or Jimmy for that matter).

 
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I am one of those terrible people who will skip on to the next song before the current one has finished playing. I’m just not a patient person but with this song I listen right to the end.
 
Hi folks and happy Friday, I hope you are all well, and having, if not a perfect day, at least an acceptable day. I've had better.

8 submissions today, thanks to all who stopped in to play for us:
Brian C/pabrizzer with a beautiful must-have for this week, Imagine, by John Lennon.
Ryan/RABII with an original called Work In Progress. Go listen, then read about it. I love to know about the songwriting process.
Val/LimousinLil with the perfectly heavenly La Mer, Charles Trenet's classic love song to the sea.
Marc/Marcsuke drove by with his rendition of Truckin' by the Grateful Dead. He's working his way through their album, American Beauty. Let's cheer him on.
Ylle/kolibri gave us a haunting and original love song in Estonian that must be experienced. Read the lyrics as they scroll by.
Arvincharles/ukudancer plays a multi-screen All Along The Watchtower, by Bob Dylan. That's right, Bob Dylan. I knew that. Yeah...
Lyndall brought a song that I adore, Walkin' In Memphis, by Marc Cohn. I agree with her, it's one I can never pass up.
Lastly, Joko dropped by with Drop, by The Mana'O Company (?) The perfect uke jam song.

Two more days to bring me your perfect songs, folks. Looking forward to seeing what you bring.
Liz
 
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