Season 437 - Ain't No Mountain High Enough

uke4ia

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SEASON 437 — Ain’t No Mountain High Enough


I’ve had this on my list of possible Seasons themes since the Seasons were in the double digits. And I’ve been putting it off for years. But now, the Seasons have gone on for so long that I think it’s almost negligent that we’ve never done this theme.

This week’s theme is mountains.

The song can be about mountains. For example, one of the only Yes songs that I have any idea what it’s about is “South Side of the Sky” (because I heard Jon Anderson explain it in a podcast). The song is about a mountaineering party freezing to death on a mountainside and waking up warm in heaven. Cheery, right?

Me Playing “South Side of the Sky” in 2012

The song can also have the word “mountain” in the title, or have the name of a specific mountain like Everest or Pike’s Peak in the title. The word “hill” is not good enough this Season. We have a higher calling.

I thought about banning the song “Rocky Mountain High” for this week. I won’t do it, but know this: When I was a teenager in the ‘70s, every guy I knew with an adenoidal voice and a guitar would play every John Denver song to death. I eventually got sick of every one except “Annie’s Song” and “Calypso”, and remain sick of them to this day.


Rules:

• The video must be a new video recorded for this Season.
• The video must say that it is for the 437th Season of the Ukulele.
• Multitracking is okay, overdubs are okay. But I'm most interested in hearing you perform a song on the ukulele.
• Original songs are always welcome.
• Collaborations are always welcome.
• Collaborations on original songs? Hell, yeah!
• Videos must be posted to this thread. But not before midnight tonight, Hawaiian time. (And remember, razzafrazzin’ ruzzafruzzin’ Season 436 still has a day to go, goldang it!)
• The Season lasts for 8 days, and ends at midnight Hawaiian time on Sunday night, July 5.
NO MORE THAN THREE VIDEOS!
• My plan at the moment is to give prizes to three winners who will be chosen randomly. I usually give t-shirts as prizes.


PLAYLIST


To start us off, this is a song by Republic Tigers:

 
i remember singing this one at school ... (do kids still have singing at school nowadays?)
 
I found this one today. I don't know much Jakob Dylan but whenever I dip in I like what I hear. Photos are from a trip I did in Tibet a few years ago. From Lhasa across the Tibetan Plateau to Everest Base Camp. If you make it to the end you can see the tent I stayed in with a Tibetan family and Everest. Cheers Jim!
 
The ascent has begun! We've established Base Camp with 5 songs in the first two hours.


There's a British band I like called Public Service Broadcasting that writes music to be played accompanied by archival film footage. They play the films behind them when they play live. This is the video for their song "Everest".

 
From "stop the world I want to get off" I feel like that sometimes.
 
Not sure if this song escaped from the UK, but back in 2000 it was everywhere here, and at children's birthday parties & school discos for years afterwards. That was because the band who recorded it, S Club 7, were created for a kid's TV series, so they had a ready-made audience when their records came out. As someone with children who were 4 & 1 back then, I can only just bring myself to listen to this song again.

Anyway, it tells us to "climb every mountain higher"

 
In the Dutch Mountains (Which really don't exist ;)) by the Nits.


As someone who has spent a huge part of my life working and playing in the hills and mountains of the UK I was surprised how flat your homeland was. Our hills might be poor specimens compared to many around the world but they are quite lumpy I have found the Netherlands great for cycling though and I have a fondness of your beer !!
 
Right, when Jim announced the theme on the Zoom chat last night, I got excited, because it meant I could play Biffy Clyro.

 
Hello, Jim! I feel highly qualified for your theme this week - no pun intended - as we live at a height of about 2,000 feet in the foothills of the Central Massif in France, and the highest mountain in the range is just over an hour's drive away from us. This is almost the first song that came to mind and I am sure it's not at all the sort of thing you like ... I promise to do something more enterprising later. The photos in the video are from the Central Massif ... I doubt that this was the sort of scenery that Lorenz Hart had in mind when he wrote the lyrics!

 
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An old song that really resonated with me today, given the current political turmoil. Great song from an awesomely bad movie (Billy Jack).

 
This is an old Italian folk song about the Italian Mountains. There a a few different versions in different languages, I love the German version since I was a little child.




Do you hear La Montanara. The mountains greet you.
Can you hear my echo and fade away?
Where the worlds vanish in blue distances
I want to find you again, my unforgettable happiness.

La Montanara ohe, a waterfall rushes from afar
and silver breaks the light through the green fir trees.
But my longing burns in the sound of old songs
My echo resounds loudly, only you do not hear it.

The swallows flew south.
Over the eternal mountains and valleys
and a cloud came lonely,
but I've always been in vain for you
 
Hi, Jim! Fantastic theme and several tunes come to mind that I’d be interested in giving it a go! To clarify my understanding of the rules this week: are songs that have the word ‘mountain’ or ‘mountains’ in the lyrics ok, or must the word ‘mountain’ or ‘mountains’ (or the name of a particular mountain) be only contained in the title? (I believe that songs ABOUT a mountain or mountains are good to go, too? Yes?)
 
Hi, Jim! Fantastic theme and several tunes come to mind that I’d be interested in giving it a go! To clarify my understanding of the rules this week: are songs that have the word ‘mountain’ or ‘mountains’ in the lyrics ok, or must the word ‘mountain’ or ‘mountains’ (or the name of a particular mountain) be only contained in the title? (I believe that songs ABOUT a mountain or mountains are good to go, too? Yes?)

I'd prefer songs that do more than mention the word "mountain" in passing in the lyrics, but I'll accept any of these.
 
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