Season 546...can we revisit Season 54?

[bobjking]

I thought I was done for the season but then I saw a goose.

So here's a song about geeses.

 

[Voran]

Song about a juvenile eagle learning to fly:



Lyrics:

It is the dark hours of the morning
She is dressed in fledgeling down

Uncertain, zigzagging
Little eaglet

She flutters emerging flight muscles
A tentative dance at the edge of the nest

White feathers
Slowly mottle dark gold

Soft keratin becomes sharp talons...

And she plunges from the nest
And she spreads leviathan wings
And she laughs at gravity as he says, outraged, you may not leave

 

[Voran]

Albatross song 2:



Lyrics:

High up on the headland
I shelter a frail candle flame, I cast the spell
I feel the recklessness as I take flight and the winds swell

High up in the wild gales
Saltwater fountains up from the sea
I laugh at gravity as she tells me I may not leave

And I'll fly far away from here
And I'll wander over the ocean wide

Far out on the ocean
The vivid cold sparkles at my back and wings
I dance a wild trepak as the storm god Narssuuk sings

Far away on a distant shore
He waits for me, dressed in his white flight uniform
I touch my beak to his as he lifts off into the storm

And I'll fly far away from here
And I'll wander over the ocean wide

 

[Voran]

Albatross song 3:



Lyrics:

I zigzag clumsily down the runway
These great white wings of mine are fragile
A stout rope of sinew locks into place at my shoulder
And I shall fly ten thousand miles

I'll see you again
At the ocean's mouth
I'll see you again
At Poseidon's Pass

I sleep at high altitude
The ocean winds sing me a lullaby
The cold air shears past my face
My white flight jacket gathers warmth close to my chest

I'll see you again
At the ocean's mouth
I'll see you again
At Poseidon's Pass

 

[Voran]

My boy I miss him. He still flies overhead sometimes, but doesn't dare get close any more. Smart move, COVID IS zoonotic...



Lyrics:

You seem lost, he said
Disorientated and wild eyed
You've been awake for days

And I
And I

And I wandered far away over the mountains
And I carried no compass as I roamed the wild rock terrain

He took flight from a telephone wire
The infrasound bursts from his wings shook the dead air
He glided low above my head

And I
And I

And I wandered far away over the mountains
And I carried no compass as I roamed the wild rock terrain

Dear foolish child, he said
You don't know how to navigate the wild
Follow me down the mountainside

And I
And I..

And the black raven led the way over the mountain
And I needed no compass as I climbed the wild rock terrain

 

[DelGriff]

Thanks for hosting, Dave!

An original, written for the season:

 

[Voran]

Yaaaaaaaay *high fives Del*

 

[TCK]

Hey gang- just got home from a long day at the rescue center and I am gassed. Not unlike my eighth graders, I am going to put off my homework until tomorrow morning and then play catch-up.
keep those songs coming, can’t wait to give them a listen once I have had a little rest.

 

[Voran]

Ducks aren't usually my favorite birds, but I was chilling by the water at my favorite 'ukeing ground', admiring the glitter green head feathers on the 2 male ducks, and thought 'there's a song there somewhere.'



Lyrics:

Cold blue light creeps above the marshes
Low tide, viscous mud beneath his feet

Winter has flown far away to her northern homeland
Ice sheets give way to rushing meltwater

There she is upon a rock...
Dressed in grey and brown camouflage...

He crafts himself a glittering green headdress
Perhaps she will dance with him…

 

[Voran]

Also holy s**, I look terrible with my hair up under a baseball cap. Nope.

 

[Voran]

Sorry I botched my lyrics a bit, wrote this in an overexcited hurry when my new uke arrived



Lyrics:

High up on the tower
The air is thinner here
I wonder if I could learn to be lighter than air

High up on the tower
The pylon soars to the sky
Glittering white energy surges for miles through the wire

And this bright blue silk seems to merge with my skin

And I’ll honeycomb out these heavy leaden bones
And I’ll stretch these fragile arms to form wings

The city seems so far away
The fields form a green patchwork quilt, so far down

 

[Voran]

Cheers for hosting Dave, hopefully this old Irish fiddle choon/Jig will go some way in cheering up your situation. I picked this arrangement up the other day, ran through It a few times then discovered that a Swallowtail was actually a butterfly and not a bird as I had always thought so I put It away. This morning I decided to get It down and throw It out to ya on the flimsy basis that It does actually mention Swallow albeit in part in the title.

Now you mention swallows, there is an absolutely drop dead beautiful Mandarin folk song called Yanzia meaning swallow.

I can't figure out how to play it on a uke though.

 

[Mark Suszko]

Here we go... Boomerang, our Budgie, makes a cameo appearance. He's a mix: half English, half-American. The English part gives him that Johnny Bravo pompadour and a mellow disposition, he's really quite clever, a great talker and mimic, treats dad coming home like he's a golden retriever... basically a Labrador in a bird suit, behaving like a typical 5 year-old... he has the run of the house all day and comes to visit mom and dad in their offices when he gets bored throwing his toys around.

This is also the coming-out party for "Evelyn", my SoundSmith Archtop jazz uke. She's been converted to nylon strings and a custom twin piezo pickup and internal preamp, running on a rechargeable lithium pack that's good for many weeks at a time. The tone knob pops off to reveal the USB charging port for the internal battery. The idea was to make her look bone stock. She's a $300 knockoff of a $900 Eastman, that i got for $100 as a return because the original mag pickups for steel strings arrived dead. She was a good deal, and maybe you'll get to see more of her in future videos.

The video was recorded mulltitrack in Garage Band. I kept it sparse and threw together the prime 4 tracks in fifteen minutes, but it sounds so sweet in the cans, I hope you agree.

 

[wee_ginga_yin]

There's a bluebird in my heart a poem by Charles Bukowski.

 

[bird's eye view of my ukelele]

"the cuckoo" - a traditional song that's been done by loads of people, I went with the Donovan version...

 

[CeeJay]

Acoustic arrangement by Malc Brookes I snaffled from Ultimate Guitar Tab.
Bloody hell I was concentrating...then improvved a bit here and there and at the end.......

It's a bit ower long ,but I (eventually) was having fun.

 

[Barbablanca]

Unlike Voran, I was struck for inspiration this week. I know so many great bird songs, but they all seemed to have covered the bases of what I'd like to say about them. Being someone for whom the ability to fly (under our own steam, rather than in an aircraft) would be the greatest addition to human abilities, I could not imagine having that ability and then volunteering to give it up. Of course, like many people, my favourite flightless birds are penguins. So who better to ask about the apparent advantages of giving up flight?

Hope you like my song about these delightful creatures:

 

[lizbrinker]

HI Dave, on Wednesday I remembered that I live on a street named for a bird: Whippoorwill Lane. Here is what I wrote:

On Whippoorwill Lane
Liz Brinker
2022


Lyrics here:
Verse 1
Well, I wake up in the morning, shake the sleep out of my head
Check my phone, check my face, consider going back to bed
‘Course I don’t, because, you know, there is just far too much to do
There is Breakfast to be made, yes, and coffee drinkin’ too
All the things that make this life of mine are swirling ‘round my brain…
It’s the beginning of another busy day…on Whippoorwill Lane

Verse 2
There are lots of friendly neighbors and they’re workin’ all the time
Just a’ comin’ and a’ goin’, then a’ turnin’ on a dime
Can’t forget to pick the kids up from karate class now, Hon,
No, I won’t forget, could you buy some eggs? Looks like we’re down to one…
We’re all puffing and we’re panting trying not to go insane
It’s just the middle of another busy day…on Whippoorwill Lane

Verse 3
Well, all of us seem happy, love the husbands, love the wives
Everyone must tend the yards, chase these picture-perfect lives
The children, they have no idea of the things that lie ahead
They do the homework, take the baths, try not to go to bed
We’ll do it all again tomorrow, sing the same refrain
This is the ending of another busy day…on Whippoorwill Lane

 

[kolibri]

"Chicken Reel" (1910) by Joseph M. Daly. Slow and sleepy chickens...

 

[Canada Jim]

Red-Winged Blackbird- David Francey



These birds dive bomb me often on the Waterfront Trail. Perhaps it's because I come too close to their nests, but I can feel the wind from their wings and sometimes they touch my ear or the back of my head. The bird in David Francey's song seems a lot more pleasant.