Season 562 - Poetry in Song

[LimousinLil]

Well ... I done it! This is for you, Rob ... I dared! (Very many thanks for the week, Joo ... I'm sorry I couldn't participate more.)

 

[joo]

A Brian Moses poem called Mobile Phone, which I set to music today.
With Jensen and Gylan on occasional harmonies.
This poem is taken from the book Barking Back at Dogs, published in 2000 by Macmillan Children's Books.

Mobile Phone
Hi! It's me, I'm on my mobile phone, I thought I'd give you a call to say I'm coming back home.
And I know I've got nothing important to say, but this is my new toy and I love to play...

On my mobile phone, my mobile phone, wherever I go I take my mobile phone.

Because without my phone I'm not really here. I need a mobile phone strapped to my ear.
On the peace and quiet of a country walk, in a crowded train I just love to talk...

On my mobile phone, my mobile phone, wherever I go I take my mobile phone.

And I love to watch people watching me and thinking how important I must be,
making so many calls and talking so much with everybody wanting me to keep in touch...

On my mobile phone, my mobile phone, wherever I go I take my mobile phone.

And I'm treated well by the phone company they love sending all their bills to me,
Big, big bills that cost me a lot but I don't care, I'm a real big shot...

On my mobile phone, my mobile phone, wherever I go I take my mobile phone.

 

[joo]

Well ... I done it! This is for you, Rob ... I dared! (Very many thanks for the week, Joo ... I'm sorry I couldn't participate more.)

 

[cua94]

Here is my entry:

 

[jtsteam]

Here's the Bob Dylan song I promised/threatened last night. I did all the verses in the end... I didn't want to take any out in case it changed the meaning. Not that I have any idea what the meaning is...

 

[joo]

I hope everyone is well, having a nice day or evening.

Here is today's wrap up -

John (One Man And HIs Uke) - Woodland Burial - reading of a Pam Ayres poem
What a beautiful and comforting poem. I am so moved by it. That gentle background music is so gorgeous. And your accent makes the words sound so lovely. Great reading, John! That IS a magical place. Nice to see your doggie in the video too! Everything makes this very very beautiful. Thank you.

Joo - Making A Poem, a Roger Stevens poem set to music
Nice uke, nice song, sweet poem. not so sweet kiss. But I still like. 😍

Val covers (They're changing guard at) Buckingham Palace, poem by A.A. Milne set to music by Harold Fraser-Simson
Made my day seeing this delightful video from you, Val! Love that little marching drumbeat, just gives such a sweet little background sound to this. You don't look greenish, the wall behind does have a slight greenish tinge, which actually brings out your lovely colour. You sing this so nicely; I especially like how you sing the last words of the verses by letting them hang on for a while, then softly fade off. I notice Kevin Griffin does that too, and Ila, and many others who sing very well-they all do that. And your pono tenor sounds very rich and gorgeous. Thanks so much for this, it makes me smile. :---D

Rob - I Wrote the Songs, a John Cooper Clarke poem set to music using a JJ Karjalainen tune
ooh i love this so much!!! (i just love your videos, i love love love them) Also, neatly folded towels! And you making the camera work very hard focusing! I love the blurring and re-focussing, very cool! You should make a video letting the camera re-focus again and again... JCC is awesome, and so are you!

Pa - One Trick Pony, an original poem set to music
Just when you think a bag of tricks is sad enough, this pony has only 1...and "Impaled on the merry go round" As if being impaled is not enough, and of all places a merry go round. Powerful image. Great poem, Brian! Thank you so much!

Berni - The Dying of the Light, an original song inspired by Dylan Thomas's poem, Do No Go Gentle into That Good Night
LOVE this, Berni!!! and WOW!!! The Pere Flipat version is so awesome! Everything about it! Yes I am shouting here! Thank you for including the link to your band, great stuff. (i suddenly have a thought that Lynda will do a fantastic cover of this) Love the sound of your Baton Rouge 8-string. Thanks so much for bringing this awesome song, I absolutely love it!!! We need more Berni Armstrongs!!!!

Bob - The Equalizer, "an old traditional poem set to music".
hahahaha! I rewinded the "Edward Woodward would' part so many times, laughed out loud every time!!!! hahaha. I love this, even though -1. I have never watched The Equalizer. 2. I did not know Edward Woodward (I still don't). It was so nice to hear your "reading" voice, Bobby, and you are quite a funny man! This is very very funny! I hope I never have to read this poem...i don't think I can do it.

Val - I Like To Have a Martini, a quote from poet Dorothy Parker, set to music
just an excuse to have a martini, right?????😜

Joo - Mobile Phone, a poem by Brian Moses set to music
sack those 2 boys singing harmonies!

Liz (cua94) brings Auld Lang Syne, a traditional with a Robert Burns poem
Hi Liz! Great choice! This really suits you. Your Ohana looks and sounds lovely, so does your voice. I hope you are having a nice day today. Wonderful weekend to you and hope to hear and see you again very soon! (The Seasons has 2 more days to go!)

Joo covers Geoffrey Chaucer used words like F and C, a song by John (One Man And His Uke), in exaggerated Singaporean accent
(I actually did this for another season, but no one watched it, so I am bringing the torture back again😛)

Edwin covers Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again by Bob Dylan
I salute you, Edwin!!! Thank you so much for bringing the whole song! It has to be all or nothing. I don't find this too long at all. This is so awesome. I am so moved and impressed by this submission. And thanks for your encouragement and support!

THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR YOUR SONGS!!!
Keep them coming!!!

 

[wee_ginga_yin]

Well ... I done it! This is for you, Rob ... I dared! (Very many thanks for the week, Joo ... I'm sorry I couldn't participate more.)

Valerie thank for going the extra mile and making a sublime effort by putting on a show accent and all... you channelled Dorothy perfectly.👌👍

 

[wee_ginga_yin]

I had to do speech therapy as practice too learn to talk again and the speech therapist give me poems to read. I discovered a poet called Julie Sheldon who wrote poems during the covid lockdown and this is one called the same boat. The video is of my grandchildren swimming across the lake at our summer House. It is a challenge their grandmother sets every year... it is a 800 yards swim. Just a recitation with a tinkling piano.

 

[AlanDP]

This is an old poem by William Makepeace Thackeray. I like the first part best, where he's describing the little room where he likes to visit with his friends. The last part is about a woman who visited there once and who he fell in love with. My favorite line is the one about the "murderous knife."

The Cane-Bottom’d Chair
BY WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY

In tattered old slippers that toast at the bars,
And a ragged old jacket perfumed with cigars,
Away from the world and its toils and its cares,
I’ve a snug little kingdom up four pair of stairs.

To mount to this realm is a toil, to be sure,
But the fire there is bright and the air rather pure;
And the view I behold on a sunshiny day
Is grand through the chimney-pots over the way.

This snug little chamber is cramm’d in all nooks
With worthless old nicknacks and silly old books,
And foolish old odds and foolish old ends,
Crack’d bargains from brokers, cheap keepsakes from friends.

Old armour, prints, pictures, pipes, china (all crack’d),
Old rickety tables, and chairs broken-backed;
A twopenny treasury, wondrous to see;
What matter? ’tis pleasant to you, friend, and me.

No better divan need the Sultan require,
Than the creaking old sofa that basks by the fire;
And ’tis wonderful, surely, what music you get
From the rickety, ramshackle, wheezy spinet.

That praying-rug came from a Turcoman’s camp;
By Tiber once twinkled that brazen old lamp;
A Mameluke fierce yonder dagger has drawn:
’Tis a murderous knife to toast muffins upon.

Long, long through the hours, and the night, and the chimes,
Here we talk of old books, and old friends, and old times;
As we sit in a fog made of rich Latakie
This chamber is pleasant to you, friend, and me.

But of all the cheap treasures that garnish my nest,
There’s one that I love and I cherish the best:
For the finest of couches that’s padded with hair
I never would change thee, my cane-bottom’d chair.

'Tis a bandy-legg'd, high-shoulder'd, worm-eaten seat,
With a creaking old back, and twisted old feet;
But since the fair morning when Fanny sat there,
I bless thee and love thee, old cane-bottom'd chair.

If chairs have but feeling, in holding such charms,
A thrill must have pass'd through your wither'd old arms!
I look'd, and I long'd, and I wish'd in despair;
I wish'd myself turn'd to a cane-bottom'd chair.

It was but a moment she sate in this place,
She'd a scarf on her neck, and a smile on her face!
A smile on her face, and a rose in her hair,
And she sate there, and bloom'd in my cane-bottom'd chair.

And so I have valued my chair ever since,
Like the shrine of a saint, or the throne of a prince;
Saint Fanny, my patroness sweet I declare,
The queen of my heart and my cane-bottom'd chair.

When the candles burn low, and the company's gone,
In the silence of night as I sit here alone—
I sit here alone, but we yet are a pair—
My Fanny I see in my cane-bottom'd chair.

She comes from the past and revists my room;
She looks as she then did, all beauty and bloom;
So smiling and tender, so fresh and so fair,
And yonder she sits in my cane-bottom'd chair.

 

[joo]

I set this to music just now. I played a laminated ebony baritone ukulele by Tanglewood, with Aquila strings. I love the sound and look of the wood (it is strangely much heavier than any other baritone ukes I have handled). The tuners are quite problematic, causing buzzing frequently, but I always have my screwdrivers nearby.

An excerpt from Raymond Carver's poem, In Switzerland, from Where Water Comes Together with Other Water (1985).

All of us, all of us, all of us
trying to save
our immortal souls, some ways
seemingly more round-
about and mysterious
than others. We're having
a good time here. But hope
all will be revealed soon.

The 2 paintings are by me.

 

[joo]

A cover of a song written by Lou Reed, from his album The Raven, released on January 28, 2003 by Sire Records. It is a concept album, recounting the short stories and poems of Edgar Allan Poe through word and song, and was based on his 2000 opera co-written with Robert Wilson, POEtry.

I'm a little balloon and I get puffed up
Squeeze me and bend me it's never enough
Put your lips around me, blow me up
But if you prick me I will pop

I'm a little balloon full and firm
Here is my aft and here is my stern
Here's my lips and here's my hose
Put me down or I will burst
If you prick me I will burst

Val's comments for this video made me laugh. I took a screen shot to share.

 

[wee_ginga_yin]

Them moose goosers another Mason Williams poem.

 

[Arcy]

In honor of the "Jumping Flea", here is Ogden Nash's "Fleas"

This probably should have been played on the reentrant soprano, but the ambien baritone was in reach. This is a cedar-topped Kala which I ordered in the middle of the night without knowing I had done so until I got the shipping email. That was the last time I took Ambian, and there have been no further incidents. Fortunately I like this one and it quickly became my favorite uke.

 

[Arcy]

And because it's always been one of my favorites, here is Ogden Nash's "The Llama"

 

[joo]

Seeing everyone moving to John's Season made me pen this haiku -

Looking for a name,
Left me alone in my game -
Feeling abandoned.
😅


Thanks to Rob, Alan and Arcy for your entries! I really enjoyed them!

I will not do my daily wrap-up today since there are only a few entries. I will wait for more songs to come in.

There is still 1 more day to go. Keep the songs coming!!!

Here is a little video I made today. Not an entry.
A recording of an improvisation with my little nephew Gylan sometime in June.
He was picking the rhythm; I played the melody and sang out random words from a few books and brochures. Then I added some harmonies. The video is a footage of Gylan spinning a torch, he must be around 3 here.

 

[UkingViking]

I have to throw in the towel on that clawhammer inspired Poe rendition I was working on, I realize that I bit of more than I could chew 😅.
Sorry to miss yet another week. I keep finding songs but not the time to learn them :-/

 

[Jim Yates]

Take This Waltz - Leonard Cohen

The song's lyrics are a loose translation, into English, of the poem Pequeño vals vienés (Little Viennese Waltz) by the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca (one of Cohen's favorite poets). The poem was first published in Lorca's seminal book Poeta en Nueva York.
I'm not sure how close I got the tune to Cohen's, but time is running out.

Thanks for a great job of hosting this Season Joo.

 

[joo]

I have to throw in the towel on that clawhammer inspired Poe rendition I was working on, I realize that I bit of more than I could chew 😅.
Sorry to miss yet another week. I keep finding songs but not the time to learn them :-/

Hi Mikkel! Thanks for checking in. I have done that a lot too! I will look forward to your posts in another Season?!
actually, lemme take out that question mark. See and hear you soon!
😀

 

[joo]

Take This Waltz - Leonard Cohen

The song's lyrics are a loose translation, into English, of the poem Pequeño vals vienés (Little Viennese Waltz) by the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca (one of Cohen's favorite poets). The poem was first published in Lorca's seminal book Poeta en Nueva York.
I'm not sure how close I got the tune to Cohen's, but time is running out.

Thanks for a great job of hosting this Season Joo.

Thank you for your entry and your lovely words, Jim!
I am at work now and I will enjoy this later during break!

 

[One Man And His Uke]

Seeing everyone moving to John's Season made me pen this haiku -

Looking for a name,
Left me alone in my game -
Feeling abandoned.
😅


Thanks to Rob, Alan and Arcy for your entries! I really enjoyed them!

I will not do my daily wrap-up today since there are only a few entries. I will wait for more songs to come in.

There is still 1 more day to go. Keep the songs coming!!!

Here is a little video I made today. Not an entry.
A recording of an improvisation with my little nephew Gylan sometime in June.
He was picking the rhythm; I played the melody and sang out random words from a few books and brochures. Then I added some harmonies. The video is a footage of Gylan spinning a torch, he must be around 3 here.

Do not feel sad Joo
For we will look after you.
Here, have this haiku.