Showing posts with label Ballads. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ballads. Show all posts
Friday, January 26, 2018
Monday, July 25, 2016
Overread at the Counter: A Fragment of a Ballad
MR, the Z&T Acoustic Café's Poet-in-Residence, has been listening to a lot of old English and Scottish Ballads lately (he has found his copy of Francis Child's Ballads - Volume 5, I believe) and he left this scribbling on the back of a napkin on the counter. The barista found it after he had left to go to his afternoon job, and instead of tossing it in the waste bin she gave it to me to keep for posterity. One day it might actually be worth its weight in gold! (all .000003 ounces!)
The gloom lies over the glen this night
The moon hides behind a veil of grey
The fog rests deep and quiet guides the way
Through the gloom of the glen this night.
MR 2016-0725
Saturday, May 4, 2013
Up on the Vid Screen, playing across the room
A most absolutely casi perfecto version of "The Twa Corbies" - it's amazing this thing doesn't have a million listens . . .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lXdH-LDqqY\
(the pic may not link, but the link should link.
Sorry for any technical difficulties . . . but definitely search for " Twa Corbies" by George Harvey and Grant Foster - this version has the most haunting aura that perfectly suits this song)
(the pic may not link, but the link should link.
Sorry for any technical difficulties . . . but definitely search for " Twa Corbies" by George Harvey and Grant Foster - this version has the most haunting aura that perfectly suits this song)
Saturday, March 2, 2013
Overheard at the Counter: Song of the Day
The song for March 2, 2013 is
Van Halen
Could This Be Magic?
Van Halen's version of a pub ballad. Shows fantastic acoustic guitar work by Eddie, who - don't laugh now - would have made a fantastic classical guitarist. I can imagine him playing anything by Tárrega ... I can hear his rapid fire style just bringing those pieces to new fire!
MR says, "OK Verble if you stop doing my job, here, and lemme gittdownta bizness, I got some lines you want me to penscribe here, so . . .
If I told you I sailed out tomorrow,
Would your eyes they fill with such sorrow
That you would bring me a beer
And sit beside me, my dear,
And present me your maidenhead to borrow?
[a pause a the café]
Verble: That's terrible!
MR: Wha - !
Verble: "maidenhead to borrow." You don't borrow a maidenhead - you take it -
Lucky Moran: . . . and for a limerick it doesn't scan at ALL.
MR: What do you know?! Philistine! The narrator is ASKING to borrow it - that don' make no pretense that izz actually real. He knowzzit - but the GIRL don' knowzzit! See?
Verble: I don't care. I'm not paying you for that.
MR: You never payzme anywayz!
Verble: [walking to the back] Still doesn't scan right.
MR: [mimicking] 'still duzznt scan right' - everybuddy's a critic!
Lucky: Well, he's right. Here. Run it by me again . . .
Otis Redwing: If you wanna turn it into a pub ballad, you could give it a refrain, something like "Sail away with someone's daughter"
Lucky: Dude - that's part of the song.
Otis: Hey, don't get bent. I'M not the poet here - HE is! and right now it looks like he's chewing the counter.
The Barista comes down the counter with a rag and a new mocha and says, "As Oscar Wilde once wrote 'a poet can survive anything but a misprint'"
Van Halen
Could This Be Magic?
Van Halen's version of a pub ballad. Shows fantastic acoustic guitar work by Eddie, who - don't laugh now - would have made a fantastic classical guitarist. I can imagine him playing anything by Tárrega ... I can hear his rapid fire style just bringing those pieces to new fire!
MR says, "OK Verble if you stop doing my job, here, and lemme gittdownta bizness, I got some lines you want me to penscribe here, so . . .
If I told you I sailed out tomorrow,
Would your eyes they fill with such sorrow
That you would bring me a beer
And sit beside me, my dear,
And present me your maidenhead to borrow?
[a pause a the café]
Verble: That's terrible!
MR: Wha - !
Verble: "maidenhead to borrow." You don't borrow a maidenhead - you take it -
Lucky Moran: . . . and for a limerick it doesn't scan at ALL.
MR: What do you know?! Philistine! The narrator is ASKING to borrow it - that don' make no pretense that izz actually real. He knowzzit - but the GIRL don' knowzzit! See?
Verble: I don't care. I'm not paying you for that.
MR: You never payzme anywayz!
Verble: [walking to the back] Still doesn't scan right.
MR: [mimicking] 'still duzznt scan right' - everybuddy's a critic!
Lucky: Well, he's right. Here. Run it by me again . . .
Otis Redwing: If you wanna turn it into a pub ballad, you could give it a refrain, something like "Sail away with someone's daughter"
Lucky: Dude - that's part of the song.
Otis: Hey, don't get bent. I'M not the poet here - HE is! and right now it looks like he's chewing the counter.
The Barista comes down the counter with a rag and a new mocha and says, "As Oscar Wilde once wrote 'a poet can survive anything but a misprint'"
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Overread at Table 1: Ballad "Hiram Hibbard"
Interested I was in the version by Among the Oak and Ash, I wanted to know more about the ballad "Hiram Hibbard." Can't really find much of anything online, except that it was also done by Bob Dylan in 1963, with some different verses.
The more detailed is a blog post (link http://mbmonday.blogspot.com/2012/05/hiram-hubbard-hiram-hubbert.html#!/2012/05/hiram-hubbard-hiram-hubbert.html)
That has some good historical narrative of the song. Apparently it dates back to the Civil War, but I really still prefer the treatment by Among the Oak and Ash, who make the song sound like a lynching. The way I interpret it, this is not so much a murder ballad as a treastise on post Civil WAr race relations in America, as well as the ability to administer immediate so-called "justice" which often amounted to community-endorsed murder based on fabricated evidence, if they even bothered with evidence at all.
I'll need to research further, to find out more.
I think the Americana duo S and M are planning to cover this one for a future album.
The more detailed is a blog post (link http://mbmonday.blogspot.com/2012/05/hiram-hubbard-hiram-hubbert.html#!/2012/05/hiram-hubbard-hiram-hubbert.html)
That has some good historical narrative of the song. Apparently it dates back to the Civil War, but I really still prefer the treatment by Among the Oak and Ash, who make the song sound like a lynching. The way I interpret it, this is not so much a murder ballad as a treastise on post Civil WAr race relations in America, as well as the ability to administer immediate so-called "justice" which often amounted to community-endorsed murder based on fabricated evidence, if they even bothered with evidence at all.
I'll need to research further, to find out more.
I think the Americana duo S and M are planning to cover this one for a future album.
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