Lily The Pink - Repost from 2010

I knew, even back in 1969, that the reference was to Lydia Pinkham's Vegetable Compound. But I didn't know, until I looked it up for this post, that Elton John, Graham Nash, and Jack Bruce were all in the original UK version, or that the song was based on an older one.



As for Lydia, she was from north of Boston, and there is a well-baby clinic with that name in Salem, founded by her daughter. Her 19th C patent medicine for "female complaints" - presumably menstrual discomfort - contained, among many other useless herbs, gentian root, which gives Moxie its distinctive aftertaste. It was also 20% alcohol.

Thus, Jonathan, Mrs. Pinkham's 19th C herbal concoction was the original Whixie.

Post 9300 - Folk Songs

Republished from 2011, inspired by the comments about appropriateness for children under the "Train Songs" post.

I recall when Jonathan, and Ben after were in high school, being a little amused at their private Christian school's repeated stern warnings about the content of rock and other popular music. With me driving them to school, they were listening to folk music, especially Steeleye Span, and exposed constantly to themes of human sacrifice ("Tam Lin"), murder ("Edward," "Long Lankin," and "Lady Diamond"), rape ("Royal Forester"), abandonment (too many to list), infidelity (too many to list), drunkenness (too many to list), smoking ("Think On This"), witchcraft ("Alison Gross," and "King Henry"), grinding poverty, hideous disability, thievery, widowhood, forced labor and transportation, crows eating corpses, insanity, warfare, demons, shipwreck, and infanticide. And some very nice love songs and dance tunes.

Rockers and rappers are complete pikers when it comes to this stuff.

All in all, it may be one of the best parenting moves I ever made. Funny thing.

If An Angel Came To Tea

We had an adult Sunday school class recently that used a Bible Project video about the Elohim as its starting point.  One theme which struck me was that they do not view the events of this world the way that we do.  It likely struck me mostly because I wrote a song on that theme over forty-five years ago when I was in college.  I referenced it ten years ago here, and reprint that below. 

It also fits with my recent thoughts on the spiritual dangers of popular culture, though here the idea is more that such things are extraneous or a distraction.  The song, and some others from the Grail opera, are still up over at Myspace Music, which still exists.  I either never had an account or more likely lost my sign in information, but it's right there on the list. I don't sing or listen to my own music very much.

*****

Another from the Grail Opera. This song is Sir Gawain's, on the eve of his abandoning the quest. In the original design, the quest is described from four points of view, in descending order of spiritual rightness: Galahad, who (along with Sir Bors and Sir Percivale) achieves the Grail, takes communion from it administered by a Christ-figure; Lancelot, who is granted to see the Grail but not partake; Gawain, a plain and decent man with no especial Christian intensity; and Mordred, the villain who holds the quest in contempt and seeks Arthur's throne for his own. Very Once and Future King in its delineation.

I was more a seeker than a believer at the time I wrote this, but the writing of the opera was pivotal in my conversion. I think I might now switch Lancelot and Gawain in the ranking of spiritual fitness. But Galahad remains the one almost unearthly pure and devoted, his faith a rock against which others might dash themselves to destruction.

Gawain explains his decision to the young Percivale, who has grown close to.

Friend and band member Bill Whitman popped in on the night of recording to improvise a second guitar part. I believe he still makes a living in music somewhere near Memphis.

Find more artists like Dave Wyman at Myspace Music

The rumor's around that Sir Galahad
Is a prig, and not quite human
In his actions, reactions.
In answer to this I feel that I had
Better point out a mistake
The knights are showing, unknowing.

You expect him to reply like you
And comment that "The sky is blue
Today." I don't know why we do
For he's just not our kind.

If An Angel Came To Tea would you impress him
With the newest tune that's sung across the land?
Would you tell the local scandals to distress him?
No you couldn't, for he wouldn't understand.

Now Sir Galahad's an angel, or close to it;
The most perfect man in all of Arthur's land.
You demand he keep the common touch all through it
For you won't believe he's not a common man.


The Grail is for saints, I've said it before
And there's only three or four of us
That knew it - can do it.
So I'm going home I seek it no more
And may God forgive my lack
Of resolution, contribution.

It's a hard thing to admit you've lost,
Could not afford the final cost
To pay, and now by winter's frost
I'll be safely in my home.

I have followed my best hopes, but hope is dying.
It was futile, I can see that clearly now.
But I don't begrudge the time I spent in trying,
For just trying was impossible somehow.

So farewell to you, Sir Percy, good luck to you.
I have loved you as I would have loved a son.
I shall your give your best regards to those that knew you,
For your old life dies, your new life has begun.

For I don't believe
You'll be unchanged
And most men can't perceive
An angel - here.

Life Expectancy

I've Got Sixpence

Don't you just know you would like these guys?



HT: cobb

Bună sara lui Crăciun

I think it means "Wonderful Night of Christmas"

O Holy Night

Hark

More of them to come

Romanian Carol

The title means "The most beautiful piece of the concert of Christmas carols."

No, I don't know what the carol is or what it means. Sorry. No Romanians here to tell me.

I'll ask one to tell me.

Bethlehemian Rhapsody

Yardbirds

I am playing my son's team, The Yardbirds, in fantasy football this week.  He's going to beat me badly, so this seems appropriate.




I might be big into keeping track of roots, but it pays to remember...

they really did get better over the years.

Let Simon's Beard Alone

Eugene Volokh reports on violent Amish who shame others who disagree with them by shaving off their beards. Not a satire from The Onion, but real incidents from a really creepy group. In usual fashion, he calls them "fundamentalists," not noting that the group's teachings deviate significantly from traditional Amish beliefs, but that seems typical in secular understanding.

It reminded me of the song "Let Simon's Beard Alone," a folksong that is apparently much more obscure than I realised. It is hard to find much reference to it anywhere, and no one has recorded it to Youtube. But for those interested, the lyrics and sheet music are here. It seems 17th C, maybe a touch earlier.

Hymnal

On The North River, a blog from or near Pembroke, MA, is unhappy with the new UCC hymnal, and the loss of the old Pilgrim Hymnal.

There are many issues tied together here, and best perhaps to separate them as best we can.  Each would be worthy of its own post, I imagine, but I'm not up to that.  I just like the clarity part.

That hymnals need to change and music needs to be updated is hardly up for discussion.  Some churches will be able to maintain a niche market of traditional music for a few decades, but will lose a majority of even the children who grow up there.  Of those who did not grow up with such music, they will attract none.

It is also true that whatever the change is, some people will not like it.  I barely remember the switch to the Pilgrim Hymnal in my childhood Congregational church, probably around 1961, but I remember being in choir in high school in the late 60's and the older members still complaining about it.  I forget why, or what color the previous hymnal was, but I recall that "Holy, Holy, Holy" was hymn #1.  My wife and I went to a Lutheran Church in the 70's and 80's and liked the Red Hymnal (1962) rather well.  The Green hymnal that came in in the 80's was rather PC and chirpy-cheery, but basically okay.  As the complaints came in about it, some of the old Swedes would chuckle about how it was the same when they switched from the Black hymnal (Augustana Synod, 1925) years before.  Some were more than half-serious when they said they still preferred it.  Then, as Covenanters, we were present for the switch from the Red Hymnal to the Blue.  Some of their old Swedes still pine for the old Brown Hymnal.  (Few pine for the interim softbound Silver, though I liked that reasonably well).  Get ahold of one of those denominational hymnals-before-this-one if you doubt the need to update.

More at issue is the quality of what replaces the traditional music.  Granted that people will complain anyway.  Granted that words become archaic and change subtly in meaning over time.  Granted that the emphasis of church thinking from 1850-1950 was not the pinnacle of Christian understanding.  Granted that we should be more alert to not offend with our phrasing, however beautiful.  I get all that.  Much of the new stuff is still crap.  I think we are moving to non-hymnal eras, and that's likely a good thing.  In an instant communicating world, things go out of fashion so quickly that there really isn't much sense in expensively preserving what we thought was hip in 2000, let alone 1980 or 1960.  It is good to preserve much of what has edified and uplifted the saints from 1500-1950.  Nothing to be added to that now - keep the best and move on.  The current age does not consider the ephemeral nature of its songs to be a negative.  Fine.  Let's not preserve it between expensive covers then.  Leave them available on the net and open to the air and let the best survive - rather like the old days, before the 20th C, actually.

Our attachment to particular songs is often not well-tied to good theology, poetry, or music, but to personal experiences and emotions.  There's nothing wrong with that for us personally, but we need to remember that this doesn't make them more valuable for others.  And most of that ain't so great, neither.  "Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved" may be profound, but many of the rest of the verses are pretty dumb.  They scan and rhyme: sun-begun.  Still dumb. Or...

3. Sinners, whose love can ne'er forget
the wormwood and the gall,
Go spread your trophies at his feet,
and crown him Lord of all.

 And that's one of the really good old hymns.  Imagine how you are going to bring in a tribe of even very obedient, devout, and intelligent middle-schoolers and try and build a life-changing theology for their future around such hymns.

Bunǎ Dimineaţa

The song title means "Good Morning."  It is a family joke, as Jonathan uses it as his universal Romanian phrase - not only a greeting, but ordering from a menu, giving directions, telling people his name...mostly because it annoys me, or used to.

The name of the band means Hospital Emergency (you can see that if you take it apart), or idiomatically, The Emergency Room.  Language note:  The ul at the end of the first word is the definite article in Romanian, comparable to el, la, or le in other Romance languages.  Getting stuffed at the end, instead of preceding the word, is how they do it in Slavic languages.  When something is common to diverse languages in an area, it is called Sprachbund, and the postposition of the definite article is a Sprachbund in the Balkans.

What We Didn't See

Getting lost in YouTube again...

Looking through the 60's music for something fun, and I keep coming upon clips from Shindig!  Wait.  They had the Rolling Stones, The Kinks, The Walker Brothers, Petula Clark, Glen Campbell. The Dave Clark 5, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Bobbie Vee - and four other acts ALL ON THE SAME NIGHT??!!  Where was I?  How did I miss this? and Hullabaloo?

They did this week after week.  The guest list at the link, plus this one for Hullabaloo, is simply astounding.  Both shows lasted about a year-and-a-half before being dropped for low ratings.  How could this be?  How were we not glued to this, all of life coming to a halt?  Whoever chose these bands had a magic touch.

Well, it was 1964-66, so that's a partial explanation for me.  I was nearly oblivious to popular music until very late 1965, when I moved to a more suburban, fashion conscious junior high (and the transition from 6th-7th grade was pretty much the dividing line in those days anyway.  7th graders went to dances; that was improper for 6th-graders). In November 1965 I bought my first 45, "California Dreaming" for $0.79 at Manchester Music (directly across from the Red Arrow, which is still there).  It was a line crossed.  Before that, only Hayley Mills and the Green Bay Packers penetrated the from the outside world into mine highly local one.

But the kids just a few years older - why did they not watch?

My theory is that it was caught between generations.  Television viewing was different in those days.  Families had one TV, it was in the living room, and during prime time, what was watched was a negotiated affair.  It was actually a dictatorial affair by parents, but they wanted to have as few arguments in their lives as possible, so they tolerated some kid-only shows and just went elsewhere for 30 minutes.  Not only was Shindig an hour, it was non-stop music they weren't interested in.  They could put up with single performances by rock bands on Ed Sullivan, but a whole hour was just too much.  Worse, some of these bands were not merely music they weren't interested in, but things they actively objected to.  Hair. Electric. Suspiciously bluesy - which would be the wrong kind of black music.

American Bandstand could get away with it, not being in prime time.

Next, check out the MC's and guest hosts on both shows.  They sometimes get it right - the Righteous Brothers, Peter Noone, Barry McGuire - but more often just don't get it: Pat Boone, Trini Lopez.  Many of these were exactly the performers that hippies were sniggering at and trying to get rid of.  They were, like, so uncool, practically Lawrence Welk material.  Suckered the parents in enough to watch, then smack them with the Kinks Girl, you really got me goin'... and after a few tsks and pointed comments from one parent, the other would cross the room "to see what else was on." (Answer:  Shindig's competitors the first year were The Beverley Hillbillies.  Second year, Munsters and Daniel Boone on Thursdays; Flipper and Jackie Gleason on Saturday.  Hullabaloo was up against To Tell the Truth and Twelve O'clock High.  Mom and Dad would have put any of those ahead of the Rolling Stones singing "Heart of Stone."  Paul Anka, okay, maybe.  But not all those dirty-looking bands that can't sing.)

There was another Shindig, BTW.  Scottish, mid 80's.  Also a variety show.  Fascinating if you are interested in 1. The Scots roots of American country dancing - square, reels, contra - performed by men in kilts and women with petticoats.  2. The return influence of American country music on Scottish popular, and/or 3. Well, that's about it, actually. 

Whenever I watch these dances, I think of the line from Tolkien "...and began to dance the Springle-Ring.  A pretty dance, but rather vigorous."

What The World Needs Now

Best parts:

1. How hard is the choreography here?  Except  she can't manage it.
2. At 1:00, watch what happens to the dancers when their platform moves.
3. Listen closely to the lyrics of the second verse.
4. That big pin on the plaid skirt.  I had forgotten those.

Marry, Ageyn Hic Hev Donne Yt

Stick with it until about 2:35, anyway. It suddenly goes all 16th C (see below).

Richard Thompson was a founder of Fairport Convention, the other English electric folk band of the early 70's, and much better known in America than Steeleye Span at the time. I never liked them much, as Sandy Denny's voice was just a little too...something for my taste. The difference has got to be subtle, because it is much like Maddy Prior's.

I never quite forgave Thompson for playing the Joni Mitchell tribute concert, thinking "you need to get out of this." But ethereal voice, unusual tunings, I suppose I can see how you'd have to be on board with Joni if you're Richard. Some magazine - it may have been Playboy - asked popular musicians in the early 2000's what the "top popular songs of the millennium" had been. Everyone else stretched their musical knowledge back a few decades, or maybe a century. They may not have known what a millennium was, or had little idea of history. When I sang old folk songs years ago, many people, even ones you would think quite savvy, had a category "old music" in their brains that covered everything from Depression-era bluegrass backward. They might have the additional bit of knowledge that "Greensleeves" was really old.

Thompson took it seriously and did an entire album on it, starting with Sumer is icumen in. (A song which gave rise to my best literary off-the-cuff joke ever - incredibly brilliant - but gets completely ruined by having to explain it. The punch line is "Loude sing Marcoux." See, that doesn't help you any, does it?) Here's a Fairport Convention tune from the last album he did with them, and the only one I was familiar with until years later.

When I Fall

I think this was the first popular song that troubled Ben.  The first he mentioned out loud, anyway, that he had read the lyrics and saw the import, and wondered why no one else seemed to be noticing.  I chose this version for that reason - the audience reaction doesn't fit the song sometimes, and you wonder. Don't they know?

Frida Surprises

Hang on through this. She has clearly had training, and could have done comic opera quite well.

Reunion

Manchester HS Central, class of 1971, meets twice Saturday, for breakfast and then evening. We have about 100 from a class of 424. There are a few I am expecting, because they have been at previous reunions, and others I have wild hope for, even though they have never come. Probably only one person I am hoping is not there, and she lives over 1000 miles away now, so she's unlikely.

If you are visiting for the first time, I think you can get almost the whole sense of things with the last 30 days of posts. Except there are no ABBA, flamingo, or meerkat posts, all of which I threw in to drive up traffic over the years. Against all standards of proper late 60's freak coolness, I have become grudgingly fond of ABBA (no harm in being fond of Meerkats, I tdon't think). What started as irony has become affection.

Actually this sorta looks like meerkats at a reunion. That's me second from left.