Songs That Tell Stories

My word, edgar, My mom loved "hoppy". What a great tribute.

Poetry in a song.

Robert "Lee" Frost. He was named after Robert E. Lee just as I was.



Nothing Gold Can Stay

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zm2wKrR2uOU&feature=related

I got to see Hoppy in a parade. One of the great moments of my childhood.
The Robert Frost poem is timely, I think. Thanks.

This song is such a great story I have to post it again.
Thanks to ragman for finding this live version by Tom Rush



Urge for Going-Joni Mitchell (sung by Tom Rush)

I woke up today and found snow perched on the ground
It hovered in a frozen sky and gobbled summer down
So when the leaves were trembling
Frozen trees were standing in a lonely row

I get the urge for going but I never seem to go
And I get the urge for going when the meadow grass is turning brown
And summertime is falling down and winter's moving in

I had a love in summertime with summer-colored skin
And not another one in town my darling's heart could win
But when the sky turned traitor cold
And bully winds did rub their noses in the snow

She got the urge for going and I had to let her go
And she got the urge for going when the meadow grass was turning brown
Summertime was falling down and winter's moving in

The warriors of winter gave a cold triumphant shout
Now all that dies is staying and all that lives is getting out
See the geese in chevron flight
Flurrying and flapping through the naked sky

They got the urge for going
They've got the wings to fly
They get the urge for going when the meadow grass is turning brown
And summertime is falling down and winter's moving in

I'll ply the fire with kindling and pull the blankets to my chin
I'll lock the vagrant winter out and bolt my wandering in
I'd like to call back summertime
And ask her just to stay another month or so

But she got the urge for going
I guess she'll have to go
And she got the urge for going when the meadow grass was turning brown
Summertime is falling down and winter's moving in
And she got the urge for going when the meadow grass was turning brown
All my empires are fallen down and winter's moving in

I really like the lyrics, panz.

Here is a song of a sailor leaving his love behind and she's hurt and angry. Sung by the BBC folksinger of the year, June Tabor, backed by oysterband at the BBC Folk Music Awards which they swept. Here they outdo the Chieftains as a chamber folk group. Good picture: after all, this is the BBC and not someone's phone.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwhFWiJUPdI&feature=autoplay&list=PL21B9EE45BD20F79B&lf=plpp_play_all&playnext=26

Good one - Jean Tabor

I always loved this song but unrequited love is such a great source of inspiration.

For me it was all about the seasons; the summer romances by the community pool that ended when the leaves began to fall.

This may be the only Dory Previn song that most people know. For me, it is profoundly feminist. It is a song that I have relied on through several difficult periods of my life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHm6CPh6mIQ

Good song, pom, it is the one I remember from Dory that I used to play in my radio days. I was folding and putting away laundry tonight, and I HATE doing laundry, so I put it off for a long time and have a LOT of folding to do when I do, so played June Tabor and ob's prize winner "Ragged Kingdom" twice thru, and, yes, it reinforces why we like them so much. Was looking to post a video of "(When I Was But) Sweet Sixteen", a great acapella version, but apparently no one has made a video of them doing it, or them doing Dylan's "7 Curses", so was debating which other song of theirs to post here (which I will probably do next time), but started following where the music led, running thru the Red Hook Ramblers (young trad jazz band from Red Hook, the hip music and arts neighborhood in Brooklyn), to Archie Fisher (whom I've also gotta post), and ending up by chance with this one: Anita Carter of the Nashville Carter/Cash family, doing a song that I loved by Joan Baez, from I think her second album, which dates back to France, 1780. Berlioz orchestrated a version of it, a sweet love song with a lovely simple melody, followed by Brigitte Bardot singing the original French version. Who knew she could sing?

Well, edgar, you know how I love that one.

Here's the musical about Robert Browning and Elizabeth B. Browning.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gfEnzQuQos&feature=related

I had heard of that musical, letty, but this was the first time I heard any music from it.

I saw Marcia Ball last night, the born-in-Texas, grew-up-with-the Cajuns-in Louisiana, blues singer and piano player, at the Somerville Theatre, and she sang this song on solo piano as her encore. I don't know if it's about her family or not, but she certainly made it her own, and I know the story it tells is the one that has affected a lot of folks in Louisiana. And, to get a bit political, it's just another reason I cannot possibly vote for any one of the "drill, baby, drill" Republicans. Damned short-sighted fools to rape the land and the people this way.



Marcia Ball - “This Used To Be Paradise” Lyrics

My grandaddy was a fisherman
Lived on the water more than the land
He could tell the seasons by the turn of the tide
I grew up right by his side
He was a proud cajun and he worked real hard
The atchafalaya basin was his front yard
I can hear him saying with a tear in his eye
This used to be paradise
This used to be paradise

Brown pelicans and sac au lait
Big salty oysters and alligators
So many fish they would jump in your boat
Throw in a line and that’s all she wrote
We had a little house on high ground
Cypress trees all around
Good living, peace and quiet
This used to be paradise
This used to be paradise

Then one day the oil man came
He gave us jobs and everything changed
We still run our boats and we drag our nets
But every day we get less and less and less

I guess you can’t stop the way that time goes by
But I can’t think of any reason why
They had to come and take our way of life
Now we don’t know if we can even survive
They took the very land our house was on
And the shrimp and the pelicans, they’re just hanging on
It’s a damned shame to make an old man cry
This used to be paradise
This used to be paradise
This used to be paradise
This used to be paradise

My grandaddy was a fisherman

Great one, M.J. My daddy was a fisherman.

A poem that tells a story.



Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

By the shores of Gitche Gumee,
By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,
Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.
Dark behind it rose the forest,
Rose the black and gloomy pine-trees,
Rose the firs with cones upon them;
Bright before it beat the water,
Beat the clear and sunny water,
Beat the shining Big-Sea-Water.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7fFQZrgtls&feature=related

There is another series I have been listening to on youtube, about the Song of Hiawatha. It is wonderful, just as this one is also, letty. Walt Disney at one time planned a feature length film of Longfellow's poem, but never got around to it. He did compromise by the release of the following short cartoon.