Saturday 30 January 2016

Starting Point 1948: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

POST #117                                                                    
PARODY-LYRICS with setting of original document to music 
ORIGINAL SONG"Born Free", Matt Monro, 1966
ORIGINAL DOCUMENT: United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 1 , 1948. * 
PARODY COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, January 2016.

KEYWORDS:  goldenoldy


* "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood." 


STARTING POINT 1948

(to the tune of "Born Free" - these first 4 verses fit best with the melody of the 2nd and 3rd verse of the original)

All human beings are born free,
Of dignity worthy
And equal in basic fact.
Endowed with reason and goodness
A spirit of brotherhood
Should motivate their acts.

Tous les êtres humains naissent libres
En droits ils sont égaux
Ainsi qu’en dignité
Doués de conscience et de raison
Ils doivent se comporter dans
Un esprit de fraternité.

Todos los seres humanos nacen libres
En derechos están iguales
Y también en dignidad
Dotados de razón y conciencia
Deben comportarse
Con ánimo de hermandad.

Vse ljudi rozhdayutsya svobodnymi
Dostoyny uvazheniya
I ravnymi v osnovnykh pravakh
Nadelennyy prichine I dobra
Dukh bratstva
Mozhet vdokhnovit’ svoi deystviya.

(sing to verse#1 pattern of the original song, then continue )
Some schemed, six decades before us
Their voices implore us
Hold course until we’re all free.


Their world had huge imperfections
They craved free elections,
Disbanding of colonies.

East, West: great walls did divide them
And victims of apartheid -
Disparities so wide.

Dreamed free, they helped us to get there
Their efforts we’ll all share
‘Til we’re ‘born free’.

(Instrumental bridge)

They dreamed of our works-in-progress
Abuses to be redressed
Whatever race or sect.

They framed a great Declaration
To challenge each nation -
We’re all born free.



Performing Notes

[G] All hu[C]man beings are [G] born free [C]
Of dignity [Bm] worthy, and [Am7] equal  in basic [D] fact  [D7] 
[Am] Endowed [D7] with reason and [Em] goodness[Em7]
A spirit of [Em7b5] brotherhood
Should [A#dim7] motivate their [D7sus] acts. [D7] 



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Friday 22 January 2016

Multi-Cultural Chestnut: I Dreamed I'd Teach The World To Sing

POST #115
PARODY-LYRICS
ORIGINAL SONG"I'd Like To Teach the World To Sing", 1971, adapted by the New Seekers from the iconic commercial.
PARODY COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, January 2016.

KEYWORDS: goldenoldy, multicultural

I DREAMED I'D TEACH THE WORLD TO SING

(to the tune of "I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing")

I dreamed I'd teach the world to sing
This multicultural song
But couldn't access You-Tube files
To learn to sing along. 
"Hilltop" TV ad, 1971.

Don Draper's real-world colleague
Scribbled what was later spoke
In Nineteen Seventy-One; he hoped 
'To buy the world a Coke'.  

Songwriters dubbed, and flubbed the song
"True Love and Apple Pie",
But when they filmed the "Hilltop" ad
Awards started to fly.

New Seekers somehow got the rights,
DeCoked the English words
But other people 'round the globe - 
Still need their voices heard.

These days we should be welcoming
Ethnic diversity 
With sentiments that echo from
That shoot in Italy.

I'd like to sing that hilltop song
Each language gets one verse,
So Google-Translate fills the gap
For better or for worse.

(It's the song I dream)
Please submit a verse
Help contribute today - 
An appeal-thing!

So, to get started, here's the 2nd verse of the iconic song in a spectrum of available languages. (I will admit that these choices appear Eurocentric; also I don't know if I have gotten past all the stumbling-blocks associated with the online software) .....

Portuguese
Quero ensinar o mundo a cantar
Em harmonia perfeita,
Eu quero segurá-la em meus braços
E mantê-la como companheira.
Esperanto
Mi celas instrui al la mondo kanti
En perfekta harmonio,
Mi volas teni ĝin en miaj brakoj
Kaj festu gxin kiel kunulo.
Polish
Chciałbym nauczyć świat śpiewać
W doskonałej harmonii,
Chcę trzymać go w moich ramionach
I zachować go jako towarzysza
Swedish
Jag skulle vilja lära världen att sjunga
I perfekt harmoni,
Jag vill hålla det i mina armar
Och hålla det som en följeslagare.
Irish
Déanaim iarracht a mhúineadh an domhan
A chanadh i chéile foirfe,
Ba mhaith liom é a choimeád i mo lámha
Agus é a choinneáil mar chompánach.

Comments on the attempted translations (they all need some polishing), and further 'submissions' are welcome!


PERFORMING NOTES

I [C] dreamed I'd teach the world to sing
This [D7] multicultural song
But [G7] couldn't access You-Tube files
To [F] learn to sing a[C]long. 







Friday 8 January 2016

A Late-Days-of-Christmas Song: AVITAMINOSES

POST #114
This blogpost is dedicated to E.D., with best holiday wishes, December 2017.

PARODY-LYRICS
ORIGINAL SONG"The Twelve Days of Christmas", traditional carol, of English or possibly French origin, published in its current known form by Frederic Austin 1909.
PARODY COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, January, 2016.

KEYWORDS: traditional, holidaysong, medical

This parody-song is just in time for the end of Twelvetide.  Recently there has been some emphasis on the excessive use of multi-vitamin supplementation pills in the general population. But, many of our processed foods are already enriched with these essential chemical nutrients, and freedom from vitamin-deficiency diseases (avitaminoses), such as rickets, beriberi and pellagra is a gift for all mankind.
The pronunciation of the chemical names is a bit difficult, and for some of them, alteration from the typical was necessary to fit the meter of the original; these instances have been flagged by capital letters indicating the vowels which require unusual emphasis; e.g. ribOflavin, pEllagra. 
The bracketed material is included for edification and for comparison with the original lyrics, and is not meant to be sung. In the second verse, (?)indicates cases in which a clinical deficiency state is not certain.  

THE AVITAMINOSES

(to the tune of "The Twelve Days of Christmas"- final verse)

Twelve funky diet factors,
Funk named them vitamine *:
(12.) Ascorbic Acid (vit C)
(11.) Retinol’s good for vision (vit A)
(10.) Cholecalcif’rol (vit D)
(9.) Alpha-tocoph’rol (vit E)
(8.) K – phylloquinone (vit K)
(7.) Hydroxo-cobal’min (vit B12)
(6.) Then, Folic Acid (vit B9)
(5.) Next, bIOtIn  (vit B7)
(4.) PantOthenate (vit B5)
(3.) Niacin (vit B3)
(2.) RibOflavin (vit B2)
(1.) And the first ‘B’ known as ThiamIne (vit B1)

For each vitamin, twelve-odd,
Its lack will cause disease:
C-lack gives scurvy
A-absence gives night blindness
Rickets and fractures (vit D)
‘Oxidative damage’? (Vit E)
K-lack gives bleeding
C. Eijkman 1929
Nobel Prize in Physiology
discovery of anti-neuritic factor (B1):
commemorative stamp 
Anemia pernicious (vit B12)
Fetal malformations (vit B9)
Low fertIl-I-tY? (vit B7)
NeurOpathy? (vit B5)
PEllagra (vit B3)
Amplifies B3 (vit B2)
Brain disorders and beriberI. (vit B1)

(Outro)
A dozen Nobel Prizes
Awards in Chemistry,
And Med’cine and Physiology.

* Casimir Funk, working to elaborate the 'antineuritic' property of rice bran for potential therapeutic use in beriberi, isolated a substance that he called 'vitamine' as it contained an amino- chemical group.  






HOTLINKS TO OTHER MEDICAL-THEMED SONG-POSTINGS
Avitaminoses (see below)
...AND A FEW LIMERICK-BASED SONGS
Singable Limerick-Medley #17: Nuclear Cardiology
Singable Limerick-Medley #20: Medical Imaging


UKULELE-FRIENDLY FORMAT
(Click on any chord-chart slide to move to 'song-presentation mode'; then navigate through thumbnails at bottom of page.)