Friday 30 June 2017

A Swing-Era Iconic Tune ("Satin Doll") Reborn: "LATIN CAT'S STRUT"

Post #145
PARODY LYRICS
ORIGINAL SONG: "Satin Doll". Music written in 1953 by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, lyrics composed years later by Johnny Mercer. Recorded by Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, etc. The second verse of the original lyrics contain the words ... "Speaks Latin, my satin doll."  
PARODY COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, July 2017. 


TECHNICAL NOTES: The call 'switcherooney' at the end of the chorus has become an indispensable part of the lyrics of this song which appears to switch keys, but was written to end in the key of C.
For ease of singing, I have transposed it up a half-octave. The present version also shows the embellishment of the chords (9th to 7th) at the end of each verse, and has a few other chord enhancements.

SONG LINKS:  A 4-verse poetry collage in limerick form, originally published at OEDILF.com by Giorgio provided the thematic basis for this song. Transposed to music, the singable limericks are found on the present blog at post #138,  "The Delights of Anglo-Latin". 
For Giorgio's other songs about Latin, see post #26 and post #91.  























Wednesday 28 June 2017

Wordplay Song for Canada Day: THIS LAND HAS ANAGRAMS

Post #144
PARODY LYRICS
ORIGINAL SONG: "This Land Is My Land" 1956, The Travellers, with Canadian lyrics adapted from Woody Guthrie's 1940 American-based protest song.
PARODY COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, June 2017.
WORDPLAY LINKS: The imaginary Canadian place-names derived from anagrams are found in 2 collections of Scramble-Town Maps on our sister-blog "Edifying Nonsense".
 "Real and Funky vs Imaginary Names" are tabulated separately for ... 
   Atlantic Canada, post #56
   and Western Canada, post #58 
ACKNOWLEDGMENT: Steve McNie, at torontoUKES.com, for guidance in chordcharts. Check out the TU songbook for his charts on "This Land Is My Land" (Canadian version), and his cyclist's parody-song "This Lane is My Lane". 

KEYWORDS: wordplay, Canada, goldenoldy



Background Considerations:


"The Rock" is a nickname for Newfoundland.













A synthesis of these factors leads to this cartographic formulation, which can't help but invoke a parody-song ... 





The Original Song (Canadian version)

Look at the bottom of this blogpost for singable powerpoint slides of the Travellers' version of the lyrics.






HOTLINKS TO CANADIAN-THEMED SONG-POSTINGS
..AND A FEW LIMERICK-BASED SONGS
Canada Day 2015 (singable limericks)
Limericks About Chemainus, B.C.



THIS LAND HAS ANAGRAMS      

Alternate title:  "OUTLANDISH NERDPLAY"

(to the tune of "This Land Is My Land"). 

Performing suggestion: Get some of the ensemble to call out the 2-letter abbreviations (distinguished by larger-sized font) for the town-names in each version of the "Chorus" .


































FOLLOW-UP NONSENSE

If you enjoyed the wordplay involved in these song lyrics, you can find further examples posted on our sister blog, "EDIFYING NONSENSE", as demonstrated here.  












































Monday 26 June 2017

A Sesquicentennial: CANADA DAY 2017

REPRISE: post #77 from July 2015 revisited, with improved chord-charts and a few new illustrations. Be sure to scroll down to see the powerpoint-type presentation, especially if you are interested in singing these verses with string accompaniment. Two new final verses (#15 and 16) have been written to help celebrate the Sesquicentennial.


CONTENTS:
1. INTRO: Confederation
2. British Columbia
3. Alberta
4. Saskatchewan
5. Manitoba
6. Ontario
7. Quebec
8. New Brunswick
9.  Nova Scotia
10. Prince Edward Island
11. Newfoundland
12. Nunavut
13. Northwest Territories (NWT)
14. The Yukon
15. Canadian Diaspora: Expat on Nantucket
16. Sesquicentennial



CANADA DAY 2017

A LIMERICK MEDLEY

(to the tune of "The Limerick Song")

 To make the limericks look more like singable verse, lines 3 and 4 of the traditional 5-line format are compressed so that a four-line stanza with an internal rhyme in the third line results. 
Original lyrics by G.C. are noted here:

2. New to British Columbia? Rain
Won't extinguish the anguish and strain.
Frequent downpours and drizzle cause incentive to fizzle.
Cherish sunny climes? Get on a plane.

8. For your ode to the spell of New Brunswick
It bodes well that you threw in some puns, Rick;
For the Tidal Bore run daily spews through Moncton,
And the fine view of Fredricton stuns, Rick.

10. Those who cross to petite P.E. Island
Would concur there's no way it's a dry land;
Its calm temperate seas host some great seafood sprees:
Sunday church-dinner, lobster and pie land. 

14. Kim Jong Un, please don't dare drop a nuke on
That magical place called 'The Yukon'.
Visit soon, bring kimchee; our soil's rocky, you'll see,
And so cold that you can't grow a cuke on. 

15. Nan, an expat Canuck on Nantucket
In that land, with man Stan, had got stuck,"It 
Upsets me - bland beer - can't stand what they swill here.
Stan will head back up North, or I'll chuck it."

16. We're approaching our sesquicentennial
Each year, eh? we've a party perennial.
This year's crowds, coast to coast, John A's vision will toast;
Count on thirty mill. celebrants, many will.

John A. MacDonald - first Prime Minister of Canada





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