Monday, 31 December 2018

BLOG SUMMARY for 2018 (and part of 2019): Sequentially Silly Songs and Satire

BLOG SUMMARY:

Nothing that's remarkably new here, other than some order imposed on the chaos. But, it did take a lot of work to summarize what we had concocted for the previous calendar year.
 Having accomplished this task, we thought - "that's a good idea!", so a similar project has been completed and is available here for 2017 song-lyrics. And at some point down the road, we will complete similar summaries for our wordplay blog "EDIFYING NONSENSE".
In the meantime, with a touch of probing, you can find most of this information in the righthand thumbnails found on all the blogposts -- just click on the year and month to reveal the linked titles!

Technical Note: Each jpeg 'slide' embedded in the blog is protected and cannot be linked, so the hotlinks are listed under each slide. Click on those profitably, sing along and enjoy!   Giorgio.





HOTLINKS and keywords
Coastal Carolina  environment, travels, South Carolina, limerick medley 
Icelandic Saga   travels, geology, nonsense, personal 
Robbie Burns Day  multiculturalism, poetry, holidays
Online Etymology Help  wordplay, software/tech, limerick medley
Vancouver's Isle  travel, weather, Canada, personal
Pisa's Lean Trattoria  medical issues, food and diet, Italian culture 
Verse!   poetry, classic limericks
Dark Schemes  U.S. political satire, Russian culture, classic limericks
Broken Arrows  folk/protest song, nuclear weapons, South Carolina
Brennan's Tweet  U.S. political satire




HOTLINKS and keywords
Census of Blogposts by Topic cumulated for 2013 to 2019 (+/-)
Walrus and Carpenter (lowcountry version)  environment, fantasy, South Carolina
I Get a Kick Out Of Me (Cole Porter spoof)  guest contributor, swing era
Rosenstein  U.S. political satire 
Turandot  fantasy, golden oldies, opera
My Blue Sit-on  boating, personal 
Indiana Song  (Mike Pence 'tribute' by columnist G.Will)  U.S. political satire
Ballad of Giuliani #1  U.S. political satire
Ballad of Giuliani #2 ( columnist M. Boot)  U.S. political satire 

HOTLINKS and keywords
Something to Groan About  Canada, holidays, folk/protest, nuclear weapons
You Claim It's Your Land  folk/protest, U.S., holidays, wordplay
Helsinki Summit Update  U.S. political satire, limerick medley, fantasy
Gun-Toting Phyllis  folk/protest, mental illness, limerick medley
Leigh Mercer's Palindrome Workshop  fantasy, wordplay, limerick medley
Constantinopolis  history, fantasy, travels, classic languages
Funniversary Song  retirement, relationships, domestic issues, South Carolina



HOTLINKS and keywords
Clothing Moth Hat Dance  fantasy, plants and animals, domestic issues
Hallowe'en 2018  black humor,  limerick medley
Turkey Leftovers  history, holidays, plants and animals, media
More Novel Melodies  musical manipulation, classic limericks
Lost Country  boating, Canada, romance
Relic Submarines  history, folk/protest, nuclear weapons, South Carolina 



HOTLINKS and keywords
January for Scots  multiculturalism, mathematics, poetry
Jake                musical talent, tribute, ukulele
Get Me Roger Stone  U.S. political satire
Vlad Putin's Blogger  U.S. political satire
Kooky Presidential Views  U.S. political satire
Jailhouse, Now  U.S. political satire  
Cali(-fornia)  travels, domestic issues



LIST OF KEYWORDS

adolescence
alcohol and drugs
black (macabre) humour
boating
Canada
classic languages
classic limericks
classical composers
domestic issues
environment
etymology
fantasy
folk/protest
food and diet
gardens
geology
golden oldies
guest contributor
health/medical issues
history
holidays
Italian culture
Jewish culture
limerick medley
literature
legends/myths
mathematics
musical talent
multiculturalism
nonsense
nuclear weapons
personal
plants and animals
poetry
profanity
poisons
relationships
retirement
romance
Russian culture
software/tech
South Carolina
swing era
travels
tribute
ukulele
weather
wordplay
word structure








Thursday, 22 November 2018

Let's Start the Holiday Season with "TURKEY LEFTOVERS" !

REPRISE:  a seasonal parody from 2015 revisited

SUBSTITUTE LYRICS subbed into 2 original songs, a pairody
ORIGINAL SONG#1: "The Christmas Song" (Chestnuts...), written by Wells and Tormé  in 1944, and recorded by the Nat King Cole Trio 1946.
ORIGINAL SONG#2: "Good King Wenceslas", John Mason Neale 1853, but often now mistakenly referred to as 'traditional'. Neale's piece, (based on accounts of the Bohemian Wenceslas legend, and a 13th century 'spring- carol tune) was highly criticized in the 1920s as "ponderous moral doggerel"; see the interesting description in the Wikipedia essay.
PARODY COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, January, 2015, currently updated with new verse-charts, improved fonts and an epilogue including slides with ukulele chords indicated for the original songs.   
SONGLINK: For another parody on  "The Christmas Song"  see my earlier posting "The Cynic's Song" here.



TURKEY LEFTOVERS

(to the tune of The Christmas Song - "Chestnuts Roasting")

Essay featured in Economist,
Turkeys' origins disclosed -
Centerpiece of each year's Yuletide feast,
Subspecies bred in Mexico.

Dolts like me believed that gobblers and that Mid-East land -
Names were mere coincidence.
Ottomans, trading ships, caravans -
I understand, it now makes sense.

Each year I prove I'm such a goof,
I try create too late a spiffy Christmas spoof,
But with a month's delay I'll get it right
Helped by this article about "Turkey's Flight".

And so I'm offering this paraphrase
Of what the author claimed was true,
French - d'inde, and the Turks call them 'hindi' - what jerks!
While in India, name in Hindi,
And in Portugal's 'peru'.

To the tune of "Good King Wenceslas")



Montezuma once bred fowl tastier than pheasant; 
Shipped the Spanish queen a thou - funky kind of present.
Isabella loathed the birds, trimmings too displeased her;
No use for leftovers, she didn't have a free-eezer.

'Turkeys', Moors, then Jews were banned from the royal kitchens;
Legend says that's how began Spanish Inquisition - 
Cortes later sacked the lands of the Aztec ruler.
Phil or Izz-and-Ferdinand ? Can't say which was cru-ueller.

Avian émigrés toured through, crowns of Europe hosting,
Though few of their lackeys knew oven-time for roasting.
Hot or cold and steep or flat, exiled birds were living,
Prospered in those countries that didn't have Thanksgi-iving.

Thus this misnamed flock did cope through the 16th century,
'ventually hens copped some hope with the English gentry.
For some time they settled down,  breeding they found boring,
Westward they shipped out again, restlessly explo-oring.

Turkeys in America, native home recovered,
Quirky and hysterical history discovered -
Essay we would clearly rank best of the Econ'mist,
Author we should dearly thank-(s)he remains anon-ymous.


























UKULELE-FRIENDLY FORMAT (and guitar, too!)


There are some difficult jazz chords here, but they sound beautiful, and are worth the effort!

Specifics for ukulele (C-tuning):

There are some difficult jazz chords here, but they sound beautiful, and are worth the effort!
Specifics for ukulele (C-tuning):
Bm7 = 2222;  C#m7 = 4444;  E7 = 1202;  Em7 = 0202;  C#7+5 =2112; F#m = 2120;  Dm6 = 2212;  D#m7 = 3324;  C#M7 = 1113;  CM7 = 0002;
A9= 0102;  DM7 = 2224;  D6 = 2222;  Dm7 = 2213;  C6 = 0000;  Fdim7 = 1212; G#7 = 1323;  Cdim7 = 2323;  AM7 = 1100;  F#7sus = 6677.

































ORIGINAL SONG-LYRICS
(click on any verse-slide to enlarge the entire series and compare the original songs' verses with the parody version. Move back and forth using the thumbnails at the bottom) 




















Monday, 29 October 2018

HALLOWE'EN 2018 !

Seasonal Reprise
SINGABLE LIMERICKS, (in minor key) inspired by a Hallowe'en ukejam theme-night with songs dedicated to "Murder and Mayhem"
ORIGINAL SONG: A minor key version of "The Limerick Song".
LIMERICK VERSES set to music:  Giorgio Coniglio, October 2016. 


CONTENTS: 
1. Firepower
2. Scary Upshot
3. Dispatch
4. Concealed Carry
5. Grisly/Grizzly
6. Cimetière
7. Untimely Demise
8. By Halves
9. Cemetarians/Zombies

To proceed (at your peril) click this SONGLINK!


https://ukableparodies.blogspot.com/2016/10/singable-limericks-5-murder-and-mayhem.html


WORDPLAY LINK: 
For wordplay (palindromes, anagrams, eggcorns, creative cartography, etc.) and silly poetry (polished limericks), see our sister blog "EDIFYING NONSENSEhere

Saturday, 15 September 2018

An Apocryphal Tale of Dance and Romance: THE FUNNIVERSARY SONG

Post #187
SINGABLE LIMERICK-LIKE LYRICS 
ORIGINAL SONG: Any old limerick verses can be sung to "The Limerick Song", as per YouTube here. However we have undertaken the onerous task  of bringing you other melodies for singing limericks, as per the post "Novel Melodies for Singing Limericks". 
So, for this baby, we will exploit the melody of the verses for "The Anniversary Song". Al Jolson and Saul Chaplin originally had adapted the music (the score had been published in the U.S. in 1896) and wrote lyrics in 1946 to the 1880 composition "Waves of the Danube" by prolific Romanian composer Ion Ivanovici; his music had won a prize at the 1889 World Exhibition in Paris. The Jolson adaptation has been recorded by Dina Shore, Rosemary Clooney, Guy Lombardo, the Glenn Miller Orchestra, Franks Sinatra, Pat Boone, Bing Crosby etc. 
LIMERICK VERSE:  Original verses composed by Giorgio Coniglio, 2017-2018. Two of the verses have been published at the OEDILF website (the Omnificent English Dictionary in Limerick Form); the entry number for the OEDILF version is noted at the bottom of the chord-chart slides.
Readers should note that (i) each verse of the original song can accpomodate two limerick verses, (ii) the bridge has been adapted from the original Ivanovici-Jolson tune, and is NOT a limerick.
PARODY COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, August 2018. 


THE FUNNIVERSARY SONG 

(to a tune inspired by the verses of of Al Jolson's "The Anniversary Song", a.k.a. "Waves of the Danube")

In that room, bride and groom entered marriage
(Forty guests, kith and kin, came 'by carriage');
Formal garb and corsage
Adorned former garage.
It's our 'ballroom' (some Brits call it 'garage' GA-ridj).

We embarked on our marital dance
With a June honeymoon there in France
Later, raising our kids
Put romance on the skids,
Now they're grown, on their own: second chance.

Just a mile from home #1, with the 'ballroom',
Snowbirds nest in their lounge-lunch-and-loll room.
This garage: not enclosed,
But well low-sun exposed —
Our 'solarium' winter-and-fall room. 

Winter's mild, so you don't need to huddle
(Every once-in-a-while we still cuddle).
Life's rewards we now glean -- 
The retirement scene:
Wonder what's it all mean? That's a muddle.

BRIDGE: I'll sit in my rocker, and you'll sit in yours.
(Your reading's disturbed by my rather loud snores).
Then, while dinner's heating, our glass of merlot;
I'll web-surf and you will sew.

Repeat verse 4.


NOTES:
North American: guh-RAWZH
British: GA-ridj
Well over three decades ago, the author was married in an at-home ceremony. A two-car attached garage in his bride's home, which had been enclosed by the previous owner served as the basis of the ballroom/garage gag and as a credible chapel/party-room. As it happened, all the guests used the first indicated (a la française) pronunciation. On our return to the same sun-belt neighbourhood three decades later, we found a home with a different type of garage upgrade. 


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

C-tuned ukulele specifics:
Cm = 0333;  Fm = 1013;  Bb9 = 1213;  Eb = 0331;  Bb7 = 1211  








Garage converted to Solarium, Mt Pleasant, S.C.










WORDPLAY LINK: 
For wordplay (palindromes, anagrams, eggcorns, creative cartography, etc.) and silly poetry (polished limericks), see our sister blog "EDIFYING NONSENSEhere


ORIGINAL Song-Lyrics
(click on any chord chart to enlarge and enter thumbnail mode










Friday, 10 August 2018

An Apocryphal Ballad: LEIGH MERCER'S PALINDROME WORKSHOP

POST #185
SINGABLE LIMERICKS 
ORIGINAL SONG: These verses can be sung to  "The Limerick Song", as in "The Flea and the Fly". See sactoGranny's recording on YouTube here.
LIMERICK VERSE:  Original verse composed by Giorgio Coniglio, November 2016, modified from the version accepted for publication by OEDILF.com, the online limerick dictionary.



BACKGROUND:
Leigh Mercer (1893-1977) was credited with the iconic palindrome, "A man, a plan, a canal, Panama." Mercer, an isolated British eccentric, worked during his lifetime at a variety of low-level jobs, and occasionally communicated with journals and contest organizers about wordplay and mathematical puzzles. After his death, notebooks filled with inventive palindromes were discovered, as described here

The lyrics describe an apocryphal workshop conducted by Mercer, during which the iconic canal palindrome is almost invented.


LEIGH'S PALINDROME WORKSHOP

(to the tune of "The Limerick Song")


Note: All italicized phrases except the first are legitimate palindromes.
Several of these have been reported for the first time by the author.

"A man + a plan, a canal —
Panacea
: A palindrome, pal?"
My friend Leigh seemed contrite —
"No! The ending's not right.
Zeus sees Suez — that seems less lame, Mal."
"A man, a plan, IF final, Pan-
ama
 works, (like Name male pipe, lame man!)"
My friend Leigh looked uptight,
"No! It lacks enough bite.
It's ambiv'lent, like Nab, rob or ban."

"Amen + a pit, Ipanema"
(Voiced in Portuguese, with no disclaimer).
Leigh: "No! Tip-top pot pit
Is a much better fit,
But Amen! Icy cinema's lamer."

"A mar on a pan — a panorama:
Has poor scansion, but not such bad grammar".
Leigh groaned, "Dammit, I'm mad;
Stuff those phrases so bad;
No sir, prison — that warrants the slammer."






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













WORDPLAY LINK: 
For wordplay (palindromes, anagrams, binomials, creative cartography, etc.) and silly poetry (polished limericks), see our sister blog "EDIFYING NONSENSEhere.











WORDPLAY LINK: 
For wordplay (palindromes, anagrams, eggcorns, creative cartography, etc.) and silly poetry (polished limericks), see our sister blog "EDIFYING NONSENSEhere