SILLY SONGS and SATIRE: February 2023

Tuesday, 28 February 2023

Uke-Song: "LET US DO IT" (after Cole Porter) lyrics by Guest Parody-Artist Al Silver:

Cole Porter, composer

PARODY-LYRICS: GUEST-ARTIST

ORIGINAL SONG: "Let's Do It" 1928, Cole Porter

PARODY COMPOSED: Al Silver, 2013, with permission. Al has been a frequent contributor to the AmIRight song-parody website.

PARODY COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, June, 2014, performed at the CUJ (Corktown Ukulele Jam) Theme-Night, with photo here.

PARODY-LYRICS LINK: Return to the corresponding post on "Daily Illustrated Nonsense" (you can view Al's delightful lyrics along with some commentary, without images or chords displayed HERE, or as originally displayed on the website at AmIRight.com Post "Let's Do IT"

Irene Bordoni,
French chanteuse
star of Porter's musical
"Paris", 1929

LET US DO IT

(to the tune of "Let's Do It, Let's Fall in Love")

Performing Notes

F6 = 2213; Gm7 = Bb6 = 0211; C+5 = 1003; Bbm6 = 0111; A7+5 = 0110
Am7 = 0000; Eb7 = 3334; Ab = 5343; F7 = 2310 or 5556; Bb* = 7565

INTRO:

[F6] Birds [F] do it, [Gm7] bees [C7] do it;

[F] White House [F7] interns on their [Bb6] knees [Bbm6] do it;

[F6] Let's [F] do it, [Gm7] let's [C7] fall in [F] love. [Dm] [Gm7]

On [C+5] grocery [F6] shelves [F] Keebler [Gm7] elves [C7] do it;
[F] Clergy [F7] praying by them[Bb6]selves [Bbm6] do it;

[F6] Let's [F] do it, [Gm7] let's [C7] fall in [F] love. [Gm7] [F]

[A7+5] Insects in [Dm] flight late at [Bb6] night do it, [Am7]

But they raise such a [Cm] din. [F7]

[Bb*] Leno can't [Eb7] quite do it,

[Ab] 'Cause he uses his [Gm7] chin.

[C+5] Seigfried and [F6] Roy [F] boy on [Gm7] boy [C7] do it;

[F] Quakers with a [F7] minimum of [Bb6] joy [Bbm6] do it;

[F6] Let's [F] do it, [Gm7] let's [C7] fall in [F] love. [Gm7] [F]

Compare this with the original......

[F6] Birds [F] do it, [Gm7] bees [C7] do it;
[F] Even [F7] educated [Bb6] flees [Bbm6] do it;
[F6] Let's [F] do it, [Gm7] let's [C7] fall in [F] love. [Dm] [Gm7]

In [C+5] Spain the [F6] best [F] upper [Gm7] sets [C7] do it;
[F] Lithu[F7]anians and [Bb6] Letts [Bbm6] do it;
[F6] Let's [F] do it, [Gm7] let's [C7] fall in [F] love. [Gm7] [F]

The Dutch in [Dm] old Amster[Bb6]dam do it, [Am7]

Not to mention the [Cm] Finns. [F7]

[Bb*] Folks in Si[Eb7]am do it,

[Ab] Think of Siamese [Gm7] twins.

[C+5] Some [F6] Argen[F]tines without [Gm7] means [C7] do it;
[F] People say in [F7] Boston even [Bb6] beans [Bbm6] do it;
[F6] Let's [F] do it, [Gm7] let's [C7] fall in [F] love. [Gm7] [F]

Sunday, 19 February 2023

Uke-Song: "DARK SCHEMES" (Ochi Chornye) -- hacking, as extolled by the Red Army Choir

PARODY-ONG with UKULELE CHORDS

MUSICAL UNDERPINNINGS (music): "Ochi Chornye (Dark Eyes)", poem written in Russian by Ukrainian poet Hrebinka in 1843, set to music in 1884; recorded by Al Jolson, Django Reinhart, Louis Armstrong, Red Army Choir, Fyodor Chaliapin, Ivan Rebroff etc.

PARODY COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, January 2018.

Click HERE to return to the current post on "Daily Illustrated Nonsense", and to see the lyrics displayed without the chord indications.

SONGLINK: The same original song was used some time ago as the musical base for "PARASIT-ody", a bit of puffery in which the lyrics for an original song are substituted into a second song's tune. See "Ochi Chornye (Brown-Eyed Girl").

DARK SCHEMES (RUSSIAN HACKING)

(to the tune of "Dark Eyes" ("Ochi Chornye")

UKULELE FRIENDLY VERSION (and guitar, too!)

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

Chord specifics for C-tuned uke:

D7 = 0202 or 2223; Gm = 0231; Cm = 0333

At this point you might wish to return to the post 'Singable Lyrics: Novel Melodies for Limericks' HERE.

ORIGINAL SONG
(Russian version per Chaliapin, and English translation)
Click on any slide to enlarge and to move back and forth in thumbnail mode.

WHAT NOW?

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Thursday, 9 February 2023

Limerick-Uke-Saga: "ROTTEN SPUDS", the Newfoundland potato famine

UKE-SONG, derived from limerick lyrics.

MUSICAL UNDERPINNINGS: For this post, we will use the melody for the waltz tune "The Anniversary Song".

INTRODUCTORY COMMENTS:

A limerick: a verse that is singable
(If the diction's not flagrantly flingable);
Brings a humorous note
To a view you'd promote --
And it rings, like a bell ding-alingable.
Giorgio Coniglio.

ORIGINAL POETRY LYRICS: Original verses were composed by registered pseudonym Giorgio Coniglio. After undergoing their rigorous collaborative editing process, these have been published as a "brief saga", a poetic entity of three or more stanzas, on the poetry website OEDILF (the Omnificent English Dictionary In Limerick Form); they have then been displayed as poetry lyrics on our blog "Daily Illustrated Nonsense". Click HERE to review Giorgio's blogged poem.

SETTING WORDS TO MUSIC: Readers might be interested to know that of more than 1000 short poems that we have published, only 50 or so would qualify as "brief sagas". Although almost any limerick verse (e.g. the "Nantucket limericks") can be set to music, we were particularly interested in exploring this transitiioning for these multiverse poems that warrant the time to pick up your ukulele.

The tunes we have exploited in this effort include, not surprisingly "The Limerick Song". On certain occasions we have also used "The Anniversary Song", as here, "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?", "Summertime", "Santa Lucia" and Shania Twain's "Up" (minor modifications to scansion are required for some of these).

SONG-LINKS: If interested, you could check Giorgio's other song-posts dealing with ..... , remaining under the poetry rubric that can be found on "Daily Edifying Nonsense", although these, too, are singable.)

Authors' Note: The Irish potato famine of 1845-1852, had important repercussions in British North America. Initially, we had our own version of the disaster, although it didn't last as long. The food-production aspect was confined to the Atlantic island of Newfoundland ("the Rock"), where potato monoculture had provided backup food for a populace (ironically, one-half of Irish descent) who otherwise fed themselves on marine protein (seals and cod). But in 1846, these usual marine sources failed, the potato-disease gained a foothold, and the network for regional food distribution was disrupted by a large fire, then a storm, that lashed the key port of St John's. In the second year, the blight spread to involve the entire island, and the marine resource situation was no better. The number of deaths due to starvation, likely many thousands, remains unknown.

The British governor of the colony, reasoning that the indolence of the island's underclass had offended the Almighty, invoked a period of fasting to appease heavenly powers. Fortunately, the next year, the marine resources returned, resolving the crisis.

Back in Ireland, landlords took advantage, and bought tickets to encourage resourceless tenants to emigrate; their arrival in Canada was anticipated charitably by the public and by local governments. In fact, many refugees were sick ("ship's fever" often equated to dysentery or typhus) on arrival or shortly afterward. In the summer of 1847, an estimated 20,000 died in typhus epidemics that ravaged Montreal, Quebec, and even Toronto.

In contrast, the U.S. populace may have felt less charitable towards British disaster-victims, and a punitive tax was levied on shipping companies for each passenger. Although large numbers of Irish refugees did eventually reach the U.S., Canada bore far more than its share, especially in the acute phase of the disaster.