Uke-Dirge: "ROTTEN SPUDS", the Newfoundland potato famine

UKE-SONG, derived from limerick lyrics.

ORIGINAL SONG: 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 avian wildlife, most of which involve the conversion of limerick-based poems to singable format. These include "The Cormorant Rookery", "Avian Digestion", and "Evolution of the Domestic Turkey". (There are also many shorter illustrated verses, 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.

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/13090/why-are-potatoes-called-spuds#:~:text=According%20to%20the%20Oxford%20English,for%20a%20knife%20or%20dagger.