Historical Uke-Song: "THE PRATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS" -- reprise of the War of 1812

PARODY-LYRICS

MUSICAL UNDERPINNINGS: "The Battle of New Orleans", Jimmy Driftwood 1958; popular cover by Johnny Horton, 1959.

The United States
 at the time of the War, 1812-1815

PARODY COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, February, 2013.

PARODY-LYRICS LINK: To return to the corresponding post on "Daily Illustrated Nonsense",  click HERE. 
(You can also view the lyrics and commentary, without images or chords, at the  parody-lyrics site where they were originally posted online  at  AmIRight.com  "The Prattle of New Orleans")

Jimmy Driftwood with 
his signature home-made guitar

The original recording

Battle-site map

Andrew Jackson (Old Hickory)
 leading troops to victory

THE PRATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS

(to the tune of "The Battle of New Orleans")

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

ORIGINAL SONG-LYRICS
Click on any chord chart to enlarge and enter thumbnail mode (the slides for both the parody and the original versions can then be enlarged and viewed in any order). 
Readers are asked to honour the original artists' creativity, and to use the slides of the original song-lyrics only to ensure familiarity with the suggested style for the spoof version. 

As a hist’ry buff, I thought that I should delve,

Into some stated details ‘bout the War of 1812.

’Cause before the BP oil-spill and the Storm they called Katrin’,

Was a diff’rent kind of battle near the Town of New Orleans.

Hup 2,3,4; Hup 2,3,4

I’d heard of Laura Secord, and the White House getting torched,

And a bit of British Caribbean forces getting zorched.

I checked it with my Southern spouse, her knowledge too was pale,

But we both knew Jimmy Driftwood’s folksy song could tell the tale.

We knew by heart the Johnny Horton version,

With the poor alligator that got used as cannon-bore:

It topped the charts over here as well as Britain,

Though it clearly smudged the history and magnified the lore.

Was Old Hick’ry drinkin’ buds with Jean Laffitte?

And why’d the British bring along so many drums to beat?

And who’d believe the dyin’ words of General Pakenham

Were “you better quit a-foolin’ with your cousin Uncle Sam”?

Did seasoned soldiers turn and do the rabbit-run,

When confronted with backwoodsmen who were firing squirrel-guns?

So I took a couple Beanos, then I snarfed on nacho-chips,

And I googled “Town of New Orleans and British fighting ships”.

 It seems…

The Brits had occupied the west bank Mississip’,

Fog lifted, they got blasted sneakin’ over in their ships,

More leaders killed and wounded as they tried to storm the Town,

So their troops were not a-runnin’, they just stood and got mowed down.

Weeks thence, per Wikiped’, in Feb’ 1815,

The English, reassembled, sailed out east from New Orleans,

They targeted more mischief ’long the coast of Alabam’

(In the hold the rum-soaked body of their Gen’ral Pakenham).

They left Mobile standing when the orders finally reached ’em,

“No territory changing, return to status quo”,

On Christmas Eve belligerents had penned the Ghent treaty,

So the Indies Fleet sailed home across the Gulf of Mexico.

Thus the War that began with maritime embargoes

Seemed a drawn-out pointless offshoot of Napoleonic woes;

If “agreed on as a triumph” on both sides of the border,

It’s the writing and the citing and the singing makes it so !

Hup 2,3,4 x2. Sound off 3,4 x2.....

WHAT NOW?

Choice #1: To leave a comment, click on the comment-'widget' at the bottom of this page (or, if that fails, find an alternate e-mail on "pages").

Choice #2: To find another song-parody, use the listings on the web-version by reverse date in the clickable 'Blog-Archive' at the top of the right-hand column.

Choice #3: To return to our broad-spectrum blog "Daily Illustrated Nonsense", click HERE.

Choice #4 (optional): If you found this stuff to be compellingly entertaining or educational, send a cheque/check. 

If you aren't on the 'web-version', you can get there by clicking that choice ('view web-version') at the very bottom of this blog-page!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

HOTLINKS TO OTHER CANADIAN-THEMED SONG-POSTINGS

An Alien Heading South

Big Rob Rehab Clinic

Canadian Reunion

Canoeing Lesson

Flight of the Loonie

FOP-Shop Wine

Mergerwocky

Off-Patent Drug #19

Prattle of New Orleans (see above)

Suburbs' Guy

The Maple Leaf Ad Infinitum 

This Land Has Anagrams 

TTC Voices

Vancouver's Isle

..AND A FEW LIMERICK-BASED SONGS

Shania Twain's "Verse": An anthem for limericists

Sesquicentennial Uke-Song: Canada Day 2017 
Limericks About Chemainus, B.C.

Byzantine Uke-Song: "SEER of BYZANTION"

SONG with PARODY-LYRICS and UKULELE CHORDS

MUSICAL UNDERPINNINGS: "Moscow Nights"(Подмосковные вечера,  Podmoskovnie vechera), Chad Mitchell Trio, 1963. You can listen to the Trio's well-known  version on YouTube HERE, or a version with English translation HERE.
The original was created as "Leningrad Nights" by composer Solovyov-Sedoi and poet Matusovsky in 1955, but changed at the request of the Ministry of Culture for use in a documentary about a national athletic competition. The tune was subsequently popularized in the West, in the middle of the Cold War era, by Van Cliburn in 1958, and recorded with commercial success by Kenny Ball and the Jazzmen, and the Chad Mitchell Trio in the early 60s. 

PARODY COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, August 2018.  

SONGLINKS: This post deals with Graeco-Roman history during the Byzantine period. Another song dealing with Greek history, culture and travels is found in an earlier blogpost as  "Singable Limerick Medley #15: Travels in Greece". This entire effort was inspired by "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)", a swing-era hit with a very catchy tune whose lyrics with respect to historical details.

CONSTANTINOPOLIS

(to the tune of "Moscow Nights")

UKULELE-FRIENDLY FORMAT (also banjo, mandolin, guitar etc.!)

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

Specifics for C-tuned ukulele:
Am7 = 0000, or 0030;  Dm7 = 2213;  E7 = 1202;  B7 = 2322 

  

*  the prediction was made by the Seer early in the fourth century A.D.
Byzántion (Greek), later known as Byzantium (Latin) was at that time a moderate-sized Greek colony-city on the Bosporus. It was chosen by the Roman Emperor Constantine to become the eastern capital of his empire.
As capital of the Roman Empire (also called Romania), the grand city was known as Constantinopolis, or Konstantinoupolis, for most of its history, i.e. until 1453 A.D. (later as Istanbul by the Turks). The term 'Byzantine Empire' has only been in use by Western historians since that time.

ORIGINAL SONG-LYRICS
Click on any chord chart to enlarge and enter thumbnail mode (the slides for both the parody and the original versions can then be enlarged and viewed in any order). 
Readers are asked to honour the original artists' creativity, and to use the slides of the original song-lyrics only to ensure familiarity with the suggested style for the spoof version. 

Boasts Byzántion’s seer,* “Constantine will found,

Nova Roma, his new cosmopolis.

They’ll construct right here;  

Then we Greeks will cheer

Rome’s second home: Constanti-no-po-lis.” 

“In Rome’s legions march with a martial sound,

They’ll build Fourth Century’s eastern cosmopolis --

Grand Sophia’s dome,

And a huge Hippodrome

Rome’s second home: Constanti-no-po-lis.”

“Who’ll unite this Empire too vast to rule?

Few the Caesars who exert such might.

Year Three-Ninety-Five (395 A.D.),

Things take a permanent dive --

East/West will split; West drops out of sight.

“In clean-shaven West, ‘barbarians’ storm the gates,

Middle Ages will settle there to stay.

Vandals, Lombards, Goths –

Old stomping grounds get lost,

Down East here, ‘Roman’ power’ll hold sway.”

“Who will dogma craft for new Christian creed?

Peter’s primacy;  Roman popes’ll.

We’ll counter Holy See

With Eastern Orthodoxy,

Here in Byzantine Constan-ti-nople.”

“Vicious wars with neighbours” quoth our sooth-saying seer,

Peering in his Prophet-Kit prism,   

“Charlemagne and Popes

Will undermine our hopes,

Split our Faith with an East-West Schism.”

“Things take a bad turn with the Fourth Crusade,

Frankish knights, their mission quite hopeless --   

Retake Holy Lands?

Such risk! They change their plans,

Seize and ‘Latinize’ Constantinopolis.”

 “Fifty years to rid the place of Latin louts

Then two centuries, invasions we’ll stop. All this

Has an end, it’s clear.”

States our seer, with tear,

"When Turks topple Constantinopolis.”

Then we took our seer out for lunch that day

To a small café by the Bosporus.

Name of the café

Where we ate that day,

Was ‘Istanbul (Not Constantinopolis)’.

WHAT NOW?

Choice #1: To leave a comment, click on the comment-'widget' at the bottom of this page (or, if that fails, find an alternate e-mail on "pages").

Choice #2: To find another song-parody, use the listings on the web-version by reverse date in the clickable 'Blog-Archive' at the top of the right-hand column.

Choice #3: To return to our broad-spectrum blog "Daily Illustrated Nonsense", click HERE.

Choice #4 (optional): If you found this stuff to be compellingly entertaining or educational, send a cheque/check. 

If you aren't on the 'web-version', you can get there by clicking that choice ('view web-version') at the very bottom of this blog-page!

#French Plural Uke-Song: "MAUX-DE-TEXTE", headachy lyricx

PARODY-LYRICS,  see also the previous posts on this blog:

"Ewe-Yew-You", "Jeux-de-Mots", and "Jeux-de-Mots, Encore".

MUSICAL UNDERPINNINGS: "Do-Re-Mi", Rodgers and Hammerstein 1959, performed by Julie Andrews and the cast of "The Sound of Music".

French Version of the Musical

PARODY COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, December 2014.

PARODY-LYRICS LINK: To return to the corresponding post on "Daily Illustrated Nonsense" (and to see the lyrics without the chord-chart indications) click HERE. 

MAUX-DE-TEXTE

 (to the tune of "Do-Re-Mi")

UKULELE-FRIENDLY FORMAT

Let's start with French plural noun endings

It's a place to exert finesse,
To easy ones you just add an 's'
For others you may need to guess.

Think of 'x' - plural 'x'.
To avoid vexatious maux de texte
Think of 'x' - plural 'x'.

A few, a crew, a slew, beaucoup. 

(Spoken) Let's see if I can make it 'x'-y (rhymes with sexy)!

Joujoux - they're often soft and doux

Poux  - louse, plural, not so nice

Genoux - to kneel on both your knees

Bijoux - the slang is 'bling' or 'ice'

Hiboux - so unlike 'ox' or 'fox'

Choux - for cabbage in kings' stew

Cailloux - a slew of river rocks
That will bring us back to doux

Trous, clous, sous, fous, bayous, voyous! 

When you pluralize your nouns,
Mostly you don't change their sounds.
(Repeated by Maria while the children parade and sing the next verse)

Yeux - weird plural form of 'eye'
Chevaux - with riders à cheval
Travaux - projets où on travaille
Fataux - mot fautif for 'fatals'
Roux - a single type of sauce
Voix - for chorus or solo
Toux - for one or all the coughs,
 That will  bring us back to faux!

Yeux (oeil), fataux, roux, voix, toux - faux !

WHAT NOW?

Choice #1: To leave a comment, click on the comment-'widget' at the bottom of this page (or, if that fails, find an alternate e-mail on "pages").

Choice #2: To find another song-parody, use the listings on the web-version by reverse date in the clickable 'Blog-Archive' at the top of the right-hand column.

Choice #3: To return to our broad-spectrum blog "Daily Illustrated Nonsense", click HERE.

If you aren't on the 'web-version', you can get there by clicking that choice ('view web-version') at the very bottom of this blog-page!