Tag Archives: music

by

Happy feet

This is for photrablogger’s Mundane Monday #111.

Though it isn’t a mundane Monday, is it? I always miss my mother on Memorial Day because her birthday is May 31. The end of May makes me a little sad. She died of cancer in 2000. But…. my feet look like hers.

It’s a selfie with shells and a beach, near fish… A shellfishie….

by

Missing my father

Today is my father’s birthday and I miss him quite a bit, since he died in 2013. This picture was taken in clinic at the opening party. I left a message for another friend, also a singer, who has the same birthday.

Sad but I am happy thinking of him and I am still in the chorus that he helped start, Rainshadow Chorale.

by

Camp fly

For the Daily Prompt: fishing.

I am fishing for a photograph for the daily prompt. Fishing…. my son is not fishing, he’s playing violin. But we were on a fly fishing trip, where we tried a drift boat. We were staying in this lovely cabin. My son had returned from Thailand and finished his senior year. He went with the Rotary exchange. Therefore, the “End Polio Now” t-shirt, which has Thai writing on the front.

Let’s End Polio Now… and then go fishing.

 

 

by

Paper of pins

For the daily prompt: Treasure.

This is another song to raise girls. My sister and I loved the double twist at the end. This is a courting song, to be sung by at least two voices. At music parties, my parents would sing it to each other. We would join in joyfully.

First voice:
I’ll give to you a paper of pins
and that’s the way our love begins
If you will marry me oh me,
if you will marry me

Second:
I’ll not accept your paper of pins
if that’s the way your love begins
and I won’t marry you oh you
and I won’t marry you

I’ll give to you a dress of red
all sewn round with golden thread
If you will marry me oh me,
if you will marry me

I’ll not accept your dress of red
all sewn round with golden thread
and I won’t marry you oh you
and I won’t marry you

I’ll give to you a coach and four
so you can ride from door to door
If you will marry me oh me,
if you will marry me

I’ll not accept your coach and four
so I can ride from door to door
and I won’t marry you oh you
and I won’t marry you

I’ll give to you the keys to my heart
so we can love and never part
If you will marry me oh me,
if you will marry me

I’ll not accept the keys to your heart
so we can love and never part
and I won’t marry you oh you
and I won’t marry you

I’ll give to you the keys to my chest
so you can have money at your request
If you will marry me oh me,
if you will marry me

I will accept the keys to your chest
so I can have money at my request
And I will marry you oh you
and I will marry you

I love coffee and you love tea
you love my money you don’t love me
And I won’t marry you oh you
And I won’t marry you

I’ll take my tea and sit in the shade
I think I’d rather be an old maid
And I won’t marry you oh you
And I won’t marry you

We were interested in the escalation of the offer and that in the end, the woman was quite clear: she did not love him and was not for sale.

There are multiple versions on YouTube with different words. I like the one by Rose Lee and Joe Maphis.

The photograph is of a sewing kit. It belonged to Margaret White, my maternal grandmother’s oldest sister. It says: J. A Henckel, Twinworks, Germany. The paper is a paper of needles, needles of different sizes. I liked small things, so my mother let me have this kit. I have used it since I was a child. Some of the pieces were missing from the start, but I suspect that those that remain are ivory. My grandmother was born in 1899, so this kit would be from the early 1900s. I carefully kept all of the needles in their paper packets.

by

Thanks

The photograph is from Thanksgiving in 2007, a friend using my camera. That is me and my daughter dancing. She was good at that lift! It’s mostly timing, rather than body weight. She jumps at the same time as I lift — and I’m jumping too!

My daughter called last night, stranded in New York City, the bus company she had set up with turning out to be very fly by night. But her brother got her a train ticket and she ran for Penn Station and now is with family! Hooray! I am thankful!

by

Jump blues

Jump is the daily prompt todayΒ  and that makes me think of JUMP BLUES!

I have been dancing jitterbug and swing and zydeco and salsa for more than 30 years. Met my kids’ father swing dancing. A friend made us a tape of Jump blues: It ain’t the meat by the Swallows is one of my favorites. GREAT song to dance too as well as being appreciative of all sizes and shapes of the opposite sex…Here is a more Jump blues: http://www.allmusic.com/subgenre/jump-blues-ma0000002678

I took the photograph atΒ  Synchronized Swimming Nationals in 2012… speaking of jumping. This double lift is done by the other six swimmers under the water, never touching bottom.

by

Songs to raise girls: Long Black Veil

 

This and The Fox are what I think of as the two core family songs. We sang this from as early as I can remember and my father played the Band’s version on the record player all the time. I taped his records to take to college…

This is the song my parents chose to raise girls on? Oh, and I do have it memorized….

Ten years ago on a cool dark night
There was someone killed ‘neath the town hall light
There were few at the scene and they all did agree
That the man who ran looked a lot like me

Ok, it starts with a murder. Someone is killed, in the town, at night. Be careful, little girls, bad things can happen at night.

The judge said “Son, what is your alibi?
If you were somewhere else then you won’t have to die”
I spoke not a word although it meant my life
I had been in the arms of my best friend’s wife

It is about infidelity and not only infidelity, but infidelity with his best friend’s wife. This song is a morality play. He doesn’t speak. I see the magazines at the counters in the grocery store and think about how different this song is from our current culture. Divorce and splashed all over the papers, that’s what the celebrities do today.

She walks these hills in a long black veil
She visits my grave where the night winds wail
Nobody knows, no, and nobody sees
Nobody knows but me

So she doesn’t speak either. She remains faithful to him in visiting his grave, but the marriage must continue, because she only goes at night.

The scaffold was high and eternity neared
She stood in the crowd and shed not a tear
But sometimes at night when the cold wind moans
In a long black veil she cries over my bones

She watches him die for what they considered a sin. This song is about ethics, really. The two of them had broken their code of honor and paid the price, which was that he died for a different crime. And did the man who really killed the person in the first stanza then go free?

Why wouldn’t they speak up? Perhaps she had children and he couldn’t support them. Perhaps they truly considered it a sin, a dishonor, a horrible mistake. Perhaps honor and honoring his best friend was more important than love…. Our current culture seems to think that love conquers all, but it doesn’t in this song. Did they do the right thing? This is a song to discuss and to think about and yes, a song to raise girls.

Though I think the husband and any children would know that there was something…. a parent and partner can’t really hide that deep sorrow….

It was written by Danny Dill and Marijohn Wilkin in 1959 and originally recorded by Lefty Frizzell.

Lefty Frizzell: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50k18gL76AU]

The Band, 1968

Johnny Cash, 1968

Lots of others…. and us.

The photo is me and my sister, probably in 1993 or 1994.