Re: Don't Worry. I Is.

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Yes, or the time I locked my brother in the trunk of the car.

Oh wait.... maybe that's too weird.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 2:29 PM
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I don't think that's too uncommon a lullabye -- I'm pretty sure I remember hearing it from my parents and I have sung snatches of it to my dotter, and think I have heard it sung to other people's children.


Posted by: Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 2:34 PM
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Emerson-that's not weird. I think I did that. At least, there was a time in my life where I was capable of it.


Posted by: rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 2:41 PM
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My brother, not yours.


Posted by: rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 2:41 PM
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what's weird about that?

Surely evern family has goofy songs they sing to children at bedtime. That one would be a standard, I'd think.

OTOH, the point about "things that seem normal you suddenly realize are strange" is a pretty much a commonplace; your example would not win one round of "can you top this?" I'd think.


Posted by: TomF | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 2:42 PM
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Whenever my family took a road trip, the first thing we did when we hit traffic-free highway was sing "Paint Your Wagon" at the absolute top of our lungs. At least, my dad and my brothers and I—Mom wanted no part of this.


Posted by: Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 2:44 PM
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Whenever my family took a road trip, the first thing we did when we hit traffic-free highway was sing "Paint Your Wagon" at the absolute top of our lungs. At least, my dad and my brothers and I—Mom wanted no part of this.


Posted by: Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 2:44 PM
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I thought it was kind of an odd song to sing as a lullaby as it seems to question paternity.

your example would not win one round of "can you top this?" I'd think

Oh, that's so true. It's just what made me think of it. It doesn't even win round one just in my family's folklore. The one that leaves non-family-members scratching their heads most frequently in our house is the Legend of Little Billy. Growing up, whenever we would do something X, which was ill-advised, the "joke" was that we used to have an older brother Billy who died doing X and is buried in the backyard. Like "you'd better eat all of your vegetables or you'll catch scurvy and die like Billy and we'll have to bury you in the backyard". Or "Billy never picked up his toys either and one day he tripped over them, fell and broke his neck and died, and we had to bury him in the backyard."

My (real) little brother (who understood it was a joke) told a "Billy story" to his teacher in second grade and that was a fun trip my parents got to take to the school counselor's office.


Posted by: Becks | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 2:53 PM
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(And after writing 8, let me remind you that my parents are both psychologists.)


Posted by: Becks | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 2:57 PM
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The laughter produced by the 8 and 9 was sorely needed at this point in my day. Thanks, Becks.


Posted by: My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 3:01 PM
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I guess Little Billy never lived to be old enough to blog.


Posted by: ogged | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 3:05 PM
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Your parents sound weirdly sane for psychologists, Becks. Are you sure they're not really murderers for hire who just say they're psychologists?


Posted by: SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 3:10 PM
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12 - I don't know, Tim. Would that deepen your love for my mother even more?


Posted by: Becks | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 3:14 PM
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I know a man who sang his kids to sleep with "Miss Otis Regrets."


Posted by: Witt | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 3:14 PM
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Would that deepen your love for my mother even more?

"It's like, how much more black could this be? and the answer is none. None more black."


Posted by: SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 3:16 PM
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so was it the Joe Jackson version, or an earlier one? (Maybe Cab Calloway?)

Just read Geraldine Brooks' "March" last night--her reimagining of the father's backstory in Little Women.

Connects to your post in that I read LW many times without wondering "so if they are so close to the cream of Concord society, and have such a big old house, why *are* they flat broke?"


Posted by: kid bitzer | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 3:26 PM
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11: Of course he lived to be old enough to blog, ogged. An internet stalker hunted him down and killed him and they had to bury him in the back yard.


Posted by: Robust McManlyPants | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 3:29 PM
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your example would not win one round of "can you top this?" I'd think.

Now if her postman had been the one singing that . . .


Posted by: M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 3:42 PM
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'Smasher, how old were you when you first saw that movie? I remember it being pretty racy, with lots of whoring and drinking. Or did you just know the song? It's probably one of the least gay showtunes, I suppose.

Also, for anyone who's never seen the movie, it features Clint Eastwood singing a song about talking to trees. Memorable, although not necessarily in a good way. Lee Marvin? Not such a good set of pipes either. And apparently most of the extra townsfolk in it were hippies from nearby Oregon communes.

And lastly, some questions:

Has anyone ever seen a painted Connestoga wagon?

Why do they call the wind "Mariah"?

Was there a Simpson's episode where Homer watches it, or am I misremembering?


Posted by: M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 3:51 PM
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For people still looking for Halloween costumes, one of my coworkers suggested an amusing group costume: go as "The Simpsons". Not Marge, Homer, etc. but Jessica, OJ, etc.


Posted by: Becks | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 3:56 PM
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I think everyone goes throught the stage when they realise that their family is deeply weird compared with everyone else's, and then later on the stage when they realise that everyone thinks this about their families. At which point you either have to concede that your family isn't so weird after all, or insist everyone else may be wrong about their families, but yours really is weird.

The second option is of course the correct one.


Posted by: Basil Valentine | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 4:01 PM
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There are too many songs with "Baby" in them that are a little weird when sung from parent to child. On the other hand, "Stay Up Late" by the Talking Heads is a favorite.


Posted by: Chopper | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 4:03 PM
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My kids rather liked Tom Lehrer's "The MLF Lullaby" (It starts out "Sleep, baby, sleep". You try thinking of a lullaby at three in the morning) but I stopped singing it when they got old enough to ask what the Wehrmacht was.


Posted by: LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 4:07 PM
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You too? The MLF Lullaby does kind of come naturally.


Posted by: Jesus McQueen | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 4:09 PM
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I know someone who claimed to use "Here Comes Your Man" as a lullaby, replacing "Man" with "Mom".


Posted by: Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 4:12 PM
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so was it the Joe Jackson version, or an earlier one? (Maybe Cab Calloway?)

Almost certainly the latter -- he was in his late 50s when I worked for him a few years ago, and I never heard him listen to music younger than he was.


Posted by: Witt | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 4:28 PM
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When I was just a wee babe in the crib, I used to distract myself between feedings by singing "I'm
Waiting for My Mom".

And by injecting heroin.


Posted by: M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 5:07 PM
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My kids will yell at me when I sing songs with made up lyrics.


Posted by: Joe O | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 5:29 PM
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The MLF Lullaby

You spelled MILF wrong.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 5:33 PM
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Was there a Simpson's episode where Homer watches it, or am I misremembering?

No, this happens. I assumed that what he watches isn't an accurate representation of the movie, but I've never seen it, so who knows.

"Gonna use an oil-based paint, because the wood is pine!"
"Ponderosa pine!"


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 6:05 PM
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The MILF Lullaby

That'd be this one?


Posted by: Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 6:49 PM
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I have been singing my kids to sleep with "In the Pines" I use lyrics that are a mix of the Leadbelly/Nirvanna version and the Bill Monroe/Dolly Parton version, and I sing it like the Tennessee Ernie Ford version (low and slow, very soporific, especially for babies resting their heads on your chest.)

The way I mash the words together, the story clearly turns out to be about a woman who is sleeping in the pines, in the pines, where the sun never shines, and shivering the whole night through, because she murdered her abusive husband.

When Caroline and Joey are Becks age, will they count this as a “my family is just a little weird” thing?


Posted by: rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 7:11 PM
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Whenever I used to complain to Dad that Mom was being mean/abusive to me (when I was 3 or 4), my dad would reply, "Fine, AWB. We'll just get a new Mom for you." At the time, I thought it was a joke, but, considering how fucked-up my mom was, and how miserable he was, it's hard to see it as a joke now.

I also distinctly remember Mom lending me Thomas Harris's Red Dragon (about a deeply disturbed guy who murders whole families and videos himself fucking their dead bodies so he can jerk off to them later) when I was twelve.

God, families are weird.


Posted by: A White Bear | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 8:08 PM
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One of the first songs I ever sang to my daughter, while we were still in the orphanage and I was holding her for the first time, dancing ecstatically around the orphanage office, the first thing that came to mind:

When you're a jet you're a jet all the way
From your first cigarrette to your last dying day
When you're a jet it's a wonderful thing
Little boy you're a man, little man you're a girl
I can only plead temporary loss of lucidity.


Posted by: Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 8:15 PM
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(And my favorite lullabye to sing to her in the first year she was with us, was "Freight Train" by Libby Cotten.)


Posted by: | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 8:17 PM
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Becks, I would think that our parents are from the same era as my mom used to sing that around the house. What really threw me was her fav. song with the lyrics:

Marsi dotes and dosi dotes and lil lamsi divi

I was in my twenties when I finially learned the real lyrics.


Posted by: Keith G | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 8:20 PM
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Lullabies ... yeah my mom sang me Freight Train. She also did You Are my Sunshine and Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child . They all seemed sad to me, but looking back the last one was weird too. But that is how she felt.

I don't have funny-family stories. My family was just too fucked up to be funny.


Posted by: md 20/400 | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 8:29 PM
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I always felt a little self-conscious about singing "Freight Train" because sleep and death get mixed up so closely in it -- "When I'm dead and in my grave,/ No more good times here will I crave./ Lay a stone at my head and feet,/ Tell my sweet child I'm gone to sleep." (Well that is to say I felt self-conscious outside the moment when reflecting on it; I submit that it's pretty well impossible to feel self-conscious while singing that song which is one of the ones that I would point to as archetypally bluesy.)


Posted by: Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 8:34 PM
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(Other archetypally bluesy songs: "Big Leg Woman Get My Pay" by Blind Boy Fuller, "Richland Woman Blues" by Mississippi John Hurt.)


Posted by: Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 8:37 PM
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Surely there's a "Lil' Baby Won't Stop Caterwaulin' Blues", or somesuch, out there, no?


Posted by: M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 8:48 PM
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For example:

My baby won't stop cryin'
Lord I don't know what to do
I said that baby won't stop cryin'
Lord and I don't know what to do
Seems I just done changed his diaper
But once again it's full of poo


Posted by: M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 8:50 PM
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My mom used to sing "Alouette" to me when I was little. The lyrics, about biting the heads of birds, came to resonate in our relationship later.


Posted by: A White Bear | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 8:51 PM
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of s/b off


Posted by: A White Bear | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 8:51 PM
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44

Lonesome Charlie Bonner sings the Cryin' Baby Blues, but I have never listened to it.


Posted by: Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 8:52 PM
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45

Is that what "je te plumerai le tete" means? I never thought about it.


Posted by: Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 8:55 PM
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I believe it actually means "pluck," but I'm no French-speaker.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 8:55 PM
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Alouette is seriously weird. I am going to pluck your back, I am going to pluck your back. Your back! Your back. Lark! Lark. Oh oh oh oh.


Posted by: redfoxtailshrub | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 8:56 PM
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48

It may indeed mean "pluck," but I guess I've always imagined one must do so with the teeth.


Posted by: A White Bear | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 8:57 PM
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A lexicon I just looked in thought plumer means pluck or "rip off", so te plumerai le tete would be "rip off your head", non?


Posted by: Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 8:58 PM
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The grammar works out a little funny to English speakers, because of how French doesn't do possessives with body parts. So it's lit. "I will pluck you the head/back/whatever."


Posted by: redfoxtailshrub | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 8:59 PM
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I think.


Posted by: redfoxtailshrub | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 9:00 PM
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(sorry about the incorrect gender and the missing hat -- perhaps this will serve as atonement.


Posted by: Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 9:01 PM
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Okay, so it's about plucking a lark's feathers in preparation for cooking it, which makes the lyrics much less mystifying. Thanks, National Institutes of Health (and CÆ)!


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 9:05 PM
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49: Non, monsieur. It means to pluck, as you would do in preparation for cooking. "Alouette" means "lark," which I believe qualifies as a game bird in France.


Posted by: Jesus McQueen | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 9:05 PM
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So, anyway, I think it's a little ambigious even in French, in the same way that "I will pluck your head, yo, Larkie," is in English -- pluck the head off, or pluck the feathers from the head? Oh oh oh oh.


Posted by: redfoxtailshrub | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 9:05 PM
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(For example, what about "je te plumerai les yeux"? No feathers on the eyes.)


Posted by: redfoxtailshrub | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 9:06 PM
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57

Pwned and plucked.


Posted by: Jesus McQueen | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 9:06 PM
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Well, who the hell knows the lyrics to kids lullabyes? And the ones that you do know are all stupid.

I sang most of the Cole Porter songbook to PK when he was a baby. It's actually kinda funny how many of those love songs work well as lullabyes. Like "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered," or "Why Can't You Behave?"


Posted by: bitchphd | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 9:07 PM
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56: Maybe the eyes are plucked out, but otherwise it's feathers? Or the feathers around the eyes?


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 9:08 PM
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56: Plucking out the eyes. Admittedly, some of the lyrics go a little overboard, and I would consult some other text if you're actually cooking lark.


Posted by: Jesus McQueen | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 9:09 PM
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Cooking a lark seems like more trouble than it's worth.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 9:09 PM
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Uh, that is to say, if I were.


Posted by: Jesus McQueen | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 9:09 PM
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But ok -- let's assume the song actually deals with plucking a lark in preparation for cooking -- in that case what is "je te plumerai le nez" doing in there? Larks haven't got any noses, they have beaks; and can you pluck a beak? Hm actually maybe you can -- I've never prepared a game bird for cooking, I would have thought you had to cut the beak off; but maybe it is something you pluck off. Nemmine.


Posted by: Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 9:09 PM
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64

58: Go on and blow, Gabriel, blow.


Posted by: A White Bear | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 9:09 PM
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Well, you'd just cut off its head with a knife. Not so much fun for kids.


Posted by: Jesus McQueen | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 9:11 PM
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66

You would have to remove the beak in some manner, and I suppose plucking's as good as any.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 9:11 PM
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The cooking explanation seems to have cleared up less confusion than I originally thought.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 9:12 PM
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It's not like a stinger, though. It's all woven into the head and stuff.


Posted by: A White Bear | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 9:13 PM
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Also: Up until this evening when you guys drove me to look the lyrics up on line, I have always thought the first line of the verse to be something like "Alouette, j'enté Alouette" -- don't speak or understand French but I thought the middle word was "je" plus another word ending in an ay sound. Similar misunderstanding: the beginning of Psalm 66 is "Jubiláte Deo, omnis terra:/ servite Dómino in lætítia." But when I heard it growing up and knowing nothing of Latin, I thought the end of the second line was something like "in les titzia".


Posted by: | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 9:17 PM
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58: Cole Porter, absolutely, and loads of the rest of the Great American Songbook. I used to sing "Let's Fall in Love" (or whatever the title is of the song that begins "Birds do it, bees do it"), "It Might As Well be Spring," "They Say It's Spring" and this Nina Simone song, "The Other Woman," which is kind of bleak but which has a perfect slow melody for a lullaby.


Posted by: Jesus McQueen | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 9:17 PM
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69 (Yay!) is I.


Posted by: Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 9:19 PM
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I sang the Eagles' "Peaceful Easy Feeling" to my kids when they were infants. Now I sing "Get a Job" to them.

I'm not sure if pointing out that they're 8 and 5 makes this fact more funny or less so.


Posted by: Lex | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 9:19 PM
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73

Definitely more.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 9:20 PM
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I thought it was the tongue of the lark one was after.

I sang 'I'm an Old Cowhand from the Rio Grande' to my kids, but when they'd put up their hands, like DR, I'd sing 'STOP, in the name of love . . .'


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 9:26 PM
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Oh, another bizarre mom-memory. She used to sing that Donovan song that goes "Yellow is the color of my true love's hair / in the morning / when we rise / in the morning / when we rise / That's the time (that's the time!) / That's the time (that's the time!) / I love the best."

When I hit puberty, I realized he means that's the time during which he "loves" the best.


Posted by: A White Bear | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 9:29 PM
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(Psalm 66 would make a really nice lullabye. Hard to sing in four voices; but I think just the tenor part by itself would be very soothing. Make a Joyful Sound.)


Posted by: Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 9:29 PM
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It's a list of body parts, people, so that little children can learn the names of parts of their bodies, not a literal description of plucking lunch. [Ortolans are much more gruesome to prepare; one drowns them in brandy.]

I used to sing the folk song Pigeon House to the Offspring when he was a baby, but when he got old enough to talk, he demanded Mister Mister's Kyrie or the folk song Gaudete.

Now, of course, it's all R&B and trance and dear Ghod, Paris Hilton. I shudder to think what he might sing to his children.

"Hey little baby, shut your trap
Daddy's gonna sing you a beddy-bye rap
And if you cry or wet your bed
Daddy's gonna knock you upside your head"


Posted by: DominEditrix | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 9:32 PM
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Hm -- I assumed that file was going to be the motet. But not -- it is very pleasant but is not the song I thought would be good as a lullaby.


Posted by: | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 9:33 PM
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Of course the purpose of the song is just to be a list of body parts, but it's still a remarkably peculiar way to structure it. The closest anglophone equivalent is "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes," which contains no larks or plucking at all, and which I just realized the other day has the same tune as "There is a tavern in the town," which, to return to the original topic of the thread, my dad used to sing when I was little.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 9:40 PM
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Not so weird: the first song I learned for Thing 1 and Thing 2 was a Brazilian lullaby, Paurillo Barroso's "Para Niñar," that I memorized from this album. Sweet, sweet. The 30-second clip at the link is a good section.


Posted by: Jesus McQueen | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 9:43 PM
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There was a King Crimson reference to be made, and someone made it before w-lfs-n did. Further, people are typically awake in w-lfs-n's normal time zone at that time. I deduce that w-lfs-n is either dead, kidnapped, or in some other way forcibly incommunicado. Further, anyone purporting to be Ben w-lfs-n who claims otherwise should not be believed, as this very comment may provoke them to try to cover up their heinous misdeeds. And they may have spent months, nay years, learning to emulate his style of commenting. Finally, of course, if they are in fact holding him hostage, commenting from his IP address is the easiet thing in the world for them.


Posted by: washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 9:46 PM
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I was also going through some Cole Porter tunes one night and started in on "My Heart Belongs to Daddy," but that was definitely a little too weird.


Posted by: Jesus McQueen | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 9:48 PM
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83

Yeah, well, that song is just icky in every way. "Daddy"? Ewwww.


Posted by: bitchphd | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 9:49 PM
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81: I go to class occasionally, you know. Where's the reference? I haven't read the whole thread.


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 9:50 PM
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Commenting so quckly after 81 just increases my suspicions. And it's not much of an inspiration for a reference, just someone going from the very mention of body part's of larks to "lark's tongue in aspic." Which the real Ben w-lfs-n would know.


Posted by: washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 9:54 PM
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83: "If I invite some boy, some night, to dine on my fine finnan haddie"? You know he had to be mightily pleased with himself after writing that line.


Posted by: Jesus McQueen | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 9:55 PM
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Evidently not one involving larks' tongues in aspic.


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 9:58 PM
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85: I said I hadn't read the thread.


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 9:58 PM
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But showed up as soon as someone mentioned the surprising evidence of your absence, faux-ben.


Posted by: washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 10:02 PM
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I was tipped off as to the proceedings by a third-party informant.


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 10:03 PM
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86: Oh, sure. And as a gay song, it's all campy and hilarious. But if you think of it as trying to pass for straight, you can tell that the entire point was to make straight women refuse to fuck men, like, ever. Leaving more of 'em for Cole, obviously.


Posted by: bitchphd | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 10:05 PM
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Damn you, Cole Porter!


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 10:13 PM
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93

Not so fast, Teo. He approved of a woman sleeping around for gifts. Could work for you.


Posted by: Jesus McQueen | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 10:23 PM
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He approved of a woman sleeping around for gifts

...from "wealthy older men."


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 10:26 PM
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Actually, I always thought the point of that was more like, it's none of your business who I fuck or why. It's one of my favorite of his songs.


Posted by: bitchphd | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 10:26 PM
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Well, that too, but why not profit from it? Come to think of it, Teo, have you ever seen Midnight Cowboy? Just a thought.


Posted by: Jesus McQueen | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 10:32 PM
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ATM it's everyone's business who B fucks and why.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 10:35 PM
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I have not seen Midnight Cowboy.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 10:36 PM
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97: Oh, I still have a few secrets.


Posted by: bitchphd | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 10:38 PM
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98: Whether or not you get any career/relationship advice from it, you absolutely must see Midnight Cowboy.


Posted by: Jesus McQueen | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 10:47 PM
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Yeah, there are a lot of movies I haven't seen but should. I don't see many movies.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 10-26-06 10:52 PM
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That's whom I fuck or B fucks, people.

Use/mention distinctions are for the weak.


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 10-27-06 1:24 AM
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I see that teaching the two-year-old to observe that cats are fickle creatures doesn't even rate.

"How does the cat go?"
"Meow."
"And what do we know about cats?"
"Fick'l Keechers."

Obviously being weird is another one of those parental things that it takes time to get good at.


Posted by: Doug | Link to this comment | 10-27-06 2:11 AM
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So if any of you New Yorkers were walking on 5th Avenue this morning and passed a guy singing "Alouette" and grinning foolishly, well, I wish you would have stopped to say hello.

A question for the w-lfs-ns among us: If you wished to write the phrase the emperor's new clothing but to scare-quote "emperor", what would be the proper punctuation: the "emperor"'s new clothing, or the "emperor's" new clothing?


Posted by: Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 10-27-06 5:53 AM
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75 - I looooove Colours by Donovan!


Posted by: Becks | Link to this comment | 10-27-06 7:56 AM
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Donovan is fun. I had never made the connection that AWB is talking about vis-a-vig "Colours". My fave is "Season of the Witch". (In 1984 or 5, my friends and I drove to SF to attend a Donovan comeback tour (or something like that) -- it was very weird, he was playing in a hotel lounge and we were the only young people there.)


Posted by: Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 10-27-06 8:26 AM
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Donovan's career was fucked in the first place when some industry jerk decided to market him as the British Dylan. This was obviously greeted with such contempt by all and sundry that the poor guy was never judged on his own merits, and it's a tribute to his abilities that he managed to sell records for two or three years.

Clownae, was he actually any good any more?


Posted by: OneFatEnglishman | Link to this comment | 10-27-06 8:36 AM
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No, not really any good -- just weird. He sang songs off his albums which I loved listening to on record -- but the lovely quality present in the recordings was not present. I am having trouble naming the quality -- my first thought was "naivete" or "ingenuity" but that is not quite what I'm looking for. "Youth" maybe?


Posted by: Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 10-27-06 8:39 AM
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BTW OFE, do you know where the "Don't Look Back" appearance of Donovan fits in with his recording career? Had he already at that point been dubbed "the British Dylan"? -- was that appearance part of the marketing effort?


Posted by: Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 10-27-06 8:44 AM
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It was indeed. Even at the time I thought it was cruel and unusual punishment.


Posted by: OneFatEnglishman | Link to this comment | 10-27-06 8:48 AM
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Donovan recently put out a memoir. I haven't read it.

My mother was obsessed with Donovan when I was a kid, so for one of her birthdays, I gathered up quite a bit of cash to buy her the "Troubadour" box set. She greedily ripped it open in the next room to look at the nude photos. Then we listened to "Atlantis" like a thousand times. I can still do the whole speech by heart, in a Scottish accent.


Posted by: A White Bear | Link to this comment | 10-27-06 9:43 AM
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Donovan is supposed to collaborate with Devendra Banhart at some point.


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 10-27-06 10:03 AM
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106: "vis-a-vis" + "WYSIWYG" = "vis-a-vig"?


Posted by: Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 10-27-06 10:07 AM
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113: Only vit a Tscherman accent, I seenk.


Posted by: Doug | Link to this comment | 10-27-06 12:06 PM
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What you seenk is what you get.


Posted by: Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 10-27-06 12:09 PM
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Or:
Seenk, and you shall find
Conk, and the door shall be opened
Bask, and you shall receive
And the love come tumblin' down.


Posted by: Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 10-27-06 12:55 PM
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70: Teo - Not for the French. One has to train children in their early years to find feather-plucking a fun sort of thing, so that they can pluck ortolans in 30 seconds. [I dimly remember that this was a fur-trapper's camp song, which makes it less haute cuisine and more lark-and-beans, but it's all cooking...]

Besides, children are grim little creatures. It always upset my mother that I dispassionately watched the cook slaughter chickens and lambs; she seemed to feel that I wouldn't want to eat dinner if I'd realised the food we ate came from the animals I'd played with. [Well, not so much chickens, who are not a lot of fun, but fluffy lambs are good for hugging,] It only taught me to appreciate that one should eat what one kills, lest a former pet go to waste. Which is probably why I cannot get on board with the "save our horses from being eaten by Belgians" campaign that's going on in CA - If one can eat Bambi and Thumper and Wilbur and Chicken Little, it seems silly to exempt Flicka from becoming cheval bourginogne.


Posted by: DominEditrix | Link to this comment | 10-27-06 1:07 PM
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Davey Jones put out a memoir, too.

It's called: "They Made a Monkee out of Me".

It's pretty, good, too--he gave me a copy, so I had to read it.


Posted by: kid bitzer | Link to this comment | 10-27-06 2:33 PM
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A question for the w-lfs-ns among us: If you wished to write the phrase the emperor's new clothing but to scare-quote "emperor", what would be the proper punctuation: the "emperor"'s new clothing, or the "emperor's" new clothing?

I would go with the “emperor”'s new clothes, I think. But you might have greater clarity with the so-called emperor's new clothes or the like, though that would involve deviation from the form.


Posted by: ben w-lfs-n | Link to this comment | 10-27-06 3:31 PM
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My mother was obsessed with Donovan when I was a kid.

We sympathize wholeheartedly and are willing to try to help, but you're still responsible for your own acts. It's strictly toughlove around here.


Posted by: John Emerson | Link to this comment | 10-28-06 8:23 AM
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