Season 634 - Love Your Larynx!

[wee_ginga_yin]

Marcelo Bielsa who was an Argentian football coach who took Leeds United from the championship to the premiership. He refused to speak English in all of his press conferences and only spoke in Spanish.


He is often referred to as El Loco because of his footballing philosophy which has influenced most of the top football coaches in the world. His personna was a mixture of philosopher, Zen Master with just a pinch of voodoo... Emma Jones the female newscaster at Leeds would weep an cry over Marcelo as did everyone, because he was magical.

Marcelo Bielsa was the renowned manager of Leeds United. The pope may be consider making him the patron saint of football

He takes his thunder to the Stadium,
He take the lightning from the sky
He brings a strong man to his bended knees,
Make Emma Jones weep and cry
He's got the hi-de-hi,
He got the jump up and go
He's got the hi-de-hi-de ho
He's the old man from Elland Road - El Loco
Well he likes to speak in tongues and riddles
just like Carols Castaneda
He got a tub full of rattlesnake bones,
He's the old man from Elland Road.
He's got the hi-de-hi,
He got the jump up and go
He's got the hi-de-hi-de ho
He's the old man from Elland Road - El Loco

 

[mountain goat]

thank you for this week Del
a Neil Levenson song by way of Blondie

 

[LimousinLil]

thank you for this week Del
a Neil Levenson song by way of Blondie

Un tres joli accent, Monsieur!!!

 

[UkeCan1]

I just remembered a song I wrote in October 2019, and never properly recorded, that's a perfect twofer.

It's about getting loud (singing and talking, and playing ukes around campfires after curfew, annoying the camp staff), at an annual gathering, and counting the days until we get to do it again next year.

The last weekend of September, for a few years before I left the US, I used to join a small gathering (~70) of ukulele players for a weekend of fun at the Ohio Ukulele Campout, at the Mohican campground in Loudonville, Ohio. It was always such a great time, among wonderful people.

The last one I attended was OUC7, in 2019. In 2020, covid kept many of home, and by 2021 I had moved to Australia. At OUC7, I wrote us a sort of OUC anthem called "Loud in Loudonville". I finished the song just before the open mic, but hadn't really leaned the melody yet. I made video, but sang it badly. THIS, at long last, is the melody as I intended it (or as close as I can reconstruct it 4.5 years later).

The cha-cha-cha reference: In the OUC Facebook group each year we would count the days until the next gathering in "cha-cha-chas", eagerly awaiting our next gathering. The buildup was almost as fun as the event itself. Almost.

 

[Canada Jim]

NIGHT RIDER'S LAMENT - Michael Burton

I have heard great versions of this song by Jerry Jeff Walker and by Ian Tyson. I've never heard Michael Burton do it.
"They've never heard ole Camp Cookie sing." (My apologies for my sorry ass yodel.)

 

[Charley B]

 

[xommen]

Ok I did find a U2 song that fits (and I have not done before), this is called like a song.

The lyrics start with Like a Song I have to Sing.

 

[jtsteam]

Hi Del, thanks for hosting, and I hope you get well soon!
A fun thing to use your larynx for is to tell stories. After all, before writing, that was the only way stories got passed on. So here's a song about where stories come from. And, on its own, that'd be really tenuous, so to be on the safe side this song also mentions laughter and singing.



It's inspired by a line said by Peter Capaldi in Doctor Who that got stuck in my head: "Stories are where memories go when they're forgotten".

 

[AlanDP]

Many of these old songs have ukulele versions that were intended to be played on a uke tuned to Eb, so since I've had the thrift store uke tuned to D for several weeks, I've tuned it on up to Eb and I'll see if it can stay there. A couple of tricky parts on this one where it goes into the key of E a couple of times. "The Prisoner's Song" mentioned in this song was the B-side of "The Wreck of the Old 97" recorded by Vernon Dalhart in 1924, two years before this song. It was the first multi-million selling country record and everyone knew it. Since "The Prisoner's Song" was the B-side, it was also very well known, because back then you weren't going to spend all that money on a record and then just ignore one side of it.

 

[Jane-ukey]

Here’s my very first venture into SOTU world - this is an original song, Autumn Bride.

 

[Jane-ukey]

Hi Del, thanks for hosting, and I hope you get well soon!
A fun thing to use your larynx for is to tell stories. After all, before writing, that was the only way stories got passed on. So here's a song about where stories come from. And, on its own, that'd be really tenuous, so to be on the safe side this song also mentions laughter and singing.



It's inspired by a line said by Peter Capaldi in Doctor Who that got stuck in my head: "Stories are where memories go when they're forgotten".

Thanks for hosting, Del! Sorry about your larynx. Hope you recover soon!

For my first song I am bringing a (famous?)Scottish song.

I know I sound funny singing a Scottish song, me with my Singlish/Teochew accent, but I wanna take this opportunity to thank Rob @wee_ginga_yin for giving me a book of Scottish songs and ballads.

I am also grateful that my larynx works so I can speak and sing. My accent might sound different from yours, or even funny, but I am singing the same song the Scottish people have been singing for years. :--)

There are many versions of this song. The one I am singing has 2 verses.

This line from the first verse fits the theme :
If a body kiss a body, need a body cry?

The second verse has Scottish words, which I hope I have pronounced correctly :
Gin a body meet a body,
Comin' frae the toon,
Gin a body greet a body,
Need a body froon?
Among the train there is a swain,
I dearly love mysel',
But what's his name or what's his hame,
I donna care to tell.

Is that clawhammer technique that you are using? Love it on the baritone and the rhythm of it works so well with this song

 

[aspieman456]

Is that clawhammer technique that you are using? Love it on the baritone and the rhythm of it works so well with this song

Hi, Del.

I’m so sorry to hear about your laryngitis. It was the same thing with me when I came down with it last year. Took me a whole month to get over it. I hope you get over yours quick.
Dave McMillin

 

[Canada Jim]

There's a type of wordless sounds that folks make with their mouths when they are trying to imitate an instrument. Jazz musicians call it "Scat". Irish musicians sometimes call it "Lilting". In Nova Scotia and P.E.I. it's called "Jiggin' The Tune".
I learned this tune - I forget the name of the tune, maybe Red River Reel? or maybe Red River Rag? - from a Newfoundland musician who called it "Mouth Music". He said this is what they'd do "when we lacks a fiddle."

 

[joo]

Is that clawhammer technique that you are using? Love it on the baritone and the rhythm of it works so well with this song

It is, Jane! My lazy version of clawhammer Drop Thumb!

I am out waiting for my lunch now and i saw you have posted something. And an original! Will listen to it later when i got my earphones!

Welcome to the Seasons!

 

[acharman]

An original written today called Yelling Into the Void. I guess starting with a title like that I couldn't expect the lyrics to come out full of sunshine and roses. In an alternate tuning of FCEA (with a high F) to get the drones I wanted.

 

[One Man And His Uke]

Hi Del, thanks for hosting and hope your voice is well on the way to recovery. This is not the song I intended to do initially. I felt that while it kind of met the criteria for the season, it wasn’t really in the spririt of songs to do with sounds we make with our voice box. So I did this one instead. I dovetails nicely with Andrew’s original above, because while we can use the larynx to shout, at the other end of the scale we can use it to whisper. This was a bit hit for The Ink Spots in 1940. Some of us may also know it from Windsor Davies and Don Estelle’s cover which was a hit in 1975 on the back of the comedy series “It Ain’t Arf Hot Mum”. Sandy Denny also recorded a lovely version the year before. It was written by father and daughter, Fred and Doris Fisher. What I found out and never knew was that the idea of whispering grass harks back to the myths of King Midas; not the one where everything he touches turns to gold, but one where he is present at a musical contest between Pan with his pipes, and Apollo with his lyre. Everyone thinks Apollo has won the contest apart from Midas who sides with Pan. Apollo declares that Midas must have the ears of a donkey then, so as a punishment he gives Midas donkey ears. Midas is so ashamed he covers his ears up in a turban. Only his barber knows about the ears and is sworn to secrecy. Sadly, the barber can’t keep a secret, goes into a meadow, digs a hole, whispers Midas’ secret into the hole and fills the hole in. But a bed of reeds grows where the hole was, and the reeds start whispering “King Midas has donkey’s ears” and soon everyone knew his secret. Who says the seasons can’t be educational?

Incidentally, the little riff at the start, it must be a kind of Ink Spots motif because I don’t think I’ve heard any of their songs that doesn’t begin with it. I guess if it ain’t broke……

 

[UkeCan1]

I have so much work to do! But instead I did this.

It's kind of an ode to what you are going through, Del.

It's called "Without Larynx (Laryngitis Song)", and is a parody of Badfinger's "Without You" (my second Badfinger song this week that you probably didn't remember was a Badfinger song - you're forgiven if you only remember the Harry Nilsson megahit cover).

I squeezed in as many activities that require the larynx as I could fit ... including a few you may not have thought of.

I hope you're feeling better, Del!

 

[YorkSteve]

Hope you are crooning again soon Del. In the meantime, Elvis says you can listen to girls talk.

 

[UkeFoote]

"I Call Your Name" by the Beatles, for concert ukulele with singing, overdubs of Ashbory Ubass and secondary vocal.

Thanks for hosting, Del... I hope your voice returns soon!

 

[MorganTheBard]

Hi everyone,
thank you for this wonderful topic. I also hope you will feel better soon. In this song it’s not about talking in a literal sense, but I hope it’s still counts because this song is very dear to me and my father played it often in his street music, as I was a child.
please excuse me confusing, the lyrics due to my visual impairment I can’t read the text while I’m singing and playing at the same time so even after the 10th time recording, I still made mistakes, so I thought I just stick with it