Season 548 - Second City Songs

[YorkSteve]

In that case, don’t forget to visit Wetwang in the East Riding of Yorkshire

And by an amazing twist of fate, I drove through there just this afternoon. A pretty village, but nothing out of the ordinary.

For fans of unusual place names, I highly recommend "The Meaning of Liff" compiled by Douglas Adams & John Lloyd. They took hundreds of UK place names and matched them up with things/feelings/happenings for which there is no word. For example, Kimmeridge (Dorset) is the light breeze which blows through your armpit hair when you are sunbathing.
I am not going to tell you what a Wetwang is.

 

[TCK]

I of course meant Ukulele strings, but I am adding twine for your veggies now. Simple. Just play the GBH song

 

[wee_ginga_yin]

UB40 and Robert Palmer doing a Dylan classic.

 

[mountain goat]

more from the triumphant Modified Toy Orchestra...
and w/ big thanks to joo for making the film

 

[One Man And His Uke]

Afternoon Seasonuts, well we are almost on the Aston Expressway, making our way to Spaghetti Junction and thence onwards to pastures new depending where the next Season host takes us, but there are a few roads and canals to navigate these last couple of days. Playlist is up to date. Can I ask again, can you all check you are getting comments coming through on your videos? I am off to work shortly so I’ll check in later. In the meantime there’s still plenty of time to get a Brum related song or two in……with ( fingers X’d) a version of Birmingham Smile

 

[jtsteam]

I looked through the list of famous people from Birmingham, and discovered that it was in Birmingham where Alfred Bird, of Bird's Custard fame, invented a way of thickening custard without using eggs, so that his wife who was allergic to eggs could eat it. I feel this great contribution to society ought to be honoured. Also, when I read about him on wikipedia, it included the phrase "Bird was not content to revolutionise custard" and that just set me off.

There is a small risk that I'm turning into John Shuttleworth here. I suppose it could be worse.

 

[joo]

Winter, a song by British progressive rock group Tea & Symphony, is from their 1969 LP An Asylum for The Musically Insane.
Here is the original https://youtu.be/K97U_KlZX_c

I don't know the exact chords for the song but I tried to get them as close as I could.
I have left the best part of the song out, which is made up of a wonderful mix of flute, and what sounded like violin and cello.
I left that out simply because I did not know how to emulate those sounds in the time I had to make this.
BUT, I love the original and I wanted to try to cover a song by a musical group from Birmingham.

The image for the video is a portrait I made of Swiss writer Robert Walser, who died of a heart attack on 25 December 1956 on a field of snow near the asylum where he had been living for 23 years.

(my right thumb had a problem this afternoon and I kept making some harsher sounding tones with my clawhammer. in case you are wondering who was farting...)

 

[LimousinLil]

Hi again, it’s come to my attention that at least one of you lovely people cannot see my comments on your YouTube videos….l I have no idea why should be because I try to keep up with commenting and updating the playlist. Is anyone else having this issue?

I'm still having that issue, John ... but it's probably just me!

 

[LimousinLil]

wi

There's a village near us called Ars(e) ... which used to be a cause of great mirth to our sons when they were younger.

 

[CeeJay]

There's a village near us called Ars(e) ... which used to cause great mirth for our sons when they were younger.

There's a cavern in Castleton, Derbyshire which is called Devil's Arse. This causes me great mirth still today and I'm old enough to know better !!

 

[wee_ginga_yin]

Martin Luther King wrote a letter from Birmingham jail which defined his stance on holding protests for the civil rights movement.

"We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor it must be demanded by the oppressed"

"Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."

"One has not only a legal, but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws."
Martin Luther King Jr

 

[cua94]

Duran Duran is on the list so I thought I would give it a go.

 

[Joko]

My journey of the Season this week took me from funny place names, to Emmy Lou Harris (from Birningham, AL), to GBH and finally settling in on familiar territory - a rock ballad from the inimitable Black Sabbath.

 

[One Man And His Uke]

Well, we’re now sat in Digbeth bus station, waiting for our National Express coach to take us off somewhere else, maybe with a paperback in our lap as we anticipate Edwin’s Season….. we now have 58 songs on the Playlist, and everyone of them is a gem, they could almost have been created in The Jewelry Quarter. Still time for a few more, let’s see what our last few hours in Brum brings us.

 

[LSamuels]

John, thank you for hosting and for giving me a reason to learn about the abundance of fabulous music connected to Birmingham! I started working on Joan Armatrading’s Down to Zero but it is definitely not going to be ready by the end of the season. I am looking forward to listening to everything!

 

[One Man And His Uke]

John, thank you for hosting and for giving me a reason to learn about the abundance of fabulous music connected to Birmingham! I started working on Joan Armatrading’s Down to Zero but it is definitely not going to be ready by the end of the season. I am looking forward to listening to everything!

Down to Zero would be a fabulous song to cover. Thought about it myself. Don’t fret that you didn’t get it done, keep working on it. The Seasons have a habit of throwing up chances to do songs you were working on at a later date

 

[UkeFoote]

Stevie Winwood's "Can't Find My Way Home" for baritone ukulele with singing, and overdubs of electric bass and whistling.

Thanks for hosting, John!



Produced for Seasons of the Ukulele 548 and 549

 

[mythinformed]

Forgot I had this bit of Brum history knocking around my flat in the form of a bust. The 'Peaky Blinders' were an active crime gang in the city from the 1880s to the 1910s.........

 

[TheOnlyUkeThatMatters]

This week, I learned that Ozzy Osbourne is from Birmingham. That makes me think Birmingham is cool.

And a couple months back, someone I know blew my mind when they sang a karaoke version of this classic. That made me think it's time for a ukulele version...

 

[Ms Bean]

Regarding names of places, I've got the following local names: Crook, No Place (fortunately also known as Co-operative Villas) and Pity Me. Nevermind those names, I love the North East, and I'm sure many of you would too!

Songwise, I settled for Birmingham, Alabama, as there was a ready made tune from 1916. That tune was composed in Ab, and some of the accidentals are quite tricky for me to pull off vocally.

This song was written by Brennan and Story, and you can find the sheet music here:
https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3189&context=mmb-vp