Season of the 'Ukulele (SOTU) 629 - Season of the Cuckoo'lele

[hands_on_lanzon]

I'd like to start off by tonight's season update by welcoming our newest Seasonista, @acharman (Andrew)!
Scroll up a few posts and be a cool cucumber and consider contributing a kind and considerate comment or constructive critique of his cover of Counting Crows' Colorblind.

aaaaaaand enough c-words (keep your minds out of the gutter).
Ten new entries these past 24hrs or so and, I must admit, I have to catch up on dedicated listens and comments on all of them.
The 11th is below... my cover of Eddie Vedder's Society.

There has been a good amount of sharing this week and it's interesting to get below the surface level with some of those who've put themselves out there. Sometimes, we might be wary to even scratch that surface, like a soft top uke with satin finish. Others perhaps don't mind digging in, like a Willy Nelson guitar (anyone on IG catch Taimane's post of her old ukes?! I will post it later). Anyways... I appreciate any level of sharing or not sharing that folks are comfortable sharing, and I love the support I've seen thru it all.

In one comment, Mark mentioned he sponsors AA and CA. I had no idea what CA was, so I had to look it up (Cocaine Anonymous, to save you the trouble, if you're thinking of googling it). Well.. in that search, I also found out there are many other programs!... another of which I hadn't heard of... CLA or Clutterers Anonymous!!!

I will be the first to admit that I have too much stuff and UAS hit me pretty hard (not like Andrew , and this song is NOT intended to be directed at anyone here). I definitely have some clutterer or hoarding tendencies that I've been trying to shake, which may have been passed down from my parents and their parents before 'em. I've discussed root causes with with my wife, mainly regarding my parents' collection of 'stuff'. I'm working on selling some ukes and other things I've collected over the years. Also tryyying not to get any more things that I don't need. I think there's some definite brain cells synapsing here and there when they don't need to be, that fits within the season theme (I really don't need to convince the host, as I am him).

I'm rambling. Anyways... while thinking about CLA, I remembered a line from 'Society,'

I think I need to find a bigger place
'Cause when you have more than you think
You need more space

Then, when I was learning/reading the lyrics, I saw the overthinking lines that reminded me of @jtsteam 's overthinker song (above)

When you want more than you have
You think you need
And when you think more than you want
Your thoughts begin to bleed

Interesting how it tied together a bit. Ahhhh the human mind.
Alright... enough chitter chatter. How bout the video...

 

[hands_on_lanzon]

Others perhaps don't mind digging in, like a Willy Nelson guitar (anyone on IG catch Taimane's post of her old ukes?! I will post it later).

Check out that one on the upper right! Makes me not feel so bad about planting my pinky.


Also... this just in (after I looked at the https://forum.ukuleleunderground.com/threads/sign-up-for-future-seasons-iv.147504/ thread)... two Seasonistas have signed up to host future seasons so far!!

I'm up to at least three postcards for the week, so far, with the hosts and new Seasonista joining! I better start painting!!!

Keep me busy, folks! Idle hands and all that.

 

[LimousinLil]

Thanks so much, Chris! And, herewith, yet another entry from me ... well, you DID say "more!" My version should be taken no more seriously than Ray Davies originally intended when he wrote the song. (Just imagine having to live with one of these conditions, let alone both of them! Or - perhaps even worse - having to live WITH someone who is thus afflicted!)

 

[redpaul1]

When I record material for upload, playback sounds fine on my laptop, but when I play it back on YT, it sounds really thin. Anyone else have this issue?

 

[UkeCan1]

The lunatics are on the grass. If someone else was planning to do this (looking at you, Brian F), please do!

A little Pink Floyd, from Dark Side of the Moon.



I went to a Dark Side of the Rainbow party once, where you watch "The Wizard of Oz" movie with the sound turned down, while playing the "Dark Side of the Moon" album on repeat. In the old days when we did it, you had to flip and restart the album several times - the movie is something like 2-1/2 times as long as the album.

The timings are uncanny. "The lunatics are on the grass" plays when the Scarecrow appears, and this song, "Brain Damage", is playing during his scene, when he sings "If I Only Had a Brain", the cash register at the start of "Money" ka-chings as Dorothy opens the door into Oz and the movie goes from black and white to Technicolor, and again later when they arrive at the Emerald City, "Home, home again" is sung as she opens her eyes back in her bed in Kansas, and so many more.

Nowadays you can just watch it on YouTube. Okay, some of it. This video freezes at 58 minutes for some reason.



There's also a playlist of the audio only, so you can rent the movie and watch it with this.

This playlist looks like it may contain the whole thing (even though it starts with three clips from later in the movie):

 

[ukukeguy]

This is for Robert @ukukeguy.( and anyone else who is struggling.)
(I am not saying that Robert is struggling. I am dedicating this to you, Robert, because it was a song we were thinking to collab, but never got around to doing it.)
I first heard this from Nick Drake. (I think so did Robert)
I fretted a chord badly...and it was raining, but I didn't care.
I know this song has biblical and religious imagery, but I think the message is quite universal -
"that no matter how bleak the situation seemed, the struggle would "soon be over" (taken from Wikipedia about this song)


For anyone curious about the toothpaste I use. It is Darlie original strong mint.

Thanks, Joo. Yes, Nick and Gabrielle Drake perform it on Family Tree, an album of Nick's home recordings which also includes two contributions from their mum, Molly Drake, whose softly melancholic voice and songs proved so popular a further release of 19 of her songs were made available on a self-titled album.

I suppose I am struggling a bit, mostly due to health issues from long Covid since the end of 2022, but I do tend to overthink things, especially online, which isn't really helped by YouTube routinely deleting my comments on people's videos without explanation.

Some of my dearest friends have suffered from mental illness, from schizophrenia to bipolar disorder, and I am not immune to the "black dog" of depression, myself. One girl I knew always comes to mind when I hear Nick's Hazey Jane I and II and Thoughts of Mary Jane, althought that could be a reference to Nick's drugs habit, of course. Mary Jane is not a girl to mess with.

 

[ukukeguy]

When I record material for upload, playback sounds fine on my laptop, but when I play it back on YT, it sounds really thin. Anyone else have this issue?

It's probably some kind of sound enhancement like Dolby Atmos, it sounds great through Media Player but YouTube or just previewing the file doesn't use the audio plugin.

 

[wee_ginga_yin]

Thanks so much, Chris! And, herewith, yet another entry from me ... well, you DID say "more!" My version should be taken no more seriously than Ray Davies originally intended when he wrote the song. (Just imagine having to live with one of these conditions, let alone both of them! Or - perhaps even worse - having to live WITH someone who is thus afflicted!)

If you suffer from schizophrenia
Don’t worry, you’re not alone

 

[redpaul1]

It's probably some kind of sound enhancement like Dolby Atmos, it sounds great through Media Player but YouTube or just previewing the file doesn't use the audio plugin.

Thanks! I pulled a couple of entries from kolibri's 3/4 time season 'cos they sounded so rubbish once uploaded.

 

[mythinformed]

I was In the car this morning listening to the radio and 'The Long and Winding Road' was playing and I had the seasons topic In my head. It reminded me of the long winding roads that were Intentionally designed that used to lead up to the old Victorian Lunatic Asylums and then got me thinking that those lunatic asylums were a revolving door and a place of sanctuary for many poor souls when the world outside became too much for them so they were always led back to the long winding road. These lyrics could almost have been written for that scenario.

 

[Oldscruggsfan]

When I record material for upload, playback sounds fine on my laptop, but when I play it back on YT, it sounds really thin. Anyone else have this issue?

My covers always sound pretty thin, regardless of media .

 

[ukukeguy]

Thanks! I pulled a couple of entries from kolibri's 3/4 time season 'cos they sounded so rubbish once uploaded.

It's also a good idea to check recording levels on your videos before you upload to YouTube as they can't be changed once you've uploaded. I normally drag them into Audacity which gives some idea if levels are simply too low.

 

[jtsteam]

This is the first song I wrote (at least, the first song I wrote for a very very long time) that started a burst of creativity that is apparently still going on. I didn't think I'd ever sing it again, or even be able to, but I've just spontaneously decided that now is a good time to revisit it. I was tempted to change the words, because I like to think I'm better at words now, but then I thought better of it and left it alone as clunky as it was when I wrote it.

At the time, I didn't really know what made me suddenly decide to write it, but it is about a real thing that happened. I'm not going to say any more about what it's really about, because it's not really any of anyone else's business, except to say (a) that I promise it fits; (b) it turns out I don't find it quite as hard to sing now as I did back when I wrote it; and (c) it's all fine now.

 

[Threebird]

Thanks for giving me a good excuse to finally get around to learning this song - "Mr. Bobby" by Manu Chao - with this season's theme choice! Turns out I really like playing & singing it. It speaks to the role of music as a therapy/coping mechanism to get through the whatever is troubling our minds, "Hey Bobby Marley, sing something good to me. This world go crazy, it's an emergency".

Three chords repeated all the way through - Am Dm G

 

[dr_mitch]

This song--not my attempt at it, but this song in general--is a good example of a tradition in jazz of writing lyrics for an instrumental piece that had originally been composed earlier; sometimes years before. For this one, only three years had passed before vocalist Annie Ross wrote lyrics for Wardell Gray's tenor sax piece. It's been recorded by many; Joni Mitchell covered it on her hit album Court and Spark.

Here's another example of a jazz song with lyrics added much later on - Wild Man Blues, my second entry for the week. Which sounds quite fierce on the resonator.

 

[mountain goat]

an original song for the season

 

[acharman]

Thanks for the welcome. And yes I have a bit (a lot!!) of an acquisition syndrome for instruments - mainly strings. But it is a relatively harmless hobby that gives me something for a long period - some people spend more on holidays or frequent restaurant meals or other fleeting expenses.

A second one for this season - a bit rough round the edges. This is The Quiet Room by Alice Cooper from his album From the Inside set in an asylum.

 

[wee_ginga_yin]

Imagine all those people abandoned in mental hospitals, and Noone ever visiting them. The big red bus comes to the gates but no visitors get off cos it's always empty, it has been turned into an emblem of neglect, a sore reminder of abandonment.



Kevin Coyne began the work that would change him forever – he spent the three years, from 1965 to 1968, working as a social therapist and psychiatric nurse at Whittingham Hospital near Preston in Lancashire and then for "The Soho Project" in London as a drugs counsellor. During this period of working with the mentally ill he wrote songs about his and their experiences.

 

[Barbablanca]

When I was a child of about seven to eight I heard strange voices in my head. They claimed to be from an invisible spaceship orbiting the earth. They told me they were from my home planet and that I was on Earth as an observer and would one day be taken home. These voices continued to communicate sporadically telepathically with me for at least a year. I was told not to inform anyone of their existence. Then as suddenly as they arrived one day the "mother ship" signed off and I have heard nothing from them since.

Of course, I now believe this was a kind of "invisible friend " phenomenon, common to kids who don't fit in with the prevailing society in which they find themselves. I had looked out at the human race and found them unfathomable (I still do) and my brain must have come to the conclusion that I didn't form part of humanity and came up with the elaborate fantasy of alien communication.

Later on I learned about the hundreds, if not thousands, of people who genuinely believe they were abducted by aliens. That is the genesis of this song. It was written in response to the prompt "Unexplained" on FAWM this year.

I hope you like:

 

[One Man And His Uke]

Funny how someone else’s original song is sometimes the inspiration, however tenuously, for your own. Thanks Edwin @jtsteam , your observation that what your song is really about, is no one else’s business ( and more power to your elbow for that) got me to thinking, that sharing can be a very powerful coping mechanism for someone under stress, whatever shape or form that takes, and that we the sharees, for want of a better word, are incredibly privileged that the person trusts us to share in the first place. But what about those folk who you would never dream of sharing your problems with, because either, they are not bad people as such, but they are blabbermouths who can’t help themselves, or people who might use whatever you tell them for some darker purpose which has nothing to do with helping you. So that inspired this original. Lyrics below. Caution: contains the F-bomb.


NOYFB

You want to know why I don’t look so good
You’re asking me because you feel you should
Perhaps that why I sound a little terse
When you’re pressing me for chapter and verse.

My mouth says it’s kind of you to think of me,
But my mind is saying, it’s NOYFB.

Because I know if I give in and explain my strife
You’ll tell the f***ing world and then you’ll tell his wife.
So thanks but no thanks, I’m not ok it’s true
But caring isn’t sharing when it comes to you

I tell the ones who matter, that’s my philosophy
But in your case, it’s NOYFB.