READIN

Monday, June 13th, 2005

🦋 Wow, look at this!

I was googling around today and thought I would look for the sentence "I got a girl long and tall, sweet as she could be", which I believe is the first line of a Big Bill Broonzy song I was listening to last night and enjoying. No results... but!!! "long and tall" + "sweet as she could be" brings up only one result, and it is Michael Taft's Pre-War Blues Lyrics Concordance!!! This is huge! I haven't even begun looking at it yet but I'm completely psyched that such a thing should exist and be online.

Update: And here is a link to the front page of the concordance.

posted morning of June 13th, 2005: Respond
➳ More posts about Music

Saturday, December 25th, 2004

🦋 Singing Along

Sylvia has gotten interested in singing along, it seems to me like all of a sudden though probably in reality, it is something that has happened gradually. Some stuff she is singing lately -- "I've been lighting all the candles" (scroll down), a Hanukkah ditty sung to the tune of "I've been working on the railroad" which she learned at school; "Little Birdie" and "Weary day", both learned from a folk music CD that we play in the car a lot; "Happy Birthday", she sings a lot regardless of whether there is a party currently in progress. While she was taking a bath this morning with Ellen, I heard her singing "Jackamo fee-no ai nané, Jackamo fee nané" -- the chorus of "Iko Iko", which I've been playing a lot on guitar since I got interested in it recently.

posted evening of December 25th, 2004: Respond
➳ More posts about Sylvia

Wednesday, October 27th, 2004

🦋 Flowin' by

I started writing a song tonight (well technically last night I guess, the chord progression occurred to me last night and Ellen had an idea for some words tonight, which I fleshed out to a verse):

A           E7    F           A
What do you know, what do you care
A           E7    F           A
What do you know, what do you care
D           D7                  E                F
Last time I called you you were talkin bout your father
        E               F               D               D7
And you wouldn't answer straight when I asked about the water
        A
Flowin' by.

Needs more words and perhaps more sensible words but the rhythm of it is very nice.

Update: 2nd Verse

What do you know, what do you care
What do you know, what do you care
Last time I saw you you were thinkin bout tomorrow
And you wouldn't even listen when I asked about the sorrow
In your eye.

Update: Here is a bridge, and something like a 3rd Verse

Bridge:
D  D7  C  C9  F  E  A

What do you know, what do you care
What do you know, what do you care
I'm always askin you how come you can't forgive her 
But you won't tell me nothin, always starin at the river
Flowin by.

posted evening of October 27th, 2004: Respond
➳ More posts about Songs

Monday, October 11th, 2004

We ate the rest of the pumpkin pie at the guitar jam yesterday, everyone liked it, especially Bob. I mentioned The Plot Against America to Janis, who grew up in Newark; turns out she grew up in the Weequahic section, and her mother was in high school with Philip Roth! (And to answer a question that I had while reading the book, it's pronounced "WEEK-wa'ək".)

posted morning of October 11th, 2004: Respond
➳ More posts about The Plot Against America

Friday, June 25th, 2004

🦋 Song idea

Here is a song I think Bob and I could play really well, with Janis on bass and backing vocals -- Take a Walk on the Wild Side. Update: I talked to Bob on the phone this evening and he was pretty enthusiastic about the idea too.

posted afternoon of June 25th, 2004: Respond

Thursday, June 10th, 2004

Here is a new (to me) lyrics/chords site that I think will prove very useful: P.J.'s Guitar Chords Tabs and Song Lyrics Site -- I think his chords for The Night They Tore Old Dixie Down are spot on and he has lots of other interesting stuff too. And speaking of such things: RUKind.com looks promising too.

posted afternoon of June 10th, 2004: 2 responses

Sunday, June 6th, 2004

🦋 Weekend update

It was a good weekend. Eva came to visit yesterday, with her newish baby Benjamin (6 months old, extremely cute). We had a great visit and went for a nice long walk. I got the second gate up and it works according to specifications. Ellen and Sylvia drove to Bethlehem today, to visit Joyce and her daughter Susanna, and I got a good bit of time to myself. This afternoon's jam was excellent -- Doug came, who has not been able to for the past couple of months, and everyone was playing at the top of their ability. I had the idea today to play a meddley of "Rocky Raccoon" and "Rag Mama" -- pretty easy to do as they are almost the same chords -- and they both sounded better this way than on their own.

posted evening of June 6th, 2004: Respond

Monday, May 31st, 2004

At the jam today, we finally agreed on chords for "City of New Orleans" -- this is a bit historic as every time we have played it before, we've gotten bogged down in arguing about the correct chords. Here it is:

Intro:
| G / / / | G / / / |

  G      /      D    /   |  G   / / / |
  Riding on the City of New Orleans
| Em       /       C      /     | G   /   /   /   |
  Illinois Central Monday morning rail
| G       /        D       /      | G   /   /   / |
  Fifteen cars and fifteen restless riders
       | Em     /    D           /      | G  / / / |
Three conductors and twenty-five sacks of mail.
      | Em        /           /    /     | 
    All along the south bound odyssey, 
            Bm          /      /     /   |
        the train pulls out of Kankakee
    | D      /         /      /       | A   / / / |
    Rolls along past houses farms and fields
    | Em       /          /      / | 
    Passing towns that have no name, 
        Bm      /        /         /   |
        freight yards full of old black men
      | D      /      D7     /    | G    / / / |
    And graveyards of rusted automobiles.
 
Chorus: 
| C      /      D7   /   |  G      / / / | 
  Good morning America, how are you? 
   | Em        /        C        /    |  G  / / D7 | 
Say, don't you know me, I'm your native son. 
      | G          /        D    /    | Em     Em7 A7 / | 
I'm the train they call the City of New Orleans 
      | B♭        C       D              /     | G / / / | 
I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done. 
 
Dealing card games with the old men in the club car 
Penny a point ain't noone keeping score 
Pass the paper bag that holds the bottle 
Feel the wheels rumbling 'neath the floor 
   And the sons of Pullman porters 
       and the sons of engineers 
   Ride their father's magic carpets made of steel 
   Mothers with their babes asleep, 
       rocking to the gentle beat 
   And the rhythm of the rails is all they feel. 
 
Nightime on the City of New Orleans 
Changing cars in Memphis Tennessee 
Half way home we'll be there by morning 
through the Mississippi darkness rolling down to the sea. 
   But all the towns and people seem 
       to fade into a bad dream 
   And the steel rail still ain't heard the news 
   The conductor sings his songs again, 
       the passengers will please refrain 
   This train's got the disappearing railroad blues.

Update: what I mean to say is, the above is some chords that Jim found via a Google search when he was looking for the lyrics; they agree almost completely with the chords which we all had agreed on, independently of looking at that transcription. (The main difference is, we had F instead of B-flat in the last line of the chorus -- I think the transcription is probably correct here, though F sounds pretty good too.) Ignore most of the 7's and 9's in the transcription, which are good flourishes to put in but not an essential part of the song's chord structure.

posted evening of May 31st, 2004: Respond

I will not be able to play the open mike this Wednesday; but I have started working on a set for next week: "Richland Woman Blues", "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right", "No Expectations".

posted morning of May 31st, 2004: Respond

Wednesday, May 26th, 2004

The set went ok. It was about 15 minutes long, I had a lot of energy throughout but my fingers started losing track about 2/3 of the way in. I missed a lot of notes on "Rag Mama" and by the end of the song it seemed like I had fallen apart almost completely. But, the audience liked it so who am I to judge? Other guitar players tend to be a pretty forgiving audience.

Passing the time before the music started, I took Underworld idly off the bookshelf there and started reading it on a whim -- I found the language most easy on my ears. So I borrowed it and will see how I do reading it over the next few months. It is too big for me to really carry it around conveniently so I imagine it will be mostly evening reading.

posted evening of May 26th, 2004: Respond
➳ More posts about Underworld

Previous posts about Guitar
Archives