Let the Mermaids Flirt with Me

Here's a really interesting country blues by Mississippi John Hurt. I like Hurt's music because it's quiet and unassuming but always masterfully played. His alternating bass finger-picking style, which is really quite different from the harder driving delta blues of the likes of Son House or Robert Johnson that I was first exposed to, is the one that I predominantly play nowadays and I'm gradually getting a sense of the possibilities that his style opened up. I like this piece because it's such as melancholic but playful blues lyric. And of course, it reminds me of Eliot's "Prufrock". I don't sing all the verses but here's the MJH tune, "Let the Mermaids Flirt with Me".



Blues all on the ocean, blues all in the air.
Can't stay here no longer, I have no steamship fare.
When my earthly trials are over, carry my body out in the sea.
Save all the undertaker bills, let the mermaids flirt with me.

I do not work for pleasure, earthly peace I'll see no more.
The only reason I work at all, is drive the world from my door.
When my earthly trials are over, carry my body out in the sea.
Save all the undertaker bills, let the mermaids flirt with me.

My wife controls our happy home, a sweetheart I can not find.
The only thing I can call my own, is a troubled and a worried mind.
When my earthly trials are over, carry my body out in the sea.
Save all the undertaker bills, let the mermaids flirt with me.

Blues all in my body, my darling has forsaken me.
If I ever see her face again, I have to swim across the sea.
When my earthly trials are over, carry my body out in the sea.
Save all the undertaker bills, let the mermaids flirt with me.

Blues all on the ocean, blues all in the air.
Can't stay here no longer, I have no steamship fare.
When my earthly trials are over, carry my body out in the sea.
Save all the undertaker bills, let the mermaids flirt with me.

Instrumental Interlude

Here's a short instrumental that I put together from two quite different pieces. I'm actually very happy with the sound quality of this piece (if not the playing, where I keep goofing up a triplet in the chorus of the first piece). I've managed to solve, in a measured way, a problem with getting better sound from my guitar.

The problem is with the producing a resonant bass, which would be nice since I'm playing an alternating bass-line on most of the fingerstyle accompaniments. But since I've been making do with Garage Band and my Mac's built in mic, it's been difficult getting the bass line to register strongly. I think part of the problem is that my guitar doesn't really sing out in the lower registers. So, some of the solutions I've contrived include: 1. using a thumbpick 2. playing around with the EQ in Garage Band 3. getting one of those fancy boxes that allows you to jack your guitar's pickup straight into the computer 4. getting an amp. Of course, given my reluctance to spend money, I've only tried out options 1. and 2. with very little success.

However, totally by accident, I think I've solved the problem. My mac was on the carpeted floor of our living room yesterday when I decided to record an instrumental. Instead of unplugging it from it's power source and the speakers I had it hooked up to (I was listening to Jacqueline Du Pre ...), I just sat on the floor with my guitar and did the recording. I immediately knew something was different from the sound waves that Garage Band was picking up. So when I played the thing back -- it was amazing, especially cause my mac was still hooked up to the speakers. Here's what I think happened, because I was on the floor and the guitar was touching the carpet, the sound must have gone through that straight to the mic, instead of being dissipated into the air. Not the most "scientific" of recording techniques I guess, but it worked well.

Ballad of October 16th

Here's a strange addition to the blog. I recently learnt this song while listening to a Smithsonian Folkways compilation of WW II Folksongs. It's titled "That's Why We're Marching" and contains a large number of great performances featuring Woody Guthrie, the Almanac Singers , and Leadbelly. "The Ballad of October the 16th" is a strange addition because it really isn't a song in support of the war. Instead, it's a song that the Almanacs recorded prior to the Left's support of the War. This was when the Left still took a largely pacifist stance, before Hitler invaded Russia and fascism became a greater threat to international socialism than the capitalist war -mongers. That said, I've done a version of the song because it's probably the only American folk song (or American protest song, for that matter) that mentions the Motherland - Singapore - in it. That's right - it provides an interesting document of how the need to protect the status of colonial Singapore was being circulated as a justification for entry into the war, and how that position was probably viewed as another instance of capitalist greed by opponents of the war. So here's my version of the "Ballad of Oct 16th"



It was on a Saturday night and the moon was shining bright
They passed the conscription bill
And the people they did say for many miles away
'Twas the President and his boys on Capitol Hill.

CHORUS:
Oh, Franklin Roosevelt told the people how he felt
We damn near believed what he said
He said, "I hate war, and so does Eleanor
But we won't be safe 'till everybody's dead."

When my poor old mother died I was sitting by her side
A-promising to war I'd never go.
But now I'm wearing khaki jeans and eating army beans
And I'm told that J. P. Morgan loves me so.

I have wandered over this land, a roaming working man
No clothes to wear and not much food to eat.
But now the government foots the bill
Gives me clothes and feeds me swill
Gets me shot and puts me underground six feet.

CHORUS

Why nothing can be wrong if it makes our country strong
We got to get tough to save democracy.
And though it may mean war
We must defend Singapore
This don't hurt you half as much as it hurts me.

CHORUS

Freight Train, Freight Train

Here's a beautiful tune by Elizabeth Cotten, whose finger-picking style influenced at whole bunch of players. I just recently found out a little more about Elizabeth Cotten. She was "discovered" late in life after she started working as a housekeeper (?) for the Seegers. Apparently while working for the Seeger family, she took to playing the guitars in the house - without telling anyone - and was discovered playing by Peggy Seeger, who told the family, and who were amazed by what Elizabeth Cotten could do with the guitar. So here's my version of that most famous of Elizabeth Cotten songs, "Freight Train".



Freight train, freight train, run so fast
Freight train, freight train, run so fast
Please don't tell what train I'm on
They won't know where I'm gone

When I'm dead and in my grave
No more good times here I crave
Place the stones at my head and feet
And tell them all I've gone to sleep

When I die, oh bury me deep
Down at the end of old Chestnut Street
So I can hear old Number Nine
As she comes rolling by

Elizabeth Cotten actually had a really interesting guitar playing technique. She was left-handed and played a right handed guitar upside down. This means that she played the melody lines with her thumb and kept the steady alternating bass with her fingers. Even more amazing is how she gets so much rhythm out of just using her index finger and thumb! It's really quite something to watch it up close, so here's a video of her doing exactly that:

The Riddle Song

Here's a great song that I've been singing for about a year. I first heard a Doc Watson version of the song and then a wonderful duet which featured Joan Baez and Pete Seeger. The simplicity and the riddle, question, and answer structure of the song makes it really charming. I guess it's also somewhat appropriate for me since 1. we're now living in Cherry Abundant Michigan and 2. my life's work is wrapped up in stories that normally have endings ...



I gave my love a cherry, that had no stone
I gave my love a chicken, that had no bone
I told my love a story, that had no end
And I gave my love a baby, with no crying.

How can there be a cherry, that has no stone?
How can there be a chicken that has no bone?
How can there be a story that has no end?
How can there be a baby with no crying?

A cherry when it's blooming, it has no stone.
A chicken when it's pipping, it has no bone.
The story of my love, it has no end.
And a baby when it's sleeping, there's no crying.

Quite Early Morning

I've decided to start up yet another blog to inflict (once again) my meandering experiments with words and music on the world. Here's what this blog's going to do. Each post will feature a song that I've been working on. This means there'll be a recording of me singing the song as well as the lyrics so that all and sundry can sing-along. It's part of the whole participatory thing, so we don't end up being bland consumers of music!

For my first entry, I've decided to post up a version of "Quite Early Morning". The song was written by Pete Seeger (who will feature on these pages a lot). I only learnt it recently, after viewing a masterful YouTube version by Pete Seeger himself. I'll put the video of him singing it: extremely powerful and moving. I was convinced that I had to learn how to play the banjo after watching Pete sing it, so here's my version, complete with banjo accompaniment. I actually had some trouble learning its deceptively simple melody, and sing the first two lines 'wrongly' because I tend to sing a "blues" note instead (which is just a nicer way of saying I can't keep the tune straight ...). Still, I like the song very much.



Don't you know it's darkest before the dawn
And it's this thought keeps me moving on
If we could heed these signs and warnings
The time is now quite early morning
If we could heed these signs and warnings
The time is now quite early morning

Some say that humankind won't long endure
But what makes them do doggone sure?
I know that you who hear my singing
Could make those freedom bells go ringing
I know that you who hear my singing
Could make those freedom bells go ringing

And so we keep on while we live
Until we have no, no more to give
And when these fingers can strum no longer
Hand the old banjo to young ones stronger
And when these fingers can strum no longer
Hand the old banjo to young ones stronger

So though it's darkest before the dawn
These thoughts keep us moving on
Through all this world of joy and sorrow
We still can have singing tomorrows
Through all this world of joy and sorrow
We still can have singing tomorrows