Wednesday 19 December 2018

Seasonal Reprise: "JANUARY is for SCOTS", a tribute to Robert Burns

Robert Burns 


PARODY-LYRICS for an original song, with connections to Robert Burns



PARODY-SONG: "Dean Martin Sings Robbie Burns Day" 2024, a parody pastiche with lyrics by Giorgio Coniglio, substituted to "That's Amore", the Dean Martin 1953 classic.

THIS MEDLEY COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, December, 2018, updated from earlier blogposts, and with improved verse-charts 


Explanatory Notes: Robert Burns, born 1759, became Scotland’s ‘national poet’, and a cultural icon at home and among Scottish diaspora around the world. In his short life - he died at age 37 -  he wrote hundreds of well-loved poems and songs; the most famous is Auld Lang Syne, traditionally sung on Hogmanay (New Year's Eve). Robbie Burns Day is celebrated on his birthday, January 25, often with a Burns Night supper
Burns' best-loved poems include "To a Mouse", "To a Louse", "Tam o' Shanter", "Parcel o' Rogues", and "Address to a Haggis".

WORDPLAY LINK: A somewhat different version on the Simon Lang story, with a more modern take, has been twisted into limerick verse, and can be seen HERE, on our sister-blog "Edifying Nonsense"


AULD LANG’S SINE       

(to the tune of "Auld Lang Syne")


C-tuned ukulele specifics:
Bdim7 =  1212.  

















ROBBIE BURNS DAY

(to the tune of "That's Amore")



C-tuned ukulele specifics:
Fm = 1013;  Bbm = 3111;  Bbm7 = 1111;  Bdim7 = 1212;  A7 = 0100  




















ORIGINAL SONGS
(click on any slide to enlarge and arrive in thumbnail mode for singalongs on your computer or phone!)  



















REPEAT VERSES 1 and 2



















Thursday 22 November 2018

Let's Start the Holiday Season with "TURKEY LEFTOVERS" !

REPRISE:  a seasonal parody from 2015 revisited

SUBSTITUTE LYRICS subbed into 2 original songs, a pairody
ORIGINAL SONG#1: "The Christmas Song" (Chestnuts...), written by Wells and Tormé  in 1944, and recorded by the Nat King Cole Trio 1946.
ORIGINAL SONG#2: "Good King Wenceslas", John Mason Neale 1853, but often now mistakenly referred to as 'traditional'. Neale's piece, (based on accounts of the Bohemian Wenceslas legend, and a 13th century 'spring- carol tune) was highly criticized in the 1920s as "ponderous moral doggerel"; see the interesting description in the Wikipedia essay.
PARODY COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, January, 2015, currently updated with new verse-charts, improved fonts and an epilogue including slides with ukulele chords indicated for the original songs.   
SONGLINK: For another parody on  "The Christmas Song"  see my earlier posting "The Cynic's Song" here.



TURKEY LEFTOVERS

(to the tune of The Christmas Song - "Chestnuts Roasting")

Essay featured in Economist,
Turkeys' origins disclosed -
Centerpiece of each year's Yuletide feast,
Subspecies bred in Mexico.

Dolts like me believed that gobblers and that Mid-East land -
Names were mere coincidence.
Ottomans, trading ships, caravans -
I understand, it now makes sense.

Each year I prove I'm such a goof,
I try create too late a spiffy Christmas spoof,
But with a month's delay I'll get it right
Helped by this article about "Turkey's Flight".

And so I'm offering this paraphrase
Of what the author claimed was true,
French - d'inde, and the Turks call them 'hindi' - what jerks!
While in India, name in Hindi,
And in Portugal's 'peru'.

To the tune of "Good King Wenceslas")



Montezuma once bred fowl tastier than pheasant; 
Shipped the Spanish queen a thou - funky kind of present.
Isabella loathed the birds, trimmings too displeased her;
No use for leftovers, she didn't have a free-eezer.

'Turkeys', Moors, then Jews were banned from the royal kitchens;
Legend says that's how began Spanish Inquisition - 
Cortes later sacked the lands of the Aztec ruler.
Phil or Izz-and-Ferdinand ? Can't say which was cru-ueller.

Avian émigrés toured through, crowns of Europe hosting,
Though few of their lackeys knew oven-time for roasting.
Hot or cold and steep or flat, exiled birds were living,
Prospered in those countries that didn't have Thanksgi-iving.

Thus this misnamed flock did cope through the 16th century,
'ventually hens copped some hope with the English gentry.
For some time they settled down,  breeding they found boring,
Westward they shipped out again, restlessly explo-oring.

Turkeys in America, native home recovered,
Quirky and hysterical history discovered -
Essay we would clearly rank best of the Econ'mist,
Author we should dearly thank-(s)he remains anon-ymous.


























UKULELE-FRIENDLY FORMAT (and guitar, too!)


There are some difficult jazz chords here, but they sound beautiful, and are worth the effort!

Specifics for ukulele (C-tuning):

There are some difficult jazz chords here, but they sound beautiful, and are worth the effort!
Specifics for ukulele (C-tuning):
Bm7 = 2222;  C#m7 = 4444;  E7 = 1202;  Em7 = 0202;  C#7+5 =2112; F#m = 2120;  Dm6 = 2212;  D#m7 = 3324;  C#M7 = 1113;  CM7 = 0002;
A9= 0102;  DM7 = 2224;  D6 = 2222;  Dm7 = 2213;  C6 = 0000;  Fdim7 = 1212; G#7 = 1323;  Cdim7 = 2323;  AM7 = 1100;  F#7sus = 6677.

































ORIGINAL SONG-LYRICS
(click on any verse-slide to enlarge the entire series and compare the original songs' verses with the parody version. Move back and forth using the thumbnails at the bottom)