Hi folks,

The above quotation from Dante reminds me of something from Ovid's Metamorphoses: when the God Nemesis puts the self-reflective curse on Narcissus:

Ideas moving through time from one mind to another.

Kind of like folk music. I'm starting off this week's Songwriter Workshop section with a look at one of my favourite traditional folk songs, 'Shallow Brown.'

I found a great collection of music magazine reviews and articles from 1964-74 which focus on the folk-pop revolution, the emergence of Dylan, Donovan, the Byrds and many others. Some of the reviews and impressions are hilarious now with the passage of time. I will be quoting from these articles more in future issues, but for now here are a couple samples:

" They are great on the Dylan stuff, but off it, they do tend to sound like second-rate Searchers."
Brian Jones, from the Rolling Stones, on The Byrds.

" . .['Like a Rolling Stone]' - Dylan is saddled with a quite horrific backing dominated by syrupy strings, amplified guitar and organ . . .the lyric has its moments of typical Dylan imagery, but the monotonous melody and Dylan's expressionless intoning just cannot hold the interest for what seems like the six longest minutes since the invention of time. " Melody Maker Aug 7, 1965.

Ouch! Time has proven 'Like a Rolling Stone' to be one of Dylan's greatest achievements. In a future newsletter, I will show you a selection of great critics' faux-pas throughout history. Anyone can say anything they want about something - but then they have to live with it once they say it. (So watch your mouth! You know who you are.) I keep a little volume of these wonderfully foolish utterances, by my toilet, so I can remind myself that any critic's opinion, no matter who they are and who they write for, is only ONE ordinary person's opinion, and means absolutely diddy-squat in the grand scheme of things. Remeber Picasso's words when people told him that his portrait of Gertrude Stein didn't look like her:

'It will.'

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FAVOURITE LETTERS OF THE WEEK

Hey Joe,
I don't know how I started getting your news-letter, but as a music-loving/playing Rodney Dangerfield fan, I thought I should finally thank the (blue?) alien who engineered the connection.I would also like to send you on to some friends who need your sort of therapy...(if you know what I mean).How is this done? Or do we humans have no control? By the way... 
Q: What did the legendary bluesman have inscribed on his tombstone?
A: "Didn't wake up this morning. . ."
cheers Jon S.

Joe,
 I received your 'freelovedays' album today and just played it. Bloody brilliant album. You deserve much greater attention, you really do. Both albums are world class and you're a class act boyo.  Expect to have the new album aired tomorrow!  Just a bloody great album, mate.  Full marks to you. Peter Haddow, 3MDR (97.1fm)

Gees, mate,
RE: "JosephusV-Caesar" <josephusv-caesar@yahoo.com>
I nearly deleted this - the sender not being a name I recognised... Is THAT why I didn't see your letter last week? Smart arse!! Cheers Margaret W

hi there, Joe....
RE: FACEBOOK
im so sorry it it sounds random but me and my friends love shuddup your face ....its ace! and all my friends use a social networking internet thing a bit like my space but its called Facebook...have you heard of it? and i really wanna dedicate this song to my friend on Facebook as you get to choose your fav songs and send them to friends but your song shuddup your face isnt available! so i was hoping you might possibly let them have it as they already have quite a large library of songs and it would be amazing if you didnt mind it being on Facebook too......i think the songs have to be uploaded by the artists themselves or by their management....anyway would love to hear what you think if you have a chance, thanks for such a cool song, kt xx

(Note: Sounds like destiny for 'Shaddap You Face' to be on something called Facebook, don't you think?)

Joe:
The idea of Coca Cola as spermicide predates the 50's, as evidenced by the old Charley Jordan blues tune "Keep It Clean," first recorded in the mid-30s and with its chorus, "Roll her over now, give her Coca Cola, give her Coca Cola, yeah, yeah, . . . Take soap and water, honey for keep it (or that clean". John Mooney has an excellent live recording of the song on 'Dealing With the Devil'. I don't know how the researcher came to the conclusion that people in the South would opt for Dr. Pepper. Coke pretty much ruled in the Deep South until recently. It was, after all, invented in Georgia. Original Coke had significantly more carbonation that it does now. When Pepsi started to compete by releasing its product in 10 ounce bottles in thelate 50s or early 60s, Coke followed suit. However, the ten ounce Cokes, with thinner glass bottles and more liquid than the originals, kept exploding. So they reformulated the drink with much less carbonation. I remember old Coke and will only say this. If a woman shook a bottle of that stuff and took aim, I suspect sperms would die from sheer impact. JWD

Hi Joe
Re: Organic Beeswax Poet Candle
Oh Dear, Even the best things get packaged. This is from the Byron Company 'Sanctum's website. Shame eh- once they just sold nice things without the Bulls**t. Harry W (site)

(Note: Harry, I think the custom originated in pioneer times, when dried buffalo dung was used, as an early prototype for bubble wrap, as a way to protect goods being transported by bumpy stagecoaches. Probably.)

Hi there,
Thanks for the news, I am quite new to the program, could you pls let me know where the meeting is going to be held? Thanks, Dhana

(Note: Err . . . . meeting? Ah . . . . . Dhana, here's a good meeting you can probably go to:
Meeting Announcement
A one-day meeting on Parasitic Nematodes (plant and animal) will be held on June 5 at Boston University (Boston, MA) as a satellite to the East Coast C. elegans meeting (June 5-7). Talks will be 12 minutes (plus 3 minutes for questions). We will update you with information more pertinent to the Parasite meeting in the very near future. Right now, however, we need an estimate of:
1. how many people plan to attend the Parasite meeting on June 5?
2. how many people would like to speak about Bird Flu and how many would like to speak about Mad Cow Disease?
3. for the evening meal catering: do you prefer the chicken or the beef?

Hi Joe,
On the sad anniversary of the atomic bomb, thought you might be interested in this Pax, as the Romans would say.... Justine Stewart
 
I Was Told It Was Necessary

"We should invade [Muslim] countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That's war. And this is war." Ann Coulter

An interview with a military chaplain who served the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bomb squadrons.
by Charles C. McCarthy

In August, 1945, Fr. George Zabelka, a Catholic chaplain with the U.S. Army air force, was stationed on Tinian Island in the South Pacific. He served as priest and pastor for the airmen who dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He was discharged in l946. During the next 20 years he gradually began to realize that what he had done and believed during the war was wrong, and that the only way he could be a Christian was to be a pacifist. He was deeply influenced in this process by the civil rights movement and the works of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi. In 1972 he met Charles C. McCarthy, a theologian, lawyer, and father of 10. McCarthy, who founded the Center for the Study of Nonviolence at the University of Notre Dame, was leading a workshop on nonviolence at Zabelka's church. The two men fell into the first of several conversations about the issues raised by the workshop. Some time later, Zabelka reached the conclusion that the use of violence under any circumstances was incompatible with his understanding of the gospel of Christ. When this article appeared, Fr. Zabelka was retired, gave workshops on nonviolence and assisted in diocesan work in Lansing, Michigan. The following is a 1980 interview with Zabelka, conducted by McCarthy. The Editors

Charles McCarthy: Father Zabelka, what is your relationship to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August, 1945?
Fr. Zabelka: During the summer of 1945, July, August, and September, I was assigned as Catholic chaplain to the 509th Composite Group on Tinian Island. The 509th was the atomic bomb group.

McCarthy: What were your duties in relationship to these men?
Zabelka: The usual. I said mass on Sunday and during the week. Heard confessions. Talked with the boys, etc. Nothing significantly different from what any other chaplain did during the war.. . . As a chaplain I often had to enter the world of the boys who were losing their minds because of something they did in war. I remember one young man who was engaged in the bombings of the cities of Japan. He was in the hospital on Tinian Island on the verge of a complete mental collapse.
He told me that he had been on a low-level bombing mission, flying right down one of the main streets of the city, when straight ahead of him appeared a little boy, in the middle of the street, looking up at the plane in childlike wonder. The man knew that in a few seconds this child would be burned to death by napalm which had already been released.
Yes, I knew civilians were being destroyed and knew it perhaps in a way others didn't. Yet I never preached a single sermon against killing civilians to the men who were doing it.

McCarthy: Again, why not?
Zabelka: Because I was "brainwashed"! It never entered my mind to publically protest the consequences of these massive air raids. I was told it was necessary; told openly by the military and told implicitly by my Church's leadership. To the best of my knowledge no American cardinals or bishops were opposing these mass air raids. Silence in such matters, especially by a public body like the American bishops, is a stamp of approval. The whole structure of the secular, religious, and military society told me clearly that it was all right to "let the Japs have it." God was on the side of my country. The Japanese were the enemy, and I was absolutely certain of my country's and Church's teaching about enemies; no erudite theological text was necessary to tell me. The day-in-day-out operation of the state and the Church between 1940 and 1945 spoke more clearly about Christian attitudes toward enemies and war than St. Augustine or St. Thomas Aquinas ever could. (article)

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Hi-Tech Creation Museum Where Man and Dinosaurs Frolick Happily Together

"God has no part in their religion of sex education, environmentalism, feminism, Marxism and loving Big Brother." Ann Coulter

Dinosaurs of all kinds abound here, from the stegosaurus silhouettes rearing atop the iron gates as you first reach the parking lot to the numerous and impressively convincing animatronic pterosaurs wagging their giant tails and chewing plastic cud inside. At America's newest public museum dedicated to exploring the origins of man and our planet, dinos are big box office, especially with kids. Yet, there is something askew about the exhibits here and it doesn't take long to see. It's not just the "Thou shalt not touch" signs or the biblically named Noah's Café, offering respite for lunch. How about a stroll down the Trail of Life, first stop, the Garden of Eden with faux cypress trees and gurgling streams? Look, there are Adam and Eve taking a dip, and not far away another dinosaur lurks, and a lion too.. . . Welcome, rather, to the Creation Museum a $27m facility that opened in May - to a veritable onslaught of enthusiastic visitors - on a 49-acre site in northeast Kentucky close to Cincinnati. (article)

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FAVOURITE SPAM SUBJECT HEADING OF THE WEEK
From: "Horace" Subject: I wanted to run away from everything but I wanted to run towards something too.

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"Hello. I am David's answering machine. What are you?"

TRASHY GOSSIP SECTION

" I'D LOVE TO HAVE A SMOKE WITH BRAD PITT,
I'd love to have a smoke with Brad,
We'd smoke in moderation
And we never ever get loud or mad.
We'd smoke around Angelina,
And watch her lip levitate,
I love to have a smoke with Brad Pitt,
'Cause Brad Pitt's me mate."
(apologies to Slim Dusty)

" JB writes: 'I was a runner for a film that Brad Pitt was starring in. I was told to collect him and co-star Harrison Ford and take them on set. I open the door to Pitt's trailer and stick my head in, calling out 'Mr. Pitt?'. I get about two steps in and I see Brad Pitt smoking a HUGE joint. He asks me if I want to finish the joint with him and passes it to me, warning me to go easy as it's strong. 21 year-old me tries to be cool so sucks down some giant lungfuls. Four minutes later I can't even move. Brad eventually asks if I'm OK. I have to say I'm not. Brad tells me not to worry, to chill out in the trailer for a while, and that he'll take my little buggy and collect Harrison Ford. He'll just say on set that he sent me off to do an errand for him. It took me about half an hour before I could even pretend to be normal. I stagger back to the set. Nobody bats an eyelid." (thanks to popbitch.)

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"An Attempt to Deceive Americans Into Yet Another War"
by John Nichols

"Perhaps we could put aside our national, ongoing, post-9/11 Muslim butt-kissing contest and get on with the business at hand: Bombing Syria back to the stone age and then permanently disarming Iran." Ann Coulter

Dennis Kucinich may not be a front runner in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. But the congressman from Cleveland has succeeded in distinguishing himself from the other contenders when it speaking those truths that are self-evident. And in an era of mass delusion and denial on the party of leaders in both major political parties, stating the obvious can be a radical act. Such is the case with Kucinich appropriate answer to the latest move by the Bush-Cheney administration to ramp up hostilities with Iran. That move - the unprecedented attempt to label Iran's 125,000-strong Republican Guard as a "specially designated global terrorist" group - is, as the congressman says "nothing more than an attempt to deceive Americans into yet another war - this time with Iran." No one who has paid even the slightest attention to the Bush-Cheney administration's approach to Middle East affairs can doubt that Kucinich is right. Yet, his is a lonely voice of clarity amid the din of Democratic obfuscation that aids and abets this White House's worst instincts. (article)

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Subtle Songs of Protest Hit a High Note
by Chris Macias

"It's as if all the brain-damaged people in America got together and formed a voting bloc." Ann Coulter

The Dixie Chicks nearly lost their careers after bad-mouthing President Bush on the eve of the war in Iraq, but today there is a surge in protest songs by popular artists. They're not just penned by the people you'd expect to be topical, such as Neil Young or Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine. Songs with anti-war sentiments are popping up from some unlikely places
in the pop music marketplace:. (article)

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From Sniper To War Resister: My Journey
by Army National Guard Spc. Eleonai "Eli" Israel

"I'm genuinely against America deploying troops without a really, really good reason. I just can't imagine anyone not seeing 9/11 as a really good reason for wiping out Islamic totalitarians." Ann Coulter

Two months ago, I took a stand that changed my life forever. As a Soldier, a JVB Protective Service Agent, and a Sniper with the Army who had been in Iraq for a year (running over 250 combat missions), I refused to continue to be a part of the occupation. I regret nothing. This is my story. Currently, as I write this I am sitting in Kuwait, on "stand-by" to return to the States sometime hopefully this week. After getting out of the brig last week, I'm now scheduled to be discharged from the Army within the month. I'm looking forward to joining forces with anti-Iraq-War movements, such as Courage to Resist and Iraq Veterans Against the War.What led me to this place in my life? I joined the U.S. Marine Corps in the spring of 1999, the month of my 18th birthday. I grew up in the custody of the state of Kentucky with little contact with my biological parents since I was 13. I had no family support system and ended up on the streets, doing what street kids do. By 16, I had eased into hard drugs. I had not been to school since the first part of 9th grade, and I was short on about everything but street smarts, an untapped sense of ambition, and a tough guy attitude. When I walked into the recruiting station I learned that in order to join the Corps, I would need either a high school diploma or a GED with a waiver-unless I also had certain college credits. When I told them that I was 16 and had only completed 8th grade, they quickly dismissed me, not expecting to see me again. They were wrong. Not only did I earn my GED, I also did a semester at the local college. A year and a half later the month I turned 18, March 1999, I walked back into the same recruiting station, spoke to the same recruiter, showed him my GED and my college transcripts and felt my first real sense of pride.
Thirteen weeks after arriving at Parris Island, I was changed forever. I graduated as the leader of a platoon squad with a meritorious promotion, and was now well on my way to a shining career as a Marine. Then came September 11, 2001. (article)

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SONGWRITING WORKSHOP I

SHALLOW BROWN

This is my favourite folk song which I have just spent the past week arranging for solo guitar and voice, based on Percy Grainger's ideas. I discovered it from Faye Dumont and her choir Chorelation while working with them on my oratorio, Joan on Fire, which they premiered with the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra several years ago. Chorelation's arrangement of 'Shallow Brown' uses Percy Grainger's simplified score for just SATB choir and solo piano. (The lyrics to the song are printed down below in the Poetry section of the newsletter.)

I also have a more 'complex' score of Grainger's for this song which, amongst other things, calls for:

1 gut stringed guitar re-strung with 6 B strings all tuned to B-flat
1 gut stringed guitar re-strung with 6 G strings all tuned to F.
1 gut stringed guitar re-strung with 6 D strings all tuned to D.
1 gut stringed guitar re-strung with 6 A strings all tuned to low F.
(He advises the same for the ukuleles.)

(Christ. I'm going to arrange a piece for Percy Grainger for piano where all the piano strings have to be removed and replaced with all B-strings tuned to B-flat. Then you just bang on it with your head.)

I guess his idea here is to simulate the sound of the ocean by just strumming, with felt picks, across the strings which should always be fingered in unison! Certainly saves you the bother of actually having to learn to play these instruments - although it might be simpler just to hold the concert at a Lighthouse in the middle of Hurricane Luigi! But I'll be damned if I'm going to re-string my guitar this way just for an effect. Life is too short. I've figured out a way to create the ocean sound in an ordinary tuning using chord tremolo and blues harp. (I can also hear a wild Jimi Hendrix-style arrangement of this which I'm sure Percy would have approved of.) Maybe someday. In any case, Grainger's version is still, in my opinion, the finest setting of a folk song for instruments and voices of all time. Bar none. In the notes to the song, Percy said that John Perring, of Dartmouth, England, the deep-sea sailor he learned the song from in 1908, did not know what the 'Shallow Brown' in the title meant, assuming that perhaps it signified 'shallow in his heart', as he said. It's amazing that these old sea salts, and even Grainger himself, would be singing a song like this for decades without understanding the key image. It doesn't really matter: the real underlying meaning of Shallow Brown has to do with a woman saying farewell to her sea-going man - an emotion that anyone can clearly understand. Odd though that mostly men used to sing it - as it's from the point of view of the woman! I guess it got lonely out there chasing Moby Dick.I've discovered that the meaning of the title comes from pursuing the history of the song a little further. These shanty songs travelled the trade routes. Shallow Brown originated as a pumping and halyard shanty in the West Indies, sometimes called 'Challo Brown'. There is also a separate and completely different lyric and melodic version than the one Grainger set. (See below.) 'Challo' is a West Indian word meaning half-caste. In the first part of the last century, there were many terms to identify the amount of African blood present in mixed-marriage offspring. (I wonder of some of these old racist sea-salts would have continued to sing the song had they known it was about a woman - either black or white - pining for her half-caste lover?) Some other terms used to denote 'coloured blood':

Griff, Griffe, Griffane, Griffin : Offspring of a White and a Black. Used especially in Louisiana.
High Yellow (often pronounced, high yalla or high yaller): A light-skinned Negro person. As some say, "mostly White."
Mulatto : A person who is one-half Negro, one-half White. The child of one White parent and one Negro parent. From the Spanish and Portuguese word mulato meaning young mule. The mule is of course, one half horse and one half donkey, a hybrid. In Brazil, the term Cafuzo is used to describe a half Indian, half Negro person.
Marabou : A person having five eighths Negro blood; the offspring of a mulatto and a griffe. Usage found in Louisiana.
Melungeon : A person of mixed racial heritage. Common usage in East Tennessee. Tri-racial.
Quadroon, Quarteron : A person who is one-quarter Negro, three-quarters White. The child of one White parent and a mulatto. From the Latin quartus; Spanish cuarto meaning fourth.
Octoroon, (also mestee, mustee) : A person who is one-eighth Negro, seven-eighths White. The child of one White parent and a quadroon. From the Latin word octo meaning eight.
Quinteron: A person who is one-sixteenth Negro, fifteen-sixteenths White. The child of one White parent and a Quadroon. (Note: That can't be right - that's the same as the above. They must have meant a child of one White parent and a midget Quadroon.)
Sacatra: The name given to the offspring of a griffe and a negress. (negress: a Negro woman or girl) Louisiana.
Zambo: A person who is three-quarters Negro, one-quarter White. The child of a mulatto and a Negro; also, the child of an Indian and a Negro.

(Note: As well as the Quadroon and the Octoroon, there is also the 'Looneytoon': that's one-fifth George W Bush and four-fifths Karl Childers, from Slingblade - offspring of the inbreed hillbilly crackers who spent their time making up these absurd terms, but that probably isn't relevant to our discussion here. But if you want a little break, here's a little YouTube video of Billy Bob Thornton and Jon Heder doing Karl (Slingblade) Meets Napoleon Dynamite: (video)

Anyway, back to the topic. There are many other verses to 'Shallow Brown':

"Shallow brown's a bright mulatter, Shallow, oh shallow brown, And she hails from Cincinatter! Shallow, oh shallow brown.

Fare thee well, my Juliana, Shallow, oh shallow brown, Fare thee well, my Juliana, Shallow brown, shallow brown."

Great name, Juliana!

There is a beautiful folk arrangement which combines a bit of both lyric versions to Perring's melody. (Here John Wesley Harding is joined by fellow solo artists Kelly Hogan and Nora O'Connor:) (audio)

Grainger's version is available on the following recordings with many free audio excerpts to listen to:
Grainger: Works for Chorus and Orchestra
(male lead and chorus vocals) (site)

Danny Boy: The Music of Percy Grainger (for Chorus and Orchestra)
(female lead - male chorus) (asite)

Grainger-Leighton: Chamber Works (Themes of Grainger)
Academy Of St. Martin-In-The-Fields C.O. (male lead and chorus vocals with Orchestra) (site)

Grainger: Jungle Book (for Chorus and Orchestra)
Polyphony Orchestra
(male lead and chorus vocals) (site)

Grainger Edition, Volume 2: Songs For Baritone (piano accompaniment only)
(male solo) (site)

What Sweeter Music Can We Sing
Folk Songs for Choir (piano accompaniment only by Alison Sewell) 1993
Chorelation (Faye Dumont)

The alternative lyric and melodic version of Shallow Brown can be found here:

Dick Holdstock singing on the following two sites: (site 1) (site 2)

A version by Sting:: Rogue's Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs, & Chanteys (site)

(Midi track of alternate melody line:
(midi audio)

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RECIPES

Feed me Bubbe!

Dear Joe,
 Check out this wonderful Jewish grannie (introduced everytime by her grandson). (videos)  All 17 recipes are on YouTube (along with the klezmer music) and can also be found on their website. It is almost enough to make me book a belated appointment for myself with my local Mohel !!!!!!! Kt, as ever, David "Dai" Woosnam

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(thanks to Bill Lempke)

THE FINAL HURRAH

The Love Story of Ralph and Edna

Ralph and Edna were both patients in a mental hospital. One day while they were walking past the hospital swimming pool, Ralph suddenly jumped into the deep end. He sank to the bottom of the pool and stayed there. Edna promptly jumped in to save him. She swam to the bottom and pulled him out. When the Head Nurse Director became aware of Edna's heroic act she
immediately ordered her to be discharged from the hospital, as she now considered her to be mentally stable. When she went to tell Edna the news she said, "Edna, I have good news and
bad news. The good news is you're being discharged, since you were able to rationally respond to a crisis by jumping in and saving the life of the person you love. I have concluded that your act displays sound mindedness. The bad news is, Ralph hung himself in the bathroom with his bathrobe belt right after you saved him. I am so sorry, but he's dead."
Edna replied, "He didn't hang himself, I put him there to dry. How soon can I go home?"
(thanks to Bill Lempke 2)