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A Poem in Poetry Magazine & Elsewhere, 2012

A Poem in Poetry Magazine & Elsewhere, 2012
“κολεός” -Dante

The sun on the waves, in my
garden. The autumn and the spring
sometimes summer. Winter,
nature contains birds and flowers.

My grandmother’s photograph, lusterless
between pages in an old
eBook in my attic, sienna, reminds me
of the
future. I use a sesquipedalian, look it up.
Vagina.

I grow old, I grow old,
I should shop for shorter trousers.
It’s time to rhyme. The line breaks

in the mid-
dle. So much white space. Vagina.

And I did not.

Happy Boxing Day from the Manna Tease: The Fa-la-la-ing is Coming

Is today the day you're supposed to get two turtle doves? Also, why is the writer of that song so obsessed with giving birds to his paramour? They're kind of messy, high maintenance pets.

I never put up this other video we shot of my one-minute christmas carol, The Fa-La-La-ing is Coming. Until it comes next year, happy Boxing Day from The Manna Tease (please "like" us on facebooks!)

Lyrics & chords to "The Fa-la-la-ing is Coming" here. Goodbye.

Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs: XXII thru XXIV.

I didn't quite get caught up for the last couple chocolates of our Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs. See you next year! It's time to put away the Christmas songs until they start playing far too early in the calendar next year.

Here's three last good songs to fill in the gaps:

That's from Duke Ellington's very cool versions of tunes from the Nutcracker Suite, his Toot Toot Tootie Toot (Dance of the Reed Pipes.) (The links are to Spotify.)
This guy Dan Hicks seems to have released dozens of Christmas jug band songs, & his voice is very comforting.  Here's his "Somebody Stole My Santa Claus Suit." (The version on Spotify from Hicks' album Crazy for Christmas is more mellow.)

And we'll finish this late advent calendar with the American folk song "Christmas Time Will Soon Be Over," sung here on the soundtrack to Cold Mountain by Jack White of the White Stripes. (Great album, by the way!) Till next year...

More spotify playlists & mixtapes to come! One last time, here's the link to our Infinite Playlist of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs (listen on random!)
And these days, we blog more at the simpler Manna Tease tumblr blog, where I've also been posted mixtapes & Manna Tease videos.

Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs: XXI. De Virgin Mary Had a Baby Boy

Hello again - only a few days left of the Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs. This song, a traditional from Trinidad called "De Virgin Mary Had a Baby Boy" or "Glorious Kingdon," from an old Kings Singers' Christmas album, has a hilarious rhythm track. This is the only video of it:


You can hear the rhythm better in the studio version, on Spotify here. And here's our Infinite Playlist of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs (listen on random!)

Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs: XX. Christmas in New Orleans & also Harlem

Quickly catching up with the Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs. Louis Armstrong takes us to both New Orleans and Harlem for Christmas:



I think "Christmas Night in Harlem" is catchier, but they're both awesome. (Is "lit up like a Christmas tree" a subtly subversive innuendo?) Here's Christmas Night in Harlem on Spotify, and here's Christmas in New Orleans. Here's the Infinite Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs Playlist (Listen on random!)

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: If that playlist is too wide-ranging & chaotic (& contains more than a few annoying songs) I have created a much more digestible christmas playlist centered on some albums of doo wop & blues songs: Christmas Blues, Doo Wop, & Big Band Epic Playlist (listen on random.)

Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs: XIX. Best Christmas Ever

This song is better for the strange vocal stylings of Ronnie Spector (formerly of the Ronnettes & Phil Spector's  prisoner wife) than for any quality songwriting:
Here's two shaky live videos from 2010:


The studio version is better & weirder, available on Spotify here. Here's our incomplete Infinite Playlist of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs (listen on random!)

Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs: XVIII. Homeless Wassail

And here's the Manna Tease singing the song "Homeless Wassail":

Please "like" the Manna Tease on facebooks.
Homeless Wassail is a song by Ian Robb, but we heard it from a Christmas mix in a beautiful version by Finest Kind. The only cover on Spotify is by Broadside Electric. Here's our full Infinite Playlist of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs (listen on random!)
Lyrics:

HOMELESS WASSAIL
(Ian Robb)
"Wassail, wassail,all over the town,
Our cup is white and our ale is brown"
But huddled on the iron grate
we poor and hungry curse our fate. 

No wassail bowl for such as these
No turkey scraps, no ale nor cheese,
This Christmas Eve our heart's desire
Is a bottle of gin and a trashcan fire. 

Good Christian, mind, as home you go
With dreams of holly and mistletoe
That the holly bears a dreadful thorn
For those who wake to a frozen dawn. 

Oh, where is He, that holy child
Once born of Mary, meek and mild?
And whither peace, goodwill to men
Now and forevermore, amen? 

All ye who dine with face aglow
In Reninensi atrio (in the Queen's hall---Latin)
Pray pause awile at pleasure's door
And sup some sorrow with the poor. 

"Wassail, wassail,all over the town,
Our cup is white and our ale is brown"
This cold and hunger, pain and care
Sweet Jesus Christ, it's hard to bear. 

copyright Ian Robb/SOCAN 

Chords as we play them:
amin G emin
amin emin/B C D
amin G emin
amin emin/B C D 

C G emin
amin emin/B C D
C G emin
amin emin/B C D

Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs: XVII. Christmases in Heaven

If you ask Siri, Apple's virtual assistant, "What is the meaning of life?" she gives a couple of different answers, including "42" & "Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try to live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations." I think there was an article on Slate about this, where the author was touched by this practical advice from artificial intelligence. The writer was pointed out in the comments by people who recognized it as a quote from the anti-climactic postscript to the last Monty Python movie The Meaning of Life.
The scene immediately before this advice, the "Afterlife" section of the movie, contains the following strange Christmas song, imagining every day to be Christmas in heaven, complete with classic movies on television:


I had never heard this longer version that's on Spotify, which has a long coda about "Fishmas in Heaven." This verse is not in the movie: "It's Fishmas in Heaven / You are home with God. / And lot's of dace & carp & bream / And halibut and cod."

But if you need more Christmas in Heaven, there's also a soulful take on this concept, with versions by James Brown & B.B. King! Here's Billy Ward & His Dominoes:

And here's our Infinite Playlist of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs (listen on random!)

Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs: XVI. Bethlehem & Sherburne

Speaking of sheep, Nahum Tate's "While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks" is one of the most frequently set texts for carols. (I've always loved the juxtaposition of the mundane "all seated on the ground" with the glory shining all around, but I suppose that's the point.) The common setting in my caroling book is by Handel, and I think there's another old common British church hymn called "Winchester Old." The version I know best is Sherburne from the Sacred Harp, & it's also one of my favorite tunes in that book. This is the great Alan Lomax "field" recording:

Here's that recording on spotify. I found several other decent versions of that on spotify, here, here, & here. I really like this medley by the Western Wind called Three Settings of "While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks." The excerpt of Sherburne is in this video:

The other setting in the Sacred Harp, Shining Star 461, doesn't appear to be on Spotify. (Will Fitzgerald has a nice round-up of Christmas tunes from the Sacred Harp here.)
However, William Billings, the great Sacred Harp composer, did set the words also, and the tune Bethlehem is published in the Norumbega Harmony. Here's Anonymous 4 singing it on spotify, & here's the Norumbega Harmony - two pretty tame versions, but still pretty. Here's a the Western Wind again:

I've also set the Tate text several times, here. & here's our incomplete Infinite Playlist of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs (listen on random!)

Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs: XV. A Buggerer's Christmas

Brought to you by itwaslost's Very Special Department of Arnophilia & The Blue Myself's One Minute Christmas Carols - we present A Buggerer's Christmas.

The Blue Myself on facebooks here. More One Minute Christmas Carols.

Lyrics & chords:

A Buggerer's Christmas

Bb-dim Esus7 E7
If you see a stranger in your manger,
Bb-dim Esus7 E7
Your babe is not in any danger.
A F#min D
Ever stop to think that maybe,
Dmin A
They weren't looking for a baby?
E F#min
Fa la la, faaaa.
Bb-dim Esus7 E7
The shepherd's run in adoration,
Bb-dim Esus7 E7
Not to Mary's son, but to his barn companions.
A F#min D
We all need some warmth this winter, I feel ya,
Dmin A
'Tis the season for arnophilia.

A F#min
It's a buggerer's Christmas
D Dmin Bmin E A
All we like sheep, we've gone astray, Christ was born today.

F#min
You'll find me in the crèches.
D Bmin E A
We're rolling in the deep, we're rolling in the hay.

E F#min

Fa la la, baaaa. 

©2011 The Manna Tease

Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs: XIV. Hot Christmas

This year's Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs wouldn't be complete without a selection from The Squirrel Nut Zippers masterpiece & overlooked holiday album Christmas Caravan.
"Hot Christmas" is more of an instrumental, if you consider the only lyrics are "Hot Christmas / Hot Christmas / Hot Christmas." But what does it mean!?

Here's Hot Christmas on Spotify. And here's our epic Infinite Playlist of Non-Overplayed Christmas Carols (Listen on Random!)

Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs: XIII. Christmas with Andrew Jackson

Another One Minute Christmas Carol for day 13 of our Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs:

The Blue Myself on facebook here. "Christmas with Richard Nixon" here.
More One Minute Christmas Carols.

Lyrics: (same chords as Christmas with Richard Nixon.)

Christmas with Andrew Jackson 

In 1814 this house was burned by Limeys,
But now let’s decorate with candles & pine trees.
Let’s challenge Charles Dickens to a duel,
And use your cabin’s logs for fuel.
John Calhoun & Floride croon,
Christmas with Andrew Jackson,
Christmas with the Cherokee & the Whigs, Ho ho higgy,
The feast will have piggy, and the pudding will be figgy,
Christ was born today.
Old Hickory’s first lady was guilty of bigamy. 

©2011 The Manna Tease

Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs: XII. A Five Pound Box of Money

Halfway thru: Day 12 of the Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs! This is exactly what I want for Christmas: A Five Pound Box of Money. Exactly how much money is in a five pound box of it is never divulged, but if it's full of Ben Franklins, it could be a heavy load:

Here's the Pearl Bailey song on spotify: A Five Pound Box of Money. (That's a great compilation, called Doo Wop Christmas.) Here's our Infinite Playlist of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs (listen on random!)