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Now i'd like to turn to the folk song, which has become in recent years the particularly fashionable form of idiocy among the self-styled intellectual. we find that people who deplore the level |
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Rrent popular songs -- although i admit they do seem to be recording almost anything these days. have you heard sesue hayakawa's record of remember pearl harbor? these same people who deplore th |
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El of current popular songs and yet will sit around enthralled singing jimmy crack corn and i don't care or green grow the rushes, oh! -- whatever that means. at any rate, for this elite i have |
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An ancient irish ballad, which was written a few years ago, and which is replete with all the accoutrements of this art form. in particular, it has a sort of idiotic refrain, in this case ricket |
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Kety-tin you'll notice cropping up from time to time, running through, i might add, interminable verses. the large number of verses being a feature expressly designed to please the true devotees |
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He folk song who seem to find |
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Singing fifty verses of on top of old smokey is twice as enjoyable as singing twenty-five. |
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This type of song also has what is known technically in music as a modal tune, which means -- for the benefit of any layman who may have wandered in this evening -- that i play a wrong note ever |
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And then. |
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[piano] |
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This song though does differ strikingly from the genuine folk ballad in that in this song the words which are supposed to rhyme - actually do. |
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[piano] |
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I, ah, i really should say that - i do not direct these remarks against the vast army of folk song lovers, but merely against that peculiar hard core who seem to equate authenticity with artisti |
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It and illiteracy with charm. |
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[piano] |
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Oh, one more thing. one of the more important aspects of public folk singing is audience participation, and this happens to be a good song for group singing. so if any of you feel like joining i |
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H me on this song, i'd appreciate it if you would leave -- right now. |
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About a maid i'll sing a song, |
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Sing rickety-tickety-tin, |
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About a maid i'll sing a song |
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Who didn't have her family long. |
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Not only did she do them wrong, |
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She did ev'ryone of them in, them in, |
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She did ev'ryone of them in. |
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One morning in a fit of pique, |
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Sing rickety-tickety-tin, |
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One morning in a fit of pique, |
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She drowned her father in the creek. |
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The water tasted bad for a week, |
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And we had to make do with gin, with gin, |
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We had to make do with gin. |
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Her mother she could never stand, |
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Sing rickety-tickety-tin, |
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Her mother she cold never stand, |
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And so a cyanide soup she planned. |
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The mother died with a spoon in her hand, |
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And her face in a hideous grin, a grin, |
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Her face in a hideous grin. |
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She set her sister's hair on fire, |
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Sing rickety-tickety-tin, |
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She set her sister's hair on fire, |
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And as the smoke and flame rose high'r, |
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Danced around the funeral pyre, |
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Playin' a violin, -olin, |
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Playin' a violin. |
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She weighted her brother down with stones, |
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Rickety-tickety-tin, |
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She weighted her brother down with stones, |
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And sent him off to davy jones. |
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All they ever found were some bones, |
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And occasional pieces of skin, of skin, |
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Occasional pieces of skin. |
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One day when she had nothing to do, |
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Sing rickety-tickety-tin, |
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One day when she had nothing to do, |
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She cut her baby brother in two, |
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And served him up as an irish stew, |
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And invited the neighbors in, -bors in, |
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Invited the neighbors in. |
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And when at last the police came by, |
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Sing rickety-tickety-tin, |
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And when at last the police came by, |
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Her little pranks she did not deny, |
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To do so she would have had to lie, |
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And lying, she knew, was a sin, a sin, |
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Lying, she knew, was a sin. |
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My tragic tale, i won't prolong, |
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Rickety-tickety-tin, |
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My tragic tale i won't prolong, |
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And if you do not enjoy the song, |
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You've yourselves to blame if it's too long, |
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You should never have let me begin, begin, |
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You should never have let me begin. |
