The Latest Recording

The original version of this song I found in a 1899 family songbook I picked up at a thrift store in Long Beach after one of our Nursing Home gigs with the folks from the dog park jam. That was two years ago? The chorus I thought was wonderful- the rest of it stunk. It was written by a guy in the mid-1800s. Although a really sad themed song, it became a fast upbeat fiddle tune and I've learned it was recorded early in the 1900s with bird calls and players trying to make bird songs on their instruments. Anyway, I rewrote the verses which in the original were four lines each, tried to get the band to play it- they weren't having it. Added another verse, played in own my own fast and slow with a variety of roll patterns. Recorded it for the first CD- realized the four line verses weren't working. So here it is. I think I'm done.


An earlier incarnation here: Listen To The Mocking Bird

Just got 4 dates for The Oaks

So I Looked It Up

 Can you tell the difference between 1965 and 1975?
 
We had cards and probably too much to drink and it came up that the last of the baby boomers to retire would be around (now I don't even remember what the year was- somehow it seemed absurd.

"December 31, 2029 - The last of the boomers will turn 65. The 65+ population segment is projected to double to 71.5 million by 2030 and grow to 86.7 million by 2050. Possibly eighty million plus will be on Medicare and Social Security." from a CNN site. This is an error.

Wikipedia says according to the leading theorists, etc, a generation is 20 years.

"However, as the 19th century wore on, several trends promoted a new idea of generations, of a society divided into different categories of people based on age. These trends were all related to the processes of modernisation, industrialisation, or westernisation, which had been changing the face of Europe since the mid-18th century. One was a change in mentality about time and social change."
-from Wikipedia's Generation entry.

If start the clock at 1945 and you add 20 years, 1965 is the end of births for our generation. So 2011 to 2016 is around the correct time period for retirement,

But this is a make believe notion that people of the same twenty year time span of birth share something in common.

The difference in moral values, and lifestyle and a thousand other things point to the fact that there are major differences between people just ten years apart in age. 

If I need to explain that, than most people need to get a life.

Me thinks, like most of everything else you get from the media is popular thought revolving around the notion that Time-Life can sell you music of your generation. Even they are not dumb enough to try to package the golden oldies in twenty year increments.

Where I'll Be

Streets of Laredo

Marty Robbins.

A buddy from the Glendale CC Swap Meet this morning told me about this version of "Streets of Laredo" -which I sing- below is probably the original version from the late 1700s. I told him, well maybe I'd try out this version- he said "Oh no! Everyone knows Streets of Laredo. You can't."

I only started singing it the first place because it was the only song one of my old bandmates requested. Over two years until, he brought in a song he had written, it was the only song he had ever asked us to do.

I'm tempted to do this version.

Note that Mercury(II) chloride or mercuric chloride was an early treatment for syphilis and is a white salt:

As I was a walking down by the “Lock”,

As I was walking one morning of late,

Who did I spy but my own dear comrade,

Wrapp'd in flannel, so hard is his fate.

Chorus.

Had she but told me when she disordered me,

Had she but told me of it at the time,

I might have got salts and pills of white mercury,

But now I'm cut down in the height of my prime.

I boldly stepped up to him and kindly did ask him,

Why he was wrapp'd in flannel so white?

My body is injured and sadly disordered,

All by a young woman, my own heart's delight.

My father oft told me, and of[ten] times chided me,

And said my wicked ways would never do,

But I never minded him, nor ever heeded him,

[I] always kept up in my wicked ways.

Get six jolly fellows to carry my coffin,

And six pretty maidens to bear up my pall,

And give to each of them bunches of roses,

That they may not smell me as they go along.

[Over my coffin put handsful of lavender,

Handsful of lavender on every side,

Bunches of roses all over my coffin,

Saying there goes a young man cut down in his prime.]

Muffle your drums, play your pipes merrily,

Play the death [dead] march as you go along.

And fire your guns right over my coffin,

There goes an unfortunate lad to his home.