Lyr Req: Milneburg Joys (Dr John)

Subject: Dr John: Milneburg Joys lyric
From: GUEST,Ian
Date: 08 Feb 10 - 05:16 PM

Here we go again. What is the good Doctor John singing in Verse 2 of
"Milneburg Joys?"..."I had a bad case of addiction: 'the ruse to make a thrill' "? Damned if I can make any sense of it.

Subject: RE: Dr John: Milneburg Joys lyric
From: RWilhelm
Date: 09 Feb 10 - 12:11 PM

I hear 'to rude Jamaican thrills' - dubious though

Subject: RE: Dr John: Milneburg Joys lyric
From: GUEST,Ian
Date: 09 Feb 10 - 04:00 PM

Yeah, who knows what he's singing. I can barely understand him in his Youtube interview. Why does he pronounce "Milneberg" as "MILLEN-berg; and why "Boig" for 'berg"? That's Bronx isn't it? I guess the good thing about all this is that you can substitute whatever words you like - just let one's imagination free.

Subject: RE: Dr John: Milneburg Joys lyric
From: RWilhelm
Date: 09 Feb 10 - 07:05 PM

I read somewhere that he was making a record once and told the producer he wanted the strings to sound more diptherial.

Subject: RE: Dr John: Milneburg Joys lyric
From: Songbob
Date: 09 Feb 10 - 09:02 PM

[Why does he pronounce "Milneberg" as "MILLEN-berg; and why "Boig" for 'berg"? ]

Well, "boig" is not just "Brooklynese," which is what most people think of when the "er" sound becomes "oi." I've heard several people -- African Americans, for that matter -- say "oi" when the word is spelled "er." It's a subtle thing, the er/oi blend, and in fact it is more a blend than a stark "oi" sound.

And "Millenberg" is how "Milneberg" is pronounced. From Wikipedia:

Milneburg was named for land owner developer Alexander Milne. However local pronunciation came to call it "Mill-en-burg" or "Mil-lan-bug"...

And:

Milneburg was important in the early development of jazz. Bands from different parts of the city and across racial lines would listen to each other and try to outdo each other here. Musician Sharkey Bonano grew up in Milneburg, and the area is commemorated in the New Orleans Rhythm Kings tune "Milneburg Joys" which has remained a jazz standard.

Bob

Subject: RE: Dr John: Milneburg Joys lyric
From: Songbob
Date: 09 Feb 10 - 09:05 PM

The lyrics as I found posted on at least site are:

Rock my soul with the Milenberg Joys.
Rock my soul with the Milenberg Joys.
Play 'em daddy, don't refuse;
Separate your mama from the weary blues.
Hey! Hey! Hey! Sweet boy syncopate your mama
All night long with that Dixieland strain,
Play it down, then do it again.
Ev'rytime I hear that tune good luck says,
"I'll be with you soon."
That's why I've got the Milenberg Joys.


I don't know if that's what Dr. John sings.

Bob

Subject: RE: Dr John: Milneburg Joys lyric
From: GUEST,999
Date: 09 Feb 10 - 09:28 PM

Rock my soul, with the Milneburg joys,
Rock my soul, with the Milneburg joys,
Play 'em mama, don't refuse,
Separate me from the weary blues,
Hey, hey, hey, hey,
Sweet girl, syncopate your mama.

All night long, with that Dixieland strain,
Play it down, then do it again,
Ev'ry time I hear that tune,
Good luck says I'll be with you soon,
That's just whyy I've got the Milneburg joys.

Some history here.

Subject: RE: Dr John: Milneburg Joys lyric
From: GUEST,Ian
Date: 09 Feb 10 - 09:47 PM

Most interesting Bob, thankyou. No, the lyrics Dr John sings are another set - probably his own - about getting fixes from doctors and they are not easy to understand. One verse, the third I think, is totally incomprehensible to my antipodean ears, and they've never been posted on Mudcat, Google or anywhere. Get cracking, you New Orleans people!

Subject: RE: Dr John: Milneburg Joys lyric
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Feb 10 - 10:15 PM

'FYI, "Milneberg Joys" (which Dr. John pronounces "mulenberg" ) is referring to the delights you could sample at the Milneberg Hotel out on Lake Ponchetrain outside of N'awlins.'

from

http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:fVgqPtb7o-wJ:www.belizenorth.com/biab.htm+milneberg+joys,+dr+john&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ca

Subject: RE: Dr John: Milneburg Joys lyric
From: Barbara
Date: 09 Feb 10 - 10:20 PM

The trading of 'er' sound for 'oi' is New Orleans/Louisiana dialect and happens regardless of race. Creedence Clearwater sings "Big wheels keep on toinin', Proud Mary keeps on boinin'" if you listen carefully.
Good luck on the rest.
Blessings,
Barbara

Subject: RE: Dr John: Milneburg Joys lyric
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 10:33 AM

Yes, one of the accents of New Orleans sounds a lot like a big eastern city. The first person on this video gives an example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpFDNTo4DNg

Barbara, I had noticed that 'oi' in Proud Mary, but I didn't know it came from New Orleans.

When we were kids, we had really old 78's around. One had a clean-cut version of this song, and it was pronouced 'MY len burg.'

(Years later my mother gave all the good 78's to a collector who had a radio show featuring early jazz.)
==========
Milne isn't the only person to have a couple of inconvenient consonants swapped around. How about Brett Favre, pronounced Farve?

Subject: RE: Dr John: Milneburg Joys lyric
From: GUEST,Ian
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 03:21 PM

This is all very interesting, but does anyone have DR JOHN'S lyrics for this song, not the original set, as posted here?

Subject: RE: Dr John: Milneburg Joys lyric
From: PoppaGator
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 04:23 PM

I'll try, later, to give a listen to the Dr. John recording; I think I should be able to translate. I hear it on WWOZ radio often enough, and don't remember having any trouble understanding the lyrics ~ but I also don't remember, um, the lyrics!

For now: Let me contribute the observation that the same European nationalities that immigrated to the northeastern port cities through the 19th and early 20th centuries also came to New Orleans at the same time(s). (The Irish are the only exception: they mostly avoided New Orleans after the Yellow Fever experience of the 1830s).

Some linguists (with whom I agree) theorize that the ubiquitous urban-American accent often described as "Brooklynese" (or identified with the Bronx) is the result of these particular non-English-speakers learning US English and interacting with each other to come up with similar accents wherever they lived in concentrasted numbers (i.e., in city neighborhoods). Anyway, whatever the reason, the predominant accent of white working-class New Orleans is very similar to the well-known accent of New York City's outer boroughs.

As leeneia says, what we're talking about here is one of numerous different New Orleans accents, none of which are widely known by outsiders to be native to N.O., and none of which seem to inform the laughable efforts of various film actors to speak correctly as Orleanian characters.

NO ONE native to the city, or who has lived here for any extended period, uses the familiar "southern accent" you hear up in the Bible Belt. Also, the very pronounced accent of the Cajuns of southwestern Louisiana is sometimes heard ~ but from Cajuns visiting the city, not from locals.

(I believe that the original Mr. Milne pronounced his name with one sysllable: MILN. In each instance where his name survives in current-day local geography (Milne Street, Milne Playground, Milne Boys' Home), it is now pronounced "mill-nee." The long-gone lakefront resort neighborhood of Milneburg, however, was indeed pronounced "millen-berg," and is still pronounced that way in the classic trad-jazz song.)

Subject: RE: Dr John: Milneburg Joys lyric
From: GUEST,Ian
Date: 10 Feb 10 - 05:41 PM

Thank you in anticipation Poppagator for the lyrics and your background to Milneberg. It sounds as though you're in/around NO so to you the Dr John patois will be easy/easier to follow. I do wish someone would post ALL his lyrics on line as just about every song of his which I don't understand are the very ones that are not there, eg Milneburg Joys. I recently listened to the original by the NORK and now realise that he has virtually written another melody as well. Apart from about the first two bars of the chorus there seems no similarity between the two, like his reworking of "Irene Goodnight". I saw him in Melbourne (Australia) a few years ago at an old theatre and he was so loud a small piece of plaster shook loose from the ceiling and donged someone on the head! All part of the show...

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Milneburg Joys (Dr John)
From: GUEST
Date: 30 May 12 - 11:27 AM

Because of the New Orleans dialect/influence.
The Yat dialect influence is with him a good deal I think.
It is more like a port city dialect than what one thinks of as Lowland Southern or what you hear in Gone with Wind. So yeah like Brooklyn-esque or Baltimore.. drop r's... fire=fya.car=ca. But yet it is unique, unique words/sounds, and has Southern influences and varies widely person to person and depending what area of the city they grew up/lived in. It is really it's own linguistic enclave, much like Charleston, in the South.


And they prounounce things/words a lot differently than most places.

It's basically the same as Buckwheat Zydeco's, if you listen to his song Turning Point, he says it like, "I've reached the toining point."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Milneburg Joys (Dr John)
From: GUEST
Date: 30 May 12 - 11:36 AM

"NO ONE native to the city, or who has lived here for any extended period, uses the familiar "southern accent" you hear up in the Bible Belt."

But you have to understand too that in the South there are many, many different dialects of Southern. There is Charleston, many in New Orleans a mix and the more port city sounding one, there's yes Cajun, and Texas drawl, often part of Inland South. There is Coastal Southern, Tidewater in VA, Outerbanks Brogue sounds nothing like anything else in South really. Appalachian or Mountain/Upland South. Lowland Southern is what the South is typified in movies, be it TN, NC, or New Orleans, none of which all speak that way. In East TN, a person might say yeller or warsh or winder. In Lowland they'd say yella, waaash, winda. It depends on where people lived, where from, where parents from or friends and so many things.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Milneburg Joys (Dr John)
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 30 May 12 - 01:10 PM

When I was a kid, we had an old 78 of this song, and the name was sung "Mile -en - burg" with a long I in the first syllable. I don't know who the singers were.

My mother collected 78's, the older the better. In her 80's, she gave the best of them to a young man who collected old jazz and played it on a radio program. He was thrilled.
==========
Poppagator, it's no surprise to me that Milne's name has changed pronunciation. In "Milneburg" we have the sounds LNB right in a row in the middle. English may have consonant clusters, but LNB is just too much. So a subtle short e sound was added to make millenburg.

'Milne Street' has this: MLNSTR. (Give us a break!) Milne became Mil-nee.

Have you seen the thread where I talk about my Chinese friend and how she made me aware of English's consonant clusters and how hard many foreigners find them? It's probably not just foreigners that find them hard.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Milneburg Joys (Dr John)
From: GUEST,Evan
Date: 07 Aug 12 - 06:52 PM

Here's what I got.

"Chorus :
Rock my soul, with those Milneberg Joys. Oh yeah now rock my soul with those Milneberg joys.

My friends thought my woman was an actress- the way she would act. She made a livin' on a mattress flat out on her back.

(Repeat chorus)

Doctor wrote me a prescription, try'd to cure all my ills. I had a bad case of addiction to *rude jamaican thrills?* ( Could be talking about methadone and Jamaican heroin I guess. Rude would make sense because of the term "rude boy" in Jamaica)

(Repeat chorus)

Just an iddy bitty child when I first hit the pavement. I was the only skin on my block who spent my childhood in arraignment.

(Repeat chorus)

Went off to see the doctor, try'd to give myself a boost. He said "son, listen right here: you'd better cut all, cut all them cathouse blues."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Milneburg Joys (Dr John)
From: GUEST,Milneburg
Date: 07 Jun 19 - 09:51 AM

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milneburg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milneburg