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Lyr Req: Song of the Mouth-Organ (Service, Zentz) DigiTrad: ENDLESS HOLE LIGHT FROM THE LIGHTHOUSE SWEET SONG FROM YESTERDAY Related threads: Lyr Req: When All Thy Names Are One (Bob Zentz) (14) Info & Songs: Bob Zentz (31) Lyr ADD: This Old Earth (Bob Zentz) (8) (origins) Origins: Beaucatcher's Farewell (Bob Zentz) (7) Bob Zentz house concert in Maine 21 Aug 2010 (84) Lyr Add: The Morning after Love (Bob Zentz) (3) Bob Zentz - C. Fox Smith Recording (Closehauled..) (16) Chord Req: Sea Dog (from Bob Zentz) (9) Lyr Add: Waiting for Dawn (Bob Zentz) (2) Tune Req: When All Thy Names Are One (Bob Zentz) (9) Scuttlebutt (Zentz/Lee/Epping) recording (1) |
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Subject: Ode to the Mouth Harp - Bob Zentz From: voyager Date: 12 Nov 00 - 01:48 AM Folk-Legacy recording purchased at FSGW (CD 5051) - Hove-To and Drifting by Bob Zentz http://www.folklegacy.com/cd/cd5051.htm http://www.woodenshipsmusic.com/htdocs/at080.html contains a song called Ode to the Mouth Harp with the following liner notes - *Ode to the Mouth Harp my setting of Robert Service's homage to the ultimate portable instrument... and those who play it (with apologies to Kipling's "Ode to the Banjo"). Looking for Kipling/Service cross references I came up short. Any MUDCAT INSIGHT HERE? This tune has gotten under my skin lately and I would like to find the lyrics to send to my Harmonica-playing friends. Thanks in advance.... voyager PS - If I find the time I may just transcribe the verses meself. |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Ode to the Mouth Harp - Bob Zentz From: Rick Fielding Date: 13 Nov 00 - 12:49 AM seems like a decent request Voyager. Can't help tho'. refresh |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Ode to the Mouth Harp - Bob Zentz From: Jeri Date: 13 Nov 00 - 09:07 AM This Robert Service website has loads of his poetry, but I couldn't find the one you're looking for. Maybe it's titled something else there? You might try e-mailing Bob Zentz. (The address is freely available on the web.) I have the CD, and that's one heck of a long song to transcribe! |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Ode to the Mouth Harp - Bob Zentz From: voyager Date: 21 Nov 00 - 07:43 AM Found it this Robert Service poem in my Boy Scout bin of winter camping verse..... Tune is called "Song of the Mouth-Organ" It's Internet posted in the public domain under Ballads of a Cheechako over here.... http://www.geocities.com/~spanoudi/poems/cheech4.html Can someone with a BETTER EDITOR than the MUDCAT box add this to the Digitrad database? Thanks. voyager FSGW Ghetto |
Subject: Lyr Add: THE SONG OF THE MOUTH-ORGAN^^ From: Jim Dixon Date: 21 Nov 00 - 07:54 PM THE SONG OF THE MOUTH-ORGAN (Words by Robert W. Service, tune by Bob Zentz) (With apologies to the singer of the "Song of the Banjo".) I'm a homely little bit of tin and bone; I'm beloved by the Legion of the Lost; I haven't got a "vox humana" tone, And a dime or two will satisfy my cost. I don't attempt your high-falutin' flights; I am more or less uncertain on the key; But I tell you, boys, there's lots and lots of nights When you've taken mighty comfort out of me. I weigh an ounce or two, and I'm so small You can pack me in the pocket of your vest; And when at night so wearily you crawl Into your bunk and stretch your limbs to rest, You take me out and play me soft and low, The simple songs that trouble your heartstrings; The tunes you used to fancy long ago, Before you made a rotten mess of things. Then a dreamy look will come into your eyes, And you break off in the middle of a note; And then, with just the dreariest of sighs, You drop me in the pocket of your coat. But somehow I have bucked you up a bit; And, as you turn around and face the wall, You don't feel quite so spineless and unfit -- You're not so bad a fellow after all. Do you recollect the bitter Arctic night; Your camp beside the canyon on the trail; Your tent a tiny square of orange light; The moon above consumptive-like and pale; Your supper cooked, your little stove aglow; You tired, but snug and happy as a child? Then 'twas "Turkey in the Straw" till your lips were nearly raw, And you hurled your bold defiance at the Wild. Do you recollect the flashing, lashing pain; The gulf of humid blackness overhead; The lightning making rapiers of the rain; The cattle-horns like candles of the dead You sitting on your bronco there alone, In your slicker, saddle-sore and sick with cold? Do you think the silent herd did not hear "The Mocking Bird", Or relish "Silver Threads among the Gold"? Do you recollect the wild Magellan coast; The head-winds and the icy, roaring seas; The nights you thought that everything was lost; The days you toiled in water to your knees; The frozen ratlines shrieking in the gale; The hissing steeps and gulfs of livid foam: When you cheered your messmates nine with "Ben Bolt" and "Clementine", And "Dixie Land" and "Seeing Nellie Home"? Let the jammy banjo voice the Younger Son, Who waits for his remittance to arrive; I represent the grimy, gritty one, Who sweats his bones to keep himself alive; Who's up against the real thing from his birth; Whose heritage is hard and bitter toil; I voice the weary, smeary ones of earth, The helots of the sea and of the soil. I'm the Steinway of strange mischief and mischance; I'm the Stradivarius of blank defeat; In the down-world, when the devil leads the dance, I am simply and symbolically meet; I'm the irrepressive spirit of mankind; I'm the small boy playing knuckle down with Death; At the end of all things known, where God's rubbish-heap is thrown, I shrill impudent triumph at a breath. I'm a humble little bit of tin and horn; I'm a byword, I'm a plaything, I'm a jest; The virtuoso looks on me with scorn; But there's times when I am better than the best. Ask the stoker and the sailor of the sea; Ask the mucker and the hewer of the pine; Ask the herder of the plain, ask the gleaner of the grain -- There's a lowly, loving kingdom -- and it's mine. [Words from "Ballads of a Cheechako," 1909. Recorded by Bob Zentz on "Hove-To, and Drifting," Folk-Legacy, CD 5051, where it is called "Ode to the Mouthharp."] |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Ode to the Mouth Harp - Bob Zentz From: Naemanson Date: 07 Nov 06 - 04:30 AM Does anyone have chords to this gem? |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Song of the Mouth-Organ (Service, Zentz) From: voyager Date: 16 Apr 13 - 06:14 PM Listening to this song again last night (Bob Zentz, Hove to and Drifting) the song 'bucked me up a bit' thinking of that Boston tragedy - "I'm the irrepressive spirit of mankind; I'm the small boy playing knuckle down with Death" and crying a bit on the inside. Beautiful dulcimer arrangement by BZ. voyager |
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Song of the Mouth-Organ (Service, Zentz) From: voyager Date: 05 Jul 21 - 12:55 PM Found this note from Bob Z. a few years back - Subject: Re: Ode to the Mouth Harp - Dulcimer Tuning Hi Tim, and glad ya like that poem- Setting. Actually, I’m playing it on my 8 string cittern, which I tune AEAE, then, capo 5 frets up... making it DADA. With a 3 string dulcimer tuning, DAD works just fine. The Harmonica is a Hohner Low D Big River Harp! Hope this helps! Happy to be of “SERVICE “ - Bob |
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