Turns of a phrase

Subject: Turns of a phrase
From: Sourdough
Date: 29 Jul 99 - 03:33 AM

So many of the people who write Mudcat Messages do so with such control of, and appreciation for, the language that it reminded me that one of the attractions for a lot of people who love traditional music is the lyrics. These are phrases that have burnished and polished by many generations until they are transformed into art that can be every bit as moving as any other art. Why am I lavishing compliments on Mudcatters? So that I won't be tracked down and thrashed with bass E strings. See, tonight I was playin with two friends, David and Elizabeth. I was at their house, something that happens every Wednesday evening, without fail. We were singing "The Cheapest Kind" and damned if it didn't sound, for us, comparatively good. David was singing the verses while I backed him up on the harmonica and Elizabeth played mandolin. When we sang together on the choruses, I started getting chills. It was coming out so nicely.

We had just gotten to the climax of the song and were starting in on the final chorus when Elizabeth's daughter came in to say that a tow truck was arriving, delivering Elizabeth's son's car which had broken down about eighty miles away.

The flurry of excitemnt this caused stopped us in mid-chorus. I think we were all surprised at how incomplete and unsatisfied we felt. I was able to sum that feeling up. "Chorus Interuptus"

Sourdough

(I am now going to walk quietly towards the exit in the hope that I will not have to duck, bob and weave to get out of here.)

Subject: RE: Turns of a phrase
From: Margo
Date: 29 Jul 99 - 05:54 AM

Sourdough, I believe you found the perfect phrase for conveying your heartfelt disappointment at being "interrupted"!

Margarita

Subject: RE: Turns of a phrase
From: Bert
Date: 29 Jul 99 - 11:23 AM

Perfect 'dough

Subject: RE: Turns of a phrase
From: Paul S
Date: 29 Jul 99 - 11:45 AM

One time a co-worker was complaining about a useless little task he had been assigned. He summed it up with, "...but what can I do? I'm just a clog in the machine".

Subject: RE: Turns of a phrase
From: Peter T.
Date: 29 Jul 99 - 11:58 AM

Sourdough, you will appreciate this. A friend of mine was out somewhere in the West camping with his girlfriend, and they were in the middle of making love, when they suddenly heard the sound of coyotes howling in the distance. Without missing a beat (so he says!) he said, "Let's not make this coyotus interruptus."
yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Turns of a phrase
From: Sourdough
Date: 29 Jul 99 - 04:25 PM

Peter T.

I didn't expect to be outfoxed! (Grinning)

Sourdough

Are you familiar with Ian Tyson's "The Coyote"? I love singing it because it reminds me of a coyote that I ran into in a ghost town in Nevada - Palmetto.

Subject: RE: Turns of a phrase
From: Dale Rose
Date: 29 Jul 99 - 05:21 PM

For those who aren't familiar with the Coyote & the Cowboy lyrics by Ian Tyson, here they are. Links at the bottom of the page will take you to his other lyrics and lots of other good things about Ian Tyson and the Cowboy Way. My recommendations: take side trips into the Cindy Church, and Spirit of the West Radio Show Links. There's more, but that'll get you started.

Subject: RE: Turns of a phrase
From: Peter T.
Date: 29 Jul 99 - 05:55 PM

Sourdough, Wasn't there a song about the lost Chord that was a kind of "Chorus Interruptus"?
I don't know Tyson's song, which is embarassing, being a Canadian. Must check it out.
Looking at this, I am reminded of the Road Runner cartoons (COYOTE DOOFUS, BIRDUS TOOFASTUS).
yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Turns of a phrase
From: Margo
Date: 29 Jul 99 - 06:07 PM

Paul, your friend's misspeaking is funnier than you may think: French factory workers were unhappy with the management. They took their shoes off, which happened to be clogs, and jammed the machinary with them. The French word for clogs is "sabot" (pronounced sa-bo). Hence, the word sabotage. Maybe is was a trans-lingual freudian slip!

(could that be why things get "clogged" up?)

Margarita

Subject: RE: Turns of a phrase
From: katlaughing
Date: 29 Jul 99 - 06:40 PM

So if 'Spaw were out here in the wild West, with Karen enamorata and a coyote started howling, either in sympathy or in an attempt to stop such a scene, would it be spawtus et karenae interruptus? Inquiring minds want to know!! (Can't remember the correct latin endings for multiple partners, heeheehee!)

Ka-chiiiinnnngggg!!!!!

Kat

Subject: RE: Turns of a phrase
From: Bill D
Date: 29 Jul 99 - 09:57 PM

I used to have a collection of 'Pluteisms'...so named for a good 'ol guy named Virgil Plute, who was an electrician at the college where I worked in the maintainance dept...Virgil had a way of taking the most common expression and sort of 'compressing' it and turning it inside out until it is totally 'wrong', but you still know exactly what he means...

"Virgil, you want to go to the shop for that stuff, or shall I go?"....."Oh, I don't care it's six dozen of the other"....what he did was not quite mixed metaphor, but more like "Eschered metaphor", if that makes sense...