What's left to sing about...

Subject: RE: What's left to sing about...
From: kendall
Date: 14 Oct 00 - 08:57 AM

Puff is about smoking a joint...Neamanson, that was a great description of baseball. You nailed it with the HOW of the game, now, lets hear WHY? Watching cans rust is more exiting!

Subject: RE: What's left to sing about...
From: Metchosin
Date: 14 Oct 00 - 03:03 PM

Froodo, try this one, Mr. Dave does a pretty bang up version but there should be others, especially the younger ones, singing out too.

DO YOU WANT MY JOB . . (R.Cooder/J.Hiatt/J.Keltner/N.Lowe)

Cool breezes from the mountains blow
As I wake up and dress to go
On the island, dawn is breaking
In the harbor, tanker's waiting

From the land of the rising sun
They bring their old plutonium
And we unload it in the bay
For two dollars forty cents a day

Do you want my
Do you want my
Do you want my
Do you want my job

I hump the stuff, I take the cash
So my kids can wear Adidas
And if you live here, home, you know
We ain't got no place else to go

I remember when the air was sweet
And I brought home the fish to eat
Now we buy Spam from the grocery store
'Cause you can't eat the fish no more

(Chorus)

Subject: RE: What's left to sing about...
From: catspaw49
Date: 14 Oct 00 - 03:41 PM

HEY FROODO...GOT ANY IDEAS YET???

Kendall, we've had this discusion several times around here and I still don't believe that Puff is about pot. I know I ain't ever changin' anybody's mind and you aren't changing mine, but I'll take the word of the dragon's Daddy who has always said its a song about the loss of childhood innocence.

Spaw

Subject: RE: What's left to sing about...
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Oct 00 - 04:34 PM

Beyond question Spaw is right here.

I suppose you could have a sequel in which the lad grows up a bit and comes back running to wake up his old mate Puff and they all have a great reunion. And that might be a song about dope. But not the Puff we've got.

Subject: RE: What's left to sing about...
From: Zebedee
Date: 14 Oct 00 - 04:49 PM

McGrath,

A mudcatter did recently provide an alternative ending (see this thread:

Many long years later, Puff was sleeping on the shore
He awakened to the laughter that he'd known so long before
There was Jackie Paper, now grown into a man
And he brought all of his children To play with Puff again!

You and Catspaw are of course right. I still occasionally meet people who think that it was a drugs song, and despite anything I say, refuse to believe otherwise. I just shrug my shoulders and feel slightly sorry for them.

Zeb

Subject: RE: What's left to sing about...
From: Amos
Date: 14 Oct 00 - 04:58 PM

Ya know....the reason that people write protest songs is that they feel protest about something. If ya can't find anything in current life on this hyar Mud Ball to feel any protest about, ya should type "obituaries" into a Google dialogue box, cuz ya might have died and not noticed.

A

Subject: RE: What's left to sing about...
From: rangeroger
Date: 14 Oct 00 - 07:16 PM

I still have a 45 from the early '60s called "The Brontosaurus Stomp" by the Piltdown Men. Flipside is "MacDonalds Cave"

rr

Subject: RE: What's left to sing about...
From: Naemanson
Date: 15 Oct 00 - 09:26 AM

Puff is about a dragon and the loss of innocence. I know it because of my father's day gift last June. Puff had a bit to do with this.

It is framed and has two stars on it and it says:

My Father's Gift
He introduced me to dragons and brought elves over to play,
For me he found the unicorn and invited dryads over for tea,
Because of him, wizards came to call and hobbits with dwarves,
There were tall dark men carrying swords and beautiful women with laughter like a spring brook,
Holding my hand he showed me the path,
Placed my hand on the door knob and gave me the will and desire to turn it and pull the door open.
Magic and wonder,
Fantasy and excitement.
A world of my own,
He gave to me.

Subject: RE: What's left to sing about...
From: catspaw49
Date: 15 Oct 00 - 09:49 AM

Aw geez Brett.........Once again the 'Cat proves a place to both laugh and cry........Very sweet, completely wonderful.........Thanks.

Spaw

Subject: RE: What's left to sing about...
From: Greyeyes
Date: 15 Oct 00 - 11:01 AM

Naemanson, I've posted a PM to you about "My Father's Gift"

Subject: RE: What's left to sing about...
From: GospelPicker (inactive)
Date: 16 Oct 00 - 11:09 AM

"I call 'em 'finger-pointin songs' cause that's where my head is at right now... I don't do 'protest' songs anymore... Bob Dylan, 1965

Seriously, you want something to protest? I went to a Billy Graham (US preacher/evangelist/speaker) crusade (really big church sermon type thingy for you non-religious types) and he and all the other speakers in Central Park NYC told us haffamillion folks that there was a need for "food and clothing for those poor people overseas"... I took a walk to get an authentic Sewer-Snake (hot dog from a push cart) and I saw people not 2 blocks from 'ol Graham and his "overseas" who were cuddling their infant child and sleeping in an old industrial size laundry cart... Protest? How about laying off the foreigners and caring about your actual neighbors, like the Bible says? I mean, I care, but really... all this tree-hugging humanitarian garbaggio lamenting over the poor pygmies when I bet ol BushyBaby and Snore probably ignore the guy with the foam cup outside the White House...

GospelPicker

@:^o[+] *mouth open in protest right now!*

Subject: RE: What's left to sing about...
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Oct 00 - 01:05 PM

As far as I'm concerned, "Dinosaur" was better than "Jurassic Park"...particularly in terms of acting and plausible storyline. Jurassic Park had some of the worst acting ever seen in the history of motion pictures, although not quite as bad as Godzilla '98 or Independence Day, arguably. Dinosaur was excellent.

Puff the Magic Dragon is NOT about pot, but about coming of age, as Spaw indicated.

Mr. Tambourine Man is NOT about a drug dealer, but about freedom of the human spirit.

Rainy Day Women is NOT about drugs either, but about society in a more generalized sense, as to the trips people tend to lay on each other, the rat race, etc.

Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds is NOT about LSD, but was inspired by a picture a little girl drew.

and...

Leonard Skynrd songs are not about intelligent perception or anything like that. :-)

Gospel Picker - right on! There are homeless dying on the streets of Toronto too. What does North American society have to be self-righteous about when they can't even show mercy upon their own lost and forsaken?

Subject: RE: What's left to sing about...
From: GospelPicker (inactive)
Date: 16 Oct 00 - 01:56 PM

Teaho, Little Hawk! Hoka hey! Glad to see this 'ol half-breed has got someone on his side!

Self-righteous attitudes are thing that killed Jesus... the Presidency... health care in the US... rock and roll... the American Dream.

GospelPicker

@:^([+] *sad cause of the bad attitudes*

Subject: RE: What's left to sing about...
From: Naemanson
Date: 16 Oct 00 - 02:27 PM

Gospelpicker, I agree with what you say and have one more bone to pick with BG and his ilk. How much of HIS extra income goes to those people? Is he still driving an expensive car? Wearing expensive suits? Living in a mansion? Acting like the aristocratic clergy of the middle ages?

If there is anything that gets under my skin it's those who stand with one hand out for charity and the other on the door knob of a fancy house and expensive car.

Rant off.