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13 Mar 14 - 08:43 AM (#3609360) Subject: Origins: Weird and Crazy Tune Names - Please! From: GUEST,Pattroglyph There are a myriad of weird and crazy tune names out there. Put the Leg on Her Shove the Pig's Foot a Little Further in the Fire Nail the Cat Fish to the Tree Old Hag you have Killed Me Squirrel Heads and Gravy What's your funny tune name? |
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13 Mar 14 - 08:54 AM (#3609364) Subject: RE: Origins: Weird and Crazy Tune Names - Please! From: GUEST The Left-handed Wanker |
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13 Mar 14 - 09:00 AM (#3609366) Subject: RE: Origins: Weird and Crazy Tune Names - Please! From: GUEST The Farting Badger The Freudian Slip jig The Hump in the Quilt The Hairy Chested Frog |
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13 Mar 14 - 09:05 AM (#3609368) Subject: RE: Origins: Weird and Crazy Tune Names - Please! From: Sandra in Sydney the traditional Australian tune - the Black Cat Piddled in the White Cat's Eye |
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13 Mar 14 - 09:18 AM (#3609375) Subject: RE: Origins: Weird and Crazy Tune Names - Please! From: GUEST,Black belt caterpillar wrestler My mother was drowned in the pool at Lourdes. |
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13 Mar 14 - 09:37 AM (#3609379) Subject: RE: Origins: Weird and Crazy Tune Names - Please! From: Dave Hanson From O'Neills 1001 Gems, Kitty Got A Clinking Coming From The Races. Dave H |
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13 Mar 14 - 12:03 PM (#3609408) Subject: RE: Origins: Weird and Crazy Tune Names - Please! From: Newport Boy Naked Ladies and Electric Ragtime - Michael Chapman c.1970 Phil |
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13 Mar 14 - 12:31 PM (#3609412) Subject: RE: Origins: Weird and Crazy Tune Names - Please! From: JohnInKansas I believe it's been discussed here before. One thread is at Typical Country Song Titles. There is a web "index" to Wacky (but hip) actual C&W Song Titles. The index includes such classics as "Al K. Hall & Nick K. Teen" by George Hamilton IV. I don't recall ever hearing "Frozen 400 Pound Fair-To-Middlin Cotton Picker, The" by Johnny Cash, but it's included in the list. It runs through "Your Wife Is Cheatin' On Us Again" by Wayne Kemp." John |
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13 Mar 14 - 03:30 PM (#3609455) Subject: RE: Origins: Weird and Crazy Tune Names - Please! From: GUEST,Henry Piper of Ottery Careful with that Axe Eugene.......Pink Floyd I think, The Eric Dolphy Memorial Barbecue.....No Idea of origin, just remember seeing the title on an album in the 60's or thereabouts. |
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13 Mar 14 - 05:00 PM (#3609476) Subject: RE: Origins: Weird and Crazy Tune Names - Please! From: Cool Beans Smash the Windows. (Old fiddle tune, which I think is how this thread began...) |
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13 Mar 14 - 05:08 PM (#3609480) Subject: RE: Origins: Weird and Crazy Tune Names - Please! From: JohnInKansas One might question "Nail the Catfish to a Tree" being called "Weird and Crazy." That's a pretty standard method of holding 'em down while ya clean 'em among a fair number of fisherpersons. (Most suitable for the 30 to 60 lb ones, but it depends some on the species.) John |
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13 Mar 14 - 05:18 PM (#3609482) Subject: RE: Origins: Weird and Crazy Tune Names - Please! From: GUEST,Black belt caterpillar wrestler If we are going outside the folk area, The song of McGilliecully the pusilanemous or don't worry James your socks are hanging in the coal cellar with Thomas, by Egg. |
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14 Mar 14 - 12:30 AM (#3609532) Subject: RE: Origins: Weird and Crazy Tune Names - Please! From: GUEST,michaelr I think the OP was talking about "tunes" in the sense of "instrumental music mostly played on the fiddle". In that vein I offer "An Phish Fluach" aka "The Smelly Cunt". |
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14 Mar 14 - 01:26 AM (#3609536) Subject: RE: Origins: Weird and Crazy Tune Names - Please! From: Bert Morpeth Rant. |
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14 Mar 14 - 02:36 AM (#3609546) Subject: RE: Origins: Weird and Crazy Tune Names - Please! From: Tangledwood The Hole in the Harper's Head. (Bucca) |
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14 Mar 14 - 05:14 AM (#3609569) Subject: RE: Origins: Weird and Crazy Tune Names - Please! From: GUEST,Mark Bluemel Bert found "Morpeth Rant" weird and/or crazy? Hmmm A Rant is a dance and Morpeth is a pleasant Northumbrian town - I think I bought a corduroy jacket there last time I visited. |
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14 Mar 14 - 05:49 AM (#3609579) Subject: RE: Origins: Weird and Crazy Tune Names - Please! From: GUEST,kenny "The Floating Crowbar" "Upstairs In A Tent" Mike Katz of "The Battlefield Band" , I think it was, wrote a tune called "Mother Farquhar's" reel. Alistair Anderson had a few good traditional Northumbrian ones which I remember him introducing at Aberdeen Folk Club in the 80s : "Gallop And Shite", and "Geld Him, Lassies, Geld Him" |
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14 Mar 14 - 06:31 AM (#3609587) Subject: RE: Origins: Weird and Crazy Tune Names - Please! From: JohnInKansas Not exactly fiddle tunes, but a couple previously discussed here were: The Man Who Turns The Damn Thing Off And On I Just Don't Look Good Naked Anymore and there's: Nobody Loves a Fairy When She's Forty. There should be threads on these three(?). In a different genre I think I recall a thread that ran for a very long time before we found: Whose Izzy Is He (Is He Yours or Is He Mine?) A "Session Book" circulated some years back by the "Irish Tent" at the annual Winfield Festival (and elsewhere) included: Britches Full of Stitches Fasten the Leg in Her (mentioned above?) The Flogging Reel(?) The Hag At The Churn I Buried My Wife & Danced On Top Of Her Munster Buttermilk has the alternate title Behind the Haystack which sounds mildly salacious? The Nine Points of Roguery The Price Of My Pig The Scent of the Bog (The Smell of the Bog) Saint Anne's Reel is well known but St. Ruth's Bush possibly not? Toss The Feathers(?) (multiple versions) The Wet Pussy (An Phis Fhliuch) Some in this latter collection have alternate titles that might sound funnier if I was in "full Irish mode" but I wouldn't be able to tell if the silliness was me or the tune. John |
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14 Mar 14 - 06:49 AM (#3609591) Subject: RE: Origins: Weird and Crazy Tune Names - Please! From: MGM·Lion The Minister Kissed The Fiddler's Wife [quoted by Burns] ~M~ |
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14 Mar 14 - 06:51 AM (#3609592) Subject: RE: Origins: Weird and Crazy Tune Names - Please! From: MGM·Lion ... and also Merrily Kissed the Quaker's Wife... |
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14 Mar 14 - 08:21 AM (#3609609) Subject: RE: Origins: Weird and Crazy Tune Names - Please! From: GUEST,Black belt caterpillar wrestler Was the original request asking for the origins of the names as few mentioned so far have been explained? The only strange one that I can explain is the "cat flap in the fridge" which was inspired by a Garfield cartoon. |
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14 Mar 14 - 08:27 AM (#3609612) Subject: RE: Origins: Weird and Crazy Tune Names - Please! From: GUEST Yaaka Hula Hickey Dula |
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14 Mar 14 - 09:43 AM (#3609630) Subject: RE: Origins: Weird and Crazy Tune Names - Please! From: GUEST Davy Come Back and Act Like You Ought To Verb the Noun |
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14 Mar 14 - 09:58 AM (#3609635) Subject: RE: Origins: Weird and Crazy Tune Names - Please! From: GUEST Granny Hold The Candle While I Shave The Chicken's Lip? |
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14 Mar 14 - 10:22 AM (#3609641) Subject: RE: Origins: Weird and Crazy Tune Names - Please! From: Dave Hanson An Old tune ' The Difficult Fish ' If you fish for salmon you would understand this title. Dave H |
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14 Mar 14 - 02:31 PM (#3609720) Subject: RE: Origins: Weird and Crazy Tune Names - Please! From: bubblyrat Black Joke The Frosty Hare The Cook In The Kitchen The Larks March Pepper In The Brandy The Pigeon On The Gate Rufty Tufty The Pandon Dance The Pandene Of Tikeli Herbert The Sherbert |
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14 Mar 14 - 02:39 PM (#3609723) Subject: RE: Origins: Weird and Crazy Tune Names - Please! From: Bert But it just sounds funny Mark. |
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14 Mar 14 - 03:37 PM (#3609734) Subject: RE: Origins: Weird and Crazy Tune Names - Please! From: GUEST,gillymor Old Woman Tossed up in a Blanket The Gander in the Pratie Hole I Ne'er Shall Wean Her |
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18 Mar 14 - 10:56 AM (#3610571) Subject: RE: Origins: Weird and Crazy Tune Names - Please! From: Snuffy The Floating Crowbar |
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18 Mar 14 - 12:02 PM (#3610592) Subject: RE: Origins: Weird and Crazy Tune Names - Please! From: GUEST,Jon Heslop Absent Minded Woman Cup of Tea (Now that's weird! In a pub session!!???!) Hand me Down The Tackle Dog In Distress Jenny's Beaver Hat Give Us A Drink OF Water (see Cup of Tea above) Fox on The Town Rambling Pitchfork Fanny Power (!!!???!) The Kesh (Why would anybody name a tune after a brand new "Leisure Resort" holiday complex on the edge of Marrakesh?) |
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18 Mar 14 - 12:09 PM (#3610602) Subject: RE: Origins: Weird and Crazy Tune Names - Please! From: GUEST,Peter Laban There's one in the Goodman collection called 'The Black Stripper'. |
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18 Mar 14 - 12:23 PM (#3610610) Subject: RE: Origins: Weird and Crazy Tune Names - Please! From: GUEST Push that Pig a Little Closer to the fFire Vanish Me Foreskin |
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19 Mar 14 - 02:01 AM (#3610775) Subject: RE: Origins: Weird and Crazy Tune Names - Please! From: PHJim Blind Steer In A Mudhole You Married My Daughter, Yet You Didn't Walt's Waltz Dan's Dance Spilt Beer |
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19 Mar 14 - 05:37 AM (#3610799) Subject: RE: Origins: Weird and Crazy Tune Names - Please! From: GUEST When faced with naming a tune, what are you going to do? Call it Smudgen McMudgeon's Fifth in C Minor, or follow Shakespeare and start calling it As You Like It - which was what he told his amenuensis when asked what he was going to call that play? He was lucky the other one of that ilk, Twelfth Night, wasn't called Watcher, Will. When learning a tune, I think it's important to understand its cultural context so your choices are deliberate - a carry over of Early Music's increased appreciation of what they call Historically Informed Performance. Their music was the more formal style of where much folk music came from, and they're 20 years ahead of the folk world in bringing cultural affectations added by previous generations under control. In that world, it took people like Emma Kirkby and then Catherine Bott to get rid of the anachronous ubiquity of coloratura in baroque music imposed a hundred years ago, and that was forty years ago. It's worth asking what affectations the folk world retains? And so it is that we should know why Fanny Power is called that: it was dedicated to one of the Powers family, descendants of one of the Irish Kings. It's about the last gasp of the older heritage before the takeover of the AngloIrish in the 19th Century with all of the pain and grief that resulted: all of the condescension of the Somerville and Ross RM begorrahing has found a place in Irish music too, and perhaps that needs to be thought carefully about, to what extent the wilder names were pandering to an abusive audience. And for that you need to do some careful research, the kind of work ITMA is doing. Some tunes are obvious, for example the Hen's March to the Midden. But to what extent are they also satirical takes on other more virtuous tunes such as Peacock's March, named for a long-forgotten worthy of that name? Sometimes even the performers lose track of how they got there, I recall commenting to Patsy Seddon and Mary McMaster in a workshop many moons ago that there was a painting of the young Kate Dalrymple in the National Portrait Gallery in London, showing a society beauty, whereas the traditional song portrays a hag second only to Alison Gross: there is scope in the tune to bring out the underlying minuet showing the young girl within the hag. Years later they came back to it and did so, but don't recall where the idea came from. Sic transit gloria mundi! I'm just happy to have added something to the McCalmans backstreet version, fun as it is. So, if the name's funny, try finding out why and you may have insight into how to play it, rather than just hacking it out in a style derivative of whoever you learned it from. Sure, that can be an element of it, but it's also useful to know how it got there to seen where to take it. That way you can add to your experience the fun bits such as the diminished chord in Give Me Your Hand, to use elsewhere instead of the more conventional decorations. The more the number of decorations you have on hand, the more interesting your music, because you can take it places. It's exactly why the Welsh used the 24 variations on the Welsh Ground as the test for a properly-trained harper, to show that they had a decent repertoire of decorative techniques to take tunes somewhere else. Sadly in their instance it became an end in and of itself, which was never the idea: like other tunes of theirs, for instance the finger exercise intended simply as a physical warm-up, known as pwrt ar bys ("finger exercise" in Welsh), which became progressively port ar bwys and then Buttered Peas! And there, perhaps, is another crazy title - and how it came to be. |