Music rec (with songs to download)

[resonant]

Today I want everybody to go out and buy two CDs because I like them.

The first one is the most beloved record of my childhood, now finally out on CD: what was then known as "The Lobster Quadrille" but is now known as "Carly and Lucy Simon Sing Songs For Children." It's poems by the likes of Blake, Longfellow, Lear, etc., with melodies by Lucy Simon.

The Lobster Quadrille
A Pavane for the Nursery, which to this day is the kidlet's favorite lullaby.

The songs aren't available for download on Amazon, unfortunately; I had to actually purchase a CD, which is seeming odder and odder to me -- if I want music, I pay them money and they send a plastic object to me!

The second is one I happened upon through one of those complex concatenations of Amazon searches, where you go looking for Martin Carthy, and he's got a recording with Juan Martin, and the name 'Juan' reminds you suddenly that you don't own "La Bamba," or, hey, anything by Smokey Robinson, and eventually the mouse asks for another cookie ... anyhow, I don't remember how I came upon this, but it's brilliant: "Saints and Tzadiks," by Irish folksinger Susan McKeown and Lorin Sklamberg of the Klezmatics.

Here, just listen to this one before I say any more:

The Rattlin' Bog

Am I right?

The spouse used to cover the courthouse beat, and one day between trials he was sitting on a bench with two suspects and their lawyers. He heard one of them speaking Spanish, so he struck up a conversation about the language, and after a minute the other one butted in: "Hey, wait. What's _____ in Spanish? ... it's the same in Arabic!" "No kidding. How about _____? Shit, same in Spanish!" until one of them finally said, "It's the same goddamned language!"

So that's the great moment of listening to "The Rattlin' Bog" -- fedder something, something something, nest something -- it's the same goddamned song!

Here's a bit more:

My Little Belly, which is funny even though I can't understand it. I only know such Yiddish as you pick up when your mother's best friend is from New York, plus such Yiddish as you already know because German and English are in some respects the same goddamned language. It occurred to me, listening to this, that the 'vey' in 'oy, vey' is 'woe.' I feel I should have figured that out sooner. Also, I wonder why the Vowel of Extreme Emotion is 'o' in English, and 'ay' in Spanish, and 'oy' in Yiddish?

A Prayer for the Dead, which incorporates "Johnny, I Hardly Knew Ye," one song I don't know in Yiddish, and one that's at least partly in Latin.

These are available for download from Amazon, but I almost wish I'd bought the physical object just so I'd have the liner notes.

Comments

[j00j]

Okay, I may need to get "Saints and Tzadiks." "Rattlin' Bog" was a lot of fun, especially since I can understand most of the Yiddish (via German).

[resonant]

I envy you!

[fox]

Fun fact: English, not so much, but Yiddish and German really are substantially the same goddamn language (unlike, hee, Spanish and Arabic). There's a fair amount of Hebrew in there and some Russian (and that crowd) as well, but mainly it's German. Jewish German, in fact. Judisch. Say that several times fast, especially if you go ahead and throw the umlaut on the u, and tell me what word you end up with. ;-)

[resonant]

Oh, cool! (I think of umlauts as the Swedish chef's mark.)

[isis]

My favorite Spanish and Yiddish fun fact: the Spanish phrase "aqui es una mesa" (here is a table) is phonetically nearly identical to the Yiddish phrase for "a cow eats without a knife" - which is in German "ein Kuh ess ohne Messer" so you can see how it transforms closely into Yiddish.

Shall download what you have posted, and if I like, I shall go buy!

[resonant]

Bwah! I shared this with the spouse, and he laughed.

[sensine]

Beautiful! (I had to go to youtube) thanks for sharing! It's always nice to find new music :)

sensine

[resonant]

Good!

[schemingreader]

I had read about this album, but hadn't bought it--only heard what was posted to youtube. I love Lorin Sklamberg anyway--listened to him while I was in labor, for heaven's sake--and now I think I'm in love with Susan McKeown, too.

[resonant]

I wasn't familiar with him, but I like him. (I couldn't bear any sound when I was in labor. It was like all my senses were on overload.)

[schemingreader]

(But Spanish and Arabic are the same because Spanish borrowed from Arabic, not because all languages have that much in common...)

[resonant]

I know that in English we have you might say clumps of words in certain languages -- lots of words for Western landscape features are Spanish, for instance, mesa and canyon and so on -- wonder if they just happened to hit upon a topic where there was a clump of Arabic words in Spanish?

[saffronhouse]

The Rattlin' Bog is magnificent! Thanks so much for this!!

[resonant]

Glad you liked it!