Category: songs

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Almeda Riddle: Chick-a-la-lee-o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaRRN-Ieqjw

Chorus: La, la, la, chick-a-la-lee-o (x4) Now I’m gonna marry just who I please La, la, la, chick-a-la-lee-o I bet I’d do if he asked me La, la, la, chick-a-la-lee-o I think I’ll marry little Johnny Green?That’s the prettiest boy I’ve ever seen But he’s gone off to the war away?He come back some pretty fair day Yonder he comes I do believe?Lord I hope he marries me Now I’m gonna marry just who I please?I bet I’d do if he asked me

 

 

Anna Soloway 2018?

Dennis Soloway 

Anna & Dennis met while at Pinewoods Campers’ Week in their youth. They live in Hillsborough, North Carolina.

If you see a chicken and it’s not a mommy chicken And it’s not a daddy chicken then it’s probably a baby chicken Though you may be tempted and you would not be corrected If you see a baby chicken it’s not called a baby chick (that’s redundant) Chorus: Chicken, chicken babies (x3) Sitting on their mamas’ backs Chicken, chicken babies (x3) Eating lots and lots of snacks If you see a woman, even if she’s a young woman And especially if she’s at her job she is not called a girl I know you weren’t thinking and you’ve never been corrected But it’s time that we all stood up and stopped calling women girls If you see the chicken family say hi to them for me And call them baby chickens, chicks, but please not baby chicks And if you see some women you should not presume a single thing And always call them women never girls and never chicks

 

 

Nancy Kerr 2020

 

About the cinnabar moth that lives on ragwort (“crown of gold”). About the consequences of human impact on climate, heat. love, and how we forget adversity when we’re wrapped in comfort, which makes it hard to act against our consequences.

The Magpie Arc: https://themagpiearc.bandcamp.com/track/cinnabar

https://themagpiearc.bandcamp.com/track/cinnabar

The sun he fells the forest wall wearing a crown of gold And though I know he’s terrible yet still I see he’s beautiful Chorus: I’ll mourn you lowly cinnabar, born in a crown of gold In my burnished lover’s arms I have forgotten the cold The moon devours the heaven’s hall wearing a veil of red And I embrace this other soul – should end days feel so wonderful? The earth in rags and tattered strips, wearing it thirst for rain The breeze is like my lover’s lips but will it lift your wings again

 

 

Steve Goodman 1971

 

Goodman died in 1984 of leukemia at the age of 36. The song was written after taking a trip with his wife to see her grandmother, riding the City of New Orleans, the day train running from Chicago to the title city. (The night train at that point was still the Panama Limited, immortalized by Booker White in the 1930s.) When he got back, a friend mentioned that Amtrak was planning to discontinue the train, so he wrote the song as an elegy – which may have contributed to the fact that a train of this name is still running today (though now it’s the night train). Steve described the lyric as pretty much straight reportage, a list of what he saw out the window, except for the third verse, which he had to make up since he was only going to southern Illinois: “I figured I couldn’t write a song about a train that went 900 miles through the center of the country and stop the song in Mattoon because I was getting off.”

Arlo Guthrie: The City of New Orleans

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSeqrkRT1t0

Riding on the City of New Orleans Illinois Central, Monday morning rail Fifteen cars and fifteen restless riders Three conductors and twenty-five sacks of mail All along the southbound odyssey The train pulls out at Kankakee And rolls along past houses, farms and fields Passing trains that have no name And freight yards full of old black men And the graveyards of the rusted automobiles Chorus: Good morning America, how are you Say, don’t you know me, I’m your native son I’m the train they call the City of New Orleans I’ll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done Dealing card games with the old men in the club car Penny a point, ain’t no one keeping score Pass the paper bag that holds the bottle Feel the wheels rumbling ‘neath the floor And the sons of pullman porters And the sons of engineers Ride their fathers’ magic carpets made of steel And mothers with their babes asleep Are rockin’ to the gentle beat And the rhythm of the rails is all they feel Nighttime on the City of New Orleans Changing cars in Memphis, Tennessee Half way home, we’ll be there by morning Through the Mississippi darkness rolling down to the sea But all the towns and people seem To fade into a bad dream And the steel rail still ain’t heard the news The conductor sings his songs again The passengers will please refrain This train got the disappearing railroad blues

 

 

John Poage Campbell 1806

Amzi Chapin 1805

Only the first verse and chorus are in The Sacred Harp, and the subsequent verses below are lightly edited from the original poem.

Keith Murphy: Clamanda

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQck1J-cj0g

Say, now ye lovely social band Who walk the way to Canaan’s land; Ye who have fled from Sodom’s plain, Say do you wish to turn again? Chorus: O have you ventured to the field, Well armed with helmet, sword and shield? And shall the world, with dread alarms, Compel you now to ground your arms? Beware distraction’s siren song; Alas! it cannot soothe you long; It cannot quiet Jordan’s wave, Nor cheer the dark and silent grave. O let your thoughts delight to soar Where earth and time shall be no more; Explore the joy utopia yields, And pluck the fruit that Canaan’s fields. There see the glorious hosts on wing, And hear the fiery seraphs sing! The shining ranks in order stand, Or move like lightning at command.

 

 

Thomas McCarthy 

 

Backwards and forwards, I am reeling and tight Oh tis some spree I have been on tonight I have been to McCarthy’s with Patsy O’Maher Oh, we drank the black bottle from under the bar We drank and we drank, we banished all care We gave not a thought to foul weather or fair Now on the floor, I’m curled up in a heap Arrah, leave me to sleep, biddy, leave me to sleep Chorus: I’m clasped to the pig in a loving embrace Oh the hairs of his curly tail, they’re tickling me face There’s no use in telling me sober to keep Arrah leave me to sleep, biddy leave me to sleep Over my head in the days that are gone Gaily I flourished my knotty blackthorn And if I only, I had it tonight Maybe I wouldn’t be out for a fight And if Paddy Murphy, I chance for to meet Tis an elegant ruction we’ll have in the street He’ll soon be glad in a knothole to creep Arrah leave me to sleep, biddy, leave me to sleep Drop down by the pig, here, and share his embrace Let my red whiskers lie close to your face The creature won’t hurt you, he’ll do you no harm Drop down by me biddy, and keep my back warm Squeeze me up tight as you oft have before And I’ll sing you to sleep with the sounds of my snores The rats and the mice all around us may creep Arrah leave me to sleep, biddy, leave me to sleep

 

 

Joy Masefield 1969

Leon Rosselson 

Written for a Son et Lumiere at the Towersey Festival

Kathy Mowatt, Joe Heap and Mary Hodson (at Roy Bailey tribute concert): https://towerseyfestival.bandcamp.com/track/cobweb-of-dreams

https://towerseyfestival.bandcamp.com/track/cobweb-of-dreams

I have been searching through the timeless past Because of you, my love, because of you Weaving a cobweb that will hold you fast Because of you, my love, because of you. Chorus Oh sing again the song I heard you singing The song that set the bells of Heaven ringing. The song that surely told me The grave could never hold me Because of you, my love, because of you. And now I know that love’s a fragile flower So little time between the sun and showers Only by singing can I soothe my sorrow Today is ended, but there dawns tomorrow

 

 

Cindy Kallet 1988

 

Chorus: Cold is the night, oh cold are these times Warm are the friends, we are singing Oh tell me a story, come sing me a song Come tuck me to sleep, I am dreaming Long is this road, oh long is the night Oh warm is the lover, I’m waiting Oh tell me a story, come sing me a song Come hold me inside you, I’m dreaming Run down this road, keep and eye to the sky The clouds on the prairies, the wind on the shore Lay your course steady, these dreams take time All I have lost are the ashes to sea No time was wasted in moon flood-lit night An angel in daring, a devil in flight One moment wrong turns to certainty, right Oh answer me once, I am calling Sometimes I longed for changes of lives But years passed, I waited no longer We can slide from our ease to our hardest so fast But this love for you just gets stronger

 

 

James Keelaghan 1995

 

Mostly true story about the Mann Gulch Fire. A lot of wildfire training changed based on Mann Gulch.

James Keelaghan: https://jameskeelaghan.bandcamp.com/track/cold-missouri-waters-2

https://jameskeelaghan.bandcamp.com/track/cold-missouri-waters-2

My name is Dodge, but then you know that It’s written on the chart there at the foot end of the bed They think I’m blind, I can’t read it I’ve read it every word, and every word it says is death So, Confession – is that the reason that you came Get it off my chest before I check out of the game Since you mention it, well there’s thirteen things I’ll name Thirteen crosses high above the cold Missouri waters August ‘Forty-Nine, north Montana The hottest day on record, the forest tinder dry Lightning strikes in the mountains I was crew chief at the jump base, I prepared the boys to fly Pick the drop zone, C-47 comes in low Feel the tap upon your leg that tells you go See the circle of the fire down below Fifteen of us dropped above the cold Missouri waters Gauged the fire, I’d seen bigger So I ordered them to sidehill and we’d fight it from below We’d have our backs to the river We’d have it licked by morning even if we took it slow But the fire crowned, jumped the valley just ahead There was no way down, headed for the ridge instead Too big to fight it, we’d have to fight that slope instead Flames one step behind above the cold Missouri waters Sky had turned red, smoke was boiling Two hundred yards to safety, death was fifty yards behind I don’t know why I just thought it I struck a match to waist high grass running out of time Tried to tell them, Step into this fire I set We can’t make it, this is the only chance you’ll get But they cursed me, ran for the rocks above instead I lay face down and prayed above the cold Missouri waters And when I arose, like the phoenix In that world reduced to ashes there were none but two survived I stayed that night and one day after Carried bodies to the river, wonder how I stayed alive Thirteen stations of the cross to mark their fall I’ve had my say, I’ll confess to nothing more I’ll join them now, because they left me long before Thirteen crosses high above the cold Missouri waters

 

 

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Jess & Rich Arrowsmith: Collier lad by Jess & Rich Arrowsmith

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHJBsJD7-3Y

I went out to get some water Get some water for my tea My foot slipped and down I stumbled Collier lad come kissing me Chorus: Collier lads get gold and silver Factory lads get nowt but brass Who’d be married to a four-loom weaver? When there’s plenty of collier lads My mother said I mustn’t have a collier It would surely break her heart But I don’t care what my mother tells me I’ll have a collier for my sweetheart If you leave your collier sweetheart I’ll buy you a guinea gold ring You shall have a silver cradle For to rock your baby in I don’t want your silk and satins I don’t want your guinea gold ring I don’t want a silver cradle For to rock my baby in My mother said I could be a lady I f from my collier lad I’d part I’d sooner walk on the bottom of the ocean Than I’d give up my collier sweetheart.