Thursday, May 29, 2014

Altar Boy Blues

For some reason back in 2014 Knees felt inspired and wrote the lyrics of a song, then recorded the song the next day. As is his habit, he picked the first melody that occurred to him and since it's a blues song, it's probably the first melody that would occur to anyone. The lyrics were easy to write since he was writing about something he used to know something about: being an altar boy and having to get up at 6 a.m. to serve 6:30 mass. He never had any problems with the priests back in the 50s -- the nuns were the ones he had to watch out for -- but the current zeitgeist dictates that he suggest a bit of debauchery in the priest/altar boy relationship, so he did.


To provide a bit of 1950ish Catholic ambience I decided to add, as a roving chorus, a lone voice intoning the Latin responses that altar boys of the pre-1960s era had to say in response to the priest's ejaculations. After more than 60 years I still remember most of them by heart, sad to say. 

Okay, because of popular demand, here are two more versions of the song.



Written: Vancleave MS 2014

Well you wake up inna mornin
Gotta serve that early mass
If you don’t make it by 5:30,
Father Damien will have yo ass,
You got the altar boys blues
Ain’t no joy for you today
Till dat priest done said his piece
You his prisoner and his slave.

Well you put on a grimy cassock
And a surplice with big sleeves
Then you light up all the candles
And get down upon your knees,
You got the altar boys blues
Ain’t no joy for you today
Till dat priest done had his fill
You his prisoner and his slave.

Well you answerin all his questions
In some crazy ancient tongue
When all you wanna say is
“Lemme outta here while I’m young,”
You got the altar boys blues
Ain’t no joy for you today
Till dat priest has done his deed
You his prisoner and his slave.

The time rolls by so slow
And you keep watchin yo behind,
The priest’s got Latin on his lips
But Greek is on his mind.
You got the altar boys blues
Ain’t no joy for you today
Till that priest done seen his god
You his prisoner and his slave.

Well de mass is finally over
You stop feeling like a fool
You just got one more year of this
Den you can go to public school
You got the altar boys blues
Ain’t no joy for you today
Till that priest done say Amen
You his partner and his slave.
Let em get you when you young
You’ll be servin to your grave
If you let em have their way with you
You gonna serve your life away.
  


The LATIN LOW MASS — Altar Boy’s Responses

Ad Deum qui laetificat, juventutem meam.

Quia tu es, Deus, fortitudo mea: quare me repulisti, et quare tristis incedo, dum affligit me inimicus?

Et introibo ad altare Dei: Ad Deam qui laetificat juventutem meam.

Spera in Deos quoniam adhuc confetibor illi: salutare vultus mei, et Deus meus.
Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper: et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.

Ad Deum qui laetificat, juventutem meam.

Qui fecit caelum et terram.

Misereatur tui omnipotens Deus, et dimissis peccatis tuis, perducat te ad vitam aeternam. Amen.

Confiteor Deo omnipotenti, beate Mariae semper Virgini, beato Michaeli Archangelo, beato Joanni Baptistae, sanctis Apostolis Petro et Paulo, omnibus Sanctis, et tibi, Pater: quia peccavi nimis cogitatione, verbo, et opera mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. Ideo precor beatam Mariam semper Virginem, beatum Michaelem Archangelum, beatum Joannem Baptistam, sanctos Apostolos Petrum et Paulum, omnes Sanctos et te, Pater, orare pro me ad Dominum Deum nostrum.
Amen. Amen.

Et plebs tua laetabitur in te.

Et salutare tuum da nobis.

Et clamor meus ad te veniat.

Et cum spiritu tuo.

Kyrie, eleison. Christe, eleison. Christe, eleison. Kyrie, eleison.

Suscipiat Dominus sacrificium de manibus tuis ad laudem et gloriam nominis sui, ad utilitatem quoque nostrum, totsiusque Ecclesiae suae sanctae.

Habemus ad Dominum.

Dignum et justum est.

Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus, Deus Sabbaoth. Pleni sunt caeli et terra Gloria tua. Hosanna in excelsis. Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domine. 

Hosanna in excelsis.


1955 - Father Theophil's School of Charm

Knees is directly in front of Theophil, Michael to Theophil's right and Bob is between the two tall girls on the far right. Where's Johnny?

BONUS COVER!

How about 90% of a great old Bob Dylan song? It's a long song about a guy getting stuck in a carnival sideshow and as Bob sang it, it had a short bridge about tax-deductible charity organizations. I didn't like the words (blasphemy!) so I left it out and just kept the nightmare plot going. Sorry, Bob.





Monday, May 26, 2014

Standing

I've been concentrating on books lately and neglecting my music but I managed to squeeze out a song over the weekend before my computer started giving me fits. So this is the final version of this song written by Joss Whedon and sung by Anthony Head in "Once More with Feeling", the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I need to do every track over, but with my computer injecting audible glitches at random times I'm pretty sure I'm retiring this song and probably looking into getting another computer.


As I approach my 70s I find that I have to lower every song a few keys because I can't sing as high as I used to. So even though I knew the song was in F (I have the chord book for the episode) I tried it in D and found that there are no high notes in the melody. The song sounded quite dull and lifeless with me singing so low. So I did it again in F and it has a bit more zest to it now. It made me feel young again, singing a song in its original key.

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

And the Firm Soil Win of the Wat'ry Main

This is the third song I wrote for the April project for the Cover Album Project Band, giving me a trio of tunes with strange titles: The Advantage on the Kingdom of the Shore, That Time Will Come and Take My Love Away, and now, And the Firm Soil Win of the Wat'ry Main. For this third song, I let myself be inspired by a particular "style" in Band in a Box called "Dr. John". The program plays the piano, drums and bass so well I kept them all for the audio, and only added guitars, organ and vocals.


MP3


Oh de tide roll in
And de tide roll out
Like a kitchen door
In a crabshack down sout'
Dere ain’t no lotion
Like de ocean, when yo dry.

Oh de land grow slow
And de water flow fas’
Dey each one race
Don’ wanna come in las’
And dere ain’t no motion
Like de ocean, Ah tell you why.

And the firm soil win of the wat’ry main
What de hell kind of language is dat?
But you ask anyone and dey’ll all say
Dat Shakespeare was some groovy cat.

Oh you got ebb and flow
All night and day
You got to and fro
Every which a way
And dere ain’t no potion
Like de ocean, when yo high.

And the firm soil win of the wat’ry main
Shakespeare musta been quite a sight
Throwin’ out words jus’ like a man insane
Took him 64 tries to get it right.

So let’s say hello
To our frien’ de moon
It’s a summer night
He’ll be rising soon
And dere ain’t no notion
Like de ocean, when you die.
  

And the firm soil win of the wat’ry, wat'ry main




BONUS COVER!

Knees was feeling pretty good one day while recording and realized he knew two songs with the same name. One was a old standard Johnny Horton song and the other was a ethereal ballad by The Band. Both were great songs but were not much alike. But, Knees wondered, could they possibly be mashed, pureed and blended into a single recording? Yes they could, and here is how Knees did it.