10/3 King Cole's Blues w MP3

[MrEWorm]

I know that I am extremely late with this one but it has been ruminating in the back of my mind for months. The idea for 10/3 was to take something from the public domain and make it our own

"SSG Year 10 - Week 3
As David and I have discovered over the past two idiot's guide books, there are a lot of good public domain songs out there: After the Ball, In the Pines, St. James Infirmary, Hard Times Come Again No More, even Red River Valley and Shine On Harvest Moon. Even the ones you think would drive you crazy can be done well with your own arrangement. We came to the conclusion there must be a reason they've been around so long.
Your task this week, is to take a public domain song and make it your own. Do a complete re-write, ripping off the structure, rhyme scheme, etc. You can change the content to whatever you wish."

I hereby present the true story behing the torrid headlines that were only hinted at when we were in nursery school.


http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=11746187

KING COLE’S BLUES

Old King Cole was a merry old soul
And a merry old soul was he;
He called for his pipe, and he called for his bowl
And he called for his fiddlers three.

chorus
Hey diddle diddle, the Cat and the fiddle,
The Cow jumped over the moon,
The little dog laughed to see such sport,
And the dish ran away with the spoon

Fiddler number one wasn’t having any fun
So he taught his tabby to play
The King found out and threw them both out
With a dish of cat food for their pay
Chorus

My belt just broke, my pants are fallin’
Cried the second violin
When he tried to bow, he scared the cow
And it jumped right over him
Chorus

The last fiddle player was DEA
Sent to check out Cole’s pipe
When he smelt the residue, the drug dog knew
The King would be in jail that night
Chorus

Now the moral of the story
If a moral there must be
Is drop the spoon and dance to the tune
That’s laid down by on the ukulele
Chorus
The Old King howled and he sang the blues
When the dish ran away with the spoon

[jamestoffee]

Hi MrEWorm,

Your voice and playing work very well for this style of music Nice job on the delivery. My only suggestion would be to try a format of verse-verse-chorus.....otherwise it feels a bit dragged out with so many repetitions of the chorus.

Thanks for sharing.

James

[MrEWorm]

Thanks for listening and the comment.
I finished the lyric on Saturday. On Sunday I was at a festival that had three open mic stages. I sang at at all three venues and got positive responses at all of them. The verse/chorus version as recorded here got the best response.

I had fun with the mash up of the two unrelated nursery rhymes. A lot of traditional nursery rhymes were responses to the politics of the day but as far as I can tell "Hey diddle diddle" was always just a nonsense rhyme.

In the lyric of "King Cole's Blues" I try to explain the Hey Diddle story and make it an anti-drug song.
The musical lines at the beginning and end were nods to Willie Dixon's "Spoonful" that was sung by Howlin' Wolf.

[jamestoffee]

You blended them together very well

[MrEWorm]

I just did this song at the Blue Bird in Nashville tonight at their open mic. Mrs Worm shot a video that might get to Utube

[MrEWorm]

Slight variations in two open mic performances in Nashville

Bluebird Cafe http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpV79uNaGbE

Douglas Corner Cafe http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSQ80h8yLCQ