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ASF Poetry Thread

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtsMcGaNk9k
OLIVE TREE
Seekers near Sprinkbrook (pretty close to my old stomping ground).

Tell me white dove where will I find the olive tree (sure aint in the middle east!!)
for just one branch Id search my whole life through (I'd settle for just an olive off the bludy thing!)
I've heard them say a greener land is waiting there ( where they dont have global warming)
where people wait and find that dream come true (and only a few of their nightmares)

high flying dove please lead me and Ill follow you (provided you stay pretty close to the helicopter)
above the clouds beyond the stormy sea (lets limit ourselves to Tasmania for the time being)
I long to share a world of sweet contentment there (make that Fiji)
in that bright land where grows the olive tree. (Melbourne? - coupla daze, BUUdiful ;)) (well as many Greeks as Athens, even if the olive trees seem to hav dipped out),

(copied from song titles sorry for duplication - but this still qualifies as poetry imho;))
 
Billie Holiday
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQTWVgKZtlg&mode=related&search=

Hereshe is at the age of 4 singing the same song (Strange Fruit):- (o boy, my kids were learning three blind mice at that age)."smell 'v burning flesshhhh"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCJDuHRujjE&mode=related&search=

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billie_Holiday
Billie Holiday (April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959), also called Lady Day (and born Eleanora Fagan Gough), was an American singer, generally considered one of the greatest female jazz voices of all time, alongside Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald.

Early singing career
According to Billie Holiday's accounts, she was recruited by a brothel, worked as a prostitute, and was eventually imprisoned for a short time. It was in Harlem in the early 1930s that she started singing for tips in various night clubs. According to legend, penniless and facing eviction, she sang "Body and Soul" in a local club and reduced the audience to tears. She later worked at various clubs for tips, ultimately landing at Pod's and Jerry's, a well known Harlem jazz club. Her early work history is sketchy, though accounts say she was working at a club named Monette's in 1933 when she was discovered by talent scout John Hammond (see "Billie Holiday." Black History Month Biographies. 2004. Gale Group Databases. 1 Mar, 2004).

Hammond managed to get Holiday recording sessions with Benny Goodman and booked her for live performances in various New York clubs. In 1935 her career got a big push when she recorded four sides that became hits, including "What a Little Moonlight Can Do" and "Miss Brown To You". This landed her a recording contract of her own, and from 1935 to 1942 she laid down masters that would ultimately become an important segment of early American jazz. Sometimes referred to as her "Columbia period" (after her label), these recordings represent a large portion of her total body of work.

During this period, the American music industry was still moderately segregated, and many of the songs Holiday was given to record were intended for the black jukebox audience. She was often not considered for the 'best' songs of the day, which were reserved for white singers. However, Holiday's style and fresh sound soon caught the attention of musicians across the nation, and her popularity began to climb. Peggy Lee, who began recording with Benny Goodman in the early 1940s, is often said to have emulated Holiday's light, sensual style.

In 1936 she was working with Lester Young, who gave her the now-famous nickname of Lady Day. Holiday joined Count Basie in 1937 and Artie Shaw in 1938. She was one of the first black women to work with a white orchestra, an impressive accomplishment at the time.

The Commodore Years and "Strange Fruit"
Holiday was working for Columbia in the late 1930s when she was introduced to a song entitled "Strange Fruit," which began as a poem about the lynching of a black man written by Abel Meeropol, a Jewish schoolteacher from the Bronx. Meeropol used the pseudonym "Lewis Allen" for the work. The poem was set to music and performed at teachers' union meetings, where it was eventually heard by the manager of Cafe Society, an integrated nightclub in Greenwich Village, who introduced it to Holiday. Holiday performed the song at Cafe Society in 1939, a move that by her own admission left her fearful of retaliation. Holiday later said that the imagery in "Strange Fruit" reminded her of her father's death, and that this played a role in her persistence to perform it. She approached Columbia about recording the song, but was refused due to the subject matter of the song. She arranged to record it with an alternate label, Commodore, Milt Gabler's alternative jazz label in 1939. She would record two major sessions at Commodore, one in 1939 and one in 1944. Although there were far fewer songs recorded with Commodore, some of her biggest hits were under this label, including "Fine and Mellow", "I Cover the Waterfront" and "Embraceable You". "Strange Fruit" was highly regarded and admired by intellectuals, and is in a large part responsible for her widespread popularity. "Strange Fruit's" popularity also prompted Holiday to record the type of songs that would become her signature, namely slow, moving love ballads.

It is widely conjectured that this is the period where Holiday first began what would become a long, and ultimately fatal, history of substance abuse. Holiday stated that she began using hard drugs in the early 1940s.
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... etcetc one sad story :( When she sings the blues, you know she's been through many a purple patch.
She only lived to be 44, (probably about this Utube recording?) most of her men were into domestic violence, and she was in drugs, you name it.

STRANGE FRUIT Lewis allen

Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop. :(

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQtDqh7RTXI&mode=related&search=
lousy video, but happier at least ( and relevant?)
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clClMhI-cBY
LOL - this one's a bit confused - Christine (from Phantom) singing (tenor) Nessum Dorma (from Puccini's "Turnadot") to the Phantom ;) Today the part of Christine is played by Luciano Pavarotti lol. Words are back there somewhere, but I repeat them anyway.... and take the analysis a bit further:- ..
(courtesy of Google and YOUTUBE!!! - If you ask me Youtube was worth every CENT of that 2.2 billion USD that Google paid for it !!! BRILLIANT!)

What is it about this song!! and these words !!! Here are two brief features which use Nessum Dorma as background:- ice skating :) ; and 9/11 :( respectively. Perhaps it’s the ending words “I shall conquer”? or maybe just the magnificent tenor tonsils. ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq-iv3FQDsY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoKZn65-1jA

Here's an excellent Google site which analyses the song, its meaning, and its literal words (although I suspect words don't count for much in opera - these sorta words are designed for the heart to hear).

http://home.earthlink.net/~markdlew/comm/turandot.htm
(the words and meaning of Nessum Dorma) call for a bit of discussion, I think.

The libretto of Turandot doesn't translate easily because it's so heavily poetic. Not just the lyrics, but the entire plot, which (as many befuddled listeners have complained) doesn't make much sense if taken too literally. Forgive me if I recap most of the plot, but the poetry of the aria is too tied up in the story not to discuss it....

As you probably know, Turandot is the beautiful cold-hearted femme fatale princess who lures love-struck princes to their death. Anyone who wants to marry her is asked three riddles: If he answers them right he gets to marry her, but if he doesn't he is beheaded. This is stated at the very beginning of the opera as "the law" ("La legge è questa:"). It is not so much a government decree as a mythopoetic law, almost like a magic spell, which no one in the kingdom -- not the emperor, not Turandot, not the ministers -- can go against.

In the first act Calaf, the "Unknown Prince", rings the gong, signifying his declaration as a suitor to Turandot. In the second act he correctly answers the three riddles. According to the law, Turandot now has to marry him, even though she doesn't want to. But instead of claiming his prize, Calaf now poses a riddle of his own, saying to her: Tell me my name before morning, and at dawn I shall die. ("Dimmi il mio nome, prima dell'alba! E all'alba morirò!")
Take this literally and it's a dumb move on his part -- he's already won, why should he give her another chance to get away? -- but of course nothing in this opera makes sense if taken literally. Naturally, the Prince's statement is poetic. Furthermore he WANTS to "lose" the game; he wants her to tell him his name and he wants to "die." Besides being another instance of the Lohengrin/Rumpelstiltskin guess-my-name game (which can be traced to religious beliefs of pre-Christian Germany) the Prince is telling Turandot of his true goal. (Notice that he does not say "IF you guess my name....") He doesn't want her to marry him reluctantly; he wants to defeat her cold-hearted defensiveness and have her fall in love with him. This is, in fact, exactly what happens at the end of the opera, and the metaphors are quite explicit. The veil which Turandot wears (and which Calaf rips) is described as "cold" ("fredda"), for instance.

So when the Prince poses the riddle, the name he refers to is not "Calaf", but rather the name she will ultimately give him: "Amor" ("Love"). That is, he wants her to love him. This, incidentally, also makes sense out of the scene where Liù is killed. When Turandot orders Timur to reveal the name, Liù says, "The name that you seek I alone know." ("Il nome che cercate io sola so.") Huh? Timur doesn't know his own son's name?? Literally, of course he does know; but poetically, Liù's statement is correct, because she's the only one who is in love with the Prince.

Where the Prince says "then I shall die", he really means "die" in the sense of lose himself completely to true love. Yes, I know, death-equals-love sounds like a pretty perverse metaphor, but it's a persistent one (and more common in Romance languages than it is in English). For an example in English (albeit written by an Italian), when Laetitia in The Old Maid and the Thief sings, "O sweet thief, I pray, make me die," she isn't hoping that he'll murder her....
The aria "Nessun dorma" is near the beginning of Act 3. At the end of Act 2 Turandot hasn't yet figured out all this love poetry business, and still thinks that she just has to get someone to reveal the Prince's name and then she can chop off his head. So she puts out a decree that no one in Peking is allowed to sleep until the name is revealed.

Act 3 opens in gloomy night with lugubrious chords in the orchestra (technically, minor chords with augmented 7ths and 11ths). Some heralds are announcing Turandot's decree, "Tonight no one in Peking sleeps" ("Questa notte nessun dorma in Pekino"), and the chorus gloomily repeats the words "no one sleeps" ("nessun dorma"). In the first words of his aria, the Prince is repeating the words of the chorus. The G major chord that opens the aria is the first optimistic-sounding chord we've heard since intermission and it breaks through the gloom like the light of dawn.
The translation, finally:

The Prince:-
No one sleeps, no one sleeps...
Even you, o Princess,
In your cold room,
Watch the stars,
That tremble with love
And with hope.
But my secret is hidden within me;
My name no one shall know, no, no,
On your mouth I will speak it*
When the light shines,
And my kiss will dissolve the silence
That makes you mine.
Chorus :-
No one will know his name
And we must, alas, die.
The Prince:-
Vanish, o night!
Set**, stars!
At daybreak, I shall conquer!

* "Dire sulla bocca", literally "to say on the mouth", is a poetic Italian way of saying "to kiss." (Or so I've been told, but perhaps a native speaker can confirm or deny this.) I've also been told that a line from a Marx Brothers movie -- "I wasn't kissing her, I was whispering in her mouth" -- is a conscious imitation of the Italian phrase.
** "Tramontate" literally means "go behind the mountains", but it's the word Italians use for sunset and the like. It's also a word Turandot uses after Calaf kisses her: "E l'alba! Turandot tramonta!" ("It's dawn, Turandot descends!") This suggests yet another mythopoetic theme which pervades the Turandot libretto -- the sun god's defeat of the moon goddess -- but I won't get into that....
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Elsewhere:-

“Puccini's last opera was left unfinished at his death, and what he had intended to be a final, transcendent love duet was completed by a younger colleague, Franco Alfano. In Peking's Imperial Palace, the fatally beautiful Princess Turandot receives unlucky suitors from far and wide, who must answer three riddles to win her hand””or die. Calaf, son of the exiled King Timur of Tartary, is struck with Turandot's beauty, and ignoring protests from his father and Liù, the servant girl who loves him, he matches wits with the princess. Although he guesses the three riddles, Calaf offers his life to Turandot if she can discover his secret name. Searching the city in vain, the princess finally tortures faithful Liù, driving her to suicide. Faced with Liù's sacrifice and Calaf's stern devotion, Turandot crumbles, and weeping in Calaf's arms, she declares that his secret name is Love”
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS5JkZr0tB8
I for one will NEVER hear a better song that this !! JESSE
Janis Ian wrote this for her cat I believe - but personally I love this (although I hate cats lol). Janis (Ian) plays the piano for Shirley (Bassey) in this one. (wonder why she leaves the outside light on for a cat lol?)

JESSE
Jesse, come home , There’s a hole in the bed
Where we slept , Now it’s growing cold
Hey Jesse, your face , In the place where we lay
By the heart, all apart , It hangs on my heart.

And I’m leaving the light , On the stairs.
No, I’m not scared , I wait for you.
Hey Jesse, I’m lonely , Come home.

Jesse, the floors , And the boards
Recalling your steps , And I remember too
All the pictures are fading . And shaded in grey
But I still set a place , On the table at noon.

And I’m leaving the light , On the stairs.
No, I’m not scared , I wait for you.
Hey Jesse, I’m lonely , Come home.

Jesse, the spread on the bed , Is like when you left
I’ve kept it up for you. , And all the blues and the greens
Have been recently cleaned , And they’re seemingly new
Hey Jes, me and you.

We’ll swallow the light , On the stairs
We’ll do up my hair ,And sleep unaware.
Hey Jesse, I’m lonely , Come home.

Here's another she (Janis Ian) wrote "when she went through an awkward stage of her life - when she was short with curly dark hair ;)":- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2IGt-3IBPI
"And those whose names were never called , When choosing sides for basketball."

AT SEVENTEEN
I learned the truth at seventeen , That love was meant for beauty queens
And high school girls with clear skinned smiles , Who married young and then retired.
The valentines I never knew , The Friday night charades of youth
Were spent on one more beautiful , At seventeen I learned the truth.

And those of us with ravaged faces , Lacking in the social graces
Desperately remained at home , Inventing lovers on the phone
Who called to say come dance with me , and murmured vague obscenities
It isn't all it seems , At seventeen.
.............................
A brown eyed girl in hand me downs , Whose name I never could pronounce
said, Pity please the ones who serve , They only get what they deserve.
The rich relationed hometown queen , Married into what she needs
A guarantee of company , And haven for the elderly.

Remember those who win the game , they Lose the love they sought to gain
Indebentures of quality , And dubious integrity.
Their small town eyes will gape at you , in dull surprise when payment due
Exceeds accounts received , At seventeen.
............................
To those of us who know the pain , Of valentines that never came,
And those whose names were never called , When choosing sides for basketball.
It was long ago and far away , The world was younger than today
And dreams were all they gave for free , To ugly duckling girls like me.

We all play the game and when we dare , To cheat ourselves at solitaire
Inventing lovers on the phone , Repenting other lives unknown
That call and say, come dance with me , and murmur vague obscenities
At ugly girls like me , At seventeen
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEDz8NG3p-g
Japanese girl sings “at 17”
Evidence that Janis Ian had a big following in Japan.- perhaps due to her perfect diction ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmHXRJMxYCQ
tea and symphany.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdiLbw4JC94&mode=related&search=
janis ian – black and white
http://www.janisian.com/lyrics/BlackAndWhite.pdf
Really good stuff ( if you liked Martin Luther King I guess).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janis_Ian
Janis Ian (born on April 7, 1951) is a Grammy Award-winning American songwriter, singer and multi-instrumental musician.

Biography
Born Janis Eddy Fink in a Bronx hospital, she was primarily raised in New Jersey and briefly attended the New York City High School of Music & Art. At thirteen years old, she legally changed her name from Janis Eddy Fink to Janis Ian, the last name coming from her brother's middle name. She had a successful singing career in the 1960s and 1970s, recording into the 21st century.

At the age of 15, Ian legally emancipated herself from her parents and also wrote and sang her first hit single, the song "Society's Child (Baby I've Been Thinking)", which told the story of an interracial romance forbidden by the narrator's mother and frowned upon by her peers and teachers. Produced by melodrama specialist George "Shadow" Morton and released three times between 1965 and 1967, "Society's Child" finally became a national hit the third time it was released, after Leonard Bernstein featured it in a TV special titled Inside the Rock Revolution. The song's lyrical content was too taboo for some radio stations, and they withdrew or banned it from their playlists accordingly. Allegedly at least one radio station that played it was burned to the ground in protest. In the summer of 1967, "Society's Child" reached #14 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was also #1 or top 10 in several key cities across America.

Apparently "Society's Child" was too hot for Atlantic Records as well at the time. Ian relates on her website that although the song was originally intended for Atlantic and the label paid for her recording session, the label subsequently returned the master to her and quietly refused to release it. Years later, Ian says, Atlantic's president at the time, Jerry Wexler, publicly apologized to her for this. The single and Ian's 1967 self-titled debut album were finally released on Verve/Forecast; her album was also a hit, reaching #12. In 2001, "Society's Child" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, which honors recordings considered timeless and important to music history.

Her most successful single was "At Seventeen", released in 1975, a bittersweet commentary on adolescent cruelty and teenage angst, as reflected upon from the maturity of adulthood. "At Seventeen" received acclaim from record buyers - it charted at #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #1 on the Adult Contemporary chart - and critics, as it won the 1975 Grammy for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, beating out the likes of Olivia Newton-John and Helen Reddy. Ian performed "At Seventeen" as a musical guest on the very first episode of Saturday Night Live in October 1975. The song's parent album, Between the Lines, also hit #1 and earned a platinum certification for sales of one million copies.

..........
One other country where Ian has achieved a surprising level of popularity is Japan (and South Africa).
............
Ian finally resurfaced in 1993 with the album Breaking Silence, its title a reference to having "come out" as a lesbian and acknowledged the rumors about her sexuality that had been circulating for nearly two decades.
..............
Ian currently lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with attorney Patricia Snyder, whom she married in Toronto, Canada on August 27, 2003.
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http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=2568 (mainly comments on Society's Child) eg
Janis was 13 when she began working on this, 14 when she finished. ..This song is about an interracial romance. Janis was living in an all-black neighborhood in East Orange, NJ, where she was one of 5 white kids in the school. She explains: "I saw it from both ends. I was seeing it from the end of all the civil rights stuff on the television and radio, of white parents being incensed when their daughters would date black men, and I saw it around me when black parents were worried about their sons or daughters dating white girls or boys. I don't think I knew where I was going when I started it, but when I hit the second line, 'face is clean and shining black as night,' it was obvious where the song was going."
Janis: "I don't think I made a conscious decision to have the girl cop out in the end, it just seemed like that would be the logical thing at my age, because how can you buck school and society and your parents, and make yourself an outcast forever."
Janis didn't write this about a particular person: "My parents were the complete opposite of the parents in the song. They wouldn't have cared if I married a Martian, as long as I was happy... I felt bad for my Dad because everyone assumed he was a racist."
...........
"For most of the '90s, Janis dropped this from her set list because no one wanted to hear it, but then a lot of people who grew up listening to it started coming to her shows and asking for it. Many of these people were Vietnam veterans who heard the song because it was widely played on Radio Free Europe and on US military bases.
....This was inducted into the Grammy Hall Of Fame in 2001. "

http://lyrics.ivory.org/societyschild.html
SOCIETY'S CHILD

Come to my door, baby, Face is clean and shining black as night.
My mother went to answer you know, That you looked so fine.

Now I could understand your tears and your shame, She called you "boy" instead of your name.
When she wouldn't let you inside, When she turned and said , "But honey, he's not our kind."

She says I can't see you any more, baby, Can't see you anymore.

Walk me down to school, baby, Everybody's acting deaf and blind.
Until they turn and say, "Why don't you stick to your own kind."

My teachers all laugh, their smirking stares, Cutting deep down in our affairs.
Preachers of equality,
Think they believe it, Then why won't they just let us be?

They say I can't see you anymore baby, Can't see you anymore.

One of these days I'm gonna stop my listening, Gonna raise my head up high.
One of these days I'm gonna raise up my glistening wings and fly.

But that day will have to wait for a while. Baby I'm only society's child.
When we're older things may change, But for now this is the way they must remain.

I say I can't see you anymore baby, Can't see you anymore.
No, I don't want to see you anymore, baby.

Sorry, can't find the youtube for this song. (but not bad for a 14 year old yes?)

As for her being gay? - anyone that talented can be whatever they like imho.
 
Seems the seekers just registered that name in time – before “Thrill seekers, attention seekers, asylum seekers, ghost seekers, etcetc – takes a long time to sort em on google - and also on youtube ;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=My5_zSu_LQw Colours of my life – Seekers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEhCOaIpLow a world of our own

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HDXX2zjmLM georgie girl

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pasicxU6tq4 when will the good apples fall

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtsMcGaNk9k olive tree

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rm1XYUAfhu8 the carnival is over

I have already posted the words for "a world of our own" - those words that gave such heart to those orphan kids - I wont duplicate yet again. HECK - three comments!!

1. the demarcation lines between "poetry", "lyrics" and "songs" are getting really blurred (and always were), and
2. since when do you have to type poetry? - it was originally all handed down by the spoken word - the "bards" etc ;) - (my excuse for not getting any words for these songs); and
3. You all know the bludy words anyway !

(ps Judith D is singing happier songs at 25 (born 1943, colours of my life recorded 1968) than Billy Holiday was at 4 !! - o boy - times were tough in "the South")
 
This thread has been good to me. Having lost a family member to cancer, witnessed the struggle of another family member with schizophrenia and gone through two miscarriages myself in the last five years, the words posted by some of you on this thread were, to say the least, healing. Don't get me wrong, I live a fantastic life. God’s been good to me and the smiles on my two healthy childrens' faces wipes all the bad memories away :)

I always find a positive in any situation. I think this is the best way to cope and since I hate dwelling on the past, especially if it's hurtful, the one I choose to take with me from this thread and would consider my favorite would have to be HE:

HE (Tous Les Visages de L'Amour)
Written by Charles Aznavour and Herbert Kretzmer

He may be the face I can't forget
The trace of pleasure or regret
Maybe my treasure or the price I have to pay
He may be the song that summer sings
May be the chill that autumn brings
May be a hundred different things
Within the measure of a day

He may be the beauty or the beast
May be the famine or the feast
May turn each day into a Heaven or a Hell
He may be the mirror of my dreams
A smile reflected in a stream
He may not be what he may seem
Inside his shell....

He, who always seems so happy in a crowd
Whose eyes can be so private and so proud
No one's allowed to see them when they cry
He maybe the love that cannot hope to last
May come to me from shadows in the past
That I remember 'till the day I die

He maybe the reason I survive
The why and wherefore I'm alive
The one I care for through the rough and ready years

Me, I'll take the laughter and his tears
And make them all my souvenirs
For where he goes I've got to be
The meaning of my life is
he.....he , Oh, he.....
 
new girl said:
This thread has been good to me. Having lost a family member to cancer, witnessed the struggle of another family member with schizophrenia and gone through two miscarriages myself in the last five years, the words posted by some of you on this thread were, to say the least, healing. Don't get me wrong, I live a fantastic life. God’s been good to me and the smiles on my two healthy childrens' faces wipes all the bad memories away ..... the one I choose to take with me from this thread and would consider my favorite would have to be HE:
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CY5vCHMuapY = to harry potter lol - true this is SHE rather than HE but close. I'm sure Bassey sings "HE" but can't find it on youtube (as yet). the author gets the credits anyways.

http://www.salon.com/people/feature/1999/07/15/aznavour/ :- "My shortcomings are my voice, my height, my gestures, my lack of culture and education, my frankness and my lack of personality." So wrote the 26-year-old French singer and songwriter Charles Aznavour one night in 1950, drunkenly brooding over his stalled career. Nothing, he concluded, could be done about his unorthodox voice, whose rasp and keening "Oriental" quality were so different from the smooth, insouciant style of that era's popular chansonniers. Nor was there any solution to the 5-foot-3 Aznavour's height problem: His one attempt to rectify the situation, when he wore elevator shoes for a New York nightclub performance, had been a tragedy of clubfooted slapstick. His frankness: another hopeless case. "I am incorrigible ... I say 'merde' to anybody, however important he is, when I feel like it." ;)

Interesting that both Aznavour and Piaf are knee high to a French Poodle.

Incidentally - also not bad ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdbE4Ddd0gU = the hymn of the same name - complete with karioki wall words (gotta be Polynesia , Tonga maybe (or Hawaii or Samoa etc), round building = Fale, love their church, I attended once in Tonga - and didnt haver any money to contribute to the bowl lol (was on a yacht and didnt carry money) - so they called out in a loud voice "and the Palangi = whiteman, gives us NOTHING" lol)

PS the poem about the miscarriage I wrote for my wife - she was in hospital and very depressed (as you can imagine) - so I wrote it the night it happened ;) our first child. (we now have 3 healthy kids to make up for it:))
I have to be careful with that poem. Showed it to someone at work , and turns out they've a number of miscarriages, and no kids to show for it :(
PS - another way to look at it I suppose - so WHAT if I lose on the ASX !!! ;)
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3oO3lbBGJQ - peter paul & mary - with the author Pete Seegar.

At 3m57s , Pete Seegar says " way back in 1955, I came across three lines out of a famous book:-

"where are the flowers? the girls have plucked them
where are the girls? they are all married
where are the men? they're all in the army"

I did not REALISE when I put the song together, an ancient ancient question was phrased so poetically" :)

WHERE HAVE ALL THE FLOWERS GONE
words and music by Pete Seeger
performed by Pete Seeger and Tao Rodriguez-Seeger

Where have all the flowers gone? Long time passing
Where have all the flowers gone? Long time ago
Where have all the flowers gone? Girls have picked them every one
When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?

Where have all the young girls gone? Long time passing
Where have all the young girls gone? Long time ago
Where have all the young girls gone? Taken husbands every one
When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?

Where have all the young men gone? Long time passing
Where have all the young men gone? Long time ago
Where have all the young men gone? Gone for soldiers every one
When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?

Where have all the soldiers gone? Long time passing
Where have all the soldiers gone? Long time ago
Where have all the soldiers gone? Gone to graveyards every one
When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?

Where have all the graveyards gone? Long time passing
Where have all the graveyards gone? Long time ago
Where have all the graveyards gone? Covered with flowers every one
When will we ever learn? When will we ever learn?
 
 
2020hindsight said:
.... - peter paul & mary - with the author Pete Seegar.

At 3m57s , Pete Seegar says " way back in 1955, I came across three lines out of a famous book:-

"where are the flowers? the girls have plucked them
where are the girls? they are all married
where are the men? they're all in the army"

I did not REALISE when I put the song together, an ancient ancient question was phrased so poetically" :)

WHERE HAVE ALL THE FLOWERS GONE .. etc
Click to expand...

Sorry I had the wrong Youtube lead back there
:hide:
Try again lol - apologies (getting crosseyed).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLe9pJSRas0
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43J-gYOnLoI

LIGHT ONE CANDLE
Peter Yarrow- ©1983 Silver Dawn Music ASCAP

Light one candle for the Maccabee children
With thanks that their light didn't die
Light one candle for the pain they endured
When their right to exist was denied
Light one candle for the terrible sacrifice
Justice and freedom demand
But light one candle for the wisdom to know
When the peacemaker's time is at hand

chorus:
Don't let the light go out!
It's lasted for so many years!
Don't let the light go out!
Let it shine through our love and our tears.

Light one candle for the strength that we need
To never become our own foe
And light one candle for those who are suffering
Pain we learned so long ago
Light one candle for all we believe in
That anger not tear us apart
And light one candle to find us together
With peace as the song in our hearts ....(chorus)

What is the memory that's valued so highly
That we keep it alive in that flame?
What's the commitment to those who have died
That we cry out they've not died in vain?
We have come this far always believing
That justice would somehow prevail
This is the burden, this is the promise
This is why we will not fail! .....(chorus)

Don't let the light go out!
Don't let the light go out!
Don't let the light go out!

It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness (Chinese Proverb). - PS I think that was before the days of global warming ;) These days its better to keep cursing the darkness, - so what if you bump into a few things.

As someone posted elsewhere (on youtube - with this song)...
"Light one candle for the strength that we need
To never become our own foe".

Also with chords:-
http://members.cox.net/billandleann/candle.htm
 
Concerning the previous post / song, and the opening line...
"Light one candle for the Maccabee children" - where Maccabee = children of Israel.....
Whilst I'm confident that PP&M were not trying to digress from the peace theme in 100% of the rest of their repertoire, It would have been nice if the words of the song was a bit more .. mmm, cosmopolitan...
Hence I have added the following verse for PP&M to consider next time they sing it ;)

PS a couple of points - 1. they are probably referring to the Holocaust of course."right to exist was denied".
2. As Golda Mair said "there won't be peace until we learn to love our children more than we hate our enemies"

Light nine candles for the Middle East children , born into one giant jail, !
comPeting disasters, their Crucifix rafters, their Mosque floors, and Walls where they wail !!,
FORGET the hereafter!, Let's wish em some LAUGHTER!, and lessen the load on their nails, !!!
Let's walk with these candles, a mile in their sandals! ANd THEN PRAPS ..
the VANDALS will...

syncopated head toss of those magic, point-underlining blonde Traver's locks ;)

FAIL!!!!!! :2twocents
 
Here's a pretty hopeless poem - you could probably argue that it's only half completed ;)
THE IRONY OF HALF COMPLETION

Some days while on a bushwalk I may find some time to kill,
I read a bit of scribbley gum to give my heart a thrill,
I find a feather maybe or some modern ballpoint quill,
And jot some notes till soul has had its fill - Of appetising philosophic krill.

Today I thought I'd pick up any glass I spied around,
An old coke bottle maybe cos there's plenty to be found,
And there - beside the pawprint of my little puppy's bound,
Were several nasty pieces on the ground, - A trap perhaps? For human or for hound?

Some bushcare group had been this way, an honourable pack,
They'd probably found them several paces from the trusted track,
And one had had the bright idea to make a little stack,
And then collect them on the journey back, -And then? Their memory cells went out of whack.

And one was jagged bottle-end a nasty speculator,
An ambush left by terrorist or maybe puppy-hater?
But more than likely some good deed that he would "finish later",
This well intentioned cruel procrastinator - Awakening this sleeping alligator.

Malevolent these razor teeth, this nest of nasty blade,
And innocent the spreading fern that hid them in half-shade,
And fortunate for me the warning glint a sunbeam made
And pure good luck my puppy's paw's not splayed -A bloody paw for carelessness - some trade !

It's hard to make some sense of it, especially set to verse,
By half completing something we just make the matter worse,
The act of half completion can turn kindness to a curse,
And half-completed irony turns terse. - This bushcare ranger danger in reverse.

And so we make these errors that so complicate a life,
These open-ended projects that come back to give us strife
These multi-headed dragons that we slew with trusty knife
But left one head to multiply a-rife
So next time - slay the dragon AND his wife!!
 
THE SPEED OF LIGHT and other matters affecting the Nuclear Debate.

that Paddy Murphy (crazy fool) – we’d had a beer or three
we'd Done the Guinness - done the fight - not once did we agree
and Then the conversation turned to nuc-lere energy
and Whether speed of light was “c” or “z”
and Whether "m-c-squared" was "E" or "D".

young Paddy said he’d prove it that the experts had it wrong
he Asked the publican for torches –two – and nice and strong
and Then we stood at each end of the bar (bout ten foot long)
and Then he says “GET SET ” (like some King Kong)
and Then he yelled “LETS GO ! - the timer’s on!!”

he Switched his torch on – I did too, as soon as I saw “light”
deSpite the fact that he was sloshed and I was “almost” tight
we Timed that light-beam back and forth and got it pretty right
- then Checked the numbers way into the night.
- and Let the torches cool down out of sight.

and Finally we proved it – “C’ was nowhere near as big
300 thousand Klicks per second !! – (minus zag and zig)!!!
“this Speed of light is 'bout as fast as Jim O’Lauchlan’s pig !!
said Paddy when he finished doing trig,
or Maybe twice as fast as Irish jig!.

they Can’t get THIS right, what’s their chance of working out the watts?
and Power and amps and stuff like that that ties us all in knots
they Orta concentrate on sums like “join the bloody dots”
or Doin “crosswords made for tiny tots”.!!
the Speed of light's officially EIGHT KNOTS!!

you Ask me they should stick to doing basic algebraic
and Dirty coal - and stuff like that – allegedly archaic
it’s Dirty maybe ( dad would come home looking quite opay-ique)
but Hek this other stuff is "archi-tra-ic”
....
(so me and Paddys gone photo-voltaic ;) )

http://www.colorado.edu/physics/2000/waves_particles/lightspeed_evidence.html How has the speed of light been measured?

That's a very good question. In the early 17th century, many scientists believed that there was no such thing as the "speed of light"; they thought light could travel any distance in no time at all

Galileo disagreed, and he came up with an experiment to measure light's velocity: he and his assistant each took a shuttered lantern, and they stood on hilltops one mile apart. Galileo flashed his lantern, and the assistant was supposed to open the shutter to his own lantern as soon as he saw Galileo's light. Galileo would then time how long it took before he saw the light from the other hilltop. And then he could just divide the distance by the time to get the speed. Did it work? Nope. The problem was that the speed of light is simply too fast to be measured this way; light takes such a short time (about 0.000005 seconds, in fact) to travel one mile that there's no way the interval could have been measured using the tools Galileo had.

So what you'd need is a really long distance for the light to travel, like millions of miles. How could someone set up an experiment like that?
Well...during the 1670's, the Danish astronomer Ole Roemer was making extremely careful observations of Jupiter's moon Io. Roemer was able to calculate a value for the speed of light. The number he came up with was about 186,000 miles per second, or 300,000 kilometers per second.
etc etc
Click to expand...
(almost spot on!!!! - not bad for the 1670's sheesh)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light
The speed of light in a vacuum is an important physical constant denoted by the letter c for constant or the Latin word celeritas meaning "swiftness". It is the speed of all electromagnetic radiation in a vacuum, not just visible light.

In metric units, c is exactly 299,792,458 metres per second (1,079,252,848.8 km/h). Note that this speed is a definition, not a measurement, since the fundamental SI unit of length, the metre, has been defined since October 21, 1983 in terms of the speed of light: one metre is the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second. Converted to imperial units, the speed of light is approximately 186,282.397 miles per second, or 670,616,629.384 miles per hour, or almost one foot per nanosecond
Click to expand...

I guess the time to travel the length of Paddys bar would have been ten nanoseconds. or 10

Reminds me - 299-gigametres per second is 1.079 tetrametres per hour!!
Bloke at work is going to buy a computer with a 1 tetra-byte hard drive!!. These days we boast - "My computer's got two Gigs!!!"
Tomorrow we'll be saying "That's nothing - My computer's got two Tets!" ;)
 
War Speeches etc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhYiv6wFBaM =WC comes to power

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0JsPXg-e1s = Winston Churchill "we shall fight on the beaches" - recorded excerpt of speech. (words below)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idEUzGrewlM&NR = roosevelt warns of danger if nazis win 1940

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yr-IYTH7okQ&mode=related&search= =hitler - I suggest turn it off after 1 minute max - seriously boring.!

WC ON HISTORY:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhYiv6wFBaM&mode=related&search=
"Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, "This was their finest hour.""
also
"History will be kind to me for I intend to write it."

WC ON PERSEVERENCE:-
"We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old."

WC ON PURPOSE:-
Behind them - behind us- behind the Armies and Fleets of Britain and France - gather a group of shattered States and bludgeoned races: the Czechs, the Poles, the Norwegians, the Danes, the Dutch, the Belgians - upon all of whom the long night of barbarism will descend, unbroken even by a star of hope, unless we conquer, as conquer we must; as conquer we shall.

GWB ON TIDES:-
I think -- tide turning -- see, as I remember -- I was raised in the desert, but tides kind of -- it's easy to see a tide turn -- did I say those words?" --George W. Bush, asked if the tide was turning in Iraq, Washington, D.C., June 14, 2006

WC ON TIDES:-
The gratitude of every home in our Island, in our Empire, and indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the world war by their prowess and by their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm60ZIVnXZw&mode=related&search=
the present in colour - the memories (nightmares on this occasion) in black and white.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wqy85jz5lcY&mode=related&search= winston summary
 
There was a bloke from Perth,
That thought more than he was worth.
He made a big plunder
Not a big blunder..

And is now sitting here...
and smiling in wonder.........:)

You guys here give me the motivation and fortitude to cary on and realy enjoy the trading game....Love you all heaps, even if some of you are tossers!.....lol
 

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