Archive for April, 2020
Who We Are (a.k.a. Wear Your Nametag) – a song
Posted by Angela Brett in Holiday Highlights, Performances, Things To Listen To on April 26, 2020
A few weeks before JoCo Cruise 2020, I wrote a song to perform at the open mic. It’s a singalong which I figured everyone could relate to, so I figured people would enjoy it. I came up with the tune myself, and Joey Marianer worked out some ukulele accompaniment. Then we found out there would be no open mic on the cruise, so we performed it at Beth Kinderman’s song circle at MarsCon, though there was a lot of background noise and not much singing along there.
I was signed up to perform in a shadow event called ‘A Bunch of Monkeys Read Some Stuff‘ on the cruise, so I also performed it there, along with some short poems I’d written during NanoRhymo 1 and 2, and Global Poetry Writing Month. Words and tweet links of the specific tiny poems are in the video description.
Later in the cruise, Joey hastily organised an especially unofficial open mic, so we performed it there as well. By that time I was slightly more confident about remembering the words:
Here are the lyrics. They contain much haplology, and work best in an accent without the trap-bath split; I had to change the way I pronounce ‘demand’ to sing it, and I didn’t always keep that change consistent through the rest of the song.
We’re close, and I’m finally here with you.
You don’t look like your avatar.
Until I demand all
your names and your handles,
I probably won’t know who you are.
You’ve changed name and gender
your hair, or your shirt
You took off your glasses
your beard or your skirt
You left for three seconds,
your mouth’s now ajar.
I probably don’t know who you are
I probably don’t know who you are.
I probably don’t know who you are!
Your name and your face too,
I just cannot place you.
I probably don’t know who you are.
You’ve just really killed it at open mic.
Your singalong chorus went. far,
but nobody says so
when you’re off the stage, so
they probably don’t know who you are.
They snubbed you at dinner
they brought the wrong beer
Regaled you with stories
you told them last year.
They won’t share their stateroom
or give back your car
They probably don’t know who you are
They probably don’t know who you are.
They probably don’t know who you are!
Even if someone knows ya,
there’s prosopagnosia —
they probably don’t know who you are.
You once seemed at least somewhat normative
but each year things get more bizarre.
There’s joy and there’s strife while
you’re changing your lifestyle.
You probably don’t know who you are.
I couldn’t write this part;
It wouldn’t be true.
Just think about things
That are changing for you.
It takes time and patience
To tune a guitar
You probably don’t know who you are
You probably don’t know who you are.
You probably don’t know who you are!
You’re constantly growing
new parts for not knowing.
You probably don’t know who you are.
We probably don’t know who we are.
We probably don’t know who we are!
And we don’t know whether
we’ll find out together.
We probably don’t know who we are.
It’s all based on truth. Every JoCo Cruise I spend an action-packed and sleep-deprived week with people who are, to varying degrees, my friends. It’s a cruise where people’s clothes and makeup are often far more memorable than their faces, so I may or may not recognise my new or old friends each time I see them during that week. The subtle difference between formal night and pyjama day attire in the videos above can’t compare to the costume changes some people go through. I spend the rest of the year connected to many of these friends via the internet, where I learn their full names and/or other handles, but (despite the name of one of the websites) not necessarily the faces which go with those names. Then we meet in person again, a year of growth different.
Sometimes they grow a full beard between cruises, and then once I’ve figured out who they are, shave it off during the cruise (you know who you are. I didn’t.) Sometimes they transition, tell me their new name, and I don’t connect that ‘new’ person with the name and face they had previously until weeks after I get home. Sometimes I accidentally tell people their own origin stories.
I perform at many open mics, and often love the performances as they’re happening, but don’t remember exactly what the performers looked like or who did what. When people come up to me afterwards and praise my performance, I want to do the same for them, but am not sure whether or what they performed.
I wrote the ‘I’ and ‘they’ parts with no particular plan to turn it into something serious at the end, but then a ‘you’ section seemed like the obvious continuation. That part is true for me, too — the most predictable thing about my life is that it will keep getting ever more ridiculous. May you all find a Jim Boggia to help tune your metaphorical guitars, and if not, time and patience.
Three more Hallelujahs
Posted by Angela Brett in Holiday Highlights, Things To Listen To on April 5, 2020
You might have noticed that Joey and I have been writing original songs and new versions of existing songs set to the tune of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. Here’s a playlist of 24 Hallelujah videos we’ve recorded so far (including one of Joey singing part of the original in a choir.) We have many more lyrics waiting to be sung. We started writing these after getting the song stuck in our heads from hearing Beth Kinderman’s ‘Stop Covering Hallelujah‘ at MarsCon 2019. The day after that MarsCon we went to the biggest ball of twine in Minnesota, in formalwear, because it’s a ball.
While talking to our hitchhiker ‘Bernie’ (actually Byron) back at the MarsCon hotel, we realised that ‘Minnesota’ scans to ‘Hallelujah’, so I decided to write a Hallelujah version of Weird Al’s song, The Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota. I did so a few days after JoCo Cruise 2019 ended.
At MarsCon 2020, we found ourselves again in the song circle at Beth’s Space Oddity room party, so I convinced Joey to sing the Biggest Ball of Twine Hallelujah, but then I was unexpectedly recruited to sing a verse, which I think I did terribly, and then we skipped the last few. Here’s that performance:
And here are the full lyrics:
I had two weeks vacation due
From Big Roy’s Heating, Pipes and Flue
Asked kids at dinner where they’d like to go to
They made their choice as noodles twirled
Of anywhere in this great big world
The biggest ball of twine in Minnesota
Minnesota, Minnesota, Minnesota, Minnesota
Next day we loaded up the car
With wieners, taters, rhubarb pie
And rolled out in our 53 DeSoto
Picked up a guy as children fussed
His sign had said “Twine ball or bust”
The biggest ball of twine in Minnesota
Minnesota, Minnesota, Minnesota, Minnesota
We could not wait to see the twine
We only stopped when we were buyin’
More wieners and a diet chocolate soda
We sang for the 27th time that day
When we saw a sign that showed the way
To the biggest ball of twine in Minnesota
Minnesota, Minnesota, Minnesota, Minnesota
As sun was setting in the sky
Before our unbelieving eyes
A shrine beneath a makeshift twine pagoda
To see that huge majestic sphere
I had to pop myself a beer
the biggest ball of twine in Minnesota
Minnesota, Minnesota, Minnesota, Minnesota
Just who’s he trying to impress
There’s no bridge guiding to a guess
O, Twine Ball Man it seems we hardly knew ya
It’s a strange and what-on-earthly thing
Some twenty one thousand pounds of string
It’s a twisted and a ballsy hallelujah
hardly knew ya, Hallelujah, hardly knew ya, hallelujah.
I wept with joy before the ball
I bet if we unrolled it all
It’d reach right out to Fargo, North Dakota
“That’s what our country’s all about”
But then the henchmen threw us out
Of the biggest ball of twine in Minnesota
Minnesota, Minnesota, Minnesota, Minnesota
We slept a night at Twine Ball Inn
Next morning, headed home again
But I can’t think where else I’d rather go to
We didn’t want to leave; that’s clear
I think that we’ll be back next year
At the biggest ball of twine in Minnesota
Minnesota, Minnesota, Minnesota, Minnesota
When Beth Kinderman played her song in concert later at MarsCon, she flattered Joey and me with a special dispensation to continue singing Hallelujah.
A few days after I got back home, it was Joey’s birthday, so I sang a birthday Hallelujah I’d been planning ever since my own birthday. I used Joey’s Sore Throat Hallelujah as a backing track, simply by playing it on my iPad while I sang. I think I did a better job on this one, but still felt pretty uncomfortable with the high notes:
Lyrics:
Today’s the day we celebrate
recurrence of a great first date;
it’s Joey-left-the-womb-and-came-to-Earth day
and made it better than before;
I hope you’ll stay for many more,
so I can keep on singing happy birthday.
Now, four days into JoCo Cruise, COVID-19 was declared to be a pandemic, so by the time I got home, social distancing, quarantine, and self-isolation was the hot new thing. I got enough groceries to survive and then stayed strictly inside my apartment for 14 days to make sure I hadn’t picked anything up on the cruise or in the four airports I travelled through afterward.
I also wrote lyrics for an ‘isolation’ Hallelujah. But Joey had seen my birthday Hallelujah, and somehow become convinced that I could sing Hallelujahs all by myself. So we worked out a key I was more comfortable singing it in (A, in particular) and instead of singing it for me, Joey sent a backing track in that key and got me to do it myself. I happened to record it while still in costume from an online open mic I’d participated in, so at least nobody will know it was me if I sang badly.
Lyrics:
It follows a logistic curve.
It’s serious, and we observe
a median of five-day incubation,
so even if you’re symptom-free,
and so are all the folks you see,
please stay home if you can in isolation.
Isolation, isolation, isolation, isolation.
Since then, I’ve been uploading more videos from JoCo Cruise — I’ve just about finished uploading the entire land concert at Santo Domingo. I performed a few other things on the cruise (and one other song at MarsCon) but I’ll post about them when all the relevant videos are up.
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