The Coronavirus Blues

The lonely vending machine
He’s sitting in the corner
Waiting for the coins to drop
Nickels, dimes and quarters

But there ain’t no coin
There ain’t no coin
There ain’t no coin
To drop
But there ain’t no coin
There ain’t no coin
There ain’t no coin
For the slot

There’s a washing mahine
Standing in the laudromat
Waiting for the dirty clothes
Stained with mud and chocolate

But there ain’t no coin
There ain’t no coin
There ain’t no coin
To drop
But there ain’t no coin
There ain’t no coin
There ain’t no coin
For the slot

And the slots off in Vegas
They’re waiting for a handout
From the unlucky many
Who are down for the count

But there ain’t no coin
There ain’t no coin
There ain’t no coin
To drop
But there ain’t no coin
There ain’t no coin
There ain’t no coin
For the slot

Soon

Another lyric for your enjoyment.

Rigor mortis is setting in
When it does I’ll be stiff as a board
Just another corpus delicti
Part of a great skeleton hoard

Crossing over the River Styx
On I go to another side
Hoping to be one of the picks
Through the Pearly Gates to reside

Soon I’ll be in the grave or bust
Soon I’ll be ashes and rust
Soon I’ll be nothing but dust
Soon I’ll be part of the crust

I’ve done my share of roaming
I’ve got trav’ling shoes to prove it
Picked up a bit of sea and sand
Been to the sunrise and in the pits

Took on the valleys and mountains
Over rainbows and under bridges
Never sure where I was bounding
When I made my jump off the edges

Soon I’ll be in the grave or bust
Soon I’ll be ashes and rust
Soon I’ll be nothing but dust
Soon I’ll be part of the crust

Uncle Bardie’s Weekly Music Pick: At Last

It’s Thursday again. You know what that means. Uncle Bardie’s Weekly Music Pick. Uncle Bardiie gives a double thumbs up to this week’s selection: “At Last” by Etta James.

In the fifties and early sixties, an amazing group of female singers emerged to give American audiences some of the best vocals ever heard in the history of popular music. These included Brenda Lee, Connie Francis, Della Reese, Julie London, Sarah Vaughan, and Abby Lincoln.

Of this group, I have especially taken a hankering to the music of Dinah Washington, Patsy Cline and Etta James. It wasn’t just that they had great voices. It was as if they were reaching down deep into their souls and pulling up all the pain they had and pouring it out for the world to hear. That pouring out has a name. It’s called the Blues.

Some artists can take all their feelings and make them into great art. These three do that. When I hear their music, it makes me realize that I am not alone in feeling what I am feeling. I can experience deeply what they are feeling.

Etta’s “At Last” is a pure gem. Oh my, Etta can sing. With this one, she makes love all her own. It’s not just love. It’s Love with a capital L. And she’s giving everything to it. This is High Art. This is Van Gogh painting the starry night. This is Richard Burton doing the “To be or not to be” soliloquy. This is Martha Graham dancing “Lamentation”. This is Elizabeth Bishop making poems.

To get caught up in this song is to let yourself go and feel something human.  Very little allows us to do that these days. Mostly we are given doses of plastic that cut us off from our fellow human beings. Then we hear Etta James or Patsy Cline or Dinah Washington and we suddenly are busting out of our cocoons. We have heard something true.

Big Don

This here is my theme song and it is to be sung to the tune of Jimmy Dean’s “Big John”

1.He was a heck of a man

With a slight slight tan

Six foot none

And his hair was gone.

He was Don, Big Don,

Big Tall Don.

 

2.He wore a hat

To the right it tipped

And dark glasses too

So he wouldn’t catch flu.

He was Don, Big Don,

Big Tall Don.

 

3.He was a library clerk

And he loved to work

He came in at noon

Sometimes a little too soon.

He was Don, Big Don,

Big Tall Don.

 

4.He arrived at work one Monday day

Everything was thrown every which-a-way

He looked from side to side and all around

There wasn’t a clerk anywhere to be found

He heard a noise from away far-off

A still small voice with an obvious cough

He went to the cabinet sitting in front

He pulled out a drawer and began his hunt.

He was Don, Big Don, Big Tall Don.

 

5.The voice he’d heard it was down in there

Where it was he couldn’t be sure

He reached on in and pulled himself through

The hole in the drawer fit like an old shoe

He followed what he’d heard deep deep down

Through the caverns and caves he followed that sound

When after a heck of a whole lotta feet

He found himself just about to retreat.

He was Don, Big Don, Big Tall Don.

 

6.The hole got smaller but the sound grew louder

So on he plunged and the tunnel was a bit tighter

While up above the librarians stood

And listened all the best that they could

For the Yodeling Don and the lost clerks

Trapped deep down in the depths of the earth

He kept on moving and moving on he went

Creeping and crawling through every little vent.

He was Don, Big Don, Big Tall Don.

 

7.Until upon a group he finally came

All stuck under a pile of books and magazines

Well he digged and he dugged and he digged real fast

The air in that tunnel surely wouldn’t last

He pushed and he pulled and he got a clerk out

Sent her above as the librarians gave a happy shout

There were ten, twenty, thirty clerks or more

And pulling them out was like mining for ore.

He was Don, Big Don, Big Tall Don.

 

8.But out they did come one by one

And the books they fell ton by ton

Barely missing clerk by clerk until

There was only one clerk left to kill

Then Don had saved them all

He’d come to the rescue and didn’t stall

But now he was caught in the head

Banged by a ten pound book about lead.

He was Don, Big Don, Big Tall Don.

 

9.First he was stunned and then knocked out

As he fell to the floor turning around and about

They came crashing down upon him they fell

As the last rescued clerk crawled through the shell

Of an underground that was all blocked off

By all those books that had fallen rough

Upon the man they’d known as

Don, Big Don, Big Tall Don.