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Malcy
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 Re:Learning Jakes Songs - 2006/10/17 09:43 Jake's story songs are both a blessing and a curse to commit to memory, I found. Yes, there is a storyline or the setting up of a joke's punchline, so you have a thread to keep you on track : but there is a certain extra pressure on you to get the whole thing right so that the story or joke isn't spoiled.

A song like "Jolly Captain" is a good example - it's a joke set to music but you can't do the Fred Wedlock trick and shuffle the verses around as the story will make no sense. The Captain's wife clearly has to fall down the staircase before she is on her deathbed, and has to die before he can remarry etc, so you can't give yourself the luxury of shuffling them around in case of brain emergency. :o) "The Blacksmith..." would be another one where there is no real punchline but if you get the story wrong you spoil the point.

However, there are several songs Jake does with small changes to the choruses (Never did it for the profit of it /it was not for the profit of it/never ever for the profit of it from Billy Kershaw) which you can shuffle about or even repeat without spoiling the song, whose story lies in the verses.

Ah well, no-one ever said learning Jake's stuff was easy. :o) Eranu !
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Paul
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 Re:Learning Jakes Songs - 2006/10/17 18:15 Malcy wrote:
A song like "Jolly Captain" is a good example - it's a joke set to music but you can't do the Fred Wedlock trick and shuffle the verses around as the story will make no sense.

Part of the challenge is in the fine detail: 'Close your poor eyes,' says the Captain to his wife, but when she is dead this becomes 'he closed her wild eyes'. This is fine writing, full of humanity and insight into the human condition: using the right adjective in the right verse is absolutely vital if the song is to make sense. Elsewhere it has to be 'hacking her way back again' because of the rhyme, no word but 'hacking' will do. There is rarely any room for manouevre in Jake's songs: change one word and something is lost. When singing one of Jake's songs you change a word at your (and the song's) peril.

Post edited by: Paul, at: 2006/10/17 19:11
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Malcy
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 Re:Learning Jakes Songs - 2006/10/17 21:20 Ah - the fine detail. That's a different kettle of fish altogether from disaster recovery !

For me, and I believe for Paul too, the challenge is to get not only the story of the song out unspoilt, but to make all those micro changes in verses and chorus segments correctly.

The "never did it for the profit of it" bits in between the Billy Kershaw verses are all different in some ways and I had to learn tricks from the previous line to remind me which ones came up next. The choruses of "I Stayed Off Work Today" are quite similar but some laugh aloud, some chuckle, some giggle. The end of the verse just before the choruses of "Grandad" are reflected in the changes in the choruses themselves, so you get "Pearly Gates he'll climb" followed by "keep a guard", and offering to molest the Ladies' Union followed by "don't expect that much respect".

My favourite in this respect is "The Statues", where the lyrics change from
"does the silky moonlight warm your heart to me"
through
"is it the milky moonlight warms my heart to you"
to
"was it the creamy dreamy moonlight warmed your heart"

and, of course, the bit no-one ever spots consciously, the fact that Jake and his drunken grandad are telling this tale to progressively more important lawmen as the song goes on : "Constable..", "Inspector", "Your Worship"...

Breathtaking. :o) Eranu !
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Pam
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 Re:Learning Jakes Songs - 2006/10/19 11:22 Malcy wrote:
and, of course, the bit no-one ever spots consciously, the fact that Jake and his drunken grandad are telling this tale to progressively more important lawmen as the song goes on : "Constable..", "Inspector", "Your Worship"...

Breathtaking. :o)

I beg to differ; as already quoted what I know about performing these songs isn't worth knowing, but I can claim to be an expert listener and enjoyer, and this is one bit that has always amused me about this wonderful song ;o) Makes me laugh every time!
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mcdonaldneal
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 Re:Learning Jakes Songs - 2006/10/19 15:53 Recurring theme, of course the hierarchical crescendo of authority figures, witness, 'The Hole' to add to the two examples already in this thread. There must be more!
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Malcy
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 Re:Learning Jakes Songs - 2006/10/19 16:30 The Remembrance. Jake's soldier is persuaded to the front by The King, a Clergyman and the Captain, finally meeting the enemy there. It may look like a decline in authority as the song progresses, but it's actually a progressively higher rank of people who really count in the proceedings. Eranu !
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