The Dying Californian - Lyrics & Chords - The Blue Myself

This is my version of "The Dying Californian," a traditional American folk hymn. It's another homemade demo recording under the name The Blue Myself (a band alternately known as Friends Around the Campfire, Wizard Pit, Sandy Mary, and, very rarely, Pandoraz Kunt - an offshoot of The Manna Tease created for songwriting / workshopping purposes.) I used my Les Paul, my turtleback mandolin, and an ancient Yamaha PSR-500M for the recording.

The melody follows roughly the same shape as the folk hymn (410 in the Sacred Harp, pictured at the very top), but this version is in D minor key (what Nigel Tufnel calls "the saddest of all keys") and in a loping 4/4. 

The chords are basically:

Dmin / / Gmin / / Dmin / /  Bb / A7 / Dmin

In the Sacred Harp, the words are credited to "Ball & Drinkard, 1859" - my favorite lyrics-writing duo since "Koch & Tokup." 

Lay up nearer, brother, nearer,
For my limbs are growing cold,
And thy presence seemeth dearer
When thy arms around me fold.  

 I am dying, brother, dying,
Soon you will miss me in your berth,
And my form will soon be lying
Beneath the ocean's briny surf.  

 Hearken to me, brother, hearken,
I have something I would say,
Ere this veil my vision darken
And I go from hence away,  

 I am going, surely going,
But my hopes in God are strong,
I am willing, brother, knowing
That He doeth nothing wrong.

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Happy Boxing Day from the Manna Tease: The Fa-la-la-ing is Coming

Is today the day you're supposed to get two turtle doves? Also, why is the writer of that song so obsessed with giving birds to his paramour? They're kind of messy, high maintenance pets.

I never put up this other video we shot of my one-minute christmas carol, The Fa-La-La-ing is Coming. Until it comes next year, happy Boxing Day from The Manna Tease (please "like" us on facebooks!)

Lyrics & chords to "The Fa-la-la-ing is Coming" here. Goodbye.

Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs: XVIII. Homeless Wassail

And here's the Manna Tease singing the song "Homeless Wassail":

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Homeless Wassail is a song by Ian Robb, but we heard it from a Christmas mix in a beautiful version by Finest Kind. The only cover on Spotify is by Broadside Electric. Here's our full Infinite Playlist of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs (listen on random!)
Lyrics:

HOMELESS WASSAIL
(Ian Robb)
"Wassail, wassail,all over the town,
Our cup is white and our ale is brown"
But huddled on the iron grate
we poor and hungry curse our fate. 

No wassail bowl for such as these
No turkey scraps, no ale nor cheese,
This Christmas Eve our heart's desire
Is a bottle of gin and a trashcan fire. 

Good Christian, mind, as home you go
With dreams of holly and mistletoe
That the holly bears a dreadful thorn
For those who wake to a frozen dawn. 

Oh, where is He, that holy child
Once born of Mary, meek and mild?
And whither peace, goodwill to men
Now and forevermore, amen? 

All ye who dine with face aglow
In Reninensi atrio (in the Queen's hall---Latin)
Pray pause awile at pleasure's door
And sup some sorrow with the poor. 

"Wassail, wassail,all over the town,
Our cup is white and our ale is brown"
This cold and hunger, pain and care
Sweet Jesus Christ, it's hard to bear. 

copyright Ian Robb/SOCAN 

Chords as we play them:
amin G emin
amin emin/B C D
amin G emin
amin emin/B C D 

C G emin
amin emin/B C D
C G emin
amin emin/B C D

Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs: XV. A Buggerer's Christmas

Brought to you by itwaslost's Very Special Department of Arnophilia & The Blue Myself's One Minute Christmas Carols - we present A Buggerer's Christmas.

The Blue Myself on facebooks here. More One Minute Christmas Carols.

Lyrics & chords:

A Buggerer's Christmas

Bb-dim Esus7 E7
If you see a stranger in your manger,
Bb-dim Esus7 E7
Your babe is not in any danger.
A F#min D
Ever stop to think that maybe,
Dmin A
They weren't looking for a baby?
E F#min
Fa la la, faaaa.
Bb-dim Esus7 E7
The shepherd's run in adoration,
Bb-dim Esus7 E7
Not to Mary's son, but to his barn companions.
A F#min D
We all need some warmth this winter, I feel ya,
Dmin A
'Tis the season for arnophilia.

A F#min
It's a buggerer's Christmas
D Dmin Bmin E A
All we like sheep, we've gone astray, Christ was born today.

F#min
You'll find me in the crèches.
D Bmin E A
We're rolling in the deep, we're rolling in the hay.

E F#min

Fa la la, baaaa. 

©2011 The Manna Tease

Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs: X. The Fa-la-la-ing Is Coming

This song speaks for itself: The Fa-la-la-ing is Coming!

The Blue Myself is on facebook here.
Lyrics & Chords for THE FA-LA-LA-ING IS COMING:

Dmin Bb
Remember, remember
F C C#aug Dmin
The fifth of November used to be November,
Bb F
But November is the new December
C C#aug Dmin
Did you hear a bell from a sleigh?
Dmin Bb Dmin
It’s coming, it’s coming! The fa-la-la-ing.
Bb
The fa-la-la-ing is coming.
F C
Ba-da-boom ba-da-bing,
C#aug
Christ was born today.
Dmin Bb F C C#aug
Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
Dmin C
It’s the fa-la-la-ing for sure,
Bb
It’s clawing at your door,
Amin
It’s sawing thru the floor.
Gmin
It’s gnawing with its den-ture,
F
It’s drawing a pic-ture
C C#aug
That Christmas is only seven weeks away.

More from The Blue Myself's One Minute Christmas Carols.

Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs: VI. My Fiancée Ran Off With A Christmas Elf

Welcome back to itwaslost.org's Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs. The last few days I've had a project of writing & posting one minute songs called The Blue Myself's One Minute Christmas Carols. This one is a parody of the one-joke novelty song genre, called "My Fiancée Ran Off With A Christmas Elf."

Here's The Blue Myself on Facebooks.
A funny story about this song. Within an hour of writing it & posting this on youtube, I was walking to work & I got a voice mail from my mother saying "I'm really worried about you, call me." I couldn't think why, & when I called she said, I don't know, recently Lauren hasn't been singing with you in your songs & you're calling yourself "Blue" & now you have a song about your girlfriend leaving you. I told her, don't worry, The Manna Tease is still together, The Blue Myself is just a side project for novelty songs, none of these songs are autobiographical. Then she said she didn't think the songs were funny: "I don't remember laughing."

Lyrics & chords:

My Fiancée Ran Off With a Christmas Elf 

E D A E
My Fiancée ran off with a Christmas Elf,
C#min G# A B7
I guess you could say she stooped to the lowest shelf.
C#min G# A E
She said was going to leave, and she was gone on Christmas Eve,
D A E
My Fiancée left me alone Christmas Day. 

I regret being a nerd, I regret being a slob.
Her new boyfriend might be indentured, but at least he’s got a job.
He might be small of stature, but at least he looks up to her.
I’ve no more Fiancée, Christ was born today. 

My Fiancée ran off with a Christmas Elf,
I guess I’ll sit here crying, drinking eggnog by myself.
All I want for Christmas is to punch his stupid little face.
All she wanted was an iPod, but she got a tripod.

©2011 The Manna Tease 

If E is a tricky key & you want to sing it in a lower Elvis-y voice, try these chords:
C  Bb  F  C
Amin  E  F  G7
Amin  E  F   C
Bb  F  C


More The Blue Myself's One Minute Christmas Carols.

Advent Calendar of Non-Overplayed Christmas Songs: IV. Christmas with Richard Nixon

Listening to hundreds of Christmas songs has poisoned my creative juices, & I started writing some short ones which I'll call "The Blue Myself's One Minute Christmas Carols." The first one, written & recorded quickly yesterday, is called "Christmas with Richard Nixon". (You can hear the common cold in my voice.)

It's fitting that my highly conceptual concept band The Blue Myself should put out a Christmas album as its first endeavor. 

Lyrics & chords:

Christmas with Richard Nixon 

D Emin A
My wassail cup is filled with gin & vermouth,
D Emin A
‘Tis the season to be jowly & uncouth.
F# Bmin
God bless the master of this house,
G A D
Was that a break-in or a mouse?
F# Bmin A
Red phones ring, & the children sing, 

D F# Bmin G
Christmas with Richard Nixon,
D F# Bmin G
Christmas with the jews & the gays, Ho ho hey,
D Bmin7
The snow would be grey if there weren’t no EPA.
Emin A
Christ bas born today,
A A7 D
But I saw Mommy kiss a commie. 

©2011 The Manna Tease

in Berlin

In Berlin, we couldn't resist singing the song "In Berlin," a work-in-progress from an upcoming song cycle (The Theosaur Slayer), which was inspired by my memories of Berlin, Nevada, (a ghost town that has dinosaur fossils) & the one of the reasons we went out to stay there. The melody is adapted from the folk hymn "Florence" (which mentions deserts & dragons), and the lyrics tell the story of a nameless boy who lives in the desert & discovers a monster in the abandoned mines.


Lyrics & chords:

In Berlin
D Bmin Emin7 Asus4    Bmin A D 

In Berlin, a ghost town in Central Nevada, lived a boy without any name. 

D Bmin Emin7 Asus4    Bmin A D 

He had built a shack out of broken bottles, a recycled gold rush claim. 

D D/C# Bmin Asus4 D Bmin A 

And in the nights when the desert’s frigid, his grandmother’s ghost would visit, 

D Bmin Emin7   Asus4 Bmin A  

And they’d sup on scorpion tail cocktails, & silently hide from the spirits.

And there was a hill to the East of the ruins that his ghosty Granny had warned, 

Don’t you ever go there, the pinyon pins round the mines is mysteriously burned, 

But being a boy with an tween’s free will & the imaginings of a devil, 

He was bored one Wednesday while out exploring, and he found himself on the hill. 

Down into the mine-shaft climbed the child, no one was there to watch him, 

And he lit a match in the ancient darkness, & wandered round with caution. 

A humongous monster was deeply sleeping, as if for millions of years. 

With the arms of a rat, & the wings of an eagle, & brobdingnagian ears. 

But they weren’t alone, & poltergeist who haunted far & wide 

Knocked some rocks on the supports, and a noisy collapse sealed off only the way outside. 

The monster woke & it gasped for breath, a ten thousand pound canary, 

And it grabbed the boy, burst through the earth, & they flew off in the fiery sky. 

©2011 The Manna Tease 

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Here are some more photos from our trip to Berlin:

Foo Fighters - Keepin' It Clean - Lyrics & Chords - Special Friends Around the Campfire, actual campfire edition

This amazing Gay-Truckers-showering song, "Keep it Clean" or "Keepin' it Clean," plays in the background of the opening of the Foo Fighter's music video to "Hot Buns" (2011). This summer, they famously rolled up on a flat bed truck in Kansas City & sang it to the Westboro Baptist Church "God hates fags" protesters, which might have been one of the best moments in American history.

The Manna Tease were camping in Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park in the Great Basin desert last weekend, & sang it around the campfire - it's a bit shaky, we were doing it fresh from memory & after a bit of afternoon bourbon, but here goes:

And for your convenience, here are the lyrics & chords we use:

C G C C7 

Keep It clean, my mama said keep It clean (2x) 

F  

Driving all night, got a hankering for something 

C A7 

Think I'm In the mood for some hot-man muffins 

D7 G Gaug 

Mmmm, Sounds so fine, yes indeed

Keep It Clean, my Daddy said keep it clean (2x) 

Ain't looking for a fight, ain't looking for trouble 

Howdy Mr Right have you met Mister Bubble 

Hey, put 'er there, ain't she sweet. 

F 

Rubbin' and a lovin' and a scrubbin' and a truckin' 

C A7 

Maybe if we're lucky just a little bear huggin' 

D7   G7 C F C 

Know what I mean, Keep it clean 

Rubbin' and a lovin' and a scrubbin' and a truckin' 

Maybe if we're lucky just a little bear huggin' 

Know what I mean, Keep it clean

Note: We added the augmented chord for spice, it's not mandatory.
The Foo Fighters sing it in G, which is very low, but here's approx. their chords if you wish:

G D7 G 

G D7 G G7 

C 

G E7 

A7 D7

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Jasmine Washington - The Manna Tease

Here's another new song for The Manna Tease, and a video of us practicing it on the rooftop this morning. I came up with this song driving back from Tahoe a month ago, with the obligatory references to William Blake.



Here are the lyrics & chords in C (we play it in Bb.)

Jasmine Washington

C amin G F
My mother bore me in the wilds of Maine,
amin emin amin G F C
And I am white, but oh, my soul is chartreuse.
C amin G F
My heart is healthy but my pleasure is pain.
amin emin amin G F C
My blouse is usually tight, but sometimes I let it all loose.

C amin G F C

I’m just a white girl named Jasmine Washington.

amin F

I’m a little white girl, a white girl.

emin amin G F C

These colors don’t run, girls just want to have fun.

amin F

I’m a little white girl, a white girl.

emin amin dmin

Deep ocean pearl, bright clouds unfurl.

F amin  G F C

Daughter of the sun, Jasmine Washington.

My father called me his rose of York,
Fertilized in manure, but lovely as the dawn.
The pig is filthy, but I’m as clean as cured pork,
And I am pure, arise my love, the night is gone.
I’m just a white girl, &c...

My boyfriend calls me his albino possom:
He is diverse, I call him America.
I’ll shield him from the shade so he can blossom,
And bear my curse, but I am naked beneath my burka.

I’m just a white girl, &c...


©2011 The Manna Tease

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9/11 Was An Inside Job: the song & a new video

For the anniversary of 9/11, here's a new video of my song "9/11 was an inside job," exposing many truths:

This song was previously posted, with lyrics & chords & a rehearsal mp3 here.

The Manna Tease on facebooks here.

New Illustrated Songs from The Manna Sustains: First Vision of St Olaf, and The Wind & Snow

The Manna Sustains will eventually be an illuminated songbook, but I'm putting out individual illustrated songs while I work on it. Original art by Grainne Proinseas! Here's First Vision of St Olaf:
First Vision of St Olaf, from The Manna Sustains - Illustrated Sheet Music
Feel free to download, print, & play around with as you wish. This song was posted earlier here with a rehearsal youtube video:


NEXT: First Interlude: The Wind & Snow.

The Wind & Snow, First Interlude from The Manna Sustains - Illustrated Sheet Music
And we have a new video for this song, too:


The audio for that video can be downloaded as a free mp3 here if you wish:

Thank you so much. Stay tuned for more illustrated sheet music & demo videos from The Manna Sustains. Please "like" The Manna Tease on Facebooks! & also Grainne Proineas' artist page.

Illuminated Sheet Music - What Mary Noticed from The Manna Stains illustrated digital songbook!

Another addition to our burgeoning genre of illuminated digital sheet music - "What Mary Noticed" from The Manna Sustains, an Epic Murder-Ballad Song-Cycle by The Manna Tease. This will eventually be a whole illustrated songbook illuminated by Grainne Proinseas, & we'll be dropping samples of individual songs as Scribd documents over the next few weeks.

What Mary Mary Noticed, from The Manna Sustains - Illuminated Sheet Music
Please download, print, and play around with as you wish. The Manna Tease singing a somewhat rough-around-the-edges rehearsal of this song into the youtubes:

Stay tuned for more illustrated songs! & more from The Manna Sustains. Lyrics to "What Mary Noticed" originally posted here. Please "like" The Manna Tease on facebooks here, & Grainne Proinseas here.

Introducing: Illuminated Sheet Music - Young Manasseh's Stains from The Manna Stains illustrated digital songbook!

And now, Grainne Proinseas & I are spearheading an initiative to spearhead the genre of illuminated songbooks. The Manna Tease's Epic Murder Ballad Song Cycle, The Manna Sustains, will be a fully illuminated songbook illustrated by Grainne Proinseas, and I'll release little excerpts of individual songs as we create them, practice the project, et cetera.
Young Manassehs Stains, from The Manna Sustains - Illuminated Sheet Music

Please download, print, and play around with as you wish. I'm deliberately keeping the score pretty vague, just the melody and chord progression, with the occasional instrumental melody. Additional verses can differ slightly in melody & syncopation, &c. Here's us singing "Young Manasseh's Stains" live:

Stay tuned for more illustrated songs! & more from The Manna Sustains. Lyrics to "Young Manasseh's Stains" originally posted here. Please "like" The Manna Tease on facebooks here, & Grainne Proinseas here.

Henry K. Lee - The Manna Tease sing it live for the real Henry K. Lee!

The real Henry K. Lee with the real Manna Tease

On Thursday night, a band of east bay journalists had a party at the Warehouse, a divey cop bar in Oakland (quite thematically perfect.) They invited us, the Manna Tease, to come serenade them with our song "Henry K. Lee." The song was inspired by the bay area section of the San Francisco Chronicle, wherein almost every gruesome article about crime is written by one man, Henry K. Lee. My earlier youtube of it had become quasi-famous amongst colleagues of the real Henry K. Lee and other people who worked on crime news in the bay area. (It was featured on blogs here, here, here & here.) It was lovely to actually meet him, altho the real Henry K. Lee, a cheerful & charming man with seemingly few demons, is the opposite of the cheap-suit-wearing, chain-smoking man we had mythologized. We promised a better quality youtube (the original was just a camera phone rehearsal, &c.) & we now doubly deliver, with a fancier one & also the live one from the Warehouse:

Enough! or two too much! of that song. Lyrics & chords posted here. Henry K. Lee's facebook page here, & if you don't get the Chronicle, you can get his book Presumed Dead here.


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