Two Feet Tall - Lyrics & Chords

Here's a new song I wrote in Tahoe last week, and took a quick youtube of my initial practicing of it. It started out as a folk song, but evolved of its own volition into folk-reggae.

Two Feet Tall - Lyrics & Chords

E Esus E F#min B7
She was fated to be eliminated.
Esus E F#min B7
She was bloated the day she was promoted.
A Bsus C#min
She was flailin’ like a Palin,
Dmaj7 A
And shining like a nickel,
Bsus C#min
And feelin’ like New Zealan’,
Dmaj7 B7sus6 B7 B7sus6 B7
While mining for a pickle.

She was grumpy and dressing pretty frumpy,
She was angry at silly Lily Langtry.
She was diving off the ivy,
Then crashing on the pavement,
And sobbing like a robin
Dmaj7 B7sus6 B7 B7sus6 D7/B  
While splashing cross the raiment.

G F#min
I love a girl who’s only two feet tall,
Bmin7 D7/B
Her eggs are barren, but she cares about toaster ovens.
G F#
I like the curls that hide her prayer shawl.
Bmin7
Her legs are buried deep in the earth’s crust,
D7/B B7  D7/B B7
And I lost in her bust.

She was psychotic, and half-auto-erotic,
She was mothering, so much so she was smothering.
She was flying neath the oceans,
While hiding from the fighting,
And crying crystal potions,
Confiding in the lightning.

I love a girl who’s only two feet tall, &c.

She was gorgeous as Florida’s mortgages.
She could plagiarize, and she had a teenager’s thighs.

She’s stalling to be famous,

She photo-bombed on Fox News,

She’s crawling to Uranus,

With Pluto on her socks and shoes.

I love a girl who’s only two feet tall, &c.
I love a girl who’s only two feet tall, &c.
© 2012 The Manna Tease

Parting Glass - Lyrics and Chords - & rats drinking whiskey

I had the beautiful classic Ronnie Drew song "Parting Glass" in my head last week, so I plucked out this version:

Since many of the chords I found online were unsatisfying, here are the chords as I'm playing above if anyone wants to use this version:

Emin  G  C  G                        Emin        D 

Of all the money that e'er I spent 

G                        Emin          G    D 

I've spent it in good company 

Emin  G  C  G                       Emin       D 

And all the harm that ever I did 

Emin  C  G       D       Emin 

Alas it was to none but me 

         G  C  G                         G  C  G 

And all I've done for want of wit 

Gsus  G          Emin         G             D 

To memory now I can't recall 

Emin  G   C  G             Emin         D 

So fill to me the parting glass 

Emin               C       G   D           Emin 

Good night and joy be with you all

If I had money enough to spend 

And leisure time to sit awhile 

There is a fair maid in town 

That sorely has my heart beguiled 

Her rosy cheeks and ruby lips 

I own she has my heart enthralled 

So fill to me the parting glass 

Good night and joy be with you all

Oh, all the comrades that e'er I had 

They're sorry for my going away 

And all the sweethearts that e'er I had 

They'd wish me one more day to stay 

But since it falls unto my lot 

That I should rise and you softly call 

So fill to me the parting glass 

Good night and joy be with you all

Furthermore, here's a video of my rats cuddling in my lap & drinking my manhattan:

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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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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.

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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Sweet new Maloo Music Video: Sheehow

And now, a spicy sweet new music video from friends-of-the-blog Maloo [sic] featuring Olaf Mary & Jordan Epcar & a lovely film by Georges Méliès. [Note: This song was originally called "Parkinglot Dots" by the White Rasberries [sic]; correction appended.]

Young Manasseh's Stains & On the Trail of Young Manasseh - The Manna Sustains

And now! We are excited to announce that we are beginning to put songs from our new EPIC MURDER BALLAD SONG CYCLE, The Manna Sustains, on youtubes. It is narrative collection of folk songs, with many characters weaving thru the story, a bit of mystery and INTRIGUE, plenty of sex, drinking and drugs. We would like to perform the whole thing some time this summer, but in the meantime, for lack of anything better to do with this project, here are videos of The Manna Tease singing the first two songs: "Young Manasseh's Stains" and "On the Trail of Young Manasseh."
Update: I think the live version from our Adobe books gig is better than the one originally posted (below):

Young Manasseh's Stains

...wherein Young Manasseh comes to Arkansas City to find romance, goes on a Bender, and elopes with the Sheriff's Deputy.

Young Manasseh came to Arkansas City for to find romance.
The lights were bright & the girls were pretty, but Manny was too drunk to dance.
He laid on the steps of City Hall to take a nap.
He dreamt of alligators & an apple as round as the equator,
And his feet went tappity-tap-tap-tappity-tap.
Then descendin' the steps of City Hall came a deputy sheriff named Maple Seraph,
And said, Manny, you smell like poop.

Young Manasseh woke up in the drunk tank hungover as Colonel Qaddafi.
Sheriff Maple said you have only yourself to thank. Would you like a cup of coffee?
Manny & Maple went to get some cappuccino next door at the casino owned by Donald Trump.
They talked about the economy & the rising of the sea,
And his heart went thumputy thump-thump-thumpity thump-thump-thumpity-thump.
They switched to margaritas & shots of tequilas & bet on the Kenos,
And they put all their money on red.

Young Manesseh woke up in a nasty motel where Elvis once stayed.
Next to Manny was the Sheriff Maple & her rifle on the bed where they laid.
She said, Manny, oh, Man, we need to make a plan, 'cause I think we killed a man, but first where's my clothes?
Then he kissed her on the nose & on her roast beef toes,
And she moaned out whoa-whoa who's-your-do-see-dodo-doze whoa-whoa-whoa-whoze.
They hopped in his '90's Toyota & drove to the border of Louisiana,
Where they ditched the rifle.

Young Manasseh ran out of gas in the Mississippi swamp.
He & Sheriff Maple set up a muddy igloo & made love in the muddy damp.
He said, you don't have to decide, but if you'd like to be my bride, I've got nothing to provide, & she said Ja!
So they killed an alligator & they baked an apple fritter, & danced till later,
And they sang la la la la la la la la la la la.
The moral of the tale's if you want to kill a whale, you don't always need a harpoon,
But it helps get the Sheriff drunk.

©2011 The Manna Tease

Here's a free downloadable mp3 of the above live version if you wish to have it:


UPDATE: Introducing new illuminated sheet music! "Young Manasseh's Stains" with illustrations by Grainne Proinseas:
Young Manassehs Stains, from The Manna Sustains - Illuminated Sheet Music

On the Trail of Young Manasseh

...wherein we find our hero, Special Agent Francis, searching for the fugitive Young Manasseh up in Alaska.

Special Agent Francis on the trail of Young Manasseh,
Hitched a lift with a hang-glider from Ketchikan, Alaska:
Her name's Amanda, from Ketchikan, Alaska!

Special Agent Francis on the trail of Young Manasseh,
Hitched a lift with a hang-glider from Ketchikan, Alaska:
Her name's Amanda, from Ketchikan, Alaska!

As they soared above the glacier,
Fantastic as fallacier,
On the trail of Young Manasseh,
Swarms of clouds unfold to form a boreal castle,
Swarms of clouds unfold to form a boreal....

Amanda sang,
Where does the ice go when it melts into my glass of Scotch?
Francis said,
Should you be drinking while you're hang-gliding, miss?
Amanda sang,
When we die in the Arctic, do the glaciers weep & watch?
Francis replied,
Please pay attention where you're guiding us.

Special Agent Francis, airsick, & sick of her song,
Ditched his hippie hang-glider & hitchhiked to Saskatchewan,
Goodbye Amanda! see you never!

Special Agent Francis on the trail of Young Manasseh,
Hitched a lift with a hang-glider from Ketchikan, Alaska:
Her name's Amanda, from Ketchikan, Alaska!

Special Agent Francis, airsick, & sick of her song,
Ditched his hippie hang-glider & hitchhiked to Saskatchewan,
Goodbye Amanda! see you never!

©2011 The Manna Tease
"On the Trail of Young Manasseh" incorporates the traditional American folk tune "Boll Weevil" (public domain.)

Next: Song no. III: What Mary Noticed.

The Manna Sustains
An Epic Murder-Ballad Song-Cycle
by the Manna Tease

And the Lord said, I brought you into this world, and I can take you out.
-Exodus 16.37

Prelude. The Wind & the Rain
Song no. I. Young Manasseh's Stains
Song no. II. On the Trail of Young Manasseh
Song no. III. What Mary Noticed
Song no. IV. First Vision of St Olaf
First Interlude. The Wind & Snow
Song no. V. Wha' Happened in Oaxaca
Song no. VIa. Who are you, Elle Mary?
Song no. VIb. Second Vision of St Olaf
Song no. VII. Pink Mary's Stains
Song no. VIIIa. Banks of Pontchartrain
Song no. VIIIb. Young Manasseh Complains
Second Interlude. The Wind & Mud
Song no. IXa. Arkansas City
Song no. IXb. On the Trail of Pink Mary
Song no. X. Pink Mary's Marriage
Song no. XIa. Chase Scene / The Spatula / Pink Mary's Death
Song no. XIb. The Manna Sustains
Song no. XIc. Pink Mary's Resurrection / Wha' Happened in Oklahoma / Who Are You, Elle Mary? (Reprise)
Song no. XII. Young Manasseh Remains
Hymn. Sacred Throne
Palinode. And I Will No Longer Smoke My Hubbly-Bubbly Solitarily

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Three Recordings of "Home in Pasadena"

I found this lovely youtube video from a blog called Ukulelia. It's the songwriter Harry Warren found at his house in Southern California by Ian Whitcomb, where they sing "Home in Pasadena" in duet. (Warren is also famous for writing "Chattanooga Choo-choo," "Jeepers Creepers," and like a zillion other famous Jazz Age songs.)


And here's two other youtubes of the song.

Oh, & did we mention that Miss Minnie Molly Mary, of The Manna Tease, has saved up enough money giving twennydolla haircuts to order an electric flea ukulele for our band. It's got the denim design. Hurrah!

David Lang's Cheating, Lying, Stealing on Rock Band 2

A strange amazing world we live in when David Lang's classic postminimalist piece "Cheating, Lying, Stealing" is available on ROCK BAND 2!? Normally with these guitar-heroey video games, I would grumble under my breath that the time spent mastering it could have been spent learning to play an actual instrument, but in this case, it's not only exposing unlikely audiences to contemporary classical music, but probably honing their arhythmic rhythm skills as well.

Blurb from Bang on a Can here.

Auto-Tune brings Harmony to the Middle East: "We will dance to ‘Zenga-Zenga’ in the square"

This New York Times article has everything: Arab-Israeli relations, Revolution, Qaddafi, T-Pain, & naked dancing girls. I'll quote it in full:

JERUSALEM — A YouTube clip mocking Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s megalomania is fast becoming a popular token of the Libya uprising across the Middle East. And in an added affront to Colonel Qaddafi, it was created by an Israeli living in Tel Aviv.
Enlarge This Image

Noy Alooshe, 31, an Israeli journalist, musician and Internet buff, said he saw Colonel Qaddafi’s televised speech last Tuesday in which the Libyan leader vowed to hunt down protesters “inch by inch, house by house, home by home, alleyway by alleyway,” and immediately identified it as a “classic.”

“He was dressed strangely, and he raised his arms” like at a trance party, Mr. Alooshe said Sunday in a telephone interview, referring to the gatherings that feature electronic dance music. Then there were Colonel Qaddafi’s words with their natural beat.

Mr. Alooshe spent a few hours at the computer, using pitch corrector technology to set the speech to the music of “Hey Baby,” a song by the American rapper Pitbull, featuring another artist, T-Pain. Mr. Alooshe titled it “Zenga-Zenga,” echoing Colonel Qaddafi’s repetition of the word zanqa, Arabic for alleyway.

By the early hours of Wednesday morning, Mr. Alooshe had uploaded the electro hip-hop remix to YouTube, and he began promoting it on Twitter and Facebook, sending the link to the pages of young Arab revolutionaries. By Sunday night, the original clip had received nearly 500,000 hits and had gone viral.

Mr. Alooshe, who at first did not identify himself on the clip as an Israeli, started receiving enthusiastic messages from all around the Arab world. Web surfers soon discovered that he was a Jewish Israeli from his Facebook profile — Mr. Alooshe plays in a band called Hovevey Zion, or the Lovers of Zion — and some of the accolades turned to curses. A few also found the video distasteful.

But the reactions have largely been positive, including a message Mr. Alooshe said he received from someone he assumed to be from the Libyan opposition saying that if and when the Qaddafi regime fell, “We will dance to ‘Zenga-Zenga’ in the square.”

The original clip features mirror images of a scantily clad woman dancing along to Colonel Qaddafi’s rant. Mr. Alooshe said he got many requests from Web surfers who asked him for a version without the dancer so that they could show it to their parents, which he did.

Mr. Alooshe speaks no Arabic, though his grandparents were from Tunisia. He said he used Google Translate every few hours to check messages and remove any offensive remarks.

Israelis have been watching the events in Libya unfold with the same rapt attention as they have to the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt.

In the past, Colonel Qaddafi has proposed that Palestinian refugees should return en masse by ship to Israel’s shores, and that Israel and the Palestinian territories should be combined into one state called Isratine.

Mr. Alooshe said he was a little worried that if the Libyan leader survived, he could send one of his sons after him. But he said it was “also very exciting to be making waves in the Arab world as an Israeli.”

As one surfer wrote in an Arabic talkback early Sunday, “What’s the problem if he’s an Israeli? The video is still funny.” He signed off with the internationally recognized “Hahaha.”

Song: Sneak peak of "Who are you, Elle Mary?" sung on the Amtrak California Zephyr

Our songwriting project for the last month has been an album-lengthy Murder Ballad Song-Cycle epic, called "The Manna Sustains," to be performed by our new duo The Manna Tease. The songwriting, storytelling creative process is winding down, so here's a first sneak peak at one of the songs (which can be leaked without giving away any of the twists in the plot.) Miss Minnie Molly Mary & I took the Amtrak California Zephyr train to Truckee yesterday, & we got bumped up to first class, where we drank mimosas & practiced our tunes. Song no. VIa from The Manna Sustains: "Who are you, Elle Mary?", solo railway rehearsal:


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I'm sorry, I botched a key word in the lyrics, 'gutter' should be 'trucker.' Here are the lyrics & chords tho, to this short song:

Who are you, Elle Mary?

C

F F7 C
Who are you, Elle Mary?
F F7 D/F# G
How far have you followed me?
amin C/E F D/F#
My surprise at your disguise.
C/G G
A trucker whore or so much more?

Bb F C
Ooo- - -

We will start premiering The Manna Sustains at some point, hopefully soon!