Molly Malone

This old folk song shows up a lot in the folk singer community, especially among Irish folk singers. But sometimes pop singers pull up an old folk tune and red-headed comedian Danny Kaye used to sing songs like Molly Malone in his movies and radio appearances. He had that lovely Irish tenor voice that set these songs perfectly.

I especially like poignant sweet melodies like this one. I think it probably inspired The Beatles song, Obla Di, Obla Da which also features a barrow wheeling daughter of fish-mongers. Danny Kaye movies are some of my favorites, but I love listening to him sing too. There's another Danny Kaye melody by his wife Sylvia Fine called Darlin Meggie.  I had to go to the Library of Congress to get that video. Enjoy these two beautiful songs.



Tom King

O'er the Misty Mountains Cold

 

Peter Hollens is an independent musician that has been responsible for some really amazing music in the past few years. He makes his money via donations on Patreon, one of the new independent artists who make music, write books and produce films without permission of the traditional gatekeepers like publishers, music companies and film studios. This selection's lyrics were originally written by JRR Tolkien in his book "The Hobbit" and the music has sort of evolved to sound like something dwarvish. over the years

Enjoy the music. I think Tolkien would have liked this version.

Tom

Ballin' the Jack

The first time I heard this song was in a Danny Kaye movie musical, "On the Riviera", but I think the definitive version is in the little known and highly under-appreciated Gene Wilder/Gilda Radner movie, "Haunted Honeymoon". It's a little dance number called "Ballin' the Jack". I don't know what that means, but Gilda Radner and Dom Deluise (in drag) demonstrate it if you want to see how it's done. Deluise was hilarious in this clip and Gilda kept up with him every step of the way.

If you haven't seen the movie, I highly recommend it. It's hilarious. Sheila and I watch it every Halloween. It's one of our favorites and it's become a holiday tradition. We also watch John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara in The Quiet Man every Saint Patrick's Day, Christopher Reeve and Roseanna Arquette in The Aviator every Thanksgiving and Albert Finney's fantastic musical version of Scrooge at Christmas. There are other holiday movies for other holidays that we watch, but I digress.

Here's Gilda and Dom with Ballin' the Jack.

Now didn't that look like all kinds of fun?

Tom

A Singing Frog

Okay, one of my favorite songs is sung by a banjo-playing puppet frog and I am not ashamed!  It's been done by other better singers like Kenny Loggins, Sarah McLachlan, Willie Nelson and Weezer, but my favorite by far is by Kermit the Frog as gently voiced by Jim Henson. A banjo playing frog singing on a lily pad in the middle of a swamp just appeals to me for some reason.

Here it is:

 

If you'd like to explore some other versions, here you are.  First up - Kenny Loggins:

Here's Sarah McLachlan's version:

And Willie Nelson's (next to Kermit, I like Willie's):

Here's Judy Collins' version:

Here's a version by (believe it or not) The Carpenters:

Here's Paul Williams. He wrote the original song. He gets all chatty before he sings it, but it's worth hearing if only to listen to the guy that wrote it.

And finally this sweet little version by Weezer and Hayley Williams

It's just a sweet little love song about yearning for peace and love and connectedness.  Seems a lot of people like that idea.

Tom KIng

Whip Crack Away!

When I was a young man I had a terrible crush on Doris Day. This song is from my favorite Doris Day musical - Calamity Jane. Now I know that Calamity Jane looked nothing like Doris Day and her relationship with Bill Hickok was more rumor than fact. Hickok, if you'll remember, died ignominiously at the card table, shot in the back of the head while holding two pair - aces and eights. Calam probably had a crush on Hickok though. She was buried next to him at the tender age of 51. She pretty much drank herself to death.

The musical, however, cleans up the story, saves the best bits and gives us some great scenes and terrific songs. This particular one always cheers me up.

Deadwood and its inhabitants were probably a pretty nasty group of hooligans. Doris and the gang make the place look like a downright Western version of Disneyland.  And I like it and I don't care what PC police might say about it.

Tom

...

Benson Arizona - Theme to Dark Star

Okay back to the odd we go. There was an odd little Sci-Fi movie made in 1974 during the pre Star Wars era by John Carpenter, who later made some really disturbing horror and sci-fi movies. This low-budget gem is a quirky mess, but the opening theme song is unique. It's a C&W space sailor's lament about a love lost to the theory of relativity.  He left home a few years back and left his girl behind. Now he's still a young man and back on Earth, she's an old lady and there's no going back. Meanwhile the crew of the spaceship Dark Star is going a little nuts blowing up planets and talking to their dead captain and a self-destructive bomb. I included a clip of the whole opening sequence. Best Sci-Fi Country Western song ever.

Weird I know.

Tom

I See the Light

I'm a sucker for Disney flicks. They're really the only really decent musicals still being made these days. As you may know, if you've followed this blog from the first, I am a strong proponent of life as a musical. I think we should just break out singing whenever the moment is right. I used to sing with my wife when we first started going together. I highly recommend it.

All that said, this is one of my favorite break-out-singing-about-your-true-love songs. It's particularly great because it's one of those duets you can sing at the top of your lungs and get all that emotion our and project it to the sky. Tangled is the wonderful retelling of the Rapunzel story with one of my favorite actors, Zach Levi, one of those rare openly Christian actors in Hollywood and star of one of my favorite TV series, Chuck.

This one makes me cry. It says what it was like when I finally met the love of my life.