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Dark Was The Night, Illuminated

Seattle-area MeFite y2karl outdoes himself with a comprehensive dissertation and linkfest concerning Dark Was The Night–Cold Was The Ground as performed by Blind Willie Johnson and later adapted as the main musical theme for the Wim Wenders film Paris, Texas, by Ry Cooder.

Among other things, Karl points to a source who notes that the song is based on a hymn first published in 1792, and that elements of Blind Willie Johnson’s singing style are drawn from an ancient praise-song technique known as precenting the line, which apparently remains in use in certain remote areas of Scotland and the American South.

A truly remarkable post.

Posted on by mwhybark

Airfoil

Airfoil is a $25 piece of software that allows you to redirect any audio source, not simply iTunes’ output, to your AirPort Express’ audio-out port.

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Wrong number

As expected, today’s Apple fooraw generated a big yawn from me. Another iPod! Imagine that! Whoop-de-doo!

And a phone with iTunes but no other Apple-designed user-interface features, except, I guess, the ability to synch contacts with Outlook. Which, one supposes, bemuses the Mac-owning folks out there that have been using Address Book over Outlook lo, these many years. The most interesting thing about this announcement is the fact that Apple bent enough to let Cingular advertise iTunes with the Cingular font in that orange box:

Itunes Mobile Images Indexitunescingular20050907-1

Which, I suppose, lends credence to the rumors that the phones release was delayed because Apple was fighting with the labels about licensing and pricing – Cingular would be in a better negotiating position regarding branding issues the longer Apple had to delay launching, I would think.

Ah, what do I know?

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Wash day

Taking a break from doing laundry, I noticed that one P. J. Murhpy of Wexford, Ireland had posted his chord transcription for Lousiana, 1927. I can finally scratch an itch I have had for several days.

I wonder if Mr. Murphy is any relation to celebrated Father Murphy of song and story?

At New Orleans as the storm was passing

Oe’r drying streets of an emptied town

Fed’ral neglect sent the waters crashing

and brought the choppers from far and near

Then Mayor Nagin of the Old Ninth Ward

Broke down in tears with a warning cry

“Goddamn I’m pissed” came the raging curses

And stunned the nation from shore to shore.



Huh, that was too damn easy. I suppose I should point out that the link above is to Boulavogue, a song which celebrates the Irish Rebellion of 1798, and that the doggerel immediately preceding this paragraph is, I suppose, a filk version. Here are some lines from the traditional version that are of interest:

Look out for hirelings, King George of England,

Search ev’ry kingdom where breathes a slave,

For Father Murphy of the County Wexford

Sweeps o’er the land like a mighty wave.

…

Ah, Father Murphy, had aid come over

The green flag floated from shore to shore!

I’ve played Boulavogue for six or seven years, and to my embarrassment have never really looked into the history of the events recounted. Reading through the Wikipedia link, I note with interest that the heart of the rebellion’s threat to the Crown was the “unprecedented ‘unholy union'” of Irish Presbyterians and Catholics, common cause across cultural and class barriers to resist and roll back the power of King George. Of further interest is the record of two landings in Ireland by French forces. In the United States, the primary locale where French and Irish culture have rubbed up against one another for generations is clearly New Orleans.

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A Miscellany

ITEM: Both Matt and Bart have updates. The Royal Pendletons are playing a gig this evening in Memphis, which seems a perfectly sensible way to deal with the fate of the band’s city. Bart and company are safely ensconced in a rainy Bloomington.

ITEM: Having nothing at all to do with the topic du jour, high school co-conspirator and Gulf War One Navy vet Wes Burton called me tonight to let me know that other high school co-conspirator Therron Thomas has gotten word that he’s being deployed to Iraq. Therron’s a 20-year full-timer in the National Guard, devoting most of his time to work as a training sergeant, so while he might prefer that things were otherwise, I’m certain he’ll be as well prepared for his tour as anyone possibly can be. Wes and I will be working together on some care packages for the Sergeant and his men.

ITEM: Returning to the knee-deep topic at hand, I hadn’t been able to mention that that Times-Picayune blog has some really quite wonderful writing, if occasionally, um, overboard. I was savoring one particular piece, about a boat tour of a flooded neighborhood, when an interesting recycling of Thomas Pynchon actually caused me to burst out laughing, probably not an intended reaction.

And then a screaming came across the water. To his right, Parks saw a woman gesticulating wildly from a second floor balcony at her home. Parks, a captain of sport fishing boats and offshore supply vessels who works out of Gulfport, Miss., navigated closer.

ITEM: I have a persistent case of half-remembered songs about New Orleans rising in concert with the waters, lapping at the sandbags of my mind. Under it all runs a funereal, no lyrics, brass-band version of St. James Infirmary. Up front, Tom Waits (I Wish I Was in New Orleans) and Randy Newman (Lousiana 1927) are duking it out for time at the piano, elaborately filigreed chords overlapping and changing the dominant lyric at the moment of harmonic convergence, while in the background Arlo Guthrie (The City of New Orleans) warbles about a train ride. Professor Longhair and/or The Dixie Cups (Big Chief, Iko Iko) sort of amusedly fight to keep sliptime with the martial drums from Jimmy Driftwood’s The Battle of New Orleans (caution: embedded quicktime) behind the whole toxic soup of sonic residue. I’m sure the stew will grow more dense over the next couple weeks.

ITEM: Will someone please draft a note to the TV people that the omnious martial symphony crap is the wrongest music possible for a Gulf Coast hurricane and flood? See above.

ITEM: Finally for the night, I wanted to mention that I won’t be able to follow the course of the flood as closely as I have been due to some time commitments tomorrow that will likely carry through until Sunday, probably far enough in the future that much of the uncertainty surrounding events in the Crescent City will be resolved.

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Phantom power

Grumblebee opens pandora’s mbox on AskMe, with informative results. His mbox gets shutdown by WinXP as overly powerhungry when he engages a phantom-powered mike. The solution is NOT to add a powered hub, but rather, to add an inline phantom power source.

I mean, obviously. Even if I didn’t think of it.