small steps

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New shoes arrived yesterday. Sarah wrote a nice note and put it with the box on top of my office chair, as I was sleeping when she found it. I took my walk wearing them last night, and they rubbed me pretty hard by my heel strings. This morning I put Band-Aids™ on to lessen the friction.

That's how it goes, isn't it? The things we look forward to so keenly end up biting us in the heels.
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S1K - 019 to 025 — now with expository info in italics! [13 songs]

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In which I continue my traversal of The Book of a Thousand Songs [Wier, 1918]

p 19: "Angel Gabriel" [J.E. Stewart], "A, B, C, Tumble Down D" [no credits].
The latter is a puddin' and the former is a fake. "Angel G" is a 'gwine' song with a credited writer, so it would seem to have been intended for a minstrel show or perhaps a book of sentimental songs of the south. Dotted rhythms, but very little syncopation.
"ABC" is in 6/8, which isn't the way I heard it on a kiddie LP we had in the house when I was a kiddie. I recall thinking it was the stupidest thing I'd ever heard, but I guess I hadn't heard a lot of things at that time, because it's been topped repeatedly since then. Is this the first song in the book that has no writer credited at all? It's far from the last. A perfunctory Google offers no hints.

p 20: "Afterwards" [Mary Mark Lemon, J.W. Mullen].
Unless otherwise noted, the lyricist's name precedes the composer's.
A sentimental song with nothing that strikes me as remarkable in the lyrics. The arrangement, which I expect reflects the composer's work, though it adheres to the general rule of the book in having no chord thicker than three notes in either hand, varies the figures used and seems to be competent and craftsmanlike, if not stunning.

p. 21: "Ave Maria" [Bach-Gounod], "Ah, 'Tis a Dream" [E. Lassen].
Bach's most famous prelude, the first from Book 1 of "The Well-Tempered Clavier," was used by Charles Gounod (best known for his opera "Faust" and for "Funeral March of a Marionette," which was used as the theme for Alfred Hitchcock's TV show) as an accompaniment to the melody of an Ave Maria. The view that this was a wonderful achievement is undercut by George Bernard Shaw's claim that all Gounod did was pull out the underlying harmony Bach put in. Still, it's popular to this day in all sorts of arrangements. This one leaves out the Bach prelude completely and gives a choral setting (SATB) of the Gounod part. You could play this and have a friend play the Bach on another keyboard, but you'll have to transpose the prelude up to G to match the key, and be sure and use the version of the prelude with the extra measure Schwenke inserted, which is most of the versions you'd have found before modern scholarship started asserting itself on the matter.
Lassen's song is a nostalgic wish for home, written in 9/8 with some duplets for emphasis. Wier let this one go on for three verses. Maybe he liked it.

( pages 22-5 behind the jump )

Also posted to the New Pals Club Web-Log
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closure

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ANNIE WARBUCKS

"Daddy" made me feel loved and welcome.
He even got rid of that wife of his
Who acted like I was some sort of trophy;
A proof of her virtue. She was soon gone.
In her place, the lethal Asp and towering Punjab,
And Sandy. Always loyal, wonderful Sandy.
I would see "Daddy" mostly when he came in,
Guns blazing, fists flying, to save me
From the enemies of our country,
As well as from callous orphanages and cruel caretakers,
Just in time to sever them from success
And to protect this nation, and me, and Sandy,
And his own financial interests as well.
As days accreted into years, I wondered
Why my loving "Daddy" always ended up placing me
Back into those dark places where I had no protector
Save the good-hearted weak ones who folded like leaves
And sometimes a sympathetic gangster or mystic,
And I began to notice how my salvation and their demise
Solved at once some pressing business problem of "Daddy"'s
Until, at last, I resolved to contrive a test for him;
A setting of peril for me without any hope of profit for him.
And lo! here I am, beneath this stone forever
As Sandy, faithful Sandy, watches over me
Crying helplessly at the cold white eye of the moon.

from Toon River Anthology (part 3)

technical question

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I've tried "cellpadding" and "padding" and all sorts of syntax, but I can't seem to keep the text from clinging, limpetlike, to the songbook graphic. I would welcome a useful tip on how to accomplish this. Thank you.
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