Goodnight Irene

from Other People's Songs by Michael Bass

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When I was a young whippersnapper I loved The Art Ensemble of Chicago. What I especially liked was that they brought humor to their music. So much avant-garde music has no humor and is presented with such a straight face. Take it or leave it. It makes me ant to run away. But ot the Art Ensemble, and Lester Bowie, the trumpeter, was my favorite, showing up in a lab coat and making the most amazing sounds come out of his trumpet. The group expanded my ideas of what could be music.

This is my take of the Art Ensemble doing Goodnight Irene, the American classic by Leadbelly. Written in prison. Sung in elementary school. Great tune but did anyone ever listen to all of the lyrics?

Like this verse,

"Sometimes I live in the city
Sometimes I live in the town
Sometimes I have a great notion
To jump in the river and drown."

Or maybe the verse about taking morphine and dying? I guess we left those verses out in school. Now I think it's a great song because of those verses but what do I know.

There's also a couple of other American classic buried in the mix. "You Are My Sunshine" is one of those cheery songs about being alone and miserable - "when I awoke dear, I was mistaken, So I hung my head and cried." Sunshine, indeed. And I snuck in a Stephen Foster song. I love his music and think he was one of the first "American" composers but his lyrics are so racist and misogynistic, that his music is unusable, except as a comment. Goodnight, Stephen.

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from Other People's Songs, released September 15, 2022

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Michael Bass Maryland

Like Waldo, PD Pop has been hiding in plain sight for the last 45 years. With the help of Michael Bass, he comes out of the basement and on to Bandcamp, skipping several generations of recording technology in the process.

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