This morning, as I began working on today’s post, I started by first pawing through my extensive media archive, eighteen years’ worth. Below, I quickly found the lyrics from the old negro spiritual, Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, inscribed upon a plank of rough-cut wood. It is from the STL Jazz Museum. That discovery and today beginning Black History month was all that it took.
Swing Low Sweet Chariot Lyrics
The Slammer painting pictured below, has always been one of my favorites and it is usually on display. I added the King Tut chariot picture, not that it is strictly biblical, but because it is a more arresting image than faded lyrics. And of course, the Soundcloud rendition of the song, to get this month swinging.
There is a game that I play at this time of year called the Little Dummer Boy Challenge. The object of this game is to not hear the Christmas song by the same name, between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I am honor bound to tell you that this year I lost. Over the last few seasons, I have been doing pretty well, but this year I failed hard. It is a stupid game. The song is really not that bad. True the little drummer boy is a mythical character inserted into a religious story of great significance, but so what. Anyway, there is always next year. I’ll just have to husband what hipster mojo that I can muster until then.
Zooming Reggie Sisters, about all things cabin related—Lunch at Barrio, with a mountain of onion rings. The DeMun neighborhood is now a historic district—Walked through the desolation that is Kennedy Forest. So many downed trees, still waiting to be cleaned up after the tornado—The Slammer is in transition this week. Summer shows have been taken down, Fall shows still in preparation. Sunday is family day at the art museum. Lots of costumes, music and dancing.
The original lyrics were written in 1915 by Howard Johnson and the song is titled Mother: It turns out that Howard Johnson also wrote, “I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Ice Cream”.
M Is for the Many things she gave me, O Means only that she’s growing Old. T Is for the Tears she shed to save me, H Is for her Heart of purest gold. E Is for her Eyes with love light shining, R Means Right and Right she’ll always be.
Put them all together, They spell MOTHER
A word that means the world to me.
The picture with this post is of some flowers for Mother.
This is a repost of a post that was written several years ago. It was written for my mother, but also for my mother-in-law. My mother had passed away, and now recently, so has my mother-in-law. Actually, Gene, my mother-in-law really owns this post. Her three lovely daughters grew up singing this song to her, much to her chagrin. Maybe this parody of the Mother song that I found on the internet, is closer to what she hears when the original lyrics are sung:
M is for the many things she gave me O is for the other things she gave me T is for the things she gave me H is for her things, which she gave me E is for everything she gave me R is for the rest of the things she gave me
Anne asked me not to originally post this post for fear of the pain that it might cause her mother. I only heard her childhood guilt speaking. In truth it is I who should feel guilty, because it is my naked ambition that drives this post. My informed readers might ask, how is this different? Since, ’09 this post has been a gold mine of blog hits. Every April it begins. In May, it begins to crest and come Sunday, interest will peak and then crash. That is why now is when I should act. I just did a google search looking for the author of this song. I typed in, “M is for the many things she gave me lyrics” and RegenAxe is the number one website returned. I feel lucky. Thank you, Mother.
To all of the forlorn sons and daughters that have found the previous post, the poem MOTHER is in the public domain. It is an old troupe, much copied, but it is free to use. If you are emailing your mom, I cannot compete with the simple cut and paste. If you are willing to go the extra mile, I offer this advice. Say, “I love you Mom.” Praise her. Say she looks nice, say she said something interesting. Tell her something you did that would make her proud. This last is the toughest, but is the one that will make her the happiest on Mother’s Day.
Joanie and Anne are subscribers to the Dance Saint Louis series. At the end of the season, they each get a free ticket. Last night, Anne invited me. Using her extra ticket, Joanie invited Elieen, one of her and Anne’s Friday knitting friends. The show was by Memphis’s Collage Dance Collective, but before the show there was dinner at the Olympia. We of course shared saganaki, “Opa!”
Opa!
Collage Dance Collective performed three dances. The first, Rise, features a voiceover of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. giving his final speech, his I’ve Been to the Mountaintop speech that he gave the day before his murder in Memphis. The sight of these young people silently dancing to his stirring and prophetic words made for a powerful and moving combination that lifted my soul.
Enemy Behind the Gates is part of a larger work, Their Eyes Were Watching God and is inspired by the life of Janie Crawford, who defied societal expectations in the 1930s South to pursue true love. Its title is derived from an African proverb, “When there are no enemies within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you.”
The last dance, Bluff City Blues is pure Beale Street. Set to the music of Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Bobby “Blue” Bland and Koko Taylor it was a toe-tapping delight and guaranteed to pitch a wang dang doodle all night long. Afterwards, I was hoping for an encore, but this was ballet, and they do not do that stuff there.
