Seasons of the Ukulele

A weekly song challenge for ukulele players - all welcome. Find out more here

Season 729 - Play Your Own Theme

AlanDP

Eddie Fisher had a hit with this song in 1955, it went to #7 so at least it made the top 10 for a while. He was the first to record it. Several others did it after that but none of the covers ever charted, so I guess Mr. Fisher caught lightning in a bottle with this one.

Joko

This afternoon at the KGI Ukulele club, I shared with them Joo's wonderful art and I wasn't surprised with which image they found the most compelling. We discussed the deep enmity between pig and chicken, the siginificance of the sweat dripping from the poultry's head (they decided it was spicy bacon) and came up with some lyrics given from the pig's point of view… Set to the tune of Knock Knock Knockin on Heaven's Door.

UkeCan1

As I hinted earlier, the first song I thought of for this week was inspired by #2 - "She Drives Me Crazy" by Fine Young Cannibals.

Which coincidentally is from their album "The Raw & the Cooked"!

So even though these two characters are not actually cannibals (which was my first thought), my instincts were spot on, since the image is of live ("raw") animals eating cooked versions of each other … and, as Joko astutely pointed out, it's pretty clear they drive each other crazy.

joo

Joko they decided it was spicy bacon

HAHAHAHAHAHA!

joo

HELLO EVERYONE!!!

I have finally caught up with all the entries!

ENJOYED EVERY ONE OF THEM!

Thanks guys!

Catch you all later!

Joko

Here in Myanmar, Joo's name is like currency! At least it's written on the currency.

I hope she doesn't mind a little image manipulation. Those eyeballs were just screaming for a little animation. When I did my own version of Eating Eggs Off My Plate, I figured I'd already broken the seal, so I played with the images a bit. The stark image of what my students called "a skeleton arguing with its own ghost about toilet paper" fit the fatal feel of the original lyrics to G-D-Am song.

Both songs are my first using a replacement for the Shure MV5 that rode off with my motorcycle. Recorded on an Elgato Wave-1, a sturdy feeling condenser USB microphone with dual channel power circuits that switch between high and low power which they say make it clipping-free! $110 in Burma

dr_mitch

I'm back - miss me? Not away long enough? Thought so.

Anyway, inspired by the first image, here's a cheeky little song.

Barbablanca

Hi Joo. I got the number wrong on the video!
So for Season 729 here is the first of three songs that I have written inspired by your artwork:

AlanDP

The first two songs I posted used "doll" as a figure of speech, but this song from 1931 is about a literal doll.

CanadaJim

Paper Doll - Johnny S. Black 1915

An old song that I learned from The Mills Brothers
This is from image #5 Joo. Hope you like it.

johnpoole

Hi Joo! Thanks for the clever theme. I ran Image 3 through my plant identification app " Botanical Discombubulator Identificator" on my ipad. To my surprise it came back as "Wild Mountain Thyme"…. I guess AI is never wrong 🙂

joo

Caught up with all the entries now! Thanks everyone!

See you tomorrow!

Barbablanca

Here is the second of the three. This one is in response to the Chicken and Pig drawing.

CanadaJim

WHERE DID ROBINSON CRUSOE GO WITH FRIDAY ON SATURDAY NIGHT?
Sam M. Lewis / Joe Young / George W. Meyer 1916
Learned from a friend, Catfish Willie

This is Willie before the turn of the century when he still had a full head of flaming red hair.

This was inspired by photo #1 - "On this island lived wild men in cannibal trimmin'"

DelGriff

Thanks for stepping in to host at such short notice, Joo - and even more so while you are on your travels! It’s very much appreciated! 🙂

I’m taking image 7 as my inspiration for this song - it’s one I’ve wanted to cover for a long time here, though I did it for the Zoom open mic group a month or two ago. The line “take a look at me now - there’s just an empty space” is surely something only a ghost could realistically say/sing, not that there’s anything realistic about ghosts imho! 😆

Baritone uke with some synth additions and vocal harmonies.

Against All Odds - cover of a Phil Collins song (SOTU 729)

joo

Hello again dear Seasonistas!

It is Friday here in Singapore. I just had breakfast and have caught up with all the entries. Lovely, wonderful, beautiful songs and performances. Thank you everyone!

I especially wanna give a shout out to Joko for animating the cartoons. I really enjoyed that!

Also, to Berni for his originals based on and inspired by the cartoons!

You guys are awesome. I love you all and hope you all have a great rest of the week!

I will check back again later this evening, Singapore time!

XXX

potmo

UkeCan1 Thank you so much! Did I make the twofer deadline? @joo I just wanted my video to be connected to my post, but Wendy also posted my song and it is the same version. Sorry for the confusion.

potmo

Piggies – The Beatles

So obviously I am picking the image with the pig and the bacon, and claim a special joofer (more than one image!)
because while the cannibalism theme isn't really there in the pig and chicken image, Image 1 certainly conveys that theme.

potmo

UkeCan1 Oh OK you were saying that the pig and chicken picture wasnt cannibalism, but surely image 1 works for that. At least I make that claim.

UkeCan1

potmo UkeCan1 Thank you so much! Did I make the twofer deadline? @joo I just wanted my video to be connected to my post, but Wendy also posted my song and it is the same version. Sorry for the confusion.

Yes, the song I posted after you made the twofer deadline, so that means yours did as well. I can delete your video from my post if you want, now that you've edited it into yours.

potmo UkeCan1 Oh OK you were saying that the pig and chicken picture wasnt cannibalism, but surely image 1 works for that. At least I make that claim.

Oh, thank you - I finally got why #1 signifies cannibalism - their heads are peanuts! I know John already explained it, but I still didn't see it until you repeated it just now. I'm a little slow sometimes!

I agree with both of you now that #1 is a better fit for Fine Young Cannibals! Nevertheless, my twisted brain thought of them when I saw #3, so that was my inspiration for "She Drives Me Crazy". Which is from an album I did not realize at the time that I thought of that song was called "The Raw & the Cooked" - and that DOES fit #3.

Anyway, I'm misinterpreting all these drawings, but never mind - it's like a Rorschach test, I guess! We see different things in the same image. Maybe my interpretations do indeed confirm that I am crazy, which may not surprise anyone.

My misinterpretation of #1 was that their heads were PICKLES … and so I went searching for a song about that, and found this amazing one with a great message, by the bands best known for "Tubthumping" ("I get knocked down, but I get up again").

Here's "Pickle" by Chumbawamba:

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