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The Mariner’s Revenge Song

/ Shane / Leave a comment

“The Mariner’s Revenge Song” by The Decemberists

If that’s not the most awesome song you’ve ever heard, I don’t know what to tell you. This is the first Decemberists song I’ve ever actually heard, though I’ve heard of them before. It’s got everything: chilling lyrics and vocals, a steady accordion beat, and though it doesn’t feature pirates per say, it involves mariners swallowed by a whale.

The lyrics are reproduced below:

We are two mariners
Our ships’ sole survivors
In this belly of a whale

Its ribs our ceiling beams
Its guts our carpeting
I guess we have some time to kill

You may not remember me
I was a child of three
And you, a lad of eighteen

But I remember you
And I will relate to you
How our histories interweave

At the time you were a rake and a roustabout
Spending all your money on the whores and hounds
Ohhhhh Oh

You had a charming air
All cheap and debonair
My widowed mother found so sweet

And so she took you in
Her sheets still warm with him
Now filled with filth and foul disease

As time wore on you proved a debt-ridden drunken mess
Leaving my mother a poor consumptive wretch
Ohhhhh Oh

And then you disappeared
Your gambling arrears
The only thing you left behind

And then the magistrate
Reclaimed our small estate
And my poor mother lost her mind

Then one day, in spring my dear sweet mother died
But before she did I took her hand as she, dying, cried:
Ohhhhh Oh

“Find him, bind him
Tie him to a pole and break
His fingers to splinters
Drag him to a hole until he
Wakes up naked
Clawing at the ceiling
Of his grave”

It took me fifteen years
To swallow all my tears
Among the urchins in the street

Until a priory
Took pity and hired me
To keep their vestry nice and neat

But never once in the employ of these holy men
Did I ever, once, turn my mind from the thought of revenge
Ohhhhh Oh

One night I overheard
The prior exchanging words
With a penitent whaler from the sea

The captain of his ship
Who matched you toe to tip
Was known for a wanton cruelty

The following day I shipped to sea with a privateer
And in the whistle of the wind I could almost hear…
Ohhhhh Oh

“Find him, bind him
Tie him to a pole and break
His fingers to splinters
Drag him to a hole until he
Wakes up naked
Clawing at the ceiling
Of his grave

“There is one thing I must say to you
As you sail across the sea
Always, your mother will watch over you
As you avenge this wicked deed”

And then that fateful night
We had you in our sight
After twenty months at sea

Your starboard flank abeam
I was getting my muskets clean
When came this rumbling from beneath

The ocean shook the sky went black and the captain quailed
And before us grew the angry jaws of a giant whale

oh ohhhhhhhhhh
[screaming]
ohhhhh
[screaming]

Don’t know how I survived
The crew all was chewed alive
I must have slipped between his teeth

But, oh! What providence!
What divine intelligence!
That you should survive as well as me

It gives my heart great joy to see your eyes fill with fear
So lean in close and I will whisper the last words you’ll hear
Ohhhhh Ohh

Harry Baals Memorial Building looking like a long shot

/ Shane / 3 Comments

Well folks, it looks like it’s not going to happen.

Fort Wayne’s new government center is NOT going to be named after one of the most prominent, important, and longest-tenured government officials the city has ever known. I’m speaking, of course, of 4 term mayor Harry Baals.

First off, don’t open your Internet poll to write-ins if you don’t intend to honor the winner. The Harry Baals Government Center has more than 3 times as many votes as its nearest competitor. And it’s not like people were writing in Superman or something, Harry Baals is a legitimate, historical, government figure in Fort Wayne. I think the city should have to honor the poll. The man died in office, can’t you give him one building?

City officials said the name is embarrassing, and they “probably” won’t use it. So you’re saying there’s a chance!

I like how it mentions his descendants changed the pronunciation of the name from “Balls” to “Bales”. They all got together and decided, “We must make sure nobody can ever name their kid Harry Baals again!”

Link via Nate “Bacon” Halbach.

Even Jimmy Kimmel weighed in on this important issue:

Ollie Ollie Ollie get your adverbs here

/ Shane / 1 Comment

Oliver has been a busy boy lately!

When we last saw our hero, he was just starting to pull himself up to stand. Once he figured this out, he doesn’t want to do anything else. Stand, sit, stand, sit, all day long. He hasn’t completely mastered it yet, specifically the drop onto the padded diaper to avoid injury, so he has had a little up-tick in the number of minor bumps and bruises. He’s even starting to try and climb up on things now, specifically his favorite standing place, the dishwasher. He did figure out that he can get into more mischief after all, especially grabbing all the dirty dishes out and generally making a food mess.

The most exciting part is that Oliver might have his first word! He has learned to say, “Ba!” for ball. He says other things, like “ma ma” and “da da” but there’s no connections between those things and the object they represent. If you hold out a ball to him and say, “Oliver, what is this?” he (usually) says “ba!”.

As far as signs go, he hasn’t really caught on to those yet. He’ll give high 5’s, and sometimes will sort of lift his arms for “So big!”. He kind of pounds his hand for “more”, but he pounds his hands other times too. We’re trying hard for more, all done, bath, and bye-bye. He always seems to be on the verge of getting it, but not quite there.

His teeth on the top and bottom seem to be pretty close. His teeth on the bottom in particular seem like they’re going to be through any day now.

With all this great new stuff going on with him, and just how interactive he is (almost like a real person!) I think to myself, “This is a such a great age!” And then other times I don’t think that.

Oliver has more or less stopped sleeping at night. This is not at all unusual at this age; there’s just so much going on. He wants to be awake and exploring, not wasting his time sleeping. At least this time around I know it is limited. We just need to make it through this period until he goes back to normal. But that doesn’t make me less tired! Lucky for me (and unlucky for Sara) there’s mostly not a lot I can do. At this point, only mama will do. I’m usually good for getting him to sleep once per night, other than that I can pretty much just hold him while he sobs until Sara gives up and takes him back. He is not happy to see me at night, no siree. So sometimes Sara tells me to go sleep on the couch for a few hours so I don’t fall asleep and die on my way home from work.

I still think the positives outweigh the negatives. This is, in fact, a really fun age and I’m trying to make sure I appreciate it!

Note, for the explanation of the title of this post, see this video:

What does she put in those desserts??

/ Shane / 1 Comment

This is Evie trying to eat the last of Grandma S’s Christmas-present desserts. Needless to say, it was delicious and addicting. She couldn’t keep her eyes open, but she couldn’t stop eating either! She’s a trooper though. Just. One. More. Bite.

Lonely Avenue

/ Shane / 2 Comments

Ben Folds just released a new album, Lonely Avenue.

The thing that makes this album interesting, is that all of the lyrics were written by British novelist Nick Hornby. I can’t imagine how difficult it must be to write music for someone else’s words. I mean, obviously people do it all the time, and I can’t even imagine how difficult it must be to write music at all, even to your own words. But Ben Folds has always written his own lyrics, so it must have been a challenge.

So the lyrics are very story oriented, but Ben’s own style is very much storytelling anyway. So it probably wasn’t too much of a switch for him. That being said, having a literary writer definitely gives the songs a little something different. All in all, I thoroughly enjoy the album (thanks Anna for lending it to me!), and I like it better than the previous one (Way to Normal).

So, here are my 5 favorite songs on the CD, in reverse order:

5) Levi Johnston’s Blues – I’m willing to bet this is the #1 song in America about Levi Johnston (of Bristol Palin’s baby-daddy fame). Basically it’s just about how he was a regular 18 year old dude one minute, and the next minute was the focus of an entire presidential campaign (at least for a little while).

The lyric: I’m a f—–‘ redneck, I live to hang out with the boys / Play some hockey, do some fishin’ and kill some moose / I like to shoot the shit and do some chillin’ I guess / You f— with me and I’ll kick your ass*

*This entire chorus was taken wholesale from Levi’s MySpace page before it was sanitized by the political machine.

4) Claire’s Ninth – All Claire wants for her 9th birthday is for her divorced parents to get together and take her out for dinner. This song is flat out amazing. It somehow manages to capture both the sarcasm and embarrassment of being a pre-teen, and also the feelings of the parents: sort of a strange mix of regret over what happened and how it affects their daughter, but at the same time sort of oblivious to how they’re hurting her.

The lyric: Or what we were, you’re all that’s left / It used to be our birthday too

3) Belinda – This is a song about a singer who wrote a love song which became his biggest hit, the song he will be forever known for. The problem is, 40 years later, he’s not with the girl anymore and he’s forced to sing the song over and over, night after night. I wonder if this one rung especially true for Ben Folds, who’s written a love song or two over the course of his 4 marriages.

The lyric: There’s a lot of 40-somethings wouldn’t be in the world without it

2) Saskia Hamilton – The entire song is based on falling in love with the name of poet Saskia Hamilton. Seriously. The entire song is just about her name. Aside from being very catchy, the video is pretty awesome too. From what I understand, Ben Folds just contacted some dude who made cool youtube videos and asked him to make a video for the song. It turned out fantastic. The entire thing is filmed in the guy’s bedroom. This had me screaming, “Saskia Hamilton!” at odd times for at least a week.

The lyric: She’s got more assonance than she knows what to do with

1) From Above – The premise is that soul mates do exist, and we walk by ours every day without ever noticing. The song follows two such people through their lives. I liked this song immediately, but it wasn’t my favorite at first. However, after hearing a few times, the lyrics are so poignant, and the music fits them perfectly. How sad to think that each person has a perfect second half, and the vast majority of everyone will never even meet them.

The lyric: Maybe that’s how books get written / Maybe that’s why songs get sung / Maybe we owe the unlucky ones