One of our smallest jams in a long time. Maybe too much Thanksgiving or Black Friday. Diehards Bill, Dan, Jen, Ken, Wendy Sue, Anne, Sally, PJ, and myself came tonight to sing about FOOD or play music by bands named for a food.

We started off with what has become our usual format of playing Side by Side. We had a lengthy discussion about the ending. Should the second to last chord [C] be strummed for 4 beats, 3 beats, 2 or 1? I voted for 1 (and play it that way on my own) but I think the consensus was 2 or 3. Either way, it’s a fun warm-up number and a good way to signal that we're ready to get things under way and cut the chatter.

We watched a YouTube video of a talented fellow playing Roy Smeck’s Magic Ukulele Waltz. Quite entertaining.

The first 4 songs came from me (Arlene):

That’s Amore always makes me think of Perry Como who we watched every Saturday night when I was a little girl. Ken discussed the technique for playing the tremolo at the beginning. This was an easy one and Bill said it was a lot of fun. Add to set list.

Next we did Frim Fram Sauce written in 1945. Covered by many but made popular by Nat King Cole. It’s really a novelty song with several made up words but again fairly easy and enjoyed by all. Good for a laugh. Ken noticed that the chords sounded very similar to Shimmy Like My Sister Kate.

The next was a parody of Folsom Prison Blues called The Atkins Diet. Jen thought it was fun.

My fourth offering was a mess at the end: Cheeseburger In Paradise. Oh well, we tried.

Continuing with the ground beef theme, Wendy Sue gave us Meat Loaf’s Paradise By The Dashboard Light. The story line is quite interesting. From Wikipedia:

1. The song opens with the characters reminiscing about days as a young high school couple on a date. They are parking by a lake and having fun, experiencing "paradise by the dashboard light", until the male character insists they're "gonna go all the way tonight.

2. His pushing the matter is mirrored by New York Yankees announcer Phil Rizzuto broadcasting a portion of a baseball game that serves as a metaphor for his attempts to achieve his goal, accompanied by funk instrumentation and the two characters talking in the two individual left and right channels.

3. Just as the boy is about to score (via the suicide squeeze), the girl bursts out telling him to "Stop right there!" She refuses to go any further unless the boy first promises to love her forever and marry her. Reluctant to make such a long-term commitment, the boy repeatedly asks her to continue on for the time being and promises to give his answer in the morning.

4. Back in the present, the male character can no longer stand the woman's presence. As the man cannot possibly break his vow and hence is now praying for the end of time to relieve him from his obligation.

It turned out better than I expected. Ken and Dan knew it best. Once again the Phil Rizzuto narration performed by Dan’s deep voice and dramatic reading lent color to the piece. This song was one of the longest songs released on a 45 RPM record. Somewhere along the way Bill sang out “THIS IS THE SONG THAT NEVER ENDS.” I was eager for the end as well. Meatloaf originally planned for the song to be 27 minutes long.

After all this drama we went on to The Good Ship Lollipop. Not a chord sheet but a play a long video with Ukulele Mike. I am not a fan of not seeing the next chord up so I didn’t love this one. But hey, that’s me.

Then we played Turkey In The Straw until we ran out of chords. Oh well.

Jen gave us Banana Pancakes which had some cool jazzy chords. We had to play with the video since most of us were not immediately familiar with the song. I think we all enjoyed this one a lot. Definitely list worthy.

Jen also gave us Jambalaya. A good one every time we’ve played it. Fun and also list worthy.

Dan gave us a 1970 Bread song called Make It With You. Pretty but few of us knew it well enough to sing a long so it was more or less a Dan solo.

Dan also gave us The Last Supper from the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar. We just did the Apostles part and it sounded good.

From PJ we did Roll Out Those Lazy Hazy Days of Summer. Fun

More ground beef from me in One Meatball. I was the only one who knew it but it presents a fairly simple and repetitive melody so it was easy to follow. All the F7’s sound fine with plain old F.

Next, Ken gave Sting’s Fields of Gold. Nice

Anne presented Billy Boy but alas, it was lacking chords after the first verse.

PJ had us play Albuquerque is a Turkey. Our second parody of the night. Sung to the tune of Clementine. Fun for the day after Thanksgiving.

Bill presented a very nice chord sheet for I’ve Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts. This was fun and here are his notes from Wikipedia:

"I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts" is a novelty song composed in 1944 (as "I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts") by Fred Heatherton, a songwriting pseudonym for a collaboration of English songwriters Harold Elton Box, Desmond Cox and Lewis Ilda.[1] The song was published by Box and Cox Publications(ASCAP).

The song celebrates the coconut shy (coconut toss) at funfairs, and the catchy chorus is the call of the showman "standing underneath the flare" (of gaslight), inviting the public to "Roll up, bowl a ball, a penny a pitch." (In American editions, the line is rendered instead as, "Roll or bowl a ball, a penny a pitch."[2]) The ball is tossed or bowled (as in cricket) or pitched at the coconuts, with the object of knocking one off its stand.

With time left over we did Honolulu which Gracie Allen sang in the movie of the same title while she fake played a ukulele.

Unable to narrow down the next theme since we were split between four choices we are going with all of them: Hanukkah, Xmas, The Rolling Stones, and Beach Songs (which we just did in May).

Until next time, you keep strumming,

-- Arlene.