Guaranteed Laugh!

Thanks and apologies to my friend The Tomahawk Kid for shamelessly lifting this hilarious clip straight from his blog.

 

 

Clipping

Read and post comments |
Send to a friend

The Moothie

 

Lewinskylogo

Some things are always with us. I first learned a tune on the 'moothie' when I was about three years old and it was an ever present in my toybox when I was a kid. My dad would teach me little tunes which ranged from nursery rhymes to Ulster folk tunes (!).

 

Then for many years I didn't play it at all although when I joined a band in my teens playing guitar and singing I'd stick a harmonica in a rack and play All Along the Watchtower and Knockin' on Heaven's door in true sook blaw Dylan style.

 

Many years passed and I almost forgot about the wee instrument. Then in my early 30's I bought a couple of harmonicas and began to practice again. I decided to learn how to play blues properly, auditioned and before I knew it I was back playing and singing live in a band after a break of about 14 years. Years later I'm still managing to get away with it!

 

The Song of the Mouth Organ – Robert Service (Abridged - The full text is HERE )

 

 

I'm a homely little bit of tin and bone;

I'm beloved by the Legion of the Lost;

I haven't got a "vox humana" tone,

And a dime or two will satisfy my cost.

I don't attempt your high-falutin' flights;

I am more or less uncertain on the key;

But I tell you, boys, there's lots and lots of nights

When you've taken mighty comfort out of me

 

I weigh an ounce or two, and I'm so small

You can pack me in the pocket of your vest;

And when at night so wearily you crawl

Into your bunk and stretch your limbs to rest,

You take me out and play me soft and low,

The simple songs that trouble your heartstrings;

The tunes you used to fancy long ago,

Before you made a rotten mess of things.

 

I'm the Steinway of strange mischief and mischance;

I'm the Stradivarius of blank defeat;

In the down-world, when the devil leads the dance,

I am simply and symbolically meet;

I'm the irrepressive spirit of mankind;

I'm the small boy playing knuckle down with Death;

At the end of all things known, where God's rubbish-heap is thrown,

I shrill impudent triumph at a breath.

I'm a humble little bit of tin and horn;

I'm a byword, I'm a plaything, I'm a jest;

The virtuoso looks on me with scorn;

But there's times when I am better than the best.

Ask the stoker and the sailor of the sea;

Ask the mucker and the hewer of the pine;

Ask the herder of the plain, ask the gleaner of the grain —

There's a lowly, loving kingdom — and it's mine.

 

 

 

The soundclip here is of Radio Scotland presenters Jim Spence and Robbie Shepherd along with myself at the BBC Christmas Scotland Christmas Lunch a couple of years ago. Possibly the first and only time Scotland the Brave and Stone Fox Chase have been made in to a medley!

 

 

Harmonica Christmas

Rab

Read and post comments |
Send to a friend