Thing a Week 31 – Just as Long as Me

Very nice. Nicely varied; I'm still impressed you've been able to do this much for the Thing a Week.

Now if I could just figure out why iTunes isn't putting your stuff in my Library...

How long have you been playing mandolin, dude? I'm impressed.

Hilarious! It made me lough out loud in school, with headphones on, right in front of my teacher.

Before he passed away, my grandpa told me to marry a girl who was just as tall as myself, so that I wouldn't have to adjust the driver's seat everytime she drove me car. My relatively short grandma was not amusted.

I got within two inches, and I think he approved (it may have been the day she kissed him on the forehead and he got a direct view into her cleavage), but I still have to adjust the car seat.

Reminds me of something that happened way back in high school Spanish, The teacher was going around asking students to make a statement about a classmate, and one, referring to a rather tall student, said "Juan es muy largo." [John is very long.] He was asked how he came to know such a thing...

A bit late, but I couldn't resist today doing a mix of the Ikea song with the Viking Kittens video (http://www.vikingkittens.com/)

Here's the results... www.orst.edu/~holtt/viking_kittens_ikea_immigrants.wmv

"Left alone with big fat Fanny
She was such a naughty nanny
Heap big woman you made a bad boy out of me"

I hate when I do that. But sometimes I say, "sod it," and keep the song, anyway. Nice banjos, as always. Special thanks to Tim, who gives us the milk-out-your-nose moment of the evening.

I'm still on the road trip (in MD, now). I've learned something these past 1100 miles: my iPod no like you. I put it on shuffle, and 300+ songs later, it's given me See You All in Hell and Resolutions. JUST as I was pulling into my destination at the end of today's driving, I FINALLY got Someone is Crazy. Maybe these last 200 miles will be kinder in their random selection. Or, maybe my iPod is all youed out, since I had your entire catalogue (yes, I have every song, I'm a geek) on shuffle from Red Bank to Newark, Newark to Miami, and Miami to Boca Raton.

Take care this week, and some week, write me a song about taking a road trip all alone. I'd give you more details, but I don't want to hinder your creative process.

Cheers,
Eric

As one whose longtime girlfriend is a foot shorter than I am, this song made me weep...

I wish I still played the fiddle now...

I know a fiddler who lives in Park Slope
Ask her to play and she won't say nope
She's from Nashville, T-N, where the grass is blue,
So just say the word,
I'll move quick like a bird,
And put her in touch with you. And Liz knows her too.

My Opry-fan wife says you "fake the bluegrass" quite well, thank you.

Yes!! Just as long as she is just as long as me!! GENIUS!!

-Max (who is also a lyricist and thinks you rock)

Don't know what I did for musical entertainment before I found your site! Great stuff here. I agree, a fiddle would add a lot, but I love it just the same. Had to listen to it twice it was so good.

Man.... That's a tall tale. Good stuff that!

>Eric: I know the feeling you're talking about. (And yes, keep the song!) As it happens, though, Queen wasn't the first:

"I remember when I was a lad
Times were hard and things were bad
But there's a silver linin' behind ev'ry cloud
Just four people that 's all we were
Tryin' to make a livin' out of black-land dirt
But we'd get together in a family circle singin' loud..."

And I doubt that Carl Perkins originated that verse tune either. I'm fairly sure that if we looked really hard we'd find it in some old, old hymnal. Those notes appear to be an entrenched Part Of The Literature. (Which is why I was kinda fuddled to hear Queen using a revival-hymn idiom to sing about "Fat-Bottomed Girls." Talk about incongruity.)

But Perkins, Queen, and JC each have their own take on the tune, and add their own chorus (they all probably said "sod it" and kept the song). JC may be "fakin' the bluegrass," but at least he's drawing from a recognized well.

Aha! Found it:

I once was lost in sin
But Jesus took me in
And then a little light from heaven filled my soul
He bathed my heart in love
And wrote my name above
And just a little talk with Jesus made me whole

Okay, so it's "old" in terms of decades, not centuries. But folk and country both have a history of swapping tunes and building on them--for example, "Great Speckled Bird"/"Wild Side of Life" and "Poor Wayfaring Stranger"/"Julianne," and the tavern ditty "To Anacreon in Heaven," of which you've doubtless sung the tune at many a ball game.

I think the link is down.

Love your music.

Oops. Fixed now...

I agree with IQpierce. The link isn't working :( I am saddened this was such a good song and now I can't play it. Please work on it, or tell me something is wrong with my computer. I'm sorry to complain but the music is soo good and I am addicted. Now I can't hear it.

Hey! Fixed one link, broke another. Now they should all work.

Jonathan you work continues to impress me. Loved the song. If you didn't know there is a website that goes quite well with your song.

The Tall Street Journal is a social networking site for tall people. I'll see if I can divert some of their members over here to listen to your songs.

Keep up the great work!

Ha ha ha. Very nice. Too bad that kids video doesn't work anymore. I always hear Leo Laporte talking about Johnathan Coultons songs, great to hear about a "tall" song. TheTallStreetJournal.com members have definitely been informed now.