Posted by seth (66.67.133.4) on September 19, 2002 at 05:41:41:
we shared an almost savant-like obession with this song. our longest conversations were nit picking the changes of lyrics between recordings of it. picking at each others brains like monkeys about miniscule facts, differences in the tuning of certain notes so stupidly small you'd have to be a hermunculi to see the difference limin.
consumate researcher.
he heard me hum it really early on about a month after we met. I think he hummed with me. I'm sure he realized that I was humming the cab calloway version, the tuning is real perticular, cause it felt like my hum only got louder in my mind, or my mind expanded into the room. he made my head explode alot. good for me, bad for the janitor at public access.
when I met him, I had already grown up with my mom and dad singing that song while they worked, and four years of music conservatory training trying to break the song down into digestible theory-bits. he taught me more about it than anyone. he didn't want anyone to know that he breathed that music.
i still don't know why, I think that he might have had an idea that he might know a thing or two and hid it so that he didn't have to start answering questions...
"that's when they started calling you, when you were learning a thing or two"...."they start takin' it outta you" -frank beam
"Folks, now that you have heard my story,
Say, boy, hand me another shot of that booze;
If anyone should ask you,
Tell 'em I've got those St. James Infirmary blues."
seth
end tranmission.