Thursday 31 December 2015

NEW YEAR EVENSONG, 2016

Today, Organised Crime issues us a scornful, contemptuous greeting, deciding that it should not investigate itself any fuirther. In the nineteenth century United States, Stephen Foster, knew, too well, the role of the bankers and their servants in government. This is the late Kate McGarrigle, her sister, Anna, her son, Rufus and some usual suspects, performing Foster's Hard Times, a capable ensemble and a poignant rendition.  
It ain't Auld Lang Syne.



 1. Let us pause in life's pleasures and count its many tears, 
While we all sup sorrow with the poor; 
There's a song that will linger forever in our ears; 
Oh! Hard times come again no more. 

Chorus: 'Tis the song, the sigh of the weary, 
Hard Times, hard times, come again no more
 Many days you have lingered around my cabin door; 
Oh! Hard times come again no more. 

 2. While we seek mirth and beauty and music light and gay,
 There are frail forms fainting at the door; 
Though their voices are silent, their pleading looks will say 
Oh! Hard times come again no more.
 Chorus 

3. There's a pale drooping maiden who toils her life away, 
With a worn heart whose better days are o'er: 
Though her voice would be merry, 'tis sighing all the day,
 Oh! Hard times come again no more.
 Chorus 

 4. 'Tis a sigh that is wafted across the troubled wave, 
 'Tis a wail that is heard upon the shore 
 'Tis a dirge that is murmured around the lowly grave 
 Oh! Hard times come again no more. Chorus

15 comments:

Mike said...

Best wishes, Mr I, and to all.

I have a feeling in my waters that 2016 will bring a denouement. In common parlance, the shit will hit the fan.

call me ishmael said...

Yes, morning mr mike, and a fair dinkum '16 to y'all; me, too, I think that. And in a way, I hope so, too. So very many flash points extant at home and abroad. And that's without even mentioning the Hunger Wars, the Water Wars, the War of the Rising Seas.

call me ishmael said...

Sorry, I sem to have accidentally deleted a comment, here.

Anonymous said...

Happy new year, my dear fellow. It's a three dog night in Ireland, thanks for that non-celsius method which will forever stick in my mind. Two big dogs and if needs be a missus will keep off the chill. We watched the London fireworks on the box and then I played the final scene from "V for vendetta" which went down a treat.
Best wishes to you and all Ishmaelians.
-richard

Mike said...

PS A new series of Montalbano has reached our shores. Finally something worth watching on the TeeVee.

call me ishmael said...

It is a fine comic creation, Montalbano, his jibbering goons, his stumbling desk sergeant, his doomed, sultry women and his heart-attack feasting. Best of all, though, is Sicily, it's always deserted ancient streets, its sunny shores and dusty lanes. Silvio, Fabio and Oh-leevya, it's like Neighbours, drenched in olive oil.

call me ishmael said...

Stuck in my mind, too, mr richard, probably taught me more about the Outback even than did Rolf Harris and Crocodile Dundee.

Wishing you a safe and healthy year, Laganside, as well as an end to sour Robinsonism and wicked Kneecapping.

Caratacus said...

A tuneful start to the New Year, Mr. I, thank you muchly.

All this mournful stuff about how the world is going to a hot place in a wheeled thingy ... I'm just grateful that we are led by such towering intellectual giants as Messrs Cameron, Osborne, Duncan Smith, Carney, et al. Heaven alone knows where we would be without their careful navigation through the choppy waters facing us all. Their patent honesty, wisdom and selfless devotion to duty is an example to us all ...

Happy New Year, Mr.I - may it be as fruitful and pain-free as you would wish yourself.

yardarm said...

Happy New Year to all, yes, should have a bumper crop of motherfuckerism this year.

call me ishmael said...

I do believe so, mr yardarm, thank you, by the way and the same to you, and in order to the better protect myself, I am making a New Year Resolution: Never to read anything which I wouldn't be happy to buy., I spend a lot of time, these days, in Aberdeen airport, time I could be blogging, only CMI is deemed unsuitable content by BT, the airport wi-fi provider, and I can't get on. I have, therefore, been buying th odd newspaper - the Filtho-O-Graph, the Guardian and the Independent, sometimes the Scotsman, they are all ruinously expensive and they all tell lies, peddle fith and distortion, much worse than I remember, from the days when I was a newspaper junky, no more midnight visits, therefore, to their webshites.
And as for the readership, the commentariat on the threads, thay are largely Nazis of one sort or another, a collective, repressive and narrow-minded, with a hive view, someone like king caratacus, best wishes to his majesty, also, utters a word of dissent from the Guardianiste view and all Hell breaks loose. Let them write their own fucking newspaper, that's what i say, they pay themselves enough.

blackholesunset said...

A happy New Year to all, regardless of how unlikely that presently seems.

call me ishmael said...

Thank you, mr bhs, I hope you fare well

call me ishmael said...

Thank you for your concern, king caratacus, I am not in agony or anything, don't even take a paracetemol. Don't have cancer, just a handful of diabetes complications and sometimes my nerves wire themselves up to the national grid, I guess any platerer or brickie'd have the same sorts of aches and pains.

Doug Shoulders said...

A good new year to you and yours Mr Ishmael, and to visitors to your cybershore.

call me ishmael said...

And thank you, mr shoulders.