Monday Muse: Tunnel Tunes

Dear Readers,

Image via Wikipedia

  Monday is always a good day for music, like the fine people over on Twitter have figured out.  For my part in that fun, on Mondays I take a poetic or musical source from a time stream of my choice and publish it here for you.

  Now, of course, musical sources are really not my area of expertise, but they are incredibly valuable in how they connect an Anachronist with the culture he or she studies.  So, to some degree, Monday Muse is where you are on an even playing field with me as we discover some musical sources together.

  Unfortunately, augury data rarely, if ever, contains comprehensible audio.  We often need to find screenplays just to interpret the videos that we pull in, and this can be a tricky endeavor.  Therefore, music ends up almost exclusively as lyrics, and is in many ways difficult to distinguish from poetry.  The arbitrary nature of musical notation also complicates this; we can't be sure what conventions are relevant in a given time stream, so it becomes difficult to make conclusions.

  I've focused on neo-Aegea on this blog for some time now, but I'm not quite ready to give it a rest yet.  Today I'll provide a source from a set of popular songs.  Unlike last week's Martian song, this one may be originally a professional composition.  It should be easy to identify the cultural heritage that this song developed from, as it is another mutant of a song contemporary to you.  Additionally, it is a tribute to Civet, the famous storyteller whose work I've translated in the past.

  Always,

  Dr. John Skylar
  Chairman
  Department of Anachronism
  University of Constantinople

Oh, the shark, babe, has pretty teeth, dear
      And it shows them, pearly white.
      Just a Chesire-smile has old Civet, babe
      And he hides it, ah, in plain sight

When that shark bites, with his teeth, dear

      Scarlet billows, start to spread
      Fancy white lies, has Civet's tales, dear
      So you nevah, nevah know you've been conned

Now on the dock-ring, one sunny morning
    Crowds gather, oozin' cash.
    Someone's got them, in his palm dear
    Could he be...Civet the Storyteller?


A-there's a scaph-boat...down by the river dontcha know
    Where the tales flow from that old clown
    Oh that scaph's there, just to escape, dear
    Before long, 'ol Civet's, bum bum bum...leeeaaavin' town.


That's as far as my source goes.