OF TWO MOTHERS
An Incomplete List of Songs With Talking Trees:
1. 'Three Trees' (composer and date unknown)
2. 'A Beautiful Book' (Butterfly Boucher, 2003)
3. 'Of Two Mothers' (Daniel J Townsend, 2013)
Unavailable online, 'Three Trees' is derived from a traditional tale in which the first of three trees aspires to be a treasure chest, the second a galleon and the third the tallest tree in the forest. The first ends up as a feeding trough, the second a fishing boat and the third a hanging tree.
Boucher's song includes the dreams of a tree (to become a beautiful book) and adds the aspirations of a bear to become a poet's coat and grains of sand who yearn to be the glass in a writer's spectacles.
'Of Two Mothers' depicts an ancient tree recalling a meeting between two mothers whose sons, it eventuates, had been friends who had died on the same day.
An Incomplete List of Songs With Talking Birds:
1. 'Young Hunting' (Scottish folk song, 18th century - Child Ballad 68)
Sine up bespak the wylie parrot as he sat on the tree:
"And hae ye killd him Young Redin, Wha neer had love but thee?
I winna come doun, I canna come doun, I winna come doun to thee;
For as ye’ve dune to Young Redin, ye’ll do the like to me;
Ye’ll thraw my head aff my hause-bane, And throw me in the sea."
Nick Cave recorded a version of this song with P J Harvey in 1996, but the bird doesn't have a whole lot to say in his rendition.
2.' Notice Me Horton' (Dr Seuss, 20th century)
It's taken all my courage to approach you,
Not to mention all my stamina to follow you
Across the hills and deserts,
But I feel as if I'm ready to confess to you
The feelings that I've hidden with great diligence and labour
Behind the facade of your odd little next-door neighbor.
PREVIOUS // NEXT
References:
'The Sailor Who Has Sailed And Other Poems' Benjamin R C Low, New Yord, John Lane Company, 1911
1. 'Three Trees' (composer and date unknown)
2. 'A Beautiful Book' (Butterfly Boucher, 2003)
3. 'Of Two Mothers' (Daniel J Townsend, 2013)
Unavailable online, 'Three Trees' is derived from a traditional tale in which the first of three trees aspires to be a treasure chest, the second a galleon and the third the tallest tree in the forest. The first ends up as a feeding trough, the second a fishing boat and the third a hanging tree.
Boucher's song includes the dreams of a tree (to become a beautiful book) and adds the aspirations of a bear to become a poet's coat and grains of sand who yearn to be the glass in a writer's spectacles.
'Of Two Mothers' depicts an ancient tree recalling a meeting between two mothers whose sons, it eventuates, had been friends who had died on the same day.
An Incomplete List of Songs With Talking Birds:
1. 'Young Hunting' (Scottish folk song, 18th century - Child Ballad 68)
Sine up bespak the wylie parrot as he sat on the tree:
"And hae ye killd him Young Redin, Wha neer had love but thee?
I winna come doun, I canna come doun, I winna come doun to thee;
For as ye’ve dune to Young Redin, ye’ll do the like to me;
Ye’ll thraw my head aff my hause-bane, And throw me in the sea."
Nick Cave recorded a version of this song with P J Harvey in 1996, but the bird doesn't have a whole lot to say in his rendition.
2.' Notice Me Horton' (Dr Seuss, 20th century)
It's taken all my courage to approach you,
Not to mention all my stamina to follow you
Across the hills and deserts,
But I feel as if I'm ready to confess to you
The feelings that I've hidden with great diligence and labour
Behind the facade of your odd little next-door neighbor.
PREVIOUS // NEXT
References:
'The Sailor Who Has Sailed And Other Poems' Benjamin R C Low, New Yord, John Lane Company, 1911
