Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

I am aproximately ready for the morning; now I just need to a) get to sleep (which was planned for three hours ago) and b) wake up in time (I have to get from Baltimore to Gaithersburg way before gig time, to help set up the sound system). In the meantime, a curious earworm ...

I'm not sure how well this fits with what silmaril was saying earlier about how we imagine music, but it does have to do with the how my brain processes imagined/remembered music.

Most of the afternoon, I was hearing "Mis'ry And The Blues" by Charlie La Vere in my head. Now the only recording of it that I've ever heard, as far as I can remember, is the one by Jack Teagarden on his Mis'ry And The Blues album, but in my head I kept hearing it in Tom Waits' voice. Occasionally a bit of Cab Calloway or Satchmo would creep in, but it was mostly Tom Waits in my head. The thing is, Teagarden has a much prettier voice than Waits does, so why did my brain want to perform this substitution?

Actually, this is less strange than the complaint recently on That Mailing List from someone who had, stuck in his head, a William Shatner version of a song that Shatner had never actually recorded (and that was apparently contagious via email, 'cause someone else later echoed that complaint with a different song).[*] Though Waits' voice isn't as nice as Teagarden's, there's a certain emotional power to that growl, and the song has enough weary despair to it to fit on a Tom Waits album. And the melody sounds very Waits-like to me. (I don't know whether Waits was influenced by La Vere, or both were influenced by the same even earlier artists. I know which way I'd bet if I had to guess, but without a bit more education it's just a guess.) So at least there's some sense to what my imagination snuck in on me. And no, I'm not going to try to imagine Shatner doing this song.

But now I wonder whether Waits has ever covered this song.

Blues in the morning
Misery in the evening
Meet the saddest man you ever knew
Got my share of sorrow
Same old thing tomorrow
Since you've gone the dawn is always overdue

Blues in the morning
Misery in the evening
Keep me wondering what I ought to do
Almost out of money
Guess you think that's funny
Even though you know I'm still in love with you

[...]

There's something particularly catchy about the line in the third verse, "Wake up crying like a child of two", which I think is the line that got the song stuck in my brain earlier. Unfortunately there are a few words in the bridge and third verse that I haven't been able to make out yet.

And now to try to get four hours of sleep. Hope I manage to nap between the two concerts.

[*] The original complaint was prefaced with a Thomas Dolby quote:

"Memories of things That never happened
These are always
The hardest to forget."