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CLEF! In honor of your return to this thread, I have accepted the country-western song lyric challenge. Greg, I think you should write the tune. xoxo Robin

ELVA ON A G-STRING

I sit at the piano,
At Pinky’s Pink Place,
The men wearing jackets,
The women in lace,
Now I’m just a singer,
With a knack for the keys,
I play my first chord,
My heart starts to sieze—

Cause that’s when the stripper jumps out of the piano,
Twirlin’ her tassles for beer,
And this ain’t no regular bar room piano,
Elva the Body is here.
Oh! Elva the Body is here.

I play a cadence,
A nice country tune,
Elva she shimmies,
Men start to swoon,
Sequins are flyin',
With each grind and bump,
She yells “Take the coda”
Then slaps her own rump.

I love when the stripper jumps out of the piano,
Twirlin’ her tassles for beer,
And this ain’t no regular bar room piano,
Elva the Body is here.
Oh! Elva the Body is here.

"Air on a G-String,"
She shouts out my way,
Well shucks I don’t know that,
But still I must play,
The glitter, the glamour,
I struggle, I try,
A pastie it hits me,
Right smack in the eye.

I love when the stripper jumps out of the piano
Twirlin’ her tassles for beer
And this ain’t no regular bar room piano
Elva the Body is here.
Oh! Elva the Body is here.

Alas I am blind now,
And grwoing quite old,
But still I remember,
Her bra made of gold.
Her feathers, her rhinestones,
Her perfect red lips,
The portraits of Chopin,
Tattooed on her hips—

I love when the stripper jumps out of the piano,
Twirlin’ her tassles for beer,
And this ain’t no regular bar room piano,
Elva the Body is here,
OH! Elva the Body is here.

Bravo!!! Greg, you have GOT to come up with a tune for this song, and Robin, you have got to perform it somewhere, or better yet, put it up on YouTube so we can all enjoy it. "Air on a G string" -- I LOVE it!!

I was wondering why your song seemed so familiar.

Then I figured it out! It's the meter!

I sit at the piano,
Twas the night before Christmas

At Pinky’s Pink Place,
And all through the house,

Nice job!

But of course, Tim, it's always the meter. I'm a drummer's daughter and a bass player's wife. Meter is everything. Didn't intentionally use Night Before Xmas for this, but yeah, you're right, the verse hooks up with it! Good catch. Chorus takes a left turn, though.

Glad you liked it Monica!

I heard it as a country waltz right off and had several variations of chords changing in my head. For several years I did exactly that sort of thing for some local would-be songwriters. They'd sing me their fledgling ideas and I'd put together the rest. But alas, I don't at present have an easy recording setup at hand. (I plan to remedy that soon).

For the moment, this would just about work (with slight adjustments to the chorus)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn3JB51NH_M

A tour-de-force, Robin. Of course, it would have to be staged with a pop-top piano made of plywood and gator-foam, because the idea of having a stripper push up the lid of a real concert grand is the merest fantasy... and if it did, she would have string and frame impressions etched very deeply into her luscious skin. Though, maybe an audience of horny, liquored-up bachelors might overlook it.

(Perhaps the "piano" could actually contain a bubblebath, and the young miss could emerge clad in fluffy suds; hmmm...)

Still, piano to pole... it has possibilities. Did you know? There are classes in pole dancing these days, offered to bored suburban housewives. There are even some guys that are taking it up. Yes, things have come to that in marriage-land.

So, the wedding limo has lurched off the road, spraying dust and gravel as it panic-brakes at the roadhouse. Maybe it flattens the hitchin' post; well, that's a cinematic detail the critics can pat themselves on the back over. In the relative silence after the crash, the wail of the pedal steel misses not a beat. It's a country song called, "There's a Trailer Park in Gilroy." Why, it's about this very place--- Miss Lula's! And up comes the chorus:

"Well the jukebox is playin'
"And they dance their fill,
"With the covergirl cowgirls
"From Watsonville."

The shaken wedding party look at each other, shrug, and say, "Why not?" One two-step is about as good as another; besides, they all need a drink. There's a clatter and clump of dress shoes and pumps as they cross the porch, and the creak of spring and hinges as the screen door opens, and someone calls out, "Have y'all got any whiskey?"

Their whistles are barely wetted when they spot the 'piano'--- and the pole!


(to be continued)

I went back and re-read it as a country waltz to see if you were right.

A melody appeared in my head, and !cr@p! now I've got an earworm. Kind of like Lucille, pretty close actually.

Thanks loads.

And yes you're right.

Works great. <less filling>

Go for it, boys. Country waltz is exactly what I heard. But with stripper drums on the chorus.

Greg, loved that clip/

Clef, you are too funny.

Well Ladies and Gentlemen, I suspect we'll hit the "50,000 hits" mark in the next day or so, appropriate somehow since we are coming up on the first anniversary of this thread.

What fun this has been. There are too many highlights to list them all here. Personally, I favor the back and forth letter exchange with Wilma von Weasel. That was truly a group effort.

I guess we'll keep going as long as we have something silly or sad or important or whimsical to say. Here's to another 50,000.

And now I am off to work. Gotta go play a wedding. No vineyards this weekend.

Cheers.

i hope there is a mechanical bull in the outline

(i've a mechanical bull poem, ready and waiting)

"i hope there is a mechanical bull..."

A poem waiting, have you, Miss Apple? A modern-day Pavlov, you are; ringing the bell just to see the dogs salivate.

I deny that an outline exists, though.

Gilroy (site of the action) is right down the road from Hollister, the site of the annual heck's Angels convention. So if you're going to have a mechanical bull at Miss Lula's, I'd like to see a squadron of bikers roar up, park their Harleys, and ride it.

Maybe they will have a biker wedding, as the jukebox plays your song about the mechanical bull.

Maybe the bikers will... let's just say, maybe the bride and groom will marry people they're not expecting to. And could we throw in a lady wrestler? Such a lady picked me up hitchhiking, many years ago. I've never forgotten her kindness, and she deserves a cameo.

Yes, I can picture it. The thirsty and nervous wedding party swills down the last drop of sour mash bourbon. There is some big talk; a challenge; a showdown: two out of three falls on the mechanical bull and then another two out of three with the lady wrestler. And the loser...

(to be continued)

Wham, bam, twist and slam,
the cowgirl's on the ground.
"Will you ride again ma'am?
the bull, it can rebound".


it's a shorty..

Last night's wedding featured a corpulent bride, a welcome site after a year of size -2 ladies in white. I don't know how some of these women make it down he aisle. So thin! I don't know when everyone got so thin.

Had to play that MUSIC OF THE NIGHT thing from Phantom. I survived.

No cowgirls or mechanical bulls last night. Somehow I doubt that will be a theme at the castle.

maybe you could take a picture or two Robin... I'd love to see the castle (or perhaps a link).

Apple,

If you're talking about the Castle, just join us on our European Tour next summer. Robin has graciously offered to play for us, so we're going to try to work the castle into the piano builder's tour.

There's a picture and link to the castle in the tour thread...

http://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/1413511.html#Post1413511

thank Frank.. what a nice link. I would love to come. that is decidely outside our ghetto budget... but who knows, maybe I'll get another job soon... perhaps playing for Jewish service on Saturday morning.

I've looked at the 39 photos in the gallery. Gorgeous.

Trust me, I can't afford it either.

I'm doing everything I can to come up with the money, which means I'll probably
end up maxing out my credit cards.

Hope to see some of you over here! I promise NOT to stage the stripper portion of my book. I'm pretty sure my castle colleagues don't know about that chapter of my life. Whatever would Her Highness say?

BTW, I met her the other night after the wedding. I actually curtsied and said, "Good evening Your Highness," a greeting I used rarely in Pittsburgh or New York. I felt like I was in a Mel Brooks film.

She listens to my music (her suite opens onto an upper-lobby area where she can sit without being seen) whenever I play but I rarely see her. I assume she has recovered from the duck incident.

Okay, back on topic—I am playing a wedding next week for four people. Groom, bride, two witnesses, and me. Jeez. Steinway D in a villa not far from here. That's a lot of piano for four people, but I'll take it. So far, no goofy requests!

Note to aspiring wedding musicians: one of the advantages of having a CD (or two) of your own is that people tend to request things they have heard on the recording. Assuming you record pieces you love, this works out nicely for everyone. And you don't have to spend 17 days learning some difficult piece that no one will really hear.

I haven't played any weddings yet but I am going to be playing at an engagement party in June as the guests are arriving, the daughter of a friend is getting engaged and most of the guests will be people I know. I'm scheduled to play for an hour which is twice as long as I have played solo piano in front of an audience before.

It would be easier if I had a repertoire of jazz standards to play but I don't - I haven't yet figured out how to avoid having each chorus sound exactly the same when I play from a fake book, or having each song sound kind of the same for that matter. Instead I'm going to be playing a selection of pieces by Scott Joplin and Ernesto Nazareth with one Chopin waltz thrown in. The event is outside so I'm going to need to bring a digital keyboard and small PA. I think things will go fine if it doesn't rain, it is not windy ( so my music does not get blown off the stand ) and there are not any wasps circling - I will make sure I am nowhere near the food. One good thing about doing this is that it is forcing me to build my repertoire up to an hour by polishing up a lot of songs that I used to play but had become rusty. Wish me luck, I might need it.

Hi Chris,

Repeat after me: Everything will be FINE.

It will, I promise. Sounds like this will be a typical background music gig. People will most likely be chatting and eating and drinking, possibly running away from the wasps, socializing with long lost friends,snapping pics of the happy couple, etc. The last thing they will be thinking about is the music. Play things you enjoy playing. If someone asks you for something you don't know, smile and say it's not yet in your repertoire but it's a piece you'd like to learn.

The only way to learn how to do these jobs is to do them. There's no real way to prepare, except to remember to play for yourself, play what you love, wear a nice outfit, and smile. As my best friend Robin Spielberg likes to remind me—the piano will rescue you every time. It's true. Just play and get lost in the music.

Best of luck to you and let us know how it goes. And hey, see if you can book the wedding while you're there.