by Peter Berryman
Leaning Less Listlessly
In the last episode of Whither Zither, leading up to a bit about "found poetry," I mentioned a poetic sign that I saw displayed on a store's awning years ago: "Palm Ice Cream Steaks Chops Palm Ice Cream." This notable string of words could have led just as easily to a column about food ballads or single syllable word poems or advertising jingles. Or, as in this case, an homage to list songs.
I've long been a fan of list songs. The traditional song Widdicombe Fair, which I first heard on a recording of Burl Ives, contains a wonderful list of names:
Tom Pearse, Tom Pearse, lend me your grey mare.
All along, down along, out along, lee.
For I want for to go to Widdicombe Fair,
Wi' Bill Brewer, Jan Stewer, Peter Gurney, Peter Davy,
Dan'l Whiddon, Harry Hawk, Old Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all.
Old Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all.
What strange construction. I remember my mom saying about this song that you could tell it was probably a real true list of names, not made up, because if you made it up, you most likely wouldn't have put two "Peters" in it. I thought that was a fascinating observation, which contributed to my love of list songs (and lists in general) as conveyers of a surprising amount of information and meaning, often beyond the actual prosaic cataloging of those things listed.
Another odd thing about the song is that the second line, also a list and a nonsense list at that, ends with what seems to be, in this context, a nonsense word: "All along, down along, out along, lee." Lee? Not only is this an odd line, but this last non-word, which could have been glink, or cabobshy, or bloob, could have even more usefully been lall or grall or fnall. Then it would have rhymed with the last word of the chorus, "all," to make a tidy ABAB rhyme scheme. But after the meter freaks completely out in the third line, and runs on until morning, why bother with something as obsessive-compulsive as a rhyme scheme? Inexplicably, this whole whackadelic chorus has persisted over the years with only such minor variations as "Tam Pearse" for Tom Pearse and "Peter Day" for Peter Davy, but retaining its peculiar but oddly captivating form.
Anyway, despite the above over-analyzation, I think list songs are generally relaxing, in that they usually don't require the brain to diagram adjectives and adverbs and link verbs and nouns and do all that cryptanalysis that is necessary for the normal understanding of one darn whole sentence after another. A list is an easy, lazy, comfy heap of communication. Even a short list can serve as an important little breather in an otherwise sentency lyric, as in that other traditional song about going to a fair (Scarborough in this case), with the pointless, recurring "Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme," without which inanity the song probably would have been forgotten by now.
Maybe it's because of a fear of grammar that a great number of the songs I've written have been lists. But I'm also sure it's because I was influenced early by such sophisticated poetry as this, by Mickie Grant and Dodie Stevens:
Tan shoes with pink shoe laces, a polka dot vest and man oh man,
Tan shoes with pink shoe laces, a big Panama with a purple hat band
...not to mention the song I used to hear on Captain Kangaroo:
Monday roast beef, Tuesday string beans, Wednesday, Sou-oop!
Thursday, Meat loaf, Friday, Fish day...
And how about Old Put's Sweet Betsy from Pike...
With her lover Ike, two yoke of oxen, a big yellow dog,
A tall Shanghai rooster, and one spotted hog
...or the noun-rich chorus of Big Rock Candy Mountain by Harry McClintock, with
The buzzing of the bees, in the cigarette trees, by the soda water fountain,
Near the lemonade springs where the bluebird sings, on the big rock candy mountain.
Our childhoods and teenhoods were filled with list songs, like the traditional This Old Man, who played knick knack paddywhack on a list of ten different places. Or this 1949 ditty by Dave Mann and Mart Fryberg:
I don't want a sirloin steak, you can take pie and cake,
They give me a tummyache. I like Stinky Cheese!
Liederkranz or Camembert, soft gruyere, roquefort rare,
Gee it smells, but I don't care.
I like Stinky Cheese!
Which came out about fifteen years before another smash hit list song by Bob Dylan, master listmaker:
Get born, keep warm
Short pants, romance, learn to dance
Get dressed, get blessed
Try to be a success
Please her, please him, buy gifts
Don't steal, don't lift
Twenty years of schoolin'
And they put you on the day shift
List-lyrics can work well for lots of reasons, all the while lending a Dylanesque big, breezy, rollicking feeling to a song, as in I've Been Everywhere, written by Geoff Mack and made popular by Hank Snow:
...Boston, Charleston, Dayton, Louisiana
Washington, Houston, Kingston, Texarkana
Monterey, Ferriday, Santa Fe, Tallapoosa
Glen Rock, Black Rock, Little Rock, Oskaloosa
Tennessee, Hennessey, Chicopee, Spirit Lake
Grand Lake, Devil's Lake, Crater Lake, for Pete's sake...
Then there's the shorter but even roomier feeling of Woodie Guthrie's
From California, to the New York island;
From the redwood forests, to the Gulf Stream waters...
And that old folk singer Irving Berlin's similarly expansive list-phrase:
From the mountains, to the prairies, to the oceans, white with foam...
And on we go, listing to port and starboard, with Tom Lehrer singing the periodic chart of the elements on one hand and Dave Van Ronk singing the towns of New Jersey on the other.
And me in the background, going "All along, down along, out along, fnall."