Sandhill cranes at Burnaby Lake: up and over!

Magical encounter: sandhill cranes at Burnaby Lake

Now, now, NOW!

(From a short-lived mid-00s site called ABSURDITO (http://absurdito.blogspot.ca/2004/06/birds-schoolchildren-song.html)  comes this startling revelation about the most annoying song I've ever heard. Then some comments. Then some more.)

'The Birds' schoolchildren song

For years I've wondered exactly what the words are to the song sung by the children in that famous scene in Alfred Hitchcock's film, The Birds when Tippi Hedren arrives at the Bodega Bay School and sits outside smoking a cigarette while the birds gather in the schoolyard behind her (while the kids sing the song inside the schoolhouse). 

Finally, today, I've found the actual lyrics as sung in the film. Other lyrics I've found on the internet were shorter. It turns out that The Birds screenwriter Evan Hunter extended the song with new lyrics (and has been receiving royalties ever since!). 

I took these lyrics from the actual shooting script of the film, which can be found at: http://www.screentalk.biz/hitchcock.htm 
The following begins with the script's description of the action, and then I omit all other scene descriptions and present only the song's words: 

EXT. BODEGA BAY – DAY – LONG SHOT

Melanie’s car turns and goes up School Road.

EXT. SCHOOL – DAY – MED. SHOT

Closer shot of the car coming to a stop outside school.
Inside the school, we HEAR the children SINGING.

CHILDREN (O.S.)

I married my wife in the month of June. Ristle-tee, rostle-tee, Mo, mo mo!

…

I carried her off in a silver spoon. Ristle-tee, rostle-tee, hey bombosity, knickety-knackety, retro-quo-quality, willoby-wallaby, Mo, mo, mo!

…

She combed her hair but once a year. Ristle-tee, rostle-tee, Mo, mo, mo! 
With every rake, she shed a tear. Ristle-tee, rostle-tee, hey bombosity, knickety-knackety, retro-quo-quality, willoby-wallaby, Mo, mo, mo!

…

She swept the floor but once a year. Ristle-tee, rostle-tee, Mo, mo, mo!

She swore her broom was much too dear. Ristle-tee, rostle-tee, hey bombosity, knickety-knackety, retro-quo-quality, willoby-wallaby, Mo, mo, mo!

…

She churned the butter in Dad’s old boot. Ristle-tee, rostle-tee, Mo, mo, mo!

And for a dasher she used her foot. Ristle-tee, rostle-tee, hey bombosity, knickety-knackety, retro-quo-quality, willoby-wallaby, Mo, mo, mo!

…

The butter came out a grizzle-y-grey. Ristle-tee, rostle-tee, Mo, mo, mo! 
The cheese took legs and ran away! Ristle-tee, rostle-tee, hey bombosity, knickety-knackety, retro-quo-quality, willoby-wallaby, Mo, mo, mo!

…

I brought my wife a horse one day. Ristle-tee, rostle-tee, Mo, mo, mo! She let the critter get away. Ristle-tee, rostle-tee, hey bombosity, knickety-knackety, retro-quo-quality, willoby-wallaby, Mo, mo, mo!

…

I asked my wife to wash the floor. Ristle-tee, rostle-tee, Mo, mo, mo! She gave me my hat and showed me the door! Ristle-tee, rostle-tee, hey bombosity, knickety-knackety, retro-quo-quality, (the song slows – it is near the end) willoby-wallaby, Mmmmmmmo, Mmmmmmmo, MO!

Though the above is in the shooting script for the film, in the film the children shuffle around the lines to the song and change a few words. The changed words sound like they changed the unrhythmic "hey bombosity" to "hey donny dostle-tee". Also, "I carried her off in a silver spoon" appears to have changed to "I brought her off by the light of the moon." And "Mo, mo, mo!" sure sounds more like, "Now, now, now!" 

Finally, I *SWEAR* that, instead of the word "butter" (in the first stanza) the kids sing "poison"!! This would certainly be keeping with Hitchcock's macabre humor. So, I've taken the liberty to make these changes to the updated version below. 

So here are the above lyrics modified as sung in the film:

The poison it came out a grizzle-y-grey. Ristle-tee, rostle-tee, Now, now, now! 

The cheese it took legs and ran away! Ristle-tee, rostle-tee, hey donny dostle-tee, knickety-knackety, retro-quo-quality, willoby-wallaby, Now, now, now!

She let the critter get away. Ristle-tee, rostle-tee, hey donny dostle-tee, knickety-knackety, retro-quo-quality, willoby-wallaby, Now, now, now!

I asked my wife to wash the floor. Ristle-tee, rostle-tee, Now, now, now! 
She gave me my hat and she showed me the door! Ristle-tee, rostle-tee, hey donny dostle-tee, knickety-knackety, retro-quo-quality, Now, now, now!

I married my wife in the month of June. Ristle-tee, rostle-tee, Now, now, now!

I brought her off by the light of the moon. Ristle-tee, rostle-tee, hey donny dostle-tee, knickety-knackety, retro-quo-quality, willoby-wallaby, Now, now, now!

She combed her hair but once a year. Ristle-tee, rostle-tee, hey donny dostle-tee, knickety-knackety, retro-quo-quality, willoby-wallaby, Now, now, now!

Blogger's observations. The Birds is one of my favorite Hitchcock films (the other one being Psycho, which I'll have to devote a whole post to), mainly for the cheap thrills. You don't have to figure anything out in this movie. There is no intrigue; there are no plot twists; indeed, there is no plot. The birds come; they see; they conquer. Based on a short story (Daphne du Maurier?) which is in turn based on a true incident, nothing is ever explained here, much as in life. Terror and confusion hopelessly intermingle to bring a formerly happy and innocent community to its knees.

The song the schoolchildren endlessly sing (which drives me bananas with its nonsensical monotony) reminds me a lot of a song we "took", or rather sang, in about Grade 5. It was bad, but not quite THIS bad. It was called The Wee Cooper o' Fife (and doesn't that sound more Irish than Scottish?), and here is the part I can remember, spelled phonetically:

There was a wee cooper who lived in Fife
Nickety-nackety noo, noo, noo
And he has taken a comely wife
Hey willie-wallacky, hoo John Dougal a rain co-rushity roo roo roo.

Oh she wadna bake and she wadna brew
Nickety-nackety noo, noo, noo
For the spoilin' o' her comely hue
Hey willie-wallacky, etc.

Nobody knew what it meant. Nobody explained anything to kids in those days (or now, probably). This was right around the time of the Canadian Centennial, when we had to learn all sorts of daft folk songs that were supposed to be Canadian. Canadian meant Scottish, English and Irish. So we didn't know what a cooper was (a barrel-maker, it turns out), where Fife is (? Isn't that something you blow into?), what a comely hue was supposed to be, and what all that other shit meant, if it meant anything at all.

Though I thought we had every Burl Ives recording ever bleated, we didn't have a recording of him singing "that song". I've dug up the lyrics, and it's definitely the same one:

She wouldna wash, nor she wouldna wring (nickety-nackety, etc. etc. etc.)
For the spoilin' o' her gowden ring
She wouldna card, nor she wouldna spin
For the shamin' o' her gentle kin

So the wee cooper went to his woodpack
And laid a sheepskin on his wife's back
"Now, I wouldna thrash ye for your gentle kin,
But I would thrash me ain sheepskin."

"Oh, I will bake and I will brew,
And nae mair think o' my comely hue!
"And I will wash and I will wring,
And nae mair think o' my gowden ring!

"And I will card and I will spin
And nae mair think o' my gentle kin!"
So ye what has gotten a gentle wife,
Just ye send for the wee cooper o' Fife!

Charming, isn't it? This song (which may or may not be a somewhat simplified version of the song in The Birds) is all about domestic violence and a wife cowed into submission by her husband's threats of physical harm. Good, clean, wholesome fun.

This is the only Burl Ives version I could find on YouTube. WARNING: may be hazardous to your mental health if you loathe marionettes as much as I do. But for some reason, when I was a kid, they were everywhere, from the execrable Howdy Doody to Supercar, one of the better action-adventure series of the '60s. Except for that goddamn chimp.

ADDENDUM. Why I hated that goddamn chimp from Supercar, followed by an image of his death mask.

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Hot town: screams in the night

It was one of them-thar hot, HOT summers in Chatham, in the heel of Southwestern Ontario, when it felt like someone was holding something to your nose and mouth so you could not breathe. Sweat accumulted in layers on your skin, but if it evaporated at all, it provided no relief from the relentless, doggy heat.

We didn't take showers then, because you just didn't - women washed their hair in the sink and wrapped a towel around their head, turban-style (God knows why, or how they ever dried it). If you were so hot you were turning into melted rubber, you lay in a bath tub full of tepid water, drained it, and felt more moist and clammy than ever. As far as I know, people didn't bathe every day, nor were clothes washed as often, but perhaps the predominance of natural fibres kept us from keeling over from each other's stench.

The humidity devil did not let up often. But on certain nights the sky suddenly cracked open, and floods of lukewarm rain caused some of us (mostly kids, or a few heat-crazed adults) to strip down to our bare essentials and go out in it, dancing around, hair streaming, mouth open. The cracks of livid electricity almost made my hair stand on end, and sometimes I felt it zip up my arms as if it wanted me for some awful unknown purpose.

But the buckets of rain did not help. Soon everything was just steaming, the air more choked with water than before.

Cicadas buzzed their long, almost sexual-sounding arches of sound on those summer afternoons in which time seemed to hang suspended. We didn't like finding the adults - "June bugs", they were usually called, big fat things with wings - but the cast-off shells of the nymphs were magical. They appeared all over the bark of the elm trees that would all-too-soon be felled due to disease, never to be seen again.

But at night, there was this - this sound! A night bird, one that I called "the Skeezix bird" because that's what it sounded like. On damp, hollow, star-filled Chatham nights, the Skeezix would begin to swoop in the sky, the sound swinging near and far so that you couldn't tell exactly where it was. I don't think I ever saw one.  It had to be some kind of hawk or falcon. But nobody ever referred to it or talked about it. It was just there, like the sexy drawn-out tambourine-hiss of the cicadas. All part of summer in the city.

But when I heard the Skeezix bird, every so often I also heard the strangest sound, halfway between a burp and a groan. Short, hollow, and - stupid really, because obviously it had nothing to do with the bird, yet there it was, persistent. I even asked other people about it once, and no one had ever heard it. It seemed like nobody really wanted to talk about it. At least they looked at me strangely, though I suppose by then I should have been used to that.

Then one time, my older brother said, "You know that booming noise? It's sound waves from the hawk bouncing off buildings."

It wasn't. In fact, until this very moment I didn't know what the hell it was or how it could be related to the Skeezix bird.

Then came this answer, this beautiful, golden Answer. Simply laid out. Not even any video, just a clear audio explanation with pictures. There WAS a Skeezix bird, even if it was called something else. If it was creating that groany boom out in nature, obviously it had nothing to do with sound waves and buildings.

The real explanation is exotic and a little far-fetched, but it must be true. It just took me fifty years to find it. Play the video above, and be enlightened.

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Here to stay is a new bird: Paco, take 2!

Almost camouflaged is Paco, my new, eight-week-old baby lovebird. This bird has been such a delight to be with. She learns so quickly, and is snuggly and trusting. Eats like a little horse.

Paco is known in lovebird parlance as a whiteface blue double violet. The violet aspects show up here more than in normal light, making me think those hues will come out more when she is past the baby stages. Her face will become whiter as well. She loved the little whirr sound of the camera, and didn't mind the flash. A diva in the making!

Mummy is sort of glad she had her hair styled today. 

A bird in the hand. . . poopy, but it washes out. . . 

A bird on the shoulder, where she likes to hang out.

Such a pretty bird!

Tiny little bundle of joy! This is probably the only shot I have of my workspace. Paco has been happy to be with me up here, and I have set up a little table with food and things to chew on. 

Joy!!

How small is a baby hummingbird?

No words for this.

The Wizard of Oz: Little People, Big Suicide

Alrighty then! Having scouted around amongst the hundreds of Wizard of Oz clips with dangling little people, I've found some pretty convincing truth that what we see in the background is a giant bird wandering around loose on the set, dipping its head to eat something and then stretching its wings out. The more you look at it, the more you see it.

The one I posted yesterday was just weird, as if they had somehow altered the image to look like something swinging back and forth. I think it had been doctored to match the urban/Hollywood myth about the suicidal munchkin.

I found another video that I will also post, in which we actually see the bird in another scene! I want to watch the whole movie again: probably there are lots of weird creatures wandering around to add atmosphere.

http://members.shaw.ca/margaret_gunning/betterthanlife.htm

Do I have to actually write something?

This is the best of times, and the worst of times, all glommed together.

Things are particularly sweet with my grandkids. For Ryan's 5th birthday, I knitted him a new blankie, his old one having been reduced to a pile of strings. Now he must transfer his attachment to a nice-looking one, which I hope he won't pull to pieces.

Caitlin's new lavendar fuzzy replaces her yellow fuzzy. She bit a big chunk out of it - no kidding, and she's 7. She wore away at the edge of it for a couple of years until it had a big semicircular bite mark on it. I begged her not to chew this one to pieces, as it cost about $45.00 to make.

NO MORE BLANKIES, I swear! Yes, I love making them, but it strikes me as silly to go on and on replacing them until they're in university or something, or getting married. "Where did the groom go?" "Oh, he lost his blankie. We'll just have to hold up the service."

In other news, things are moving along, or at least moving, maybe, in my search for a home/venue/a shred of hope on The Glass Character. I suddenly joined Facebook and feel foolish now because my "profile" was nothing but a desperate ad for the novel. I'll have to change it today if I can get the bally thing to work. I feel embarrassed, because I don't know Facebook from a hole in the ground and swore I wouldn't go there. BUT I REFUSE TO TWEET. I have a bird to do that.

I have a bird that whistles, I have a bird that sings.
I have a bird that whistles, I have a bird that sings.
But if I ain't got a contract,
Life don't mean a thing.

Just so.

Must be Friday

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