Poor Man’s Flower

gloves
True glove often comes to a bad end.

I have it from a reliable source — actually, several sources — that today is (or was) Valentine’s Day. How sweet. I thought I’d record a couple of love songs as a little tribute to this very special day. First, here’s an old Irish song, which I learned off Cordelia’s Dad’s first album. That’s the name of the band, Cordelia’s Dad. This is called “Poor Man’s Labor.”

[audio:http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/1/5/600283/Poor_Mans_Labor.MP3]

Then for the women’s side of things, here’s the old Carter Family song, “Wildwood Flower,” touchingly rendered, I thought, on the Philippine mouth harp. The recording has been electronically enhanced just a little. Sing along!

[audio:http://www.fileden.com/files/2007/1/5/600283/Wildwood_Flower.MP3]

12 Replies to “Poor Man’s Flower”

  1. I don’t have much of an ear, sure, but it seemed to me that I was listening to two separate tracks of the same song. (How much “electronic enhancement” can you do?)

    I like the way, when I “click here,” your music is ready to sync to my iPod!

    By the way, this is really enjoyable stuff.

  2. Lori – If I ever decide to post blurbs, “Better than two cups of coffee” would definitely make the cut. Thanks!

    Peter – No, there’s just one track, though the slow part was recorded separately from the rest. The drone effect is native to the instrument, which is why i think it sounds so cool. Effects I used included post-recording amplification, noise removal, normalization (ha!), and a little doctoring of the last note in each section to avoid the abrupt ending I’d otherwise get.

    Since you’re enjoying the convenience of the extra mp3 link, I’ll be sure to keep tacking that on. Otherwise you’d have to go to the Odeo page for each track, accessible via the “Powered by Odeo” link, or from my “milk of amnesia” podcast page.

  3. no, I meant the kind of haphazard deposit one stumbles upon when least expected…much like true glove. It happens where it happens and not where it doesn’t. great photo over at 3rd house, you may have stolen the prop but you managed to make something new, methinks

  4. I LOVE the image, and it’s so serendipitous (along with Leslee’s) while I’m working on prints of hands! AND this afternoon, I’m going to be doing my first foray into digital voice recording. Oh! Now I’m wondering if there’s a subliminal influence happening here with the latter.

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