# Musical and song rabbit-holes **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** music\ **Created:** [January 24, 2023, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musical-and-song-rabbit-holes/978688 "2023-01-24T00:52:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2023, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musical-and-song-rabbit-holes/978688/21 "2023-02-08T22:46:01Z")
Yes, I can clearly hear it. Is “Handy’s Orchestra” W. C. Handy’s? ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2023, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musical-and-song-rabbit-holes/978688/22 "2023-02-08T22:47:33Z")
Yes, and J. Paul Wyler who wrote the song played violin in Handy’s band. And if you want to go even further down the rabbit hole, there is a song by trumpet player Buddy Bolden from around 1906 called “My Bucket’s Got a Hole in it”. No recordings survive but it’s been covered dozens of times, most notably by Hank Williams in 1949. [![](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/045__ojHb_g/hqdefault.jpg "Hank Williams Sr. - My Bucket's Got A Hole In It") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=045__ojHb_g) ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2023, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musical-and-song-rabbit-holes/978688/23 "2023-02-08T23:04:17Z")
I know the Hank Williams version. I’ve always wondered if this song had a connection to the German song “Ein Loch ist im Eimer”, which has a different melody, but also is a folk song with a chorus that means exactly the same. > **[There's a Hole in My Bucket](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There%27s_a_Hole_in_My_Bucket)** > > Pages for logged out editors learn more > > "There's a Hole in My Bucket" (or "...in the Bucket") is a children's song based on a protracted dialogue between two characters, Henry\[a\] and Liza, about a leaky bucket. Various versions exist but they differ only slightly, all describing a "deadlock" situation essentially as follows: Henry's bucket leaks, so Liza tells him to repair it. To fix the leaky bucket, he needs straw. To cut the straw, he needs a knife. To use the knife, he needs to sha... ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2023, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musical-and-song-rabbit-holes/978688/24 "2023-02-08T23:15:56Z")
There’s a chapter on Lionel Belasco’s plagiarism lawsuit over the theft of his song in Louis Nizer’s book _My Life In Court_. The courtroom shenanigans were…impressive. I never thought of Morey Amsterdam in the same way afterwards. Apparently the Andrews Sisters [didn’t pay close attention to what the song was about](https://www.last.fm/music/The+Andrews+Sisters/_/Rum+and+Coca-Cola/+wiki) when they recorded it. ---
**Author:** ![alovem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@alovem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alovem)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2023, 9:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musical-and-song-rabbit-holes/978688/25 "2023-02-09T09:15:04Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > Here’s the 1917 record (my mistake - the song was copyrighted in 1915). Starting around 2:30 the melody is unmistakable. Same melody in “Richland Women Blues” (Mississippi John Hurt) and “Midnight Special” (numerous covers). ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2023, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musical-and-song-rabbit-holes/978688/26 "2023-02-09T17:20:48Z")
Slight sidestep… this hole in the bucket talk reminded me of a hilarious song/skit that George Gobel did on the Dean Martin show. Hole In My Bucket, worth your 4 minutes: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/hbmPhba--No/hqdefault.jpg "Dean Martin & George Gobel - Hole In The Bucket") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbmPhba--No) ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2023, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musical-and-song-rabbit-holes/978688/27 "2023-02-09T18:10:14Z")
Buckets sure were shoddy back in the day. ---
**Author:** ![Treppenwitz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treppenwitz/32/3445_2.png) [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2023, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musical-and-song-rabbit-holes/978688/28 "2023-02-09T21:16:13Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > Here’s the 1917 record (my mistake - the song was copyrighted in 1915). Starting around 2:30 the melody is unmistakable. > [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZC-D4T0oMg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZC-D4T0oMg) I listened, and I instantly heard _Singing The Blues_. Wow, the old Dave Edmunds song, I thought. And that there’s a whole other story - rabbit hole warning - [Singing the Blues - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singing_the_Blues) Here’s the Dave Edmunds version for comparison. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/Ki4yZYEkk4Y/maxresdefault.jpg "DAVE EDMUNDS Singing The Blues") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ki4yZYEkk4Y) While I’m at it, here’s a very short but (to me) intriguing rabbit hole. One of the early albums I bought (many years ago) was Bowie’s Aladdin Sane. Back then (and my opinion has never really changed) I thought the best song on it was [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SWb0ShWDQg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SWb0ShWDQg). And I remember being puzzled at the time as to why it had been written long before the rest of the album. Back then, without the interwebs, an insoluble puzzle. Why am I following up on these things half a century later? I dunno. Worrying. Anyway, it transpires that the original version was Bowie’s follow-up to Space Oddity. It tanked. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/16A1bxJsPNY/maxresdefault.jpg "David Bowie - The Prettiest Star (1970 stereo version)") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16A1bxJsPNY) Personal opinion - the original version is by far the better one. No peeking - who is playing the guitar part that Ronno copied note-for-note on Aladdin Sane? Answer: Bowie’s big pal, Marc Bolan The rest of the story is given in the wiki page for the song - [The Prettiest Star - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prettiest_Star) I particularly like this: > David Bowie wrote “The Prettiest Star” as a love song for Angie Barnett, reputedly playing it down the telephone as part of his proposal to her on Christmas 1969… the song is in the style of the Greek hasapiko dance as a tribute to Angie’s Cypriot ethnic origin. j ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2023, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musical-and-song-rabbit-holes/978688/29 "2023-02-09T22:07:38Z")
The wiki says the original single sold less than 800 copies! Ouch! ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2023, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musical-and-song-rabbit-holes/978688/30 "2023-02-14T20:08:33Z")
I’ve taken a deep dive on 1950s [Answer Records](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Answer_song). The wiki article barely scratches the surface but it does include a couple of really fun ones. The Big Bopper’s “Chantilly Lace” was answered by Jayne Mansfield’s “That Makes It” [![](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/lGXFVOc5I8Q/hqdefault.jpg?sqp=-oaymwEmCOADEOgC8quKqQMa8AEB-AHeA4AC4AOKAgwIABABGHIgWCg8MA8=&rs=AOn4CLBFz4oEROZGLA_3dQPE4L-01M5SbQ "The Big Bopper - Chantilly Lace HQ") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGXFVOc5I8Q) [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/vUoY_SyhGPg/hqdefault.jpg "jayne mansfield - That makes it") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUoY_SyhGPg) But my favorite is an answer record by the Bobbettes to their own song “Mr. Lee”. _(Mr. Lee, Mr. Lee, Mr. Lee, Mr. Lee) Oh, he’s the handsomest sweetie that you ever did see (Mr. Lee, Mr. Lee, Mr. Lee, Mr. Lee)_ “Mr. Lee” was a huge hit for the Bobbettes and Atlantic Records so the label insisted that all of their records be in the style of that song. The Bobbettes (ages 12-15) got so sick of the stupid songs they had to sing, they recorded an answer to their big hit. “I Shot Mr. Lee” _I picked up my gun And I went to his door I picked up my gun And I went to his door Now Mr. Lee can tell me no more He hollered help, help Murder, police The girl’s after me with a gun Hollered help, help, murder, police The girl’s after me with a gun Six, seven, eight Mr. Lee had a date Nine, ten, eleven Now he’s up in heaven Shot him in the head Boom boom, whoa oh Shot him in the head Boom boom, whoa oh_ Atlantic fired them and they found a new label to record and release their answer song. As it climbed up the charts, Atlantic quickly pressed their recording of it to cash in. [![](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/XoT_7lOS-vg/hqdefault.jpg?sqp=-oaymwEmCOADEOgC8quKqQMa8AEB-AH-BIAC4AOKAgwIABABGHIgXSg4MA8=&rs=AOn4CLCkVNPijXSz1t79LbblFaIkE1ItGw "THE BOBBETTES - "MR. LEE'' (1957)") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoT_7lOS-vg) [![](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/U6qStEbd8bY/hqdefault.jpg "1960 HITS ARCHIVE: I Shot Mr. Lee - Bobbettes") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6qStEbd8bY) ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2024, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musical-and-song-rabbit-holes/978688/31 "2024-04-05T18:18:57Z")
Ever heard of ‘The Ducks’ ? I had not, until yesterday. I stumbled across them on YouTube when I saw a ‘cover’ of Mr. Soul by The Ducks. [Wiki says this:](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ducks) _" **The Ducks** were a short-lived American rock group formed in the summer of 1977 by singer-songwriter Jeff Blackburn. The band included [Bob Mosley](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Mosley) (an original member of [Moby Grape](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moby_Grape)), Canadian singer-songwriter [Neil Young](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Young), and Johnny Craviotto. The band played a series of impromptu bar gigs around the [Santa Cruz](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Cruz,_California) area in 1977._ _Young had a contract with Crazy Horse that specified he could only tour with them, and so the Ducks were required to confine themselves within the city limits so as not to tour."_ Imagine how cool that would have been. Apparently Crosby and Nash even sat in a couple of times. Jeff Blackburn co-wrote "My My Hey Hey (Out of the Blue), penning the iconic line, “It’s better to burn out than to fade away”. Which was famously was the last line in Curt Cobain’s suicide note. Side note: Of that song/line, John Lennon said, _“I hate it. It’s better to fade away like an old soldier than to burn out. If he was talking about burning out like Sid Vicious, forget it. I don’t appreciate the worship of dead Sid Vicious or of dead James Dean or dead John Wayne.”_ Anyway, interestingly, Blackburn doesn’t even have his own Wiki page as a (single) person. ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2024, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musical-and-song-rabbit-holes/978688/32 "2024-04-05T19:11:38Z")
I’ve first heard of the story of the Ducks in the Neil Young biography “Shakey” by Jimmy McDonough some twenty years ago, and back then downloaded a few bootleg MP3s, but never really listened. But last year, a compilation from their concerts was released at last. It’s quite good. > **[High Flyin' - The Ducks | Album | AllMusic](https://www.allmusic.com/album/high-flyin-mw0003944867)** > > High Flyin' by The Ducks released in 2023. Find album reviews, track lists, credits, awards and more at AllMusic. ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2024, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musical-and-song-rabbit-holes/978688/33 "2024-04-05T22:31:01Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#): > > “Wimoweh” aka “Mbube” If there are any English lyrics in that (either by Solomon or Seeger), I’ll be darned if I can hear it. ---
**Author:** ![Treppenwitz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treppenwitz/32/3445_2.png) [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2024, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musical-and-song-rabbit-holes/978688/34 "2024-04-06T13:58:14Z")
As part of a project to fill in some gaps in my musical knowledge I recently listened to Pressure Machine by The Killers. I posted about it here, and I thought my succinct description of it was rather good: “_snapshots of a broken Middle America, abandoned by its God and ravaged by the opioid epidemic_”. If that sounds a bit Nebraska-by-Springsteen-ish, it’s not an accident - Nebraska is freely acknowledged as an inspiration. Now, I’m sure most of us know the story about how Springsteen made demos for the album at home on his little four track studio and brought them into the big studio for the band to work up in their usual way; and in not very long everyone realized that actually the demos fitted the material far better than the band versions - so the demos were used on the album instead. What I never knew: there were other songs in that set of demos that didn’t make it onto Nebraska. Here’s one of them: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/22Gh1wQEe1I/maxresdefault.jpg "Born In the U.S.A. (Demo Version - 1982)") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22Gh1wQEe1I) (There appear to be multiple demo versions of the song). The ultimate inspiration for all of this darkness is (at least in part) the Starkweather murders. They were also the inspiration for the film Badlands and a host of other songs. > **[Charles Starkweather | Music](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Starkweather#Music)** > > 1.Bruce Springsteen's 1982 song "Nebraska" is a first-person narrative based on the Starkweather murders. | > 2.J Church's 1993 song "Hate So Real" retells the Starkweather murders. | > 3."Starkweather homicide" is referenced in the lyrics to singer-songwriter Billy Joel's 1989 music single, "We Didn't Start the Fire". | > 4.The 2009 Church of Misery song "Badlands (Charles Starkweather & Caril Fugate)" is about the Starkweather murders. | > 5.A picture of Starkweather's arrest was used as a backdrop... j [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/musical-and-song-rabbit-holes/978688.md?page=1)