Missing from the web
Over the last few years I've become accustomed to thinking of the World-Wide Web as a sort of magical font of any kind of information one could imagine. In many areas it's close to that, but it still has some holes, and sometimes it's startling to stumble across them. Now, I know that the original blogs were intended as compendia of links: "Look what I found!" So a post about what I couldn't find might be against the spirit of the whole thing. OK, call me a crazy rebel.
Both of my missing items today are songs. The first is my older sister's whistle.
My father had the bright idea to give all his kids whistle-calls. Whistles carry better than words, especially in crowded places. So all three of us had special whistled melodies that my parents would use if they lost sight of us, say in a supermarket or at a park. When you heard your whistle, you were supposed to go toward the source immediately. My parents also had a single reciprocal whistle-call for each other.
Mine was the theme music to a radio program that was off the air by the time I was born. My parents' and my younger sister's whistles were from the classical repertoire; I'm pretty sure I could find them from one of the several excellent melody-indices on the Web.
But my older sister's, the first one that was bestowed, is the melody to a song, either a folk song or something written for children. I know the words and the tune, which is more than the Internet knows.
Teera leera leera, in the Spring
Orioles and robins sweetly sing
Through the leafy branches you can hear
Teera leera leera, ringing clear.
Teera leera leera is our song
Through the leafy branches all day long
Through the leafy branches you can hear
Teera leera leera, ringing clear.
OK, that must a kids' song that somebody wrote; no self-respecting folksong would be that cheery. Also, I think I may have forgotten two lines, because I don't think the original has the hear/clear lines twice.
Anyway, it's odd to discover that a song that was so much a part of my childhood has no presence whatsoever on the googlable Internet.
My second example is a Sesame Street song. This is surprising because most Sesame Street songs have been indexed and archived lovingly by two generations of adoring fans. This one seems to have slipped between the cracks. It's from the story arc in which Oscar visits "Grouchytown", a sort of Grouch Homeland where the ordinary citizens are Grouches, a topsy-turvy version of Sesame Street. Oscar's own niche on Sesame Street, as the only bad-tempered resident, is mirrored by Grouchytown's only good-tempered one, Nina the Nice. On arriving in Grouchytown, Oscar sings a sort of anthem, which begins,
Dear old Grouchytown
Along the River Slime
Where mud-balls travel
In the gravel
And grime
[Two lines forgotten here]
That's dear old Grouchytown,
My home!
I'm sure there are other verses; I know the melody reasonably. One of the big archives of Sesame Street lyrics does have an APB out on a different song from the same story, but this one is sung by Nina the Nice; the archivist doesn't appear to remember the one that's haunting me.
At any rate, Google will now eventually index this post, and other people looking for the same things will see that they are not alone. Welcome, fellow weirdoes.
Both of my missing items today are songs. The first is my older sister's whistle.
My father had the bright idea to give all his kids whistle-calls. Whistles carry better than words, especially in crowded places. So all three of us had special whistled melodies that my parents would use if they lost sight of us, say in a supermarket or at a park. When you heard your whistle, you were supposed to go toward the source immediately. My parents also had a single reciprocal whistle-call for each other.
Mine was the theme music to a radio program that was off the air by the time I was born. My parents' and my younger sister's whistles were from the classical repertoire; I'm pretty sure I could find them from one of the several excellent melody-indices on the Web.
But my older sister's, the first one that was bestowed, is the melody to a song, either a folk song or something written for children. I know the words and the tune, which is more than the Internet knows.
Teera leera leera, in the Spring
Orioles and robins sweetly sing
Through the leafy branches you can hear
Teera leera leera, ringing clear.
Teera leera leera is our song
Through the leafy branches all day long
Through the leafy branches you can hear
Teera leera leera, ringing clear.
OK, that must a kids' song that somebody wrote; no self-respecting folksong would be that cheery. Also, I think I may have forgotten two lines, because I don't think the original has the hear/clear lines twice.
Anyway, it's odd to discover that a song that was so much a part of my childhood has no presence whatsoever on the googlable Internet.
My second example is a Sesame Street song. This is surprising because most Sesame Street songs have been indexed and archived lovingly by two generations of adoring fans. This one seems to have slipped between the cracks. It's from the story arc in which Oscar visits "Grouchytown", a sort of Grouch Homeland where the ordinary citizens are Grouches, a topsy-turvy version of Sesame Street. Oscar's own niche on Sesame Street, as the only bad-tempered resident, is mirrored by Grouchytown's only good-tempered one, Nina the Nice. On arriving in Grouchytown, Oscar sings a sort of anthem, which begins,
Dear old Grouchytown
Along the River Slime
Where mud-balls travel
In the gravel
And grime
[Two lines forgotten here]
That's dear old Grouchytown,
My home!
I'm sure there are other verses; I know the melody reasonably. One of the big archives of Sesame Street lyrics does have an APB out on a different song from the same story, but this one is sung by Nina the Nice; the archivist doesn't appear to remember the one that's haunting me.
At any rate, Google will now eventually index this post, and other people looking for the same things will see that they are not alone. Welcome, fellow weirdoes.