November 27, 2008

Lyrical Pursuit - Thanksgiving edition

When I realized that I got oldies day on Thanksgiving, one song immediately came to mind. In fact, it is such an obvious song for Thanksgiving, I wouldn't be surprised if you don't even need lyrics to guess it.

But that would sort of defeat the purpose of Lyrical Pursuit, wouldn't it?

So I'll do the obvious Thanksgiving song as a bonus point, first person who tells me what I'm thinking gets it.

And for lyrics, a song with no Thanksgiving meaning of which I'm consciously aware:

Hot August night and the leaves hanging down and the grass on the ground smellin' sweet

And Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

Clue time!

Clue #1: I've always wondered how many tent revivals a Jewish kid from Brooklyn had seen to inspire him to write this song.

Clue #2: The song is from an album of the same title, but the LP's second release turned out to be a more popular single (especially among Red Sox fans, who find it so good.)

Clue #3: I didn't expect this one to be so hard, so I didn't come up with four clues. Or three. And in fact, I had to wing #2. Ok, here's a string of antonyms, see what you can do: sister/hate/stay/damnation/hide.

Clue #4: It was pouring rain the night of the last Washington Nationals home game this year, and since both the Nats and the Marlins were mathematically eliminated from playoff contention anyway, MLB called off the game with no makeup. See where I'm going with this? There's no Clue #4, because it just doesn't matter.

Posted by Nic at November 27, 2008 06:11 AM | TrackBack
Comments

Alice's Restaurant

Posted by: Stephen Macklin at November 27, 2008 08:03 AM

We should see who can do most of that song without looking up the lyrics

Posted by: Pete at November 27, 2008 11:56 AM

And if you are being picky the actual name of the song is Alice's Restaurant Massacree

Posted by: Pete at November 27, 2008 12:02 PM

Pete is right about the song title...track one (and side one, for that matter) of the album Alice's Restaurant is Alice's Restaurant Massacree. But I hear it called just Alice's Restaurant on the radio every Thanksgiving, so I will accept that from Stephen. I'll check with the league office to see if I have the authority to award bonus points for both answers.

Posted by: Nic at November 27, 2008 12:31 PM

And the artist, of course, is Arlo Guthrie. :)

Posted by: Tuning Spork at November 27, 2008 04:51 PM

but where in NYC was the draft building?

Posted by: Pete at November 27, 2008 05:10 PM

I used to work for a baby boomer, then there was me (early gen-x with musical tastes that skew older), and the rest of the staff were kids born after 1980. We had a staff meeting where the boomer boss described some audit results as our being "inspected, detected, infected, neglected, and selected." I said "Shrink, I wanna KILL." Boomer boss about fell off his chair laughing, but the kids backed away in complete horror.

(Oh, Whitehall Street, but I heard the song today.)

Posted by: Nic at November 27, 2008 09:48 PM

Award points as you see fit.

--League Office

Posted by: Jennifer at November 28, 2008 12:21 AM

...and they all moved away from me on the bench...

Posted by: Pete at November 28, 2008 08:07 AM

Bonus points to Pete and to Stephen, and the answer to song was Neil Diamond, "Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show."

Posted by: Nic at November 30, 2008 04:20 PM


Jew