FRIDAY RANDOM TEN

Good Gawd. Is it Friday again?

Why, yes. So it is.

I have set myself a serious task for the afternoon: Preparing dinner for a small army of friends. The centerpiece of the meal will be a braised brisket of beef, to be accompanied by Moroccan-style zucchini, sautéed broccolini (that’s a lot of inis, right there), and mashed potatoes with a Sooper Seekrit Ingredient. The slicing and dicing will begin momentarily.

While all this cooking is going on, I may as well listen to a few tunes. And what better place to find them than in the electronic bowels of the the iPod d’Elisson? Here’s today’s Random Ten:

1. Me and My Baby - Chicago, the Musical (New Broadway Cast)
   
   
2. Time After Time - Miles Davis
   
   
3. M (Instrumental) - J Ralph
   
   
4. The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald - Gordon Lightfoot
   
   The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
   Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee.
   The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
   When the skies of November turn gloomy.
   
   With a load of iron ore - 26,000 tons more
   Than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty,
   That good ship and true was a bone to be chewed
   When the gales of November came early.
   
   The ship was the pride of the American side
   Coming back from some mill in Wisconsin.
   As the big freighters go it was bigger than most
   With a crew and the Captain well seasoned.
   
   Concluding some terms with a couple of steel firms
   When they left fully loaded for Cleveland,
   And later that night when the ship’s bell rang
   Could it be the North Wind they’d been feeling?
   
   The wind in the wires made a tattletale sound
   And a wave broke over the railing.
   And every man knew, as the Captain did, too,
   T’was the witch of November come stealing.
   
   The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait
   When the gales of November came slashing.
   When afternoon came it was freezing rain
   In the face of a hurricane west wind.
   
   When supper time came the old cook came on deck
   Saying, “Fellas, it’s too rough to feed ya.”
   At seven p.m. a main hatchway caved in
   He said, “Fellas, it’s been good to know ya.”
   
   The Captain wired in he had water coming in
   And the good ship and crew was in peril.
   And later that night when his lights went out of sight
   Came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
   
   Does anyone know where the love of God goes
   When the waves turn the minutes to hours?
   The searchers all say they’d have made Whitefish Bay
   If they’d put fifteen more miles behind her.
   
   They might have split up or they might have capsized
   They may have broke deep and took water,
   And all that remains is the faces and the names
   Of the wives and the sons and the daughters.
   
   Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings
   In the ruins of her ice water mansion.
   Old Michigan steams like a young man’s dreams,
   The islands and bays are for sportsmen.
   
   And farther below Lake Ontario
   Takes in what Lake Erie can send her,
   And the iron boats go as the mariners all know
   With the gales of November remembered.
   
   In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed
   In the Maritime Sailors’ Cathedral.
   The church bell chimed, ’til it rang 29 times
   For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald.
   
   The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
   Of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee.
   Superior, they say, never gives up her dead
   When the gales of November come early.
   
   
5. Gershwin: An American in Paris - Leonard Bernstein, New York Philharmonic
   
   
6. Every Picture Tells a Story - Rod Stewart
   
   
7. Tribute - Tenacious D
   
   
8. Mozart: Requiem In D Minor, K626-03, Sequenz #1 - Dies Irae, Allegro Assai - Herbert Von Karajan
   
   
9. Do Nothing - The Specials
   
   
10. Biz In Vaysn Tog Arayn - The Klezmer Conservatory Band
    
    

It’s Friday. What are you listening to?