gts146 “sheepish”
I’m ok, but shouldn’t wag your tail behind you in front of other people.
01-01 Bing Crosby & Fred Waring Glee Club – Decca 23990 – The Whiffenpoof Song (1947)
— better to be a wistful drunk than an angry one!
01-02 Suzee Ikeda – MoWest 5004F – Bah Bah Bah (1971)
— from the flux period when Motown was transitioning from Detroit to Los Angeles.
01-03 Liz Phair – Soberish 07 – Ba Ba Ba (2021)
— no actual sheep, but the title is perfect here.
01-04 The Buddha Lounge Players – Sheep (As Made Famous By Pink Floyd) (2010)
— the best cover of it, in my opinion.
02-01 Willi Carlisle – Critterland 05 – Two-Headed Lamb (2024)
— can eat grass twice as fast, but still only one stomach, that’s the basic problem.
02-02 Ebby Jewell & The Bluegrass Kinsmen – My Daily Prayer 07 – Are You Washed In The Blood Of The Lamb (2015)
— pickin clean as country water.
02-03 All Beat Up – Mercy Thirst 01 – Are You Washed In The Blood Of The Lamb? (2024)
— don’t think these lads think of it the same way.
02-04 Billy Bragg & Wilco – Mermaid Avenue Vol. II 09 – Blood Of The Lamb (2000)
— pickin dirty as city water.
02-05 Casey Berry – Long Way Down 05 – Blood Of The Lamb (2014)
— self-released CD, difficult to find, but Casey knows where all the flammable stuff is kept in the barn.
03-01 Tom Waits – Orphans (Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards) 313 – Poor Little Lamb (2006)
— included on the 3rd CD, Bastards, but sure sounds like a Bawler to me.
03-02 Joseph Spence – Folkways 3847 102 – The Lord’s My Shepherd (1958)
— caught on tape in the Bahamas, lost his job in masonry so he had time to get weird on the guitar.
03-03 Patch The Pirate – Blanket Of Stars 04 – I Just Wanna Be A Sheep (2005)
— a little preachy, but so odd that it edges towards comedy.
03-04 Johnny Standley – Capitol 2249 – It’s In The Book (Part 1) (1952)
— today, we say “I saw it on the internet so it must be true.”
03-05 Randy Newman – Born Again 104 – Mr. Sheep (1979)
— sounds like a lost Kinks tune.
03-06 The Android Sisters – The Best Of The Android Sisters 08 – Electric Sheep (2006)
— missing from their only album, made it onto the later best-of, but still recorded before the film Blade Runner came out.
04-01 Helen Ward & Benny Goodman Orchestra – Victor 25316 – You Can’t Pull The Wool Over My Eyes (1936)
— Helen Forrest is my favorite Helen of the Swing Era, but here’s the second-best Helen.
04-02 Sam The Sham & The Pharoahs – MGM K13747 – Black Sheep (1967)
— stinging social commentary, while Martin Luther King II was still alive.
04-03 The Singing Sheep – Sheep Records BAA 1 – Baa Baa Black Sheep (1982)
— obviously, this makes the cut today.
04-04 Charlie Rich – A Time For Tears 101 – Gentle As A Lamb (1970)
— unclear if this is Charlie’s own version, or if this is the version he recorded with “Orion The Masked Singer”.
04-05 Friends Of Distinction – RCA Victor 74-0107 – Grazing In The Grass (1969)
— the FOD added lyrics to this Hugh Masekela original.
04-06 Rev. Billy C Wirtz – Turn For The Wirtz: Confessions Of A Hillbilly Love-God 05 – Can’t Put My Finger On It (1992) [excerpt]
— cut from a longer song of dirty Wirtz, this is the verse about Mary and her little lamb.
04-07 Cheek-O Vaas – Twy-Lite 752 – Bo Peep Rock (1961)
— picking up latino rockabilly where Richie Valens died off.
05-01 Harry G. Rogers – 1885-03-11 – Mary Had A Little Lamb (1885)
— recovered from a “photographic glass plate”, tentative transcription thus: “This record has been inscribed by Mister Sumner Tainter and H. G. Rogers. It’s the eleventh day of March, eighteen hundred and eighty five. [Trilled R] How is this for high! Mary had a little lamb, and its fleece was white as snow, and everywhere that Mary went — oh, fuck.
[Trilled R] Mary had a little lamb, and its fleece was white as snow, and wherever Mary went, the little lamb was sure to go. How is this for high! [Uncertain final syllables as machine glides to a halt]”
The ‘official’ transcription is “oh no”, but we can clearly hear what is, I believe, the first recorded instance of the word “fuck”.
05-02 Homer & Jethro – RCA Victor 47-5555 – You-Ewe-U (1953)
— clever clowns with some thinly disguised zoophilia.
05-03 John R Butler – Surprise 05 – The Hand Of The Almighty (2003) [excerpt]
— not disguised at all.
05-04 Mason Williams – Them Poems 111 – Them Ewe Doers (1964)
— cheeky implied zoophilia, though he doesn’t mention that if one faces one’s sheep at the edge of a cliff, it pushes back harder. In case you wondered.
05-05 NOFX – Ribbed 04 – Food, Sex, & Ewe (1991)
— no entendres, just fun ska.
05-06 Pink Floyd – 1975-04-26 Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena 02 – Raving And Drooling (1975)
— touring in support of the “Wish You Were Here” album, following this song they played that in its entirety, then after a break played most of “Dark Side Of The Moon”, with “Echoes” off the album “Meddle” as the smashing encore. Took the band a couple more years to refine “Raving And Drooling” into the sheeps-rights anthem for the 1977 album “Animals” where “raving and drooling” became “bleating and babbling”.
06-01 Charlie Hearnshaw & Maxine Green & The Poll Dorsets – Blackdown Voices 01 – Sheep Song (2007)
— sometimes classified as a ‘field recording’ because The Poll Dorsets are Charlie & Maxine’s actual sheep.
06-02 The Sputniks – Class 222 – Johnny’s Little Lamb (1958)
— took a ride in an Oldsmobile. We support this.
06-03 Big Youth – Negusa Nagast Records – Woolf In Sheep Clothing (1975)
— also came out on Agustus Buchanan Records [sic] and Trojan Records the same year. This 45rpm has the Negusa Nagast version on the B-side.
06-04 The Koralites & Jack Wilcher – Bluebird 514 – Mary Had A Little Lamb (1939)
— arrangement by Jack Wilcher, either genius or insane.
06-05 Muintir Lewis & The Lewis Family – Weeds In The Garden 206 – Reels: The Ewe With The Crumpled Horn + Moving In Decency (1978)
— a reel, which is NOT a jig, and there are people who will fight you if you confuse it.
06-06 Genesis – The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway 101 – The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway (1974)
— lead track from the original band’s swan-song opus. Played this album at 102 shows worldwide over a year and a half, heard them all and they’re all great. Highlight from each show is the song “The Waiting Room” which was never performed the same way twice.
… and half a bonus track…
07-01 Ethel Waters & The Hall Johnson Choir – Cabin In The Sky 102 – Li’l Black Sheep (1943) [excerpt]
— taken from the 1996 CD where it’s track 03, but originally released on vinyl in 1980 as track 2 of side A. The 1943 film also features Lena Horne, and of course Eddie “Rochester” Anderson!