Friday, November 29, 2013

Make Those Dishes Dance!


A Belated Happy Thanksgiving to everyone who celebrated it yesterday, and a more belated wish of the same to those who celebrated it in October.

My guess is that more dishes are washed across the United States on Thanksgiving than on any other day of the year. And in honor of that supposition, here is an absolutely marvelous song-poem titled "Dance of the Dishes", from our friends at Tin Pan Alley, and led by the enthusiastic Lillian Mars, a record which is compilation worthy as far as I'm concerned.

I don't know what it was about Tin Pan Alley - maybe the places that they chose to advertise? - but they certainly seem to have had more than their share of genuinely witty or at least humor-enhanced writers who took part in their little scam. This is a prime example - with everything from the fork complaining of not being able to dance, due to his "four feet" to the bewitching soup bowls - and the tiny three piece combo is lead by a pianist who is clearly having just as much fun as the vocalist is, with this material. A first-rate winner.

Download: Lilian Mars - Dance of the Dishes
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I do not, unfortunately, have anything so complimentary to say about the flip side of this disc, a turgid, badly sung number called "Paradise Valley", in which Lillian Mars is joined by label favorite Phil Celia.

Download: Lillian Mars and Phil Celia - Paradise Valley
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3 comments:

Rocky Lane said...

Hope you had a good holiday too.
Dance Of The Dishes ... compilation worthy indeed. I love simple piano records like this.

KL from NYC said...

Yes, I agree: the A (?) side is better than the B-side. Thanks.

Anonymous said...

What's funny about this is that I did all the dishes Thanksgiving night.....then the next morning I did all the breakfast dishes.....then I did all the lunch dishes......and just as I put the last dish in, my sister in law came in and told me that they had a dishwasher!!!!! After my fingers were wrinkled prunes! Ah well....could have used this song that night!