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On today's podcast we have Rahul Moodgal. Rahul is one of the most respected investor relations professionals in finance — an absolute rocket. As a Partner at TCI, he claimed the crown for raising the most amount of capital in the shortest period of time — $20 billion dollars in just three and a half years. He also led the largest country fund launch — $1 billion for India Fund TCI New Horizon — and the largest sector fund launch in history — $1.1 billion for the sector-specific fund, Algebris. Prior to his work in investing, Rahul was an academic, studying across 19 universities in the UK, US, Japan, and Russia. He's a graduate of Keele University, Cambridge University, and the London School of Economics. Beyond finance, Rahul's skills are as diverse as they are impressive — he's a qualified counsellor, bartender, musician, English teacher, interior designer, DJ, and music therapist. Today, he works independently, supporting activist managers around the world and helping grow their businesses. He is also a Partner at Parvis, a $10 billion European public equities fund. He remains deeply committed to philanthropy, involved with numerous charities including Whizz Kids and Mulberry Bush, serves as a Patron of Team GB and the Triangle Playground School, is Chair of the Board at Scientific Adventures for Girls, and actively fundraises for the British Red Cross. He is also the co-founder of Capital Allocators University. In this episode, we discuss Rahul's journey, exceptional leadership, and doing ordinary things extraordinarily well. I hope you enjoy. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Find Rahul: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/rahul-moodgal Find James: https://www.linkedin.com/in/acceleratingexcellence/ https://www.instagram.com/jamesaking_/ https://jamesaking.com/ The Mindset App: While the app is under development, we have decided to provide access to the full content for free on YouTube for a limited time. You can find the courses within our playlists or by the link below. I hope you enjoy. https://www.youtube.com/@AcceleratingExcellence/playlists
Go for a spin around Vegesaur Valley in this version of Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush.
On the eve of the 50th Anniversary of the Birmingham Pub Bombing we feel now is a good time to update and release this improved audio of the time Brian and Julie came in to our studio to give their story .....21 were people killed in the bombings at the Mulberry Bush and the Tavern in the Town pubs in Birmingham, England. These bombings were carried out by the Provisional IRA, resulting in one of the deadliest attacks on British soil during The Troubles.Maxine Hambleton, the sister of Brian and Julie give their story regarding that horrendous night in Birmingham and the continued fight for justice.This campaign continues to seek justice through legal channels, public remembrance, and by ensuring the story of these victims remains in public discourse, advocating for a more thorough examination of the events by potentially holding a Section 1 public inquiry, which would look into the broader implications of the bombings, including security services' roles and the miscarriages of justice that ensued."Please note, recording is from 2014, some material may or may not be relevant at the time of 2nd release" With Paul Collins, Edited and Produced by Chris Browne for SRBMEDIAwww.srbmedia.co.ukSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/srbmedia. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Mom and Dad are here to share some spooky nursery rhymes and the history behind them. Great Green Gobs of Greasy, Grimy Gopher Guts, Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush, The Hearse Song, and Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater. Oh the joys of children's rhymes... Have ghost stories of your own? E-mail them to us at twogirlsoneghostpodcast@gmail.com This episode is sponsored by Galatea, BetterHelp, Nutrafol, Honeylove, and Songfinch. From ebooks with built-in musical scores to choose-your-own-narrator audiobooks, the Galatea app is also here to satisfy your fictional cravings in whichever format you prefer. Go to galatea.com/TGOG to start reading now–you don't even have to download! This episode is sponsored by Betterhelp. Get it off your chest with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com/TGOG today to get 10% off your first month. Take the first step to visibly thicker, healthier hair. For a limited time, Nutrafol is offering our listeners $10 your first month's subscription and free shipping when you go to Nutrafol.com and enter the promo code TGOG Honeylove bras are so comfortable, you'll forget you're wearing them! Treat yourself to the best bras on the market and save 20% off at honeylove.com/TGOG. Songfinch lets you create an original, radio-quality song inspired by your own life and the people you love; it's completely unique, personal, and lasts forever. For a limited time, Songfinch is letting our listeners upload their song to Spotify for FREE so you and the lucky person you gift it to can listen to it anywhere, anytime. Go to songfinch.com/TGOG and start your song – after you purchase, you'll be prompted to add Spotify Streaming for your original song for FREE - a $50 value! If you enjoy our show, please consider joining our Patreon, rating and reviewing on iTunes & Spotify and following us on social media! Youtube, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Discord. Edited and produced by Jaimi Ryan, original music by Arms Akimbo! Disclaimer: the use of white sage and smudging is a closed practice. If you're looking to cleanse your space, here are some great alternatives!
It's episode 374 and are technical issues bringing us closer together? We're so sorry, YouTube Boozers and Shakers, for the lag (we edited the audio separately so you won't hear the same overlapping issues there). We're making up for it with a new Compliment Christine segment. This week Em takes us way, way back to the origins and dark side of nursery rhymes. Then Christine covers the more recent Polish case of Krystian Bala. And has Em just dubbed Christine the "Princess of Pronouns"? ...and that's why we drink! We wrote a second book! Pre-orders are open and super important for our ratings so treat yourself to our second spooky travel compendium, A Haunted Road Atlas: Next Stop here - http://bit.ly/HRANextStop
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With a shift to a 30 minute format, this musical show features comedian WC Fields, and Al Goodman's orchestra. Playlist: Stop Beating Around the Mulberry Bush, ranked: 2 While a…
Just us GIRLS in this rip roarin' ep. Julia Gray (Washington Post, The Ringer) and Drew H. discuss episode 8 of Girls Season Five. Topics include the cost of a coffee truck, Lena Dunham's new charity venture, "Mulberry Bush," Sample's baby beanie, and more. Follow Drew on Twitter. Follow Julia on Twitter.
This week Fresh From The Field Fridays from The Produce Industry Podcast with Dan the Produce Man - Apriums, Watermelons, here we go around the Mulberry...tree? Also Dan addresses recent comments made about his four year old video on Apeel. Tune in and Turn on! FANCY SPONSORS: Ag Tools, Inc.: https://www.agtechtools.com, Flavor Wave, LLC.: https://flavorwavefresh.com, Noble Citrus: https://noblecitrus.com, Buck Naked Onions/Owyhee Produce, Inc.: http://www.owyheeproduce.com and John Greene Logistics Company: https://www.jglc.com and Summer Citrus From South Africa; https://www.summercitrus.com CHOICE SPONSORS: Indianapolis Fruit Company: https://indyfruit.com, Equifruit: https://equifruit.com Arctic® Apples: https://arcticapples.com Sev-Rend Corporation: https://www.sev-rend.com, Jac Vandenberg Inc.: https://www.jacvandenberg.com Dole Fresh Vegetables: https://www.dole.com/en/produce/vegetables WholesaleWare: https://www.grubmarket.com/hello/software/index.html Continental Fresh, LLC: https://www.continentalfresh.com Golden Star Citrus, Inc.: http://www.goldenstarcitrus.com STANDARD SPONSORS: Freshway Produce: https://www.freshwayusa.com , Yo, Quiero/Fresh Innovations, LLC.: https://yoquierobrands.com/ and Citrus America: https://citrusamerica.com --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/theproduceindustrypodcast/support
It's our third installment of shows about the origins of Mother Goose nursery rhymes. Spoiler alert: Many of the real stories are hard to pin down. Research: Cheadle, Roberta Eaton. “Dark Origins – Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush.” Writing To Be Read. https://writingtoberead.com/2021/06/30/dark-origins-here-we-go-round-the-mulberry-bush/ Historic UK. “More Nursery Rhymes.” 4/15/2015. https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/More-Nursery-Rhymes/ Halliwell-Phillipps, J. O. “Popular rhymes and nursery tales : a sequel to the Nursery rhymes of England .” London : John Russell Smith. 1849. Howard, Jennifer. “The Realities Behind the Rhymes.” Washington Post. 6/11/1997. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/1997/06/11/the-realities-behind-the-rhymes/9fbd7d36-4bb9-4fc0-af38-58fbe3fb7e43/ Ker, John Bellenden. “An essay on the archaiology [sic] of popular English phrases and nursery rhymes.” London. Whittaker. 1834. https://archive.org/details/b29309670/ Littlechild, Chris. “The Egg-Citing Truth Behind Humpty Dumpty.” Ripley's. 7/4/2019. https://www.ripleys.com/weird-news/humpty-dumpty/ Opie, Iona Archibald and Peter Opie. “The Singing Game.” Oxford University Press. 1998. Opie, Iona and Peter. “The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes.” Oxford University Press. 1997. Overstreet, Mikkaka. “10 Disturbing Nursery Rhyme Origin Stories to Celebrate Nursery Rhyme Week.” Book Riot. 11/4/2021. https://bookriot.com/nursery-rhyme-origin-stories/ Seaver, Carl. “The Strange Historical Origins of the Humpty Dumpty Nursery Rhyme.” History Defined. 1/24/2023. https://www.historydefined.net/humpty-dumpty-history/ Tearle, Oliver. “A Short Analysis of the ‘Hickory Dickory Dock' Nursery Rhyme.” Interesting Literature. 9/2018. https://interestingliterature.com/2018/09/a-short-analysis-of-the-hickory-dickory-dock-nursery-rhyme-history-origins/ Tearle, Oliver. “A Short Analysis of the ‘Sing a Song of Sixpence' Nursery Rhyme.” Interesting Literature. https://interestingliterature.com/2018/10/a-short-analysis-of-the-sing-a-song-of-sixpence-nursery-rhyme-origins-history/ Thomas, Katherine Elwes. “The Real Personages Of Mother Goose.” Lothrop, Lee & Shepard. 1930. Wood, Jennifer M. “The Dark and Mysterious Origins of 10 Classic Nursery Rhymes.” Mental Floss. 10/28/2015. https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/55035/dark-origins-11-classic-nursery-rhymes See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Opinions That Don't Matter, the only weekly podcast that matters. In this episode, we talk about CBD and the power of suction! Kati and Sean share their experience with CBD and injuries. They also share some gardening tips and life updates! If you're looking for something to watch on CBD, this is the episode for you! Kati and Sean from OTDM share their experience with CBD and how it has helped them in their lives. They also discuss how Dyson Vacuums work, how to garden, and more! So sit back, relax, and enjoy this CBD- packed episode! (AI generated episode description :P) • CBD & The Power Of Suction • Fix it in post • Joe Cool the Camel - The Big Tobacco industry subliminal messages in advertising and Disney movies such as Little Mermaid, Aladdin and Lion King… Health updates: • Post surgery healing, and prognosis. • Sore back, possibly from office chairs • The importance of massage in healing and feeling good • Sean finds a PAIN RELIEF SOLUTION for his arthritis / hallux limitus/rigidus. Over the past year, the pain has become somewhat debilitating and in an effort to ease the pain, he is using CBD. Enter, Pure Spectrum.Sean's routine this month… Morning: Pure Spectrum Vibrance Tincture Evening: Pure Spectrum Tranquil Tincture US THE DISCOUNT CODE: OTDM FOR 15% Off ALL ORDERS https://www.purespectrumcbd.com/ Article on CBG that is quite interesting…. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8467477/ Studio update: we've sprung a leak! The direction of this podcast for 2023! Gardening… plants that fruit Is Monsanto a Good Company or a Bad Company? Big Tobacco creates the food you eat - Addicting Consumers Without Them Knowing it… processed goods loaded with chemicals and additives masquerading as food: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiHHgZx5IZ8 Talking about Iron Lungs & Michael Jackson Puppy parlance… Roxy makes a new friend? The Gift of Suction! The sexiest gift to my wife is… The Dyson mega suck. It found a lot of dirt and a giant feather! Funny family members: The memory of Sean's aunt Margy telling him a funny joke when I was a kid… The Plot of Gardening is… the plot Mulberry Bush: www.fastgrowingtrees.com Tom calls back. Colloquialism & escaping a stalker - VW Correspondent Canning, garden peppers a side of beef Pennsylvania Dutch staples & kind words! - Rachel a freshly minted Pennsylvania Dutch Correspondent! Kati escapes from a potential suitor… Amazon Suggestions https://www.amazon.com/shop/katimorton CONNECT Discord community https://discord.gg/4gPTrGBM9z The OTDM census form https://forms.gle/qFZM3ywPzrpKMkKfA Speakpipe 90 second voice message: https://www.speakpipe.com/OTDM Kati TikTok @Katimorton Instagram @katimorton Sean TikTok @hatori_seanzo Instagram @seansaintlouis Roxy Instagram @roxytheadventurer BUSINESS Linnea Toney linnea@underscoretalent.com --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/otdm/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/otdm/support
In this episode of Shaun Keaveny's Creative Cul-de-Sac, Shaun begins with some old standup, some readings from the book of genesis, and explains the hidden meaning of blues lyrics.Our guest this week is comedian, actor, writer, and poet Tim Key. Shaun picks through the unbelievable quantity of Tim's detritus including discarded Poems, children's songs. All music is by Shaun Keaveny.LINKSTickets for Tim's live show, Mulberry, at Soho Theatre are available here.And at Pleasance available here.Copies of his book ‘Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush' are available to buy from Waterstones here.And of course, he's watchable in The Witchfinder on BBC iPlayer.Support this show on Patreon and get a weekly radio broadcast from Shaun: https://www.patreon.com/shaunkeaveny See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Ding ding ding! Another special single plant episode, this time about the mulberry! Stephanie explains her connection to the mulberry and some dazzling details about this ubiquitous but often overlooked tree. Later, Steve does a deep dive on two nursery rhymes. Show Notes!What is WWOOFingMulberry WikiSericulture WikiCassie Dickson Textiles on Instagram (small scale silk producer)Here we go round the Mulberry Bush Poem AnalysisStop Beatin' ‘Round the Mulberry Bush, Count Basie and his orchestraPopular Rhymes and Nursery Tales, James Orchard Halliwell - 1849Pop goes the weasel on WikipediaThe Smarty Pants Podcast hosted by Stephanie Bastek
The armies of the Old Testament waited for God's leading before they went into battle. So why do we often seem to think we can go into the fight without Him? When we wait on God, He fights our battles for us and we become conquerors in Him. When we follow His lead, there's nothing we can't overcome!
Just as armies in the Old Testament waited for God's leading before they went into battle, we need to wait on God to follow Him so that He can fight our battles for us and we can be conquerors. We must have faith in what we cannot see to know that God fights for us and loves us. To support this ministry financially, visit: https://www.oneplace.com/donate/640/29
EP 38: TIM KEYComedian, Tim Key joins the podcast to discuss his unique way of managing his FPL team ‘The Post Office', a Chris Hoy anecdote like no other, some backstage radio gossip and the little known (to us) FPL asset - Lewis Dobbin.Tim Key's new book ‘Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush' is out now.Don't forget to send us in your forfeit suggestions. Email us at hello@cpfpl.comFollow the podcast on Twitter (@comediansfpl), Instagram (ComediansplayingFPL) and Facebook (@comediansfpl)Share, subscribe, review!You can join our FPL Fan League here: fantasy.premierleague.com/leagues/auto-join/4mtcnh… League Code: 4mtcnh
It's podcast time! That's right - the latest episode of The Chris Moyles Show On Radio X Podcast is here. We kicked off the week by speaking to Steve Coogan about his upcoming tour ‘Stratagem with Alan Partridge'. He told us Alan will be offering ‘life changing' advice to the audience after becoming a self proclaimed life coach over lockdown. It was a double guest Tuesday as we were then visited by Tim Key! Tim told us all about his new book of poems and conversations, ‘Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush' which reflects on the various lockdowns. Chris inferred that Tim really missed the pubs in lockdown after reading a few of the poems and Tim was surprised how quickly that fact had come to light! Dom also went on an adventure into Leicester Square this week to sell some of the Chris Moyles Show Pants! After a fair amount of rejection - Dom's interesting selling tactics saw him flog a few pairs and receive an old ten pound note. Well Done Dom. And if that wasn't enough, here's more… - Matt Can Play The Didgeridoo! - Dom on the Alan Titchmarsh Show - Dan O'Connell, aka David Brent Enjoy! The Chris Moyles Show on Radio X Weekdays 6:30-10am
Che cosa facciamo al mattino? In questo episodio, impariamo a dirlo in inglese attraverso la canzone "Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush"! Iscriviti per meno di 1€ al mese per accedere a tutti i nostri contenuti! ©2020-2022 Lingosing.com - imparare l'inglese con la musica!
ThiS CLASSIC NURSERY RHYME PERFORMED BY SKY
The post Nicky Hilton – The Mulberry Bush appeared first on Max Communications. The post Nicky Hilton – The Mulberry Bush appeared first on Max Communications Ltd..
We always hope that the stories we share with you on The Apple Seed spark memories for you to share with the people that you love. Sometimes those memories are sparked by listening to personal stories, and other times by listening to tall tales and fairy tales. So sit back, relax, and get ready to have the memories wash over you as you listen to stories about Chicken Little, squash vines, and mulberry bushes. "The Lap/You Are my Sunshine" by Kim Weitkamp from The Lap (17:47)To kick things off today, how about a little something from Kim Weitkamp? A story that illustrates the real, genuine, problem-solving power of a comfortable lap to sit in. Come for the story, stay for the song. "Here We Go 'Round the Mulberry Bush/Chicken Licken and the Fox Hunt" by Betty Ann Wylie from Mother Goose: From Morning Till Night (14:54)Betty Ann Wylie combines the familiar story and song, Chicken Little and Here We Go 'Round the Mulberry Bush, respectively, to create one story sharing experience. And if that's not enough, she'll thrown in the framework of the well-known "Bear Hunt" story. You're sure to enjoy this fun amalgamation. "Take Me By the Hand" by Judith Black from Oops Ma! Stories and Songs of Family Life (2:21)Since we've already had some fun with music in this episode of The Apple Seed, especially music filled with messages of love and notion that you're not alone, here's a song that little siblings or friends might sing about helping each other through the rough spots, even when you might be different from one another. "The Squash Vine" by the Storycrafters from A Tale For All Seasons (15:24)Let's wrap up today with a little adventure called "The Squash Vine" from the husband and wife storytelling team of Jeri Burns and Barry Marshall.
On today's episode, enjoy the following: "The Lap/You Are my Sunshine" (17:47) "Here We Go 'Round the Mulberry Bush/Chicken Licken and the Fox Hunt" by Betty Ann Wylie from Mother Goose: From Morning Till Night (14:54) "Take Me By the Hand" by Judith Black from Oops Ma! Stories and Songs of Family Life (2:21) "The Squash Vine" by the Storycrafters from A Tale For All Seasons (15:24)
No matter how well we plan, organize, and delegate, sometimes we drop the ball. Sometimes we let people down. Sometimes we fail to live up to our commitments. And sometimes we make matters worse by failing to communicate. This can lead to broken trust and people losing respect for you. So, how do we drop the ball gracefully? Today I'm going to give you five ways. Timestamps 00:00 - Introduction 03:10 - Why we drop the ball 07:33 - 1. Don't Overcommit to Begin With 10:27 - 2. Develop a System to Track Your Commitments 12:11 - 3. Communicate Early 15:30 - 4. Be 100% Honest 20:47 - 5. Ask for Forgiveness 23:45 - 6. Learn from Your Mistakes 25:56 - Believe the gospel when we drop the ball Links Getting Things Done by David AllenSign-up for the Redeeming Productivity Newsletter. ⏳If you enjoy Redeeming Productivity, consider supporting my work on Patreon, where you'll get exclusive updates and early releases of new content. Transcript Welcome to the redeeming productivity show. This is the podcast that helps Christians get more done and get it done like Christians. And I'm your host, Reagan Rose. Well, I'm here this is Episode 56. And I'm sitting here I got a ice cold Lacroix. Well, this is a Kroger brand. So, seltzer water, zero calories, naturally flavored lemon, listen to this. Just went all over my computer. It's okay. It's okay. Just a few droplets. Well, got another episode for you. So we're gonna be talking today about the art of gracefully dropping the ball, how to let people down without losing their respect. Ooh, intriguing title. I know. I wrote it. And so here's the deal. No matter how well you plan, no matter how well you organize, no matter how well you delegate, sometimes you drop the ball. Sometimes you let people down. Sometimes you fail to live up to your commitments and your promises. But sometimes, talking to myself here, we can make matters worse, when we fail to communicate when those things happen. And this can lead to broken trust can lead to people losing respect for you. And the question is, how do we drop the ball gracefully? Well, today, I'm going to give you five ways that you can drop the ball gracefully, and not lose people's respect, not lose their trust, when you have to break a commitment. So we'll talk about that in just a second. Before we do just a quick plug for the newsletter, if you don't get my bi weekly newsletter, you should it on Wednesdays I talk about things that have come out on the blog about new podcast episodes, and just some other things that I'm thinking. And that's really the only place you can get that just it's a little more. I was gonna say unhinged musings, but that's not the word I'm looking for. Though it may be more accurate, that's gonna say less, you know, rehearse less polish. This is kind of what I'm thinking about in regard to Christianity and productivity that week. And then on Fridays, you get my Reagan's roundup feature with just as five links from around the web, to help you on your journey to becoming a more productive Christian. So if you're not on the newsletter, you should sign up. It's redeemedproductivity.com/newsletter. And also now when you sign up for the newsletter, you get a free morning routine planner PDF. It's something I've pulled together, that kind of will walk you through the steps for creating a morning routine for yourself that involves things like Bible study, and exercise and prayer. And just if you walk through the steps, you'll have yourself a handy dandy routine in the morning. So check that out the redeeming productivity newsletter at redeemingproductivity.com/newsletter. And also if you're interested in supporting my work producing this podcast, these videos, blog posts, etc. You can do so on patreon.com/redeemingprod, there'll be a link in the description if you want more info on that. Okay, let's get into the meat of things. Let's get talking about dropping the ball gracefully. So here's the thing. I really hate letting people down. I do. And I think that there's I think that there's a problem there and motivations, which I'll talk about in a future episode on fear of man. But I really hate that feeling of letting someone down. And I think that in large part, that's what drives my interest in productivity. Sometimes, obviously, my more nobler reasons are that I do indeed want to glorify God with my life. But what really made me start thinking about how I can be more organized, how I can track my tasks better. The big thing that was motivating me was I just kept dropping the ball, people would ask me to do something, I'd commit to doing it. And then I'd forget. And so that's what got me into learning about how can I do this stuff better. And I do believe that this is part of being a Christian is we need to be people of our word. God is a God of his word. He always fulfills his promises. He never tells a lie. His yes is always yes is no is always No. And we as image bearers are to likewise be people of our word. And so when you commit to do something, that's a very serious thing. You You want your yes to be yes. And you know, to be no. But as you know, sometimes it can't be helped. Sometimes you really did want to do something you said you were going to do, but through maybe an error on your part, or circumstances that are outside of your control. Sometimes you let people down. Sometimes you can't fulfill that commitment. Sometimes you drop the ball. But since I want people to trust me, I want people to know that they can rely on me that can be devastating. You know, like, you want to be a person known as a person of your word, not just for your own, you know, personal self worth Back to your own reputation. But because you know that you represent Christ, you're a representative of God, you're an ambassador, for Christ, it says. So you want to be a person who's known as a person of your word, person, Person person. I think what maybe is ironic, I guess is that sometimes that fear of letting people down when things, you realize that you're not gonna be able to feel a commitment, sometimes that fear can actually lead to you making the situation worse. And what I mean is, you might try to find a way to work a bunch of overtime or something, or through the night to make up for a mistake, or for being double booked or double committed. And, you know, trying to make sure no one finds out that, that you didn't manage your time well or something. But the problem with that is it leads to this like vicious cycle of burnout, where you're constantly trying to fulfill these different commitments, and finding yourself falling short, and then trying to make up for them and then falling short and other commitments, and round and round we go, that is not a Mulberry Bush, you want to be circling weasel? Hmm. I don't think any of that's an expression. But it is now because that's how expressions are coined on podcasts. So and even worse, I think when it comes to letting people down and dropping the ball, we can even be tempted to lie sometimes, or bend the truth or just leave out some details to kind of cover over our failure. Or we might double down on our promises, we might say, well, I'll make up I'll make it up to you. But that actually, again, it can make things worse, and leads you to dropping the ball over and over again. And as a cereal ball dropper, myself, probably probably not what I should call that. But as someone who is who has done this multiple times, and is the reason I'm trying day in and day out to become a little bit more efficient, with my time a little bit more productive, a little bit better. at keeping track of the things I said I would do and making sure I actually have time to do them. It's because I am. I don't want to let people down. I want to I don't want to break their trust. I don't want to lose the respect. And I want to honor Christ by being a person of my word. So here are five ways maybe there'll be six but five ish ways on how you can learn the art of gracefully dropping the ball so that you don't lose people's respect or let them down or break their trust. 1. Don't Overcommit to Begin With So the first reason is this. Can you guys hear the Lacroix bubbling? I just love that. It's like um, the what was that cereal? right in that cereal like it doesn't exist Rice Krispies, you know, snap, crackle, pop, you can kind of hear the Lacroix. I'll keep it away from the mics. You don't have to hear it. I like subtle. If you heard the jokes about Lacroix where it's like, um, you know, the flavor is not intense. It's not like sweet. It's just kind of like hints of flavor. Someone said that Lacroix is like drinking water. And then someone shouts the name of a fruit from another room. That's what Lacroix tastes like. I thought that was funny. Anyway, what were we talking about? Oh, I was gonna tell you five ways to drop the ball gracefully. The first one in, I think probably the one that gets to the root of the problem, at least, the root of the problem for me, maybe this is same for you is the first reason or the first way to not drop the ball is to not over commit to begin with. I think over commitment can be a source for this kind of thing. Where you you want to say yes to things, you want to be helpful. You want to, you know, do things. And so you promise you say, Oh, yeah, I'll do that. Let me take care of that for you. But you do that so much that you find that it's actually too many commitments for you to handle. And no matter how well organized you are, every single one of us has a limit, even though we might try to push it guilty, often guilty of that myself. So I would say the first way that you can drop the ball gracefully, is by not putting yourself into a position where you're constantly having to drop the ball, because you've got too many things on your plate, keep the plate tidy. And this is just the art of learning to say no. This is you know being self aware enough to know your capacity and how much you can do and not to project yourself into the future and assume that the future you is going to have more time than the you right now. You know stuff always comes out life is not as clear as it is when you block it out on paper. So don't overcommit to begin with. And I think just as a good like practical application to this, keep us thinking calendar. It Doesn't have to be a stinking calendar, it can just be a normal calendar. But keep a calendar and keep it well. If you don't want to over commit to stuff, you need to track what you are committed to. And likewise, I actually talked about this in the next one, but track your tasks as well. Unless you know what you've said yes to, you aren't going to know if you have enough time to say yes to more things, if that makes sense. So keeping a rigorous calendar helps you not to over commit to things to begin with. 2. Develop a System to Track Your Commitments Okay, the second way that you can drop the ball gracefully, when you when you are over committed, is develop a system to track your commitment. So I just mentioned calendars. But the other side of that is a task tracking system. And I'm surprised in this day and age how many people still don't do this that I talked to. And so I'm not just talking about a to do list, I'm talking about a way of tracking the things that you have said you're going to do. If you have not read the book, getting things done by David Allen, I would commend it to you. It's a simple systematic approach to how you can kind of capture things as they come into your life and make sure that they actually get done. So you're not constantly trying to remember in your head, all the things that you've said you're going to do. It's a great book. And many, many software tools have sprung up around the concept of getting things done, I use OmniFocus. To do this is really popular things. You can do this with a bullet journal or just a simple notebook, but having a just a dedicated space, where you track what are the what are the things, what are the task, what do I need to get done today and tomorrow, things like that. That will go miles to make it so that you don't drop the ball as often. And again, number one applies here to again, don't over commit to things. But if you have visibility on what you're committed to, you're going to be much more likely to not drop the ball on things. And also transition that will help you to know if you are about to drop the ball on something so that you can communicate. 3. Communicate Early And so that's the third way that you can drop the ball gracefully. When you know that you're going to break a commitment. Tell people tell the person or people or boss or friend or whoever in advance, you know, if you something comes up and you know you had plans to go have dinner with some friends or something, and don't just like ghost him for one. But don't also like 10 minutes before you're going to meet at your local Chili's to get some pain yo poppers and a triple Dipper. Don't be like oh guy, sorry, I can't make it. Especially if you knew further in advance of that. And this is again, this is something that I I am guilty of myself is you know, most people will forgive a broken promise or a failure to complete something as intended. As long as you chest tell them as soon as you know about it. Do you know what I mean? Like people understand, like, nobody's perfect. Nobody gets 100% of the things done that they say they're going to get done. Like, things come up, you know, emergencies. And even just like foolish things where you double booked yourself. The trick is, tell them when soon as you know. So as soon as you know that you goofed a call a text and email cause a hugely long way to not just save face, but also honor the person that you know, you're about to let down. And if you know that there is even the potential for dropping the ball on something so you've committed to some project and, and the deadline for it is coming up. And you know, man, it's, it's gonna be tight. I don't know, if I'm gonna make this deadline. Don't just clam up and pretend that everything's gonna be okay. This is a great time for you to tell whoever's in charge. But I mean, I find this helpful. I manage people and I really appreciate when they over communicate to me when there's an expectation for something to be done. And they tell me, Hey, this and this and this came up. I think we're still gonna get it done on time, but I'm not sure I want you to know, I so appreciate that. Because then I'm able to communicate that and I and I'm able to set my expectations or reset my expectations, rather than being surprised when I thought everything was going fine. Because last time we talked was a week ago, dude, I mean, so communicate early, communicate often. As soon as you know that you're that you're dropping the ball on something, or even before if you know there's the potential to it. So communicate simple enough, isn't it? Except for it's kind of embarrassing, right? I think this is the reason that I struggle with this is you again you want you want to please people you want you want to come through you want to be trustworthy. But you kind of don't want people to see your flaws, your mistakes, especially if you, especially if you have a podcast about how to be productive, and then you drop the ball on something because you weren't productive on it, you're not I mean, like, there's a little bit of a blow to your ego to your pride. And so then you don't communicate. But again, it just makes things worse. So when when you when you know that you can drop the ball, communicate, communicate, communicate. 4. Be 100% Honest So on the subject of the art of gracefully dropping the ball here is the fourth way that you can drop the ball gracefully and not break people's trust or lose their respect for you. And that is be 100% honest, be 100% honest. Here's the deal. excuses are really not helpful. Um, even if they're true, like, I think there is a difference. Personally, I make a difference. In my mind, I've two different categories for excuse and an explanation for something. But an excuse is, as I define it, it's when you are basically trying to pass the blame. It might not be to another person, it might be the circumstances, but an excuse has these overtones of not taking ownership of the problem to say, Oh, I, you know, I almost got it done. But, but yeah, then then My car broke down, or I almost got it done. But then X, Y, and Z happened to me, you know what I mean? And that is not that helpful. And I just, again, speaking, as you know, somebody who manages people, I would, I don't mind you, I mean, I understand that things come up, and I want to hear an explanation. But I don't want to hear an excuse. I don't want to hear a hint in there of It's not my fault. And it may not be your fault. But what I mean is people appreciate it. When you take ownership and you're 100% honest. And so something maybe your car breaks down and you can't get to an appointment on time. You know, take ownership of that, be 100% honest, tell them exactly what happens. Or if you're running late, don't don't do that thing where Oh, GPS says five minutes, but you haven't like even, you know, left your house yet. Be 100% honest about it. That is going to go miles even when you mess up, even when things don't go your way. If the aim is that, Hey, I know I'm letting this person down. But long term, I don't want to break their trust, I want them to trust me. Well, a great way to have people trust you is to not lie to them. And mainly, again, be extremely, extremely honest, hundred percent honest about why you had that epic blunder. And maybe even if it's in a work setting, what you could have done differently, you know, practically saying, Yeah, you know, what, I, I could have had this, I could have worked on this sooner. I remember this coming up all the time, like in school, if you guys ever have teachers like this, where you come and you ask for an extension on a paper or some project and you say, Oh, yeah, you know, well, I had all these other things going on. And I kind of pulled an all nighter, and then my cat got sick and was throwing up everywhere. And you know, my dog had worms. And he was you just have so many pets, and they have so many medical conditions. But like, what does the teacher say? The teacher says, Well, you How long did you know this paper was? Do? You say? Well since the beginning of the semester, and they say well, how long did you have to work on it? Well, lots and lots of weeks. When did you start last night right before fluffy started hacking up along? And then they say sorry, paper still do, dude. I mean, like, that's pretty mean. It's not mean it's holding the line. And I get it, I get why teachers do that. And it is helpful, especially when you know that the students making an excuse. But that's what I mean about taking ownership of it is instead to say I should have started sooner, we could have finished this earlier. You know, I should have left the house earlier, I knew it was potential that this thing would happen to keep me from this appointment. And I should have told you just be 100% on it honest and take 100% ownership, people will appreciate that. And then long term that trust is still maintained. And I think the on the subject of honesty, I talked a little bit about excuses how you can blame circumstances. And I and I mentioned briefly that you can use it excuses, blaming someone else. That's horrible if you think about it, and sometimes that's your default. If you're trying to save face, you kind of maybe don't come out and say it but you kind of intimate that. Well, so and so didn't do XY and Z. And you know, so yeah, we really should have done better. And you know, I mean there's like this half apology, but really you're just like blaming somebody else. That is that's pretty rough, especially if you were the one responsible for doing the thing. It's it's your problem. Even if somebody else did let you down. You should have been on top of it and why If you're kind of hinting that it's someone else's fault, when it wasn't, you are like bearing false witness, which is a violation of the law of God, you're blaming somebody else for your mistake that you do not want to be doing, take ownership for it, be 100% honest, there's consequences take them. But in the end, you keep your integrity intact. And you will have been a great witness for Christ in the workplace and a great image bearer for him, wherever you are. 5. Ask for Forgiveness Okay, so we're talking about the art of gracefully dropping the ball, how to let people down without losing their respect. And so far, we've looked at five ways of doing that. The first is not to over commit to begin with second was develop a system to track your commitments. Third is communicate early and fourth was be 100%. honest, we hear this, here's the fifth way that you can drop the ball gracefully, when you're breaking a commitment and not lose people's trust or respect. And that is the simple act of asking for forgiveness. If someone trusted you to do something, whether it be as simple as again, you know, making an appointment on time, you know, for coffee or something, or if it's in the workplace, and it's the the fulfilling a project in the time that you committed to, or even in the home with your spouse or with your kids is you said you do something, and then you don't. And even if the circumstances outside of your control, whatever the reason, ask for forgiveness. You promised to do something, you said you would do something, and you did it. Ask for their forgiveness. Apologize to them, not in that weird kind of way, you know, where you don't actually take responsibility? You say, I'm sorry, for the way that made you feel. I'm very sorry for the way you reacted to that. I'm sorry that you were mad at the car for it breaking down on me. You know, just take responsibility and ask for forgiveness. Say, I'm so sorry. I said that I would do that. And I didn't. And then mega right. It's not hard, except for to the bride, simply to ask for forgiveness. I will offer one caveat on this point of asking for forgiveness. And that is simply that sometimes this is the only thing we do. Do you know what I mean? Like if you are a serial ball dropper, there's that term again, I cannot, I don't want to say that anymore. But if you're somebody who who constantly, you know, or repeatedly has failed to meet commitments, apologies wear thin real fast. And it is the only thing you do. And you think that it makes every it smooths everything over every single time. And you don't actually take steps to rectify maybe your poor planning or organizational habits, or your you know how much you commit to, you're going to actually make steps to fix that. It's not long before, people are like, Oh, they just don't do things. And then they come and say they're sorry afterwards for it not working out. You're gonna lose people's respect, you're gonna lose their trust and can be a poor witness, if that's your Mo. But what I am saying here is that when you genuinely mess up, take full responsibility and apologize for it. But then also, you know, as someone who, who genuinely wants to do it right next time, go back and make the steps figure out how do I not over commit? How can I track my commitments better? How can I make sure these kind of things don't happen in the future? And be serious about that. And when people see that change in you, they will you'll have their respect, you'll learn it and they, they won't look down on you just because you made a mistake once. And that's it's important as a Christian, that's important. It is. 6. Learn from Your Mistakes And okay, here's the bonus one. I'm gave you five ways to drop the ball gracefully. We're recommitment, disappoint someone, but to do it in a way that you don't lose the respect of their trust. And I just would say one last one. And then it's just learn from your mistakes. It's going to happen. You are going to drop the ball. You're going to fail to meet a deadline, complete a promise, fulfill a requirement of you. It's going to happen. But if you can pause hafter, that situation and look and try to figure out, Okay, what did I What could I be doing different in the future to make sure that doesn't happen again? That moment that time you spend self reflecting, maybe you're examining your own mindset towards things like I've mentioned fear man a couple times, it's something I've been thinking about about why is it to overcommit Reagan, it's because I care too much. I think that what people think about me, and so how can I set that at the heart level, so that in the future, I honor people by saying yes to the things that I really can do, and not bring up people's expectations that I'm going to do something for them. When I know that I don't really have the capacity to do it. Another part of the self exam is looking at your systems. You know, I mentioned I think in the intro to the last podcast that I had like a breakdown, basically, in my productivity system, one crisis kind of blew the whole thing up. Well, I had to spend a good probably half a day, tearing down my system for tracking tasks, and rebuilding it again and re kind of thinking about, okay, what went wrong? How can I fix this? How can I tweak this so that it's a little bit more resilient to crisis. And so I did that. And hopefully the fruit of that will be that that type of thing won't happen again, or at least I'll have the right steps in place to mitigate a disaster from messing up my whole week, or causing kind of a chain reaction of not fulfilling commitments, see what I mean? So learn from your mistakes, learn from them, improve, and keep going. And guys, listen, if you're a Christian, if you've placed your faith in Jesus Christ, if you've been united with Him by faith, then you are under God's grace, which means you can fail and fail even boldly, you will make mistakes, you will fail to fulfill things. And I think one of the problems that can happen, or maybe a better way to put it is, is this way is that productivity is something that people that are given to perfectionism, are kind of drawn to sometimes and so I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of you listening would be self described perfectionists. And perfectionism is, is is in Christians, a denial of grace, right? It's a denial that you are imperfect that you are in need of God's help. And I think reminding yourself of the gospel, reminding yourself that you You are not perfect, you are not God is so helpful when you do drop the ball in a situation like this. It helps you be more honest about your own shortcomings with others and with God. And only then are you able to assess what went wrong, apologize, seek forgiveness if you messed up in some way, and then move on and keep going trying to do better next time in Christ strength. Well, guys, that's all I have for you this week. Thank you so much for listening and or watching. Appreciate you do check out that newsletter in the description. Oh, and if you are a Patreon supporter, head on over to Patreon. Now that the episodes over, I have a little clip on there that I made for you about an app that has really been changing the way I read Kindle books, and I think you will be interested in it. So check out that clip. And if you're not a Patreon supporter, you can join and get access to these bonus clips as well. The link for that is in the description. And I will see you again here next week. But until I do remember this that in whatever you do, do it well and do it all to the glory of God.
No matter how well we plan, organize, and delegate, sometimes we drop the ball. Sometimes we let people down. Sometimes we fail to live up to our commitments. And sometimes we make matters worse by failing to communicate. This can lead to broken trust and people losing respect for you. So, how do we drop the ball gracefully? Today I’m going to give you five ways. Timestamps 00:00 – Introduction03:10 – Why we drop the ball07:33 – 1. Don’t Overcommit to Begin With10:27 – 2. Develop a System to Track Your Commitments12:11 – 3. Communicate Early15:30 – 4. Be 100% Honest20:47 – 5. Ask for Forgiveness23:45 – 6. Learn from Your Mistakes25:56 – Believe the gospel when we drop the ball Links Getting Things Done by David AllenSign-up for the Redeeming Productivity Newsletter. If you enjoy Redeeming Productivity, consider supporting my work on Patreon, where you’ll get exclusive updates and early releases of new content. Transcript Welcome to the redeeming productivity show. This is the podcast that helps Christians get more done and get it done like Christians. And I’m your host, Reagan Rose. Well, I’m here this is Episode 56. And I’m sitting here I got a ice cold Lacroix. Well, this is a Kroger brand. So, seltzer water, zero calories, naturally flavored lemon, listen to this. Just went all over my computer. It’s okay. It’s okay. Just a few droplets. Well, got another episode for you. So we’re gonna be talking today about the art of gracefully dropping the ball, how to let people down without losing their respect. Ooh, intriguing title. I know. I wrote it. And so here’s the deal. No matter how well you plan, no matter how well you organize, no matter how well you delegate, sometimes you drop the ball. Sometimes you let people down. Sometimes you fail to live up to your commitments and your promises. But sometimes, talking to myself here, we can make matters worse, when we fail to communicate when those things happen. And this can lead to broken trust can lead to people losing respect for you. And the question is, how do we drop the ball gracefully? Well, today, I’m going to give you five ways that you can drop the ball gracefully, and not lose people’s respect, not lose their trust, when you have to break a commitment. So we’ll talk about that in just a second. Before we do just a quick plug for the newsletter, if you don’t get my bi weekly newsletter, you should it on Wednesdays I talk about things that have come out on the blog about new podcast episodes, and just some other things that I’m thinking. And that’s really the only place you can get that just it’s a little more. I was gonna say unhinged musings, but that’s not the word I’m looking for. Though it may be more accurate, that’s gonna say less, you know, rehearse less polish. This is kind of what I’m thinking about in regard to Christianity and productivity that week. And then on Fridays, you get my Reagan’s roundup feature with just as five links from around the web, to help you on your journey to becoming a more productive Christian. So if you’re not on the newsletter, you should sign up. It’s redeemedproductivity.com/newsletter. And also now when you sign up for the newsletter, you get a free morning routine planner PDF. It’s something I’ve pulled together, that kind of will walk you through the steps for creating a morning routine for yourself that involves things like Bible study, and exercise and prayer. And just if you walk through the steps, you’ll have yourself a handy dandy routine in the morning. So check that out the redeeming productivity newsletter at redeemingproductivity.com/newsletter. And also if you’re interested in supporting my work producing this podcast, these videos, blog posts, etc. You can do so on patreon.com/redeemingprod, there’ll be a link in the description if you want more info on that. Okay, let’s get into the meat of things. Let’s get talking about dropping the ball gracefully. So here’s the thing. I really hate letting people down. I do. And I think that there’s I think that there’s a problem there and motivations, which I’ll talk about in a future episode on fear of man. But I really hate that feeling of letting someone down. And I think that in large part, that’s what drives my interest in productivity. Sometimes, obviously, my more nobler reasons are that I do indeed want to glorify God with my life. But what really made me start thinking about how I can be more organized, how I can track my tasks better. The big thing that was motivating me was I just kept dropping the ball, people would ask me to do something, I’d commit to doing it. And then I’d forget. And so that’s what got me into learning about how can I do this stuff better. And I do believe that this is part of being a Christian is we need to be people of our word. God is a God of his word. He always fulfills his promises. He never tells a lie. His yes is always yes is no is always No. And we as image bearers are to likewise be people of our word. And so when you commit to do something, that’s a very serious thing. You You want your yes to be yes. And you know, to be no. But as you know, sometimes it can’t be helped. Sometimes you really did want to do something you said you were going to do, but through maybe an error on your part, or circumstances that are outside of your control. Sometimes you let people down. Sometimes you can’t fulfill that commitment. Sometimes you drop the ball. But since I want people to trust me, I want people to know that they can rely on me that can be devastating. You know, like, you want to be a person known as a person of your word, not just for your own, you know, personal self worth Back to your own reputation. But because you know that you represent Christ, you’re a representative of God, you’re an ambassador, for Christ, it says. So you want to be a person who’s known as a person of your word, person, Person person. I think what maybe is ironic, I guess is that sometimes that fear of letting people down when things, you realize that you’re not gonna be able to feel a commitment, sometimes that fear can actually lead to you making the situation worse. And what I mean is, you might try to find a way to work a bunch of overtime or something, or through the night to make up for a mistake, or for being double booked or double committed. And, you know, trying to make sure no one finds out that, that you didn’t manage your time well or something. But the problem with that is it leads to this like vicious cycle of burnout, where you’re constantly trying to fulfill these different commitments, and finding yourself falling short, and then trying to make up for them and then falling short and other commitments, and round and round we go, that is not a Mulberry Bush, you want to be circling weasel? Hmm. I don’t think any of that’s an expression. But it is now because that’s how expressions are coined on podcasts. So and even worse, I think when it comes to letting people down and dropping the ball, we can even be tempted to lie sometimes, or bend the truth or just leave out some details to kind of cover over our failure. Or we might double down on our promises, we might say, well, I’ll make up I’ll make it up to you. But that actually, again, it can make things worse, and leads you to dropping the ball over and over again. And as a cereal ball dropper, myself, probably probably not what I should call that. But as someone who is who has done this multiple times, and is the reason I’m trying day in and day out to become a little bit more efficient, with my time a little bit more productive, a little bit better. at keeping track of the things I said I would do and making sure I actually have time to do them. It’s because I am. I don’t want to let people down. I want to I don’t want to break their trust. I don’t want to lose the respect. And I want to honor Christ by being a person of my word. So here are five ways maybe there’ll be six but five ish ways on how you can learn the art of gracefully dropping the ball so that you don’t lose people’s respect or let them down or break their trust. 1. Don’t Overcommit to Begin With So the first reason is this. Can you guys hear the Lacroix bubbling? I just love that. It’s like um, the what was that cereal? right in that cereal like it doesn’t exist Rice Krispies, you know, snap, crackle, pop, you can kind of hear the Lacroix. I’ll keep it away from the mics. You don’t have to hear it. I like subtle. If you heard the jokes about Lacroix where it’s like, um, you know, the flavor is not intense. It’s not like sweet. It’s just kind of like hints of flavor. Someone said that Lacroix is like drinking water. And then someone shouts the name of a fruit from another room. That’s what Lacroix tastes like. I thought that was funny. Anyway, what were we talking about? Oh, I was gonna tell you five ways to drop the ball gracefully. The first one in, I think probably the one that gets to the root of the problem, at least, the root of the problem for me, maybe this is same for you is the first reason or the first way to not drop the ball is to not over commit to begin with. I think over commitment can be a source for this kind of thing. Where you you want to say yes to things, you want to be helpful. You want to, you know, do things. And so you promise you say, Oh, yeah, I’ll do that. Let me take care of that for you. But you do that so much that you find that it’s actually too many commitments for you to handle. And no matter how well organized you are, every single one of us has a limit, even though we might try to push it guilty, often guilty of that myself. So I would say the first way that you can drop the ball gracefully, is by not putting yourself into a position where you’re constantly having to drop the ball, because you’ve got too many things on your plate, keep the plate tidy. And this is just the art of learning to say no. This is you know being self aware enough to know your capacity and how much you can do and not to project yourself into the future and assume that the future you is going to have more time than the you right now. You know stuff always comes out life is not as clear as it is when you block it out on paper. So don’t overcommit to begin with. And I think just as a good like practical application to this, keep us thinking calendar. It Doesn’t have to be a stinking calendar, it can just be a normal calendar. But keep a calendar and keep it well. If you don’t want to over commit to stuff, you need to track what you are committed to. And likewise, I actually talked about this in the next one, but track your tasks as well. Unless you know what you’ve said yes to, you aren’t going to know if you have enough time to say yes to more things, if that makes sense. So keeping a rigorous calendar helps you not to over commit to things to begin with. 2. Develop a System to Track Your Commitments Okay, the second way that you can drop the ball gracefully, when you when you are over committed, is develop a system to track your commitment. So I just mentioned calendars. But the other side of that is a task tracking system. And I’m surprised in this day and age how many people still don’t do this that I talked to. And so I’m not just talking about a to do list, I’m talking about a way of tracking the things that you have said you’re going to do. If you have not read the book, getting things done by David Allen, I would commend it to you. It’s a simple systematic approach to how you can kind of capture things as they come into your life and make sure that they actually get done. So you’re not constantly trying to remember in your head, all the things that you’ve said you’re going to do. It’s a great book. And many, many software tools have sprung up around the concept of getting things done, I use OmniFocus. To do this is really popular things. You can do this with a bullet journal or just a simple notebook, but having a just a dedicated space, where you track what are the what are the things, what are the task, what do I need to get done today and tomorrow, things like that. That will go miles to make it so that you don’t drop the ball as often. And again, number one applies here to again, don’t over commit to things. But if you have visibility on what you’re committed to, you’re going to be much more likely to not drop the ball on things. And also transition that will help you to know if you are about to drop the ball on something so that you can communicate. 3. Communicate Early And so that’s the third way that you can drop the ball gracefully. When you know that you’re going to break a commitment. Tell people tell the person or people or boss or friend or whoever in advance, you know, if you something comes up and you know you had plans to go have dinner with some friends or something, and don’t just like ghost him for one. But don’t also like 10 minutes before you’re going to meet at your local Chili’s to get some pain yo poppers and a triple Dipper. Don’t be like oh guy, sorry, I can’t make it. Especially if you knew further in advance of that. And this is again, this is something that I I am guilty of myself is you know, most people will forgive a broken promise or a failure to complete something as intended. As long as you chest tell them as soon as you know about it. Do you know what I mean? Like people understand, like, nobody’s perfect. Nobody gets 100% of the things done that they say they’re going to get done. Like, things come up, you know, emergencies. And even just like foolish things where you double booked yourself. The trick is, tell them when soon as you know. So as soon as you know that you goofed a call a text and email cause a hugely long way to not just save face, but also honor the person that you know, you’re about to let down. And if you know that there is even the potential for dropping the ball on something so you’ve committed to some project and, and the deadline for it is coming up. And you know, man, it’s, it’s gonna be tight. I don’t know, if I’m gonna make this deadline. Don’t just clam up and pretend that everything’s gonna be okay. This is a great time for you to tell whoever’s in charge. But I mean, I find this helpful. I manage people and I really appreciate when they over communicate to me when there’s an expectation for something to be done. And they tell me, Hey, this and this and this came up. I think we’re still gonna get it done on time, but I’m not sure I want you to know, I so appreciate that. Because then I’m able to communicate that and I and I’m able to set my expectations or reset my expectations, rather than being surprised when I thought everything was going fine. Because last time we talked was a week ago, dude, I mean, so communicate early, communicate often. As soon as you know that you’re that you’re dropping the ball on something, or even before if you know there’s the potential to it. So communicate simple enough, isn’t it? Except for it’s kind of embarrassing, right? I think this is the reason that I struggle with this is you again you want you want to please people you want you want to come through you want to be trustworthy. But you kind of don’t want people to see your flaws, your mistakes, especially if you, especially if you have a podcast about how to be productive, and then you drop the ball on something because you weren’t productive on it, you’re not I mean, like, there’s a little bit of a blow to your ego to your pride. And so then you don’t communicate. But again, it just makes things worse. So when when you when you know that you can drop the ball, communicate, communicate, communicate. 4. Be 100% Honest So on the subject of the art of gracefully dropping the ball here is the fourth way that you can drop the ball gracefully and not break people’s trust or lose their respect for you. And that is be 100% honest, be 100% honest. Here’s the deal. excuses are really not helpful. Um, even if they’re true, like, I think there is a difference. Personally, I make a difference. In my mind, I’ve two different categories for excuse and an explanation for something. But an excuse is, as I define it, it’s when you are basically trying to pass the blame. It might not be to another person, it might be the circumstances, but an excuse has these overtones of not taking ownership of the problem to say, Oh, I, you know, I almost got it done. But, but yeah, then then My car broke down, or I almost got it done. But then X, Y, and Z happened to me, you know what I mean? And that is not that helpful. And I just, again, speaking, as you know, somebody who manages people, I would, I don’t mind you, I mean, I understand that things come up, and I want to hear an explanation. But I don’t want to hear an excuse. I don’t want to hear a hint in there of It’s not my fault. And it may not be your fault. But what I mean is people appreciate it. When you take ownership and you’re 100% honest. And so something maybe your car breaks down and you can’t get to an appointment on time. You know, take ownership of that, be 100% honest, tell them exactly what happens. Or if you’re running late, don’t don’t do that thing where Oh, GPS says five minutes, but you haven’t like even, you know, left your house yet. Be 100% honest about it. That is going to go miles even when you mess up, even when things don’t go your way. If the aim is that, Hey, I know I’m letting this person down. But long term, I don’t want to break their trust, I want them to trust me. Well, a great way to have people trust you is to not lie to them. And mainly, again, be extremely, extremely honest, hundred percent honest about why you had that epic blunder. And maybe even if it’s in a work setting, what you could have done differently, you know, practically saying, Yeah, you know, what, I, I could have had this, I could have worked on this sooner. I remember this coming up all the time, like in school, if you guys ever have teachers like this, where you come and you ask for an extension on a paper or some project and you say, Oh, yeah, you know, well, I had all these other things going on. And I kind of pulled an all nighter, and then my cat got sick and was throwing up everywhere. And you know, my dog had worms. And he was you just have so many pets, and they have so many medical conditions. But like, what does the teacher say? The teacher says, Well, you How long did you know this paper was? Do? You say? Well since the beginning of the semester, and they say well, how long did you have to work on it? Well, lots and lots of weeks. When did you start last night right before fluffy started hacking up along? And then they say sorry, paper still do, dude. I mean, like, that’s pretty mean. It’s not mean it’s holding the line. And I get it, I get why teachers do that. And it is helpful, especially when you know that the students making an excuse. But that’s what I mean about taking ownership of it is instead to say I should have started sooner, we could have finished this earlier. You know, I should have left the house earlier, I knew it was potential that this thing would happen to keep me from this appointment. And I should have told you just be 100% on it honest and take 100% ownership, people will appreciate that. And then long term that trust is still maintained. And I think the on the subject of honesty, I talked a little bit about excuses how you can blame circumstances. And I and I mentioned briefly that you can use it excuses, blaming someone else. That’s horrible if you think about it, and sometimes that’s your default. If you’re trying to save face, you kind of maybe don’t come out and say it but you kind of intimate that. Well, so and so didn’t do XY and Z. And you know, so yeah, we really should have done better. And you know, I mean there’s like this half apology, but really you’re just like blaming somebody else. That is that’s pretty rough, especially if you were the one responsible for doing the thing. It’s it’s your problem. Even if somebody else did let you down. You should have been on top of it and why If you’re kind of hinting that it’s someone else’s fault, when it wasn’t, you are like bearing false witness, which is a violation of the law of God, you’re blaming somebody else for your mistake that you do not want to be doing, take ownership for it, be 100% honest, there’s consequences take them. But in the end, you keep your integrity intact. And you will have been a great witness for Christ in the workplace and a great image bearer for him, wherever you are. 5. Ask for Forgiveness Okay, so we’re talking about the art of gracefully dropping the ball, how to let people down without losing their respect. And so far, we’ve looked at five ways of doing that. The first is not to over commit to begin with second was develop a system to track your commitments. Third is communicate early and fourth was be 100%. honest, we hear this, here’s the fifth way that you can drop the ball gracefully, when you’re breaking a commitment and not lose people’s trust or respect. And that is the simple act of asking for forgiveness. If someone trusted you to do something, whether it be as simple as again, you know, making an appointment on time, you know, for coffee or something, or if it’s in the workplace, and it’s the the fulfilling a project in the time that you committed to, or even in the home with your spouse or with your kids is you said you do something, and then you don’t. And even if the circumstances outside of your control, whatever the reason, ask for forgiveness. You promised to do something, you said you would do something, and you did it. Ask for their forgiveness. Apologize to them, not in that weird kind of way, you know, where you don’t actually take responsibility? You say, I’m sorry, for the way that made you feel. I’m very sorry for the way you reacted to that. I’m sorry that you were mad at the car for it breaking down on me. You know, just take responsibility and ask for forgiveness. Say, I’m so sorry. I said that I would do that. And I didn’t. And then mega right. It’s not hard, except for to the bride, simply to ask for forgiveness. I will offer one caveat on this point of asking for forgiveness. And that is simply that sometimes this is the only thing we do. Do you know what I mean? Like if you are a serial ball dropper, there’s that term again, I cannot, I don’t want to say that anymore. But if you’re somebody who who constantly, you know, or repeatedly has failed to meet commitments, apologies wear thin real fast. And it is the only thing you do. And you think that it makes every it smooths everything over every single time. And you don’t actually take steps to rectify maybe your poor planning or organizational habits, or your you know how much you commit to, you’re going to actually make steps to fix that. It’s not long before, people are like, Oh, they just don’t do things. And then they come and say they’re sorry afterwards for it not working out. You’re gonna lose people’s respect, you’re gonna lose their trust and can be a poor witness, if that’s your Mo. But what I am saying here is that when you genuinely mess up, take full responsibility and apologize for it. But then also, you know, as someone who, who genuinely wants to do it right next time, go back and make the steps figure out how do I not over commit? How can I track my commitments better? How can I make sure these kind of things don’t happen in the future? And be serious about that. And when people see that change in you, they will you’ll have their respect, you’ll learn it and they, they won’t look down on you just because you made a mistake once. And that’s it’s important as a Christian, that’s important. It is. 6. Learn from Your Mistakes And okay, here’s the bonus one. I’m gave you five ways to drop the ball gracefully. We’re recommitment, disappoint someone, but to do it in a way that you don’t lose the respect of their trust. And I just would say one last one. And then it’s just learn from your mistakes. It’s going to happen. You are going to drop the ball. You’re going to fail to meet a deadline, complete a promise, fulfill a requirement of you. It’s going to happen. But if you can pause hafter, that situation and look and try to figure out, Okay, what did I What could I be doing different in the future to make sure that doesn’t happen again? That moment that time you spend self reflecting, maybe you’re examining your own mindset towards things like I’ve mentioned fear man a couple times, it’s something I’ve been thinking about about why is it to overcommit Reagan, it’s because I care too much. I think that what people think about me, and so how can I set that at the heart level, so that in the future, I honor people by saying yes to the things that I really can do, and not bring up people’s expectations that I’m going to do something for them. When I know that I don’t really have the capacity to do it. Another part of the self exam is looking at your systems. You know, I mentioned I think in the intro to the last podcast that I had like a breakdown, basically, in my productivity system, one crisis kind of blew the whole thing up. Well, I had to spend a good probably half a day, tearing down my system for tracking tasks, and rebuilding it again and re kind of thinking about, okay, what went wrong? How can I fix this? How can I tweak this so that it’s a little bit more resilient to crisis. And so I did that. And hopefully the fruit of that will be that that type of thing won’t happen again, or at least I’ll have the right steps in place to mitigate a disaster from messing up my whole week, or causing kind of a chain reaction of not fulfilling commitments, see what I mean? So learn from your mistakes, learn from them, improve, and keep going. And guys, listen, if you’re a Christian, if you’ve placed your faith in Jesus Christ, if you’ve been united with Him by faith, then you are under God’s grace, which means you can fail and fail even boldly, you will make mistakes, you will fail to fulfill things. And I think one of the problems that can happen, or maybe a better way to put it is, is this way is that productivity is something that people that are given to perfectionism, are kind of drawn to sometimes and so I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of you listening would be self described perfectionists. And perfectionism is, is is in Christians, a denial of grace, right? It’s a denial that you are imperfect that you are in need of God’s help. And I think reminding yourself of the gospel, reminding yourself that you You are not perfect, you are not God is so helpful when you do drop the ball in a situation like this. It helps you be more honest about your own shortcomings with others and with God. And only then are you able to assess what went wrong, apologize, seek forgiveness if you messed up in some way, and then move on and keep going trying to do better next time in Christ strength. Well, guys, that’s all I have for you this week. Thank you so much for listening and or watching. Appreciate you do check out that newsletter in the description. Oh, and if you are a Patreon supporter, head on over to Patreon. Now that the episodes over, I have a little clip on there that I made for you about an app that has really been changing the way I read Kindle books, and I think you will be interested in it. So check out that clip. And if you’re not a Patreon supporter, you can join and get access to these bonus clips as well. The link for that is in the description. And I will see you again here next week. But until I do remember this that in whatever you do, do it well and do it all to the glory of God.
**Content Warning in this weeks Episode, there is the death of a child, if you're sensitive to this sort of content, skip 1:06:00 to the end of the episode** Ana, Dae and Danika, go hunting in London. Vampires and Vitae Cast Melinda - Ana Sarah - Danika Tyler - Dae All Music Used in Vampires and Vitae is used under the Creative Commons 0 License, and can be found on Freesounds.org. This week Featuring work from DeletedUser andrewkn edtijo Magmi goldguardtele
001 In the First Place - Selections from Late 60's Soundtracks 01 The Remo Four - In the First Place (Wonderwall 1968 - UK) Mysteriously missing from the original soundtrack release, this George Harrison produced rarity is a perfect example of where psychedelic pop was at during this magical year. 02 The Byrds - Child of the Universe (Candy 1968 - US) The Byrds during one of their finest years in between "Notorious Byrd Bros" and "Sweetheart of the Rodeo". This version features a different mix than the one from their 1969 album “Dr. Byrds and Mr. Hyde". 03 The Electric Flag - Peter's Trip (The Trip 1967 - US) Before recording their more well known releases for Columbia Records, this Chicago group scored the soundtrack to one of the premier LSD exploito flicks starring Peter Fonda. 04 Nirvana - The Touchables Theme (All of Us) (The Touchables 1968 - UK) A classic title track from a prolific UK pop-psych duo who have made many a fine example of the genre. This is the reprise mix that ends the original soundtrack. 05 Barbara Kelly & The Morning Good - Maria's Theme (The Savage Seven 1968 - US) This mystery band makes their only appearance on this soundtrack, leading me to believe they may have been a one off studio outfit created specifically for this score. 06 Howard Blake - An Elephant Called Slowly (Reprise) (An Elephant Called Slowly 1970 - UK) British composer Howard Blake scored this 1969 film with a fittingly stomping soundtrack of instrumentals that are heavy on the drums and percussion. 07 Peter Cooke and Dudley Moore - Bedazzled (Bedazzled 1968 - UK) What can be said of this phased masterpiece by musical and comedic genius Dudley Moore? Perfection. 08 Jeff Simmons - Vegas Pickup (Naked Angels 1969 - US) Rugged instrumental by Jeff Simmons from an outlaw biker film soundtrack released on Frank Zappa's Straight Records. Simmons released his solo album "Lucille Has Messed Up My Mind" the same year. 09 John Simon - Drivin' Daisy (Last Summer 1969 - US) This coming of age film from 1969 features a soundtrack composed by organist John Simon. This driving rocker - no pun intended - features the vocals of Cyrus Faryar who released two solo albums on Elektra in the early 70's. 10 Steve Miller Band - Superbyrd (Revolution 1968 - US) Filmed in San Francisco during the height of the flower power era, this documentary is soundtracked by heavies from the local scene including a young Steve Miller in a rare instrumental moment. 11 Andy Ellison - It's Been a Long Time (Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush 1968 - UK) Lead singer for freakbeat-psych misfits John's Children, Andy Ellison tames things down a touch for this psychedelic love ballad complete with a reference to an "icicle tricycle".All songs recorded from vinyl and curated by Elvin Estela.
Welcome to PBS Matters. In the second part of this episode, Dr. Dave Robers introduces a story of one young gentleman and the difference attending Mulberry Bush school made. Dave also discuss the connections the school has maintained with old pupils and some of the feedback they give to the school. The typical length of the placement is two to three years and Dave explains that this time is used to understand the trauma the child has experienced. The pupil then moves on when they are ready to progress.
Welcome to the PBS Matters podcast. This month Paddy and Jo are joined by Dr. Dave Roberts who presents the history and ethos behind the Mulberry Bush school and how it aims to support children who have experienced trauma. Dave introduces what we mean by trauma informed support and how effective PBS should consider the trauma someone may have experienced. Paddy, Jo and Dave discuss reflective practice, dynamic thinking and how bringing people together is crucial for effective support.
A non-contact greeting song to get your day moving. Have lots of fun saying hello to each other using actions that require no contact. The actions are performed while singing altered words to the tune of ‘Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush'. Try this as an icebreaker activity at the beginning of the school year or any time you want to ‘spice up' the start to your day! Take a look at our matching resource poster, Groovy Greetings. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
In Episode two of the Mulberry Bush Sing-Along Podcast, Suzie and Laura discuss the evolution of the group from the small group of parents meeting in the library to the 100+ adults and children who join a sing-along in the park during the summer months. Find inspiration here for your own sing-along group!
There’s another new face in the Confusionism camp this week as a certain family member calls in to hijack the podcast. Also, Nate calls in to the studio for an impromptu interview on “Break Time with Barry.” What is the Minnie Mouse? Did Walt Disney play a part in Kerry and Barry’s lineage? Recorded 5/3/20.
In this episode, we have a really great conversation with Dr Jane Herd CEO of #Orb8, a social enterprise. Orb8 provides high quality, psycho-education and training. Jane has been working in social care and social work for over 30 yrs and is a clinical social worker. You will hear more about Orb8, their current activities and how she has embraced technology to enhance her work. You will also hear something of her international projects and her hopes for the future of Orb8. For more information about Jane and Orb8 please follow the links below: The International Centre for Therapeutic Care and its Therapeutic Care Journal couple of papers https://www.thetcj.org/ The Institute of Recovery from Childhood Trauma Jane's PowerPoint for her House of Lords talk on their behalf is on their website https://irct.org.uk/ The conference she is organising with the Mulberry Bush is on June 3rd 2020 on zoom, the link to book a place is; https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/re-thinking-foster-care-therapeutic-approaches-tickets-92871492133 If you'd like to know more about Orb8 the website is; https://orb8.org/ If you'd like to talk with Jane about anything she raised her email address is: jane@org8.org Please feel free to reach out to me at adosylv@gmail.com Join our Facebook community @Social Workers Matter.
All of the background on the original Mulberry Bush Sing-Along in Rochester NY. Suzie and Laura discuss how the group came into being to inspire others to start the journey for themselves!
What exactly is the Mulberry Bush Sing-Along Project and how can it make a positive impact in your community? Listen to our short promo to learn more about this upcoming podcast series, and how it can help you spread community one song at a time.
S01E08 In this episode, the Man recovers from his depression, and seeks out his dancing partner. Become a Patron! pod.strangecircle.org ---Background Music: https://www.purple-planet.com --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/strangecircle/message #horror #fiction #radio-drama --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/strangecircle/message
clowns, moths, and turning people into shrek
I remember most of the childhood nursery rhymes, such as "Baa Baa Black Sheep", "A-Tisket, A-Tasket", "Georgie Porgie", and "Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush", just to name a few. As kids when playing in a large group, it was necessary to pare down the group. The fairest way to do that was to use the counting rhyme "Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe" to choose someone or count them out. I am so glad our Heavenly Father does not use a nursery rhyme to chose his people. I am also very thankful that God does not act randomly. We serve a God who is all-knowing, who ordains, who governs, who is just, and never fails. Ephesians 1:4 says, "For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight." (NKJV) Join us Tuesday, May 28, 2019, at 3:30 PM, PDT. We will explore how to join God in His choices for us and how to engage Him in the selection processes we face throughout our journey in life. Call in to speak with the host (646) 668-2946 Hope4Today is an outreach program of Yield to the King Ministry. You may contact us through our website www.yieldtothekingministry.org
Welcome to episode sixteen of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs. Today we’re looking at “Crazy Man Crazy” by Bill Haley and the Comets. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. —-more—- Resources As always, I’ve created a Mixcloud streaming playlist with full versions of all the songs in the episode. Unfortunately, there aren’t many good books about Bill Haley available. There are two biographies which are long out of print — one by John Swenson which I read as a very small child, and one from the nineties by one of Haley’s sons. Another of Haley’s sons has a biography due out in April, which might be worthwhile, but until then the only book available is a self-published biography by Otto Fuchs. I relied on volume one of Fuchs’ book for this post — it’s very good on the facts — but it suffers from being written by someone whose first language is not English, and it also *badly* needs an editor, so I can’t wholly recommend it. This box set, which is ridiculously cheap, contains almost every track anyone could want by Haley and the Comets, and it also includes the early country music sides I’ve excerpted here, as well as tracks by the Jodimars (a band consisting of ex-Comets). Unfortunately it doesn’t contain his great late-fifties singles “Lean Jean” and “Skinny Minnie”, but it has everything else. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript We’ve talked before about how there were multiple different musics that got lumped together in the mid-fifties under the name “rock and roll”. There’s rockabilly, Chicago rhythm and blues, doo-wop, New Orleans R&B, the coastal jump bands, and Northern band rock and roll. We’ve looked at most of these – and the ones we haven’t we’ll be looking at over the next few weeks – but what we haven’t looked at so far is Northern band rock and roll. And in many ways that’s the most interesting of all the rock and roll musics, because it’s the one that at first glance has had almost no obvious impact on anything that followed, but it’s also the one that first came to the attention of the white American public as rock and roll – the one that made the newspapers and got the headlines. And it’s the one that had only one real example. While the other styles of music had dozens of people making them, Northern band rock and roll really only had Bill Haley and the Comets. A whole pillar of rock and roll – a whole massive strand of the contemporary view of this music – was down to the work of one band who had no peers and left no real legacy. Or at least, they seem to have left no legacy, until you look a bit closer. But before we look at where the Comets’ music led, we should look at where they were coming from. Bill Haley didn’t set out to be a rock and roll star, because when he started there was no such thing. He set out to be a country and western singer. He played with various country bands over the years – bands with names like The Down Homers and the Texas Range Riders – before he decided to become a band leader himself, and started his own band, the Four Aces of Western Swing. Obviously this wasn’t a full Western Swing band in the style of Bob Wills’ band, but they played a stripped-down version which captured much of the appeal of the music – and which had a secret weapon in Haley himself, the Indiana State Yodelling Champion. Yes, yodelling. Let me explain. Jimmie Rodgers was a huge, huge, star, and his gimmick was his yodelling: [excerpt “Blue Yodel (T For Texas)”: Jimmie Rodgers] Every country singer in the 1940s wanted to sound like Jimmie Rodgers – at least until Ernest Tubb and Hank Williams came along and everyone wanted to sound like them instead. And that’s the sound that Bill Haley was going for when he started the Four Aces of Western Swing. [excerpt of “Yodel Your Blues Away” by the Four Aces of Western Swing] That’s how Bill Haley started out – as a Jimmie Rodgers imitator whose greatest strength was his yodelling. It definitely doesn’t sound like the work of someone who would change music forever. You’d expect, without knowing the rest of his history, that the Four Aces of Western Swing would become a footnote to a footnote; a band who, if they were remembered at all, would be remembered for one or two singles included on some big box set compilation of vintage country music. Much of their music was derivative in the extreme, but there were a handful of more interesting tracks, some of which would still be of interest to aficionados, like “Foolish Questions”. [Excerpt of “Foolish Questions” by the Four Aces of Western Swing] But without Bill Haley’s future career, it’s unlikely there’d be any more attention paid to the Four Aces than that. They don’t really make a dent in country music history, and didn’t have the kind of career that suggested they would ever do so. Most of their records didn’t even get a proper release – Haley was signed to a label called Cowboy Records, which was a Mafia-run organisation. The first five thousand copies of every Cowboy release went to Mafia-owned jukeboxes, for free, and artists would only get royalties on any records sold after that. Since jukeboxes accounted for the majority of the money in the record business at this point, that didn’t leave much for the artists – especially as Haley had to pay his own recording and production costs, and he had to do any promotion himself – buying boxes of records at $62.50 for two hundred and fifty copies, and sending them out to DJs through the post at his own expense. It was basically a glorified vanity label, and the only reason Haley got any airplay at all was because he was himself a DJ. And after a few unsuccessful singles, he decided to give up on performance and become just a DJ. But soon Haley had a new band, which would become far more successful – Bill Haley and his… Saddlemen. Yes, the Saddlemen. By all accounts, the Saddlemen weren’t Haley’s idea. One day two musicians turned up at the radio station, saying they wanted to join his band. Billy Williamson and Johnny Grande were unhappy with the band they were performing in, and had heard Haley performing with his band on the radio. They had decided that Haley’s band would be a perfect showcase for their talents on steel guitar and accordion, and had travelled from Newark New Jersey to Chester Pennsylvania to see him. But they’d showed up to discover that he didn’t have a band any more. They eventually persuaded him that it would be worth his while going back into music, and Haley arranged for the band to get a show once a week on the station he was DJing on. While Haley was the leader on stage, they were an equal partnership – the Saddlemen, and later the Comets, split money four ways between Haley, Williamson, Grande, and the band’s manager, with any other band members who were later hired, such as drummers and bass players, being on a fixed salary paid out by the partnership. The band didn’t make much money at first — they all had other jobs, with Williamson and Grande working all sorts of odd jobs, while Haley was doing so much work at the radio station that he often ended up sleeping there. Haley worked so hard that his marriage disintegrated, but the Saddlemen had one big advantage – they had the radio station’s recording studio to use for their rehearsals, and they were able to use the studio’s recording equipment to play back their rehearsals and learn, something that very few bands had at the time. They spent two whole years rehearsing every day, and taking whatever gigs they could, and that eventually started to pay off. The Saddlemen started out making the same kind of music that the Four Aces had made. They put out decent, but not massively impressive, records on all sorts of tiny labels. Most of these recordings were called things like “Ten Gallon Stetson”, and in one case the single wasn’t even released as the Saddlemen but as Reno Browne and Her Buckaroos. This was about as generic as country and western music could get. [excerpt: “My Sweet Little Gal From Nevada” – Reno Browne and Her Buckaroos] But Bill Haley had bigger plans, inspired by the show that was on right before his. The radio had changed enormously in a very short period of time. Before the Second World War, playing records on the radio had been almost unknown, until in 1935 the first recognised DJ, Martin Block, started his radio show “Make Believe Ballroom”, in which he would pretend to be introducing all sorts of different bands. The record labels spent much of the next few years fighting the same kind of copyright actions they would later fight against the Internet — in this case aided by the Musicians’ Union, but harmed by the fact that there was no federal copyright protection for sound recordings until the 1970s. Indeed a lot of the musicians’ strikes of the 1940s were, in part, about the issue of playing records on the radio. But eventually, the record labels — especially the ones, like RCA and Columbia, which were also radio network owners — realised that being played on the radio was great advertising for their records, and stopped fighting it. And at the same time, there was a massive expansion in radio stations — and a drop in advertising money. After the war, restrictions on broadcasting were lifted, and within four years there were more than twice as many radio stations as there had been in 1946. But at the same time, the networks were no longer making as much money from advertising, which started going to TV instead. The solution was to go for cheap, local, programming — and there was little programming that was cheaper than getting a man to sit in the studio and play records. And in 1948 and 49, Columbia and RCA introduced “high fidelity” records — the 33RPM album from Columbia, and the 45RPM single from RCA. These didn’t have the problems that 78s had, of poor sound quality and quick degradation, and so the final barrier to radio stations becoming devoted to recorded music was lifted. This is, incidentally, why the earlier musicians we’ve talked about in this series are largely forgotten compared to musicians from even a few years later — their records came out on 78s. Radio stations threw out all their old 78s when they could start playing 45s, and so you’d never hear a Wynonie Harris or Louis Jordan played even as a golden oldie, because the radio stations didn’t have those records any more. They disappeared from the cultural memory, in a way the fifties acts didn’t. And the time we’re talking about now is right when that growth in the radio was at its height, and all the new radio stations were turning to recorded music. But in the early fifties, only a handful of stations were playing black music, only for an hour or two a day at most. And when they did, the DJ was always a white man — but usually a white man who could sound black, and thought himself part of black culture. Zenas Sears in Atlanta, Dewey Phillips in Memphis, Alan Freed in Cleveland, Johnny Otis in LA — all of these were people who even many of their black listeners presumed were black, playing black records, speaking in black slang. All of them, of course, used their privilege as white men to get jobs that black people simply weren’t given. But that was the closest that black people came to representation on the radio at the time, and those radio shows were precious to many of them. People would tune in from hundreds of miles away to hear those few DJs who for one hour a day were playing their music. And the show that was on before Bill Haley’s country and western show was one of those handful of R&B shows. “Judge Rhythm’s Court” was presented by a white man in his forties named Jim Reeves (not the singer of the same name) under the name of “Shorty the Bailiff”. Reeves’ theme was “Rock the Joint” by Jimmy Preston and the Prestonians: [excerpt “Rock the Joint”, Jimmy Preston and the Prestonians] Haley liked the music that Reeves was playing — in particular, he became a big fan of Big Joe Turner and Ruth Brown — and he started adding some of the R&B songs to the Saddlemen’s setlists, and noticed they went down especially well with the younger audiences. But they didn’t record those songs in their rare recording sessions for small labels. Until, that is, the Saddlemen signed up to Holiday Records. As soon as they started with Holiday, their style changed completely. Holiday, and its sister label Essex which also released Saddlemen records, were owned by Dave Miller, who also owned the pressing plant that had pressed Haley’s earlier records for the Cowboy label, and Miller had similar mob connections. Haley would later claim that while Miller always said the money to start the record labels had come from a government subsidy, in fact it had been paid by the Mafia. His labels had started up during the musicians’ union strikes of the 1940s, to put out records by non-union musicians, and Miller wasn’t too concerned about bothering to pay royalties or other such niceties. Haley also later claimed that Miller invented payola – the practice of paying DJs to play records. This was something that a lot of independent labels did in the early fifties, and was one of the ways they managed to get heard, even as many of the big labels were still cautious about the radio. Miller wanted to have big hits, and in particular he wanted to find ways to get both the white and black markets with the same records, and here he had an ally in Haley, who took a scientific approach to maximising his band’s success. Haley would try things like turning up the band’s amplifiers, on the theory that if customers couldn’t hear themselves talking, they’d be more likely to dance – and then turning the amps back down when the bar owners would complain that if the customers danced too much they wouldn’t buy as many drinks. Haley was willing to work hard and try literally anything in order to make his band a success, and wasn’t afraid to try new ideas and then throw them away if they didn’t work. This makes his discography frustrating for listeners now – it’s a long record of failed experiments, dead ends, and stylistic aberrations unlike almost any other successful artist’s. This is someone not blessed with a huge abundance of natural talent, but willing to work much harder in order to make a success of things anyway. Miller was a natural ally in this, and they hit on a formula which would be independently reinvented a couple of years later by Sam Phillips for Elvis’ records – putting out singles with a country song on one side and an R&B song on the other, to try to appeal to both white and black markets. And one song that Dave Miller heard and thought that might suit Haley’s band was “Rocket 88” This might have seemed an odd decision – after all, “Rocket 88” was a horn-driven rhythm and blues song, while the Saddlemen at this point consisted of Haley on acoustic guitar, double-bass player Al Rex, Billy Williamson on steel guitar, and Johnny Grande, an accordion player who could double on piano. This doesn’t sound the most propitious lineup for an R&B song, but along with ace session guitarist Danny Cedrone they actually managed to come up with something rather impressive: [excerpt of “Rocket 88”] Obviously it’s not a patch on the original, but translating that R&B song into a western swing style had ended up with something a little different to the hillbilly boogie one might expect. In particular, there’s the drum sound…. Oh wait, there’s no drumming there. What do you mean, you heard it? Let’s listen again… [excerpt of “Rocket 88”] There are no drums there. It’s what’s called slapback bass. Now, before we go any further, I’d better explain that there’s some terminological confusion, because “slap bass” is a similar but not identical electric bass technique, while the word “slapback” is also used for the echo used on some rockabilly records, so talking about “rockabilly slapback bass” can end up a bit like “Who’s on first?” But what I mean when I talk about slapback bass is a style of bass playing used on many rockabilly records. It’s used in other genres, too, but it basically came to rockabilly because of Bill Haley’s band, and because of the playing style Haley’s bass players Al Rex and Marshall Lytle used. With slapback bass, you’re playing a double bass, and you play it pizzicato, plucking the strings. But you don’t just pluck them, you pull them forward and let them slap right back onto the bridge of the instrument, which makes a sort of clicking sound. At the same time, you might also hit the strings to mute them – which also makes a clicking sound as well. And you might also hit the body of the instrument, making a loud thumping noise. Given the recording techniques in use at the time, slapback bass could often sound a lot like drums on a recording, though you’d never mistake one for the other in a live performance. And at a time when country music wasn’t particularly keen on the whole idea of a drum kit – which was seen as a dangerous innovation from the jazz world, not something that country and western musicians should be playing, though by this time Bob Wills had been using one in his band for a decade – having something else that could keep the beat and act as a percussion instrument was vital, and slapback bass was one of the big innovations that Haley’s band popularised. So yes, Bill Haley and the Saddlemen’s version of “Rocket 88” had no drum kit on it. Despite this, some people still cite this, rather than Jackie Brenston’s original, as “the first rock and roll record”. As we’ve said many times, though, there is no such thing. But Haley’s recording makes an attractive candidate – it’s the mythical “merging of black R&B with white country music”, which of course was something that had been happening since the very start, but which people seem to regard as something that marked out rock and roll, and it’s the first recording in this style by the person who went on to have the first really massive rock and roll hit to cross over into the pop charts. “Rocket 88” wasn’t that big hit. But Haley and Miller felt like they were on to something, and they kept trying to come up with something that would work in that style. They put out quite a few singles that were almost, but not quite, what they were after, things like a remake of “Wabash Cannonball” retitled “Jukebox Cannonball”, and then they finally hit on the perfect formula with “Rock the Joint”, which had been in Haley’s setlist off and on since he heard it on Jim Reeves’ programme. The original “Rock the Joint” had been one of the many, many, records that attempted to cash in on the rock craze ignited by Wynonie Harris’ version of “Good Rockin’ Tonight”, but it hadn’t done much outside of the Philadelphia area. Haley and the band went into the studio to record their own version, which had a very different arrangement – and listen in particular to the solo… [excerpt “Rock the Joint” – Bill Haley and the Saddlemen] That solo is played by the session musician, Danny Cedrone, who played the lead guitar on almost all of Haley’s early records. He wasn’t a member of the band – Haley kept costs low in these early years by having as small a band as possible, but hiring extra musicians for the recordings to beef up the sound — but he was someone that Haley trusted to always play the right parts on his records. Haley and Cedrone were close enough that in 1952 – after “Rocket 88” but before “Rock the Joint” – Haley gave Cedrone a song for his own band, The Esquire Boys. That song, “Rock-A-Beatin’ Boogie”, would probably have been a hit for Haley, had he recorded it at the time — instead, he didn’t record it for another three years. But that song, too, shows that he was on the right track. He was searching for something, and finding it occasionally, but not always recognising it when he had it. (Excerpt: “Rock-A-Beatin’ Boogie” by The Esquire Boys) “Rock the Joint” was a massive success, by the standards of a small indie country label, reportedly selling as much as four hundred thousand copies. But even after “Rock the Joint”, the problems continued. Haley’s next two records were “Dance With a Dolly (With a Hole in Her Stockin’)” – which was to the tune of “Buffalo Gals Won’t You Come Out Tonight?” – and “Stop Beatin’ Around the Mulberry Bush”, which was a rewrite of “Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush” as a hillbilly boogie. But “Stop Beatin’ Around the Mulberry Bush” was notable for one reason – it was the first record by “Bill Haley and Haley’s Comets”, rather than by the Saddlemen. The pun on Halley’s comet was obvious, but the real importance of the name change is that it marked a definitive moment when the band stopped thinking of themselves as a country and western band and started thinking of themselves as something else – Haley didn’t pick up on the term “rock and roll” til fairly late, but it was clear that that was what he thought he should be doing now. They now had a drummer, too – Dick Richards – and a sax player. Al Rex was temporarily gone, replaced by Marshall Lytle, but Rex would be back in 1955. They were still veering wildly between rhythm and blues covers, country songs, and outright novelty records, but they were slowly narrowing down what they were trying to do, and hitting a target more and more often – they were making records about rhythm, using slang catchphrases and trying to appeal to a younger audience. And there was a genuine excitement in some of their stage performances. Haley would never be the most exciting vocalist when working in this new rock and roll idiom – he was someone who was a natural country singer and wasn’t familiar with the idioms he was incorporating into his new music, so there was a sense of distance there – but the band would make up for that on stage, with the bass player riding his bass (a common technique for getting an audience going at this point) and the saxophone player lying on his back to play solos. And that excitement shone through in “Crazy Man Crazy”, which became the Comets’ first real big hit. This was another example of the way that Haley would take a scientific approach to his band’s success. He and his band members had realised that the key to success in the record business was going to be appealing to teenagers, who were a fast-growing demographic and who, for the first time in American history, had some real buying power. But teenagers couldn’t go to the bars where country musicians played, and at the time there were very few entertainment venues of any type that catered to teenagers. So Bill Haley and the Comets played, by Johnny Grande’s count, one hundred and eighty-three school assemblies, for free. And at every show they would make note of what songs the kids liked, which ones got them dancing, which ones they were less impressed by, and they would hone their act to appeal to these kids. And one thing Haley noted was that the teenagers’ favourite slang expression was “crazy”, and so he wrote… [excerpt: Crazy Man Crazy, Bill Haley and the Comets] That went to number fifteen on the pop charts, a truly massive success for a country and western band. Marshall Lytle, the Comets’ bass player, later claimed that he had co-written the song and not got the credit, but the other Comets disputed his claims. This is another of those records that is cited as the first rock and roll record, or the first rock and roll hit, and certainly it’s the first example of a white band playing this kind of music to make the charts. And, more fairly to Haley, it’s the first example of a band using guitars as their primary instruments to get onto the charts playing something that resembles jump band music. “Crazy Man Crazy” is very clearly patterned after Louis Jordan, but those guitar fills would be played by a horn section on Jordan’s records. With Danny Cedrone’s solos, Bill Haley and the Comets were responsible for making the guitar the standard lead instrument for rock and roll, although it took a while for that to *become* the standard and we will see plenty of piano and saxophone, including on later records by Haley himself. So why was Haley doing something so different from what everyone else did? In part, I think that can be linked to the reason he didn’t stay successful very long – he wasn’t part of a scene at all. When we look at almost all the other musicians we’re talking about in this series, you’ll see that they’re all connected to other musicians. The myth of the lone genius is just that – a myth. What actually tends to happen is that the “lone genius” is someone who uses the abilities of others and then pretends it was all himself – and it almost always is a him. There’s a whole peer group there, who get conveniently erased. But the fact remains that Haley and the Comets, as a group, didn’t have any kind of peer group or community. They weren’t part of a scene, and really had no peers doing what they were doing. There was no-one to tell them what to do, or what not to do. So Bill Haley and the Comets had started something unique. But it was that very uniqueness that was to cause them problems, as we’ll see when we return to them in a few weeks…
Welcome to episode sixteen of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs. Today we're looking at "Crazy Man Crazy" by Bill Haley and the Comets. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. ----more---- Resources As always, I've created a Mixcloud streaming playlist with full versions of all the songs in the episode. Unfortunately, there aren't many good books about Bill Haley available. There are two biographies which are long out of print -- one by John Swenson which I read as a very small child, and one from the nineties by one of Haley's sons. Another of Haley's sons has a biography due out in April, which might be worthwhile, but until then the only book available is a self-published biography by Otto Fuchs. I relied on volume one of Fuchs' book for this post -- it's very good on the facts -- but it suffers from being written by someone whose first language is not English, and it also *badly* needs an editor, so I can't wholly recommend it. This box set, which is ridiculously cheap, contains almost every track anyone could want by Haley and the Comets, and it also includes the early country music sides I've excerpted here, as well as tracks by the Jodimars (a band consisting of ex-Comets). Unfortunately it doesn't contain his great late-fifties singles "Lean Jean" and "Skinny Minnie", but it has everything else. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript We've talked before about how there were multiple different musics that got lumped together in the mid-fifties under the name "rock and roll". There's rockabilly, Chicago rhythm and blues, doo-wop, New Orleans R&B, the coastal jump bands, and Northern band rock and roll. We've looked at most of these – and the ones we haven't we'll be looking at over the next few weeks – but what we haven't looked at so far is Northern band rock and roll. And in many ways that's the most interesting of all the rock and roll musics, because it's the one that at first glance has had almost no obvious impact on anything that followed, but it's also the one that first came to the attention of the white American public as rock and roll – the one that made the newspapers and got the headlines. And it's the one that had only one real example. While the other styles of music had dozens of people making them, Northern band rock and roll really only had Bill Haley and the Comets. A whole pillar of rock and roll – a whole massive strand of the contemporary view of this music – was down to the work of one band who had no peers and left no real legacy. Or at least, they seem to have left no legacy, until you look a bit closer. But before we look at where the Comets' music led, we should look at where they were coming from. Bill Haley didn't set out to be a rock and roll star, because when he started there was no such thing. He set out to be a country and western singer. He played with various country bands over the years – bands with names like The Down Homers and the Texas Range Riders – before he decided to become a band leader himself, and started his own band, the Four Aces of Western Swing. Obviously this wasn't a full Western Swing band in the style of Bob Wills' band, but they played a stripped-down version which captured much of the appeal of the music – and which had a secret weapon in Haley himself, the Indiana State Yodelling Champion. Yes, yodelling. Let me explain. Jimmie Rodgers was a huge, huge, star, and his gimmick was his yodelling: [excerpt "Blue Yodel (T For Texas)": Jimmie Rodgers] Every country singer in the 1940s wanted to sound like Jimmie Rodgers – at least until Ernest Tubb and Hank Williams came along and everyone wanted to sound like them instead. And that's the sound that Bill Haley was going for when he started the Four Aces of Western Swing. [excerpt of "Yodel Your Blues Away" by the Four Aces of Western Swing] That's how Bill Haley started out – as a Jimmie Rodgers imitator whose greatest strength was his yodelling. It definitely doesn't sound like the work of someone who would change music forever. You'd expect, without knowing the rest of his history, that the Four Aces of Western Swing would become a footnote to a footnote; a band who, if they were remembered at all, would be remembered for one or two singles included on some big box set compilation of vintage country music. Much of their music was derivative in the extreme, but there were a handful of more interesting tracks, some of which would still be of interest to aficionados, like "Foolish Questions". [Excerpt of "Foolish Questions" by the Four Aces of Western Swing] But without Bill Haley's future career, it's unlikely there'd be any more attention paid to the Four Aces than that. They don't really make a dent in country music history, and didn't have the kind of career that suggested they would ever do so. Most of their records didn't even get a proper release – Haley was signed to a label called Cowboy Records, which was a Mafia-run organisation. The first five thousand copies of every Cowboy release went to Mafia-owned jukeboxes, for free, and artists would only get royalties on any records sold after that. Since jukeboxes accounted for the majority of the money in the record business at this point, that didn't leave much for the artists – especially as Haley had to pay his own recording and production costs, and he had to do any promotion himself – buying boxes of records at $62.50 for two hundred and fifty copies, and sending them out to DJs through the post at his own expense. It was basically a glorified vanity label, and the only reason Haley got any airplay at all was because he was himself a DJ. And after a few unsuccessful singles, he decided to give up on performance and become just a DJ. But soon Haley had a new band, which would become far more successful – Bill Haley and his... Saddlemen. Yes, the Saddlemen. By all accounts, the Saddlemen weren't Haley's idea. One day two musicians turned up at the radio station, saying they wanted to join his band. Billy Williamson and Johnny Grande were unhappy with the band they were performing in, and had heard Haley performing with his band on the radio. They had decided that Haley's band would be a perfect showcase for their talents on steel guitar and accordion, and had travelled from Newark New Jersey to Chester Pennsylvania to see him. But they'd showed up to discover that he didn't have a band any more. They eventually persuaded him that it would be worth his while going back into music, and Haley arranged for the band to get a show once a week on the station he was DJing on. While Haley was the leader on stage, they were an equal partnership – the Saddlemen, and later the Comets, split money four ways between Haley, Williamson, Grande, and the band's manager, with any other band members who were later hired, such as drummers and bass players, being on a fixed salary paid out by the partnership. The band didn't make much money at first -- they all had other jobs, with Williamson and Grande working all sorts of odd jobs, while Haley was doing so much work at the radio station that he often ended up sleeping there. Haley worked so hard that his marriage disintegrated, but the Saddlemen had one big advantage – they had the radio station's recording studio to use for their rehearsals, and they were able to use the studio's recording equipment to play back their rehearsals and learn, something that very few bands had at the time. They spent two whole years rehearsing every day, and taking whatever gigs they could, and that eventually started to pay off. The Saddlemen started out making the same kind of music that the Four Aces had made. They put out decent, but not massively impressive, records on all sorts of tiny labels. Most of these recordings were called things like "Ten Gallon Stetson", and in one case the single wasn't even released as the Saddlemen but as Reno Browne and Her Buckaroos. This was about as generic as country and western music could get. [excerpt: “My Sweet Little Gal From Nevada” – Reno Browne and Her Buckaroos] But Bill Haley had bigger plans, inspired by the show that was on right before his. The radio had changed enormously in a very short period of time. Before the Second World War, playing records on the radio had been almost unknown, until in 1935 the first recognised DJ, Martin Block, started his radio show "Make Believe Ballroom", in which he would pretend to be introducing all sorts of different bands. The record labels spent much of the next few years fighting the same kind of copyright actions they would later fight against the Internet -- in this case aided by the Musicians' Union, but harmed by the fact that there was no federal copyright protection for sound recordings until the 1970s. Indeed a lot of the musicians' strikes of the 1940s were, in part, about the issue of playing records on the radio. But eventually, the record labels -- especially the ones, like RCA and Columbia, which were also radio network owners -- realised that being played on the radio was great advertising for their records, and stopped fighting it. And at the same time, there was a massive expansion in radio stations -- and a drop in advertising money. After the war, restrictions on broadcasting were lifted, and within four years there were more than twice as many radio stations as there had been in 1946. But at the same time, the networks were no longer making as much money from advertising, which started going to TV instead. The solution was to go for cheap, local, programming -- and there was little programming that was cheaper than getting a man to sit in the studio and play records. And in 1948 and 49, Columbia and RCA introduced "high fidelity" records -- the 33RPM album from Columbia, and the 45RPM single from RCA. These didn't have the problems that 78s had, of poor sound quality and quick degradation, and so the final barrier to radio stations becoming devoted to recorded music was lifted. This is, incidentally, why the earlier musicians we've talked about in this series are largely forgotten compared to musicians from even a few years later -- their records came out on 78s. Radio stations threw out all their old 78s when they could start playing 45s, and so you'd never hear a Wynonie Harris or Louis Jordan played even as a golden oldie, because the radio stations didn't have those records any more. They disappeared from the cultural memory, in a way the fifties acts didn't. And the time we're talking about now is right when that growth in the radio was at its height, and all the new radio stations were turning to recorded music. But in the early fifties, only a handful of stations were playing black music, only for an hour or two a day at most. And when they did, the DJ was always a white man -- but usually a white man who could sound black, and thought himself part of black culture. Zenas Sears in Atlanta, Dewey Phillips in Memphis, Alan Freed in Cleveland, Johnny Otis in LA -- all of these were people who even many of their black listeners presumed were black, playing black records, speaking in black slang. All of them, of course, used their privilege as white men to get jobs that black people simply weren't given. But that was the closest that black people came to representation on the radio at the time, and those radio shows were precious to many of them. People would tune in from hundreds of miles away to hear those few DJs who for one hour a day were playing their music. And the show that was on before Bill Haley's country and western show was one of those handful of R&B shows. "Judge Rhythm's Court" was presented by a white man in his forties named Jim Reeves (not the singer of the same name) under the name of "Shorty the Bailiff". Reeves' theme was "Rock the Joint" by Jimmy Preston and the Prestonians: [excerpt "Rock the Joint", Jimmy Preston and the Prestonians] Haley liked the music that Reeves was playing -- in particular, he became a big fan of Big Joe Turner and Ruth Brown -- and he started adding some of the R&B songs to the Saddlemen's setlists, and noticed they went down especially well with the younger audiences. But they didn't record those songs in their rare recording sessions for small labels. Until, that is, the Saddlemen signed up to Holiday Records. As soon as they started with Holiday, their style changed completely. Holiday, and its sister label Essex which also released Saddlemen records, were owned by Dave Miller, who also owned the pressing plant that had pressed Haley's earlier records for the Cowboy label, and Miller had similar mob connections. Haley would later claim that while Miller always said the money to start the record labels had come from a government subsidy, in fact it had been paid by the Mafia. His labels had started up during the musicians' union strikes of the 1940s, to put out records by non-union musicians, and Miller wasn't too concerned about bothering to pay royalties or other such niceties. Haley also later claimed that Miller invented payola – the practice of paying DJs to play records. This was something that a lot of independent labels did in the early fifties, and was one of the ways they managed to get heard, even as many of the big labels were still cautious about the radio. Miller wanted to have big hits, and in particular he wanted to find ways to get both the white and black markets with the same records, and here he had an ally in Haley, who took a scientific approach to maximising his band's success. Haley would try things like turning up the band's amplifiers, on the theory that if customers couldn't hear themselves talking, they'd be more likely to dance – and then turning the amps back down when the bar owners would complain that if the customers danced too much they wouldn't buy as many drinks. Haley was willing to work hard and try literally anything in order to make his band a success, and wasn't afraid to try new ideas and then throw them away if they didn't work. This makes his discography frustrating for listeners now – it's a long record of failed experiments, dead ends, and stylistic aberrations unlike almost any other successful artist's. This is someone not blessed with a huge abundance of natural talent, but willing to work much harder in order to make a success of things anyway. Miller was a natural ally in this, and they hit on a formula which would be independently reinvented a couple of years later by Sam Phillips for Elvis' records – putting out singles with a country song on one side and an R&B song on the other, to try to appeal to both white and black markets. And one song that Dave Miller heard and thought that might suit Haley's band was "Rocket 88" This might have seemed an odd decision – after all, "Rocket 88" was a horn-driven rhythm and blues song, while the Saddlemen at this point consisted of Haley on acoustic guitar, double-bass player Al Rex, Billy Williamson on steel guitar, and Johnny Grande, an accordion player who could double on piano. This doesn't sound the most propitious lineup for an R&B song, but along with ace session guitarist Danny Cedrone they actually managed to come up with something rather impressive: [excerpt of "Rocket 88"] Obviously it's not a patch on the original, but translating that R&B song into a western swing style had ended up with something a little different to the hillbilly boogie one might expect. In particular, there's the drum sound.... Oh wait, there's no drumming there. What do you mean, you heard it? Let's listen again... [excerpt of "Rocket 88"] There are no drums there. It's what's called slapback bass. Now, before we go any further, I'd better explain that there's some terminological confusion, because "slap bass" is a similar but not identical electric bass technique, while the word "slapback" is also used for the echo used on some rockabilly records, so talking about "rockabilly slapback bass" can end up a bit like "Who's on first?" But what I mean when I talk about slapback bass is a style of bass playing used on many rockabilly records. It's used in other genres, too, but it basically came to rockabilly because of Bill Haley's band, and because of the playing style Haley's bass players Al Rex and Marshall Lytle used. With slapback bass, you're playing a double bass, and you play it pizzicato, plucking the strings. But you don't just pluck them, you pull them forward and let them slap right back onto the bridge of the instrument, which makes a sort of clicking sound. At the same time, you might also hit the strings to mute them – which also makes a clicking sound as well. And you might also hit the body of the instrument, making a loud thumping noise. Given the recording techniques in use at the time, slapback bass could often sound a lot like drums on a recording, though you'd never mistake one for the other in a live performance. And at a time when country music wasn't particularly keen on the whole idea of a drum kit – which was seen as a dangerous innovation from the jazz world, not something that country and western musicians should be playing, though by this time Bob Wills had been using one in his band for a decade – having something else that could keep the beat and act as a percussion instrument was vital, and slapback bass was one of the big innovations that Haley's band popularised. So yes, Bill Haley and the Saddlemen's version of "Rocket 88" had no drum kit on it. Despite this, some people still cite this, rather than Jackie Brenston's original, as "the first rock and roll record". As we've said many times, though, there is no such thing. But Haley's recording makes an attractive candidate – it's the mythical "merging of black R&B with white country music", which of course was something that had been happening since the very start, but which people seem to regard as something that marked out rock and roll, and it's the first recording in this style by the person who went on to have the first really massive rock and roll hit to cross over into the pop charts. "Rocket 88" wasn't that big hit. But Haley and Miller felt like they were on to something, and they kept trying to come up with something that would work in that style. They put out quite a few singles that were almost, but not quite, what they were after, things like a remake of "Wabash Cannonball" retitled "Jukebox Cannonball", and then they finally hit on the perfect formula with "Rock the Joint", which had been in Haley's setlist off and on since he heard it on Jim Reeves' programme. The original "Rock the Joint" had been one of the many, many, records that attempted to cash in on the rock craze ignited by Wynonie Harris' version of "Good Rockin' Tonight", but it hadn't done much outside of the Philadelphia area. Haley and the band went into the studio to record their own version, which had a very different arrangement – and listen in particular to the solo... [excerpt "Rock the Joint" – Bill Haley and the Saddlemen] That solo is played by the session musician, Danny Cedrone, who played the lead guitar on almost all of Haley's early records. He wasn't a member of the band – Haley kept costs low in these early years by having as small a band as possible, but hiring extra musicians for the recordings to beef up the sound -- but he was someone that Haley trusted to always play the right parts on his records. Haley and Cedrone were close enough that in 1952 – after "Rocket 88" but before "Rock the Joint" – Haley gave Cedrone a song for his own band, The Esquire Boys. That song, "Rock-A-Beatin' Boogie", would probably have been a hit for Haley, had he recorded it at the time -- instead, he didn't record it for another three years. But that song, too, shows that he was on the right track. He was searching for something, and finding it occasionally, but not always recognising it when he had it. (Excerpt: "Rock-A-Beatin' Boogie" by The Esquire Boys) "Rock the Joint" was a massive success, by the standards of a small indie country label, reportedly selling as much as four hundred thousand copies. But even after "Rock the Joint", the problems continued. Haley's next two records were "Dance With a Dolly (With a Hole in Her Stockin')" – which was to the tune of "Buffalo Gals Won't You Come Out Tonight?" – and "Stop Beatin' Around the Mulberry Bush", which was a rewrite of "Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush" as a hillbilly boogie. But "Stop Beatin' Around the Mulberry Bush" was notable for one reason – it was the first record by "Bill Haley and Haley's Comets", rather than by the Saddlemen. The pun on Halley's comet was obvious, but the real importance of the name change is that it marked a definitive moment when the band stopped thinking of themselves as a country and western band and started thinking of themselves as something else – Haley didn't pick up on the term "rock and roll" til fairly late, but it was clear that that was what he thought he should be doing now. They now had a drummer, too – Dick Richards – and a sax player. Al Rex was temporarily gone, replaced by Marshall Lytle, but Rex would be back in 1955. They were still veering wildly between rhythm and blues covers, country songs, and outright novelty records, but they were slowly narrowing down what they were trying to do, and hitting a target more and more often – they were making records about rhythm, using slang catchphrases and trying to appeal to a younger audience. And there was a genuine excitement in some of their stage performances. Haley would never be the most exciting vocalist when working in this new rock and roll idiom – he was someone who was a natural country singer and wasn't familiar with the idioms he was incorporating into his new music, so there was a sense of distance there – but the band would make up for that on stage, with the bass player riding his bass (a common technique for getting an audience going at this point) and the saxophone player lying on his back to play solos. And that excitement shone through in "Crazy Man Crazy", which became the Comets' first real big hit. This was another example of the way that Haley would take a scientific approach to his band's success. He and his band members had realised that the key to success in the record business was going to be appealing to teenagers, who were a fast-growing demographic and who, for the first time in American history, had some real buying power. But teenagers couldn't go to the bars where country musicians played, and at the time there were very few entertainment venues of any type that catered to teenagers. So Bill Haley and the Comets played, by Johnny Grande's count, one hundred and eighty-three school assemblies, for free. And at every show they would make note of what songs the kids liked, which ones got them dancing, which ones they were less impressed by, and they would hone their act to appeal to these kids. And one thing Haley noted was that the teenagers' favourite slang expression was "crazy", and so he wrote... [excerpt: Crazy Man Crazy, Bill Haley and the Comets] That went to number fifteen on the pop charts, a truly massive success for a country and western band. Marshall Lytle, the Comets' bass player, later claimed that he had co-written the song and not got the credit, but the other Comets disputed his claims. This is another of those records that is cited as the first rock and roll record, or the first rock and roll hit, and certainly it's the first example of a white band playing this kind of music to make the charts. And, more fairly to Haley, it's the first example of a band using guitars as their primary instruments to get onto the charts playing something that resembles jump band music. "Crazy Man Crazy" is very clearly patterned after Louis Jordan, but those guitar fills would be played by a horn section on Jordan's records. With Danny Cedrone's solos, Bill Haley and the Comets were responsible for making the guitar the standard lead instrument for rock and roll, although it took a while for that to *become* the standard and we will see plenty of piano and saxophone, including on later records by Haley himself. So why was Haley doing something so different from what everyone else did? In part, I think that can be linked to the reason he didn't stay successful very long – he wasn't part of a scene at all. When we look at almost all the other musicians we're talking about in this series, you'll see that they're all connected to other musicians. The myth of the lone genius is just that – a myth. What actually tends to happen is that the "lone genius" is someone who uses the abilities of others and then pretends it was all himself – and it almost always is a him. There's a whole peer group there, who get conveniently erased. But the fact remains that Haley and the Comets, as a group, didn't have any kind of peer group or community. They weren't part of a scene, and really had no peers doing what they were doing. There was no-one to tell them what to do, or what not to do. So Bill Haley and the Comets had started something unique. But it was that very uniqueness that was to cause them problems, as we'll see when we return to them in a few weeks...
Here we go ‘round the mulberry bush The mulberry bush, the mulberry bush Here we go ‘round the mulberry bush On a cold and frosty morning This is the way we wash our face Wash our face, wash our face This is the way we wash our face On a cold and frosty morning This is the way we comb our hair Comb our hair, comb our hair This is the way we comb our hair On a cold and frosty morning This is the way we brush our teeth Brush our teeth, brush our teeth This is the way we brush our teeth On a cold and frosty morning This is the way we put on our clothes Put on our clothes, put on our clothes This is the way we put on our clothes On a cold and frosty morning…
32. Mulberry Bush Here we go round the MulberryBush, the Mulberry Bush, the Mulberry Bush, Here we go round the Mulberry bush,so early in the morning. 更多内容，关注Anna老师亲子英语微课 个人微信:15942686862； 微信公共账号：magicforest2016
点击详情，查看歌词： Here we go round the mulberry bush Them mulberry bush,the mulberry bush. Here we go round the mulberry bush Soearly in the morning. This is the way we wash our clothes, We wash our clothes, We wash our clothes, This is the way we wash our clothes, So early monday morning.
今天，送给大家一首《The Mulberry Bush》。儿歌里的小朋友每天早上起床后，还要绕着桑树走一圈，很有趣哦。 请关注微信公众号：瑞丁老爸讲故事。 我会每天播出一个小听众点播的中文故事、一个英文故事，并分享一篇阅读教育好文！帮助孩子成为能说会道的双语宝宝！ 更多互动请加入家长QQ群：241042091。
Rub a Dub Dub, Hickory Dickory Dock, This Little Piggy Went to Market, Little Jack Horner, Here we go round the Mulberry Bush, Ring a Ring a Roses, Oranges and Lemons say the bells of St. Clement's
Find out how four children from Mali, Europe, India and China go through their morning routines. The catchy song encourages creative movement and imagination, while focusing on familiar habits. Sung by Fred Penner. From the book and CD, Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush, illustrated by Sophie Fatus.
In episode 5 of Historyzine we have a review of the National Archives Podcast Series; Historical webby gems Harry Lamin’s war correspondence Here we go around Wakefield Prison’s Mulberry Bush. And Episode 5 of our series on The War of … Continue reading →
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Nursery Bedtime Songs & Rhymes For your Kids reproduced with the Melodic Voice of Aunty Sarah. Let Aunty Sarah's Angelic Voice Guide You Through the Dreamland. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/once-upon-a-time-out/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
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