Music Monday/Tuesday Mix at New Year

Here comes another one!

On New Year's Eve this song might be a good fit for some of us:



Pick yourself up...
Take a deep breath...
Dust yourself off
And start all over again.

Nothing's impossible, I have found
For when my chin is on the ground.
I pick myself up,
Dust myself off
And start all over again.

"And ye, who have met with Adversity's blast,
And been bow'd to the earth by its fury;
To whom the Twelve Months, that have recently pass'd
Were as harsh as a prejudiced jury -
Still, fill to the Future! and join in our chime,
The regrets of remembrance to cozen,
And having obtained a New Trial of Time,
Shout in hopes of a kindlier dozen."
(by Thomas Hood)

AS MIDNIGHT STRIKES:

Year's end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us.
(Hal Borland).

SO, for 1st January staying with a musical theme, I note that a Broadway star of the past was born this day, in 1917.

Ione Shannon Bolin was born in the small town of Spencer, South Dakota, on Jan. 1, 1917. Her parents were Gracie Elsie Bolin and Harry Bolin, a hotel owner who raised horses during the Depression. In an interview she said her father named her Ione “because I was born on the first of January, which is 1-1, or 1-one. That’s South Dakota humor for you.”

At age 20, she headed to the East Coast to pursue a career as a singer. In Washington, D.C., Bolin worked for CBS Radio and during World War II she became the host of her own musical program. She auditioned in 1944 in New York for the New Opera Company and won a place in the ensemble.

Bolin portrayed Meg Boyd in both the original Broadway production and the film version of Damn Yankees.

Shannon Bolin died in 2016, aged 99.


Here she is with a traditional Irish folk song:

Last Stop before 2013.......

New Year's Eve - this is a celebration where the Scots play it to the hilt - and further! They call it Hogmanay. I'm not a native Scot but I was, as it happens, a native Scott (my Dad's surname).

In my young years, even in Yorkshire which lies in northern England and around 200 miles to the south of Edinburgh, Scotland, certain traditions for New Year were still carried out. My grandmother would insist that the the "first footer", first person to come through the door of the house in the first minutes or hours of 1 January, should be dark-haired and bring in with them some fresh greenery, a piece of bread and a piece of coal. Her son-in-law, my Dad, was her favoured first-footer as he then had jet black hair. I suppose the three items to be brought in represented good health, food and warmth - necessities for the coming year.

The other tradition she honoured, though I'm not sure where it came from, was to eat a special dish on New Year's Eve, she called it "White Rabbit": cooked rabbit meat covered in a savoury white sauce. Mystery to me - I wonder did it originate from that hurrying scurrying white rabbit in Alice in Wonderland? ("Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!" Alice follows him down the rabbit hole into Wonderland.....as we follow time into the rabbit hole of the New Year?) Probably not, but who knows? I never did fancy eating a cute wee rabbit and always declined the dish in favour of a piece of Nanny's delicious chocolate cake! (Right: John Tenniel's illustration of Alice's White Rabbit)

I was going to post a traditional Scottish song here in honour of Hogmanay, but after listening to one or two decided instead on this, from my favourite Scot: