Lyrics for Canadian Canoeing Nostalgia: "LOST COUNTRY"

                                                                                        

PARODY-LYRICS 

Young canoeist in the bow,
Sunset on Bass Lake, Ontario

ORIGINAL SONG: "Lost River" by Michael Martin Murphey, most famously performed in conjunction with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band HERE.

Key lyrics from the original, retained in the parody version, include lines in the chorus about a "Quebec girl" and "fleur de lis". Murphey is in fact married to a Québécoise, and, as the song's protagonist presumably wishes to take her on a trip of rediscovery to the nostalgia-generating "lost river" of his youth. For those interested, the original song is shown in ukulele-friendly form at the bottom of the post.

SONG-LYRIC UNDERPINNINGS: On our song-blog you can find an earlier concoction entitled "Canoeing Lesson (Canoe, Canoe, Canoe, Canoe, Canoe)",  based on the original song  "I Do, etc." by ABBA, 1975. This earlier song also builds on Berton's concept of the relevance of canoeing to Canadian identity.

"A Canadian is someone who knows how to make love in a canoe", Pierre Berton, eminent Canadian journalist, editor, historian and author.

PARODY COMPOSED: Dr.G.H. and Giorgio Coniglio, December 2018, based on the precedents of song-lyrics and limerick verses, with a few new twists.

CHORD-CHARTS and OTHER PARAPHERNALIA:
As is usually the case with song-lyrics, we have simultaneously provided suggested chords for ukulele, guitar or whatever-stringed-instruments for the parody and for the original lyrics on our music-buff site "SILLY SONGS and SATIRE".  Click HERE, if you want to access those.

Canadian Canoeing Nostalgia: "LOST COUNTRY"

(to the tune of "Lost River" by M. M. Murphey) 

M.M.Murphey
songwriter and performer

Urban summers seem so hot

That you'll need to find a spot

To escape (no use stewin'),

Where it's cool for canoein'.

Paddle straight and go faster

When the J-stroke you'll master.

Once you learn what you're doin'

Seek your spirit's renewin'.

A Canadian's someone who

Can make love in a canoe.

He knows lots of good strokes

And can thwart ogling folks.

Starting foreplay, he'll untether,

He'll move sideways with the feather;

He'll avert curious eyes

With a series of pries.

CHORUS: Oh, lost country, now I'm paddlin' back

To those thousands of lakes,

That beau paysage I've lacked*. 

Oh Quebec girl come with me, 

Oh, ma belle, ma fleur de lis,

Northern vision in our mind,

That Pierre Berton defined.

Now at heart our Rose did hate
Tryin' to make the boat go straight.
Paddlin' lessons were a battle
'Til some tricks she learned (don't tattle!)
In the stern she could discern
That instructors might well yearn
To teach Trudeau's stroke, fiddle-faddle
While she straddled their paddle.

Repeat CHORUS

DIRECTION FOR WEB-TRAVELLERS: 

To resume daily titillations on our related blog 'Daily Illustrated Nonsense', click HERE. Once you arrive, you can select your time frame of interest from the calendar-based listings in the righthand margin, and check the daily offerings for any month in the years 2020 to the present. (As of September 2023, there are over 1200 unique entries available on the Daily blog, and most of these are also presented here on 'Edifying Nonsense' in topic-based collections.) The 'Daily' format also has the advantage of including some videos and other material that are not shown here on this topic-based blog.

PATIENTS and their MALADIES, part #3

This post is a continuation of 'PATIENTS and their MALADIES, part #1', and 'PATIENTS and their MALADIES, part #2', as posted on this blog February 2020, and February 2022 respectively. 

CURRENT CONTENTS:

Hemorrhoids

Hoarding disorder

Hypertension

Knee effusion

Male infertility

Myocardial ischemia

-OMAs, (subdural hematoma, atheroma)

Torsade de pointes

Vitamin A deficiency 

Vitreous detachment

Authors' Note: 

pro tem: frequently used short form for the Latin 'pro tempore' -- for the time being, in the short term.

Readers might also enjoy a verse on the same part of the anatomy presented in September 2021 in the collection "The Bottom Line of Medical Humor". Click HERE.

Authors' Note: Although folks with this engrained problem may be categorized as having depression, schizophrenia or obsessive-compulsive disorder, hoarding disorder may be a psychiatric malady in its own right. 

 Authors' Note: High blood pressure, or hypertension, a chronic condition generally of unknown cause, is one of the major cardiovascular risk factors playing a role in the development of adult heart disease. It is also of particular importance in the causation of stroke, accounting for up to 50% of the risk for that condition.

Authors' Note: This verse resulted from the author’s personal experience (as patient).

  Following trauma, standard X-rays taken in the Emergency Department show most fractures where the bone fragments are displaced. They can not, however, diagnose many undisplaced fractures, particularly in elderly patients with reduced bone density. 

  Nonspecific swelling with evidence of leaking of fluid into the adjacent joint space (joint effusion) is particularly common in injuries about the knee, and is easily discerned on visual inspection and X-rays. Follow up radiographs after another 3 weeks sometimes display an initially missed healing fracture. In cases where instability, ongoing pain, or persistent effusion are prominent, injury to ligaments may be suspected. 

Authors' Note:  In medical parlance, ejaculate is pronounced differently as noun (n.) or verb (v.) As a patient in the process of fertility testing, you will undoubtedly be asked to contribute (v.) a sample (n.), to assess sperm quality and cell count.

Authors' Note: There is variability in patients' response to the development of blockages in the coronary arteries. Part of this is due to the gradual development of collateral arteries or side branches, which may mitigate the effect of the obstructions to produce chronic symptoms or acute severe damage to heart muscle. The net impact on flow can be assessed through imaging showing blood flow to heart muscle at rest and stress, with nuclear or other studies of myocardial perfusion (‘gated SPECT’). 

Authors' Note:   Well, yes.

  With advancing age, life becomes a minefield of unexpected diseases; for several of these, the suffix -oma, implying growth or swelling, is used although an underlying neoplastic process is not present.

  In the elderly, subdural hematomas or intracranial bleeds (within the envelope of membranes surrounding the brain) may occur with minimal trauma or even spontaneously, particularly if anticoagulants have been used. 

  The patchy process of atherosclerosis may involves the left main coronary artery or its major division, the left anterior descending artery. In such cases, sudden clotting with blockage of the artery may occur at the site of atheroma, and cause a severe heart attack with cardiac arrest, a major cause of sudden death in the middle-aged and elderly population.

  This verse is a companion piece to others by the author dealing with malignant tumors and benign tumors; these are found in the collection of 'Oncologic Verses'.

Authors' Note: 

Torsade de pointes (tor-sad duh PWAnT), is an Anglo-French medical term for twisting of the peaks, named in 1966 by its French cardiologist discoverer. It is a pattern seen on the ECG (electrocardiogram), with 'twisting' or cycling of the height of the ventricular 'QRS' complexes, and is often associated with factors, inherited or acquired, that widen the 'Q-T' interval on the tracing. This pattern is associated with nasty ventricular arrhythmias and sudden death. If you are lucky, you have survived the initial episode and have correctable factors (e.g. electrolyte disorders, certain pharmaceuticals, etc.)
Flying straight is a casual metaphor associated with performing expected or routine function.

Authors' Note: Avitaminosis, an absence of vitamins, causes specific deficiency diseases, as discussed for some other vitamins by (Dr.) SheilaB, a prolific contributor to OEDILF.

  Avitaminosis A, i.e. absence of vitamin A, is the most common cause of childhood blindness in parts of Africa and South Asia, resulting in specific eye damage including corneal ulceration and retinal damage. Early symptoms include xerophthalmia (severely 'dry eyes') and loss of night vision, although, it is noted that in appropriately nourished populations (developed countries), these symptoms are due to other causes.

 

Authors' Note:  The near-spherical posterior chamber of the eye ('the vitreous') is filled with a translucent gel that shrinks with age, and becomes 'stringy'. Fibrous strands in this space leads to the appearance of floaters, a common symptom.

   Progressive shrinkage may result in more sudden vitreous detachment with a marked increase in floaters, but generally no harm to vision, and symptoms regress spontaneously over several months. Occasionally, the initial event is accompanied by detachment (tearing –TAIR) of a portion of the light-detecting retina, so careful initial assessment and follow-up are warranted. 

AND, HERE'S A LIST OF LINKS to collections of intriguing verses on other medical/dental topics that can now be found on various posts including:

Patients and their Maladies (parts #1, #2 and #3)

The Bottom Line of Medical Humour

Funny Bones (parts #1 and #2)
Doctors and their Practices (parts #1 and #2)

To Clot or Not to Clot

The Scopes of Modern Medicine

Handbook of Medical Testing Statistics

Organic Brain Poetry

Pandemic Verses

Poetry of Healthcare

STD Poetry

Diagnostic Imaging (selected topics)

Toxic Vignettes

Sleek Greek Prefixes

Dental Feelings

and in 'brief sagas' including:

Drug Development

Radiation Exposure

Methylated Spirits

The Gastro-Esophageal Junction

Workplace Pollution

Food Intolerance

Fluoridation

DIRECTION FOR WEB-TRAVELLERS: 

To resume daily titillations on our related blog 'Daily Illustrated Nonsense', click HERE. Once you arrive, you can select your time frame of interest from the calendar-based listings in the righthand margin, and check the daily offerings for any month in the years 2020 to the present. (As of September 2023, there are over 1200 unique entries available on the Daily blog, and most of these are also presented here on 'Edifying Nonsense' in topic-based collections.) The 'Daily' format also has the advantage of including some videos and other material that are not shown here on this topic-based blog.

Nonsense about NUMBERS and COUNTING

pas-de-deux,
National Ballet of Canada
Harbourfront Centre, Toronto,
August 2022

bossa nova trio,
Yorkville Village parkette, Toronto,
August, 2022

string quartet,
Dundas Square, Toronto,
June 2022

The term 'sextet' also refers to a piece of music composed for 6 players. e.g. Francis Poulenc, was the most prolific member of the group of 20th-century French composers known as Les Six. His piece, Sextuor (Sextet) for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, French horn and piano was composed in 1932. 

DIRECTION FOR WEB-TRAVELLERS: 

To resume daily titillations on our blog 'Daily Illustrated Nonsense', click HERE. Once you arrive, you can select your time frame of interest from the calendar-based listings in the righthand margin, and check the daily offerings for any month in the years 2020 to the present. (As of September 2022, there are 1000 entries available on the Daily blog, and most of these are also presented here on 'Edifying Nonsense' in topic-based collections.)

Reversing Verse: PANAMA PALINDROME PARODIES (classic and novel)

   This post provides a continuation of five wordplay collections displayed on December 5, 2020, through December 15, 2021. In these, classic palindromes (phrases and sentences whose letters are ordered identically when they are read either forwards or backwards) were described and extolled in verse by the team of Dr. G.H. and Giorgio Coniglio. The contents of the most recent post (August 2021) included these illustrated verses: 

33. Racecar

34. No left felon 

35. A man, a plan, a canal -- Panama

36. The Dacha: palindrome-enhanced American satire, a brief saga

37. Leigh Mercer's Palindrome Workshop, a brief saga

-------------------------------- 

For your review, here's Giorgio's verse about 'the IPP' (designated above as #35):

CURRENT CONTENTS

Please note that, continuing the convention adopted in the previous posts, there will be an exclusive correlation between green italicized font and palindromes. Not all of the palindromes displayed within the verses' lines are in the 'classic repertoire'; some are recent concoctions by the authors. But of course, all the poems highlighting the wordplay  are verses written jointly by Dr. G.H. and Giorgio Coniglio (registered pseudonym).

1. Classic spoof on the IPP: A man, a potato -- Panama.

2. Classic spoof on the IPP: A man, a plan, a cat, a hat, a canal -- Panama.

3. Classic spoof on the IPP: Sir, a plan, a canal -- Paris. 

4. Classic spoof on the IPP: A dog, a plan, a canal -- pagoda. 

5. Classic spoof on the IPP: Amen, a pit -- Ipanema.

6. Novel concoction: One man, a plan, a canal -- panameño. 

7. Novel concoction: A girl, a plan, a canal, pal -- Riga.

8. Novel concoction: A man, a Pan -- a panama. (hats)

9. Novel concoction: A man, a plan, if final -- Panama.

Readers who wish to continue their palindromic journey are advised to proceed in the direction of a followup post entitled "Life in Palindrome Valley". Click HERE. 

DIRECTION FOR WEB-TRAVELLERS: 

To resume daily titillations on our related blog 'Daily Illustrated Nonsense', click HERE. Once you arrive, you can select your time frame of interest from the calendar-based listings in the righthand margin, and check the daily offerings for any month in the years 2020 to the present. (As of September 2023, there are over 1200 unique entries available on the Daily blog, and most of these are also presented here on 'Edifying Nonsense' in topic-based collections.) The 'Daily' format also has the advantage of including some videos and other material that are not shown here on this topic-based blog.