Falling Asleep
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RELEASED ON:
There is only one version of this song. It is a quite rough sounding recording, with acoustic guitar and vocals only. It is a little over one minute in length.
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LYRICS:
Ba ba ba ba ba.... [There are no lyrics, Larry just hums the melody]. |
From Midsummer Nights Dream.
When I was a young boy I loved watching this fantasy whenever it came onto television, principally because "Puck" the faun, was played by an incredibly young Mickey Rooney, long before he ever sang a duet with Judy Garland or broke down in front of his father Judge Stone and confessed to yet another silly faux pas brought on by his naive faith in his own solution-making. Oberon, king of the fairies, and his queen, Titania, arrive in the same forest to attend the wedding of the mortals, Theseus and Hippolyta, and Qberon and Titania are estranged because Titania refuses to relinquish her Indian page (a boy servant) to Oberon for use as his "henchman." Oberon seeks to punish Titania's disobedience and secretly recruits the mischievous Puck (also called Hobgoblin and Robin Goodfellow) to help him apply a magical juice from a flower called "love-in-idleness," (aka pansy) which makes the victim fall in love with the first living thing he sees when he awakens. He instructs Puck to drug Titania s that she falls in love with some vile creature. That creature turns out to be Bottom, an ass; a low-brow joke when you think about it. I wish I could find a tape of my song "Pyramus and Thisbe." It has such tight inner-rhymes and captures the sobriety and sarcasm of the spell cast by the fairies and yet does so with the greatest of dignity.
"Tell me where is the chink I think I blink through with mine eye" is one of the lines from my song, when the young lovers are inexplicably separated "the wall", played very broadly by another actor. This scene was, as Shakespeare saw it, supposed to be over-played, ridiculous and badly performed and to give everyone pleasure regardless (similar to the parlor games of earlier centuries and, ironically, even our own - like "charades". After all, food, laughter and silly games is what uninhibited party games are all about. After everyone laughs at The Wall and Pyramus' and Thisbee's easily solvable dilemma, a Bergomask (rustic dance) is performed in honor of a double wedding that has taken p!ace, and everyone dances together before getting tired one by one and falling asleep, retiring to bed. Finally, as night falls into its darkest black, the stars are become visible in the heaven above them and Oberon and Titania rise to their regal height and confer benefit upon everyone they drew into the woods and bless the houses, its occupants, and all future children of the newlyweds. Puck giggles joyfully then delivers a soliloquy to the audience.
"If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber'd here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend: if you pardon, we will mend:
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call;
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends."
When I was a young boy I loved watching this fantasy whenever it came onto television, principally because "Puck" the faun, was played by an incredibly young Mickey Rooney, long before he ever sang a duet with Judy Garland or broke down in front of his father Judge Stone and confessed to yet another silly faux pas brought on by his naive faith in his own solution-making. Oberon, king of the fairies, and his queen, Titania, arrive in the same forest to attend the wedding of the mortals, Theseus and Hippolyta, and Qberon and Titania are estranged because Titania refuses to relinquish her Indian page (a boy servant) to Oberon for use as his "henchman." Oberon seeks to punish Titania's disobedience and secretly recruits the mischievous Puck (also called Hobgoblin and Robin Goodfellow) to help him apply a magical juice from a flower called "love-in-idleness," (aka pansy) which makes the victim fall in love with the first living thing he sees when he awakens. He instructs Puck to drug Titania s that she falls in love with some vile creature. That creature turns out to be Bottom, an ass; a low-brow joke when you think about it. I wish I could find a tape of my song "Pyramus and Thisbe." It has such tight inner-rhymes and captures the sobriety and sarcasm of the spell cast by the fairies and yet does so with the greatest of dignity.
"Tell me where is the chink I think I blink through with mine eye" is one of the lines from my song, when the young lovers are inexplicably separated "the wall", played very broadly by another actor. This scene was, as Shakespeare saw it, supposed to be over-played, ridiculous and badly performed and to give everyone pleasure regardless (similar to the parlor games of earlier centuries and, ironically, even our own - like "charades". After all, food, laughter and silly games is what uninhibited party games are all about. After everyone laughs at The Wall and Pyramus' and Thisbee's easily solvable dilemma, a Bergomask (rustic dance) is performed in honor of a double wedding that has taken p!ace, and everyone dances together before getting tired one by one and falling asleep, retiring to bed. Finally, as night falls into its darkest black, the stars are become visible in the heaven above them and Oberon and Titania rise to their regal height and confer benefit upon everyone they drew into the woods and bless the houses, its occupants, and all future children of the newlyweds. Puck giggles joyfully then delivers a soliloquy to the audience.
"If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumber'd here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend: if you pardon, we will mend:
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call;
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends."