infrogmation: (Default)
2007-07-07 07:36 pm

Woo me with that wonderful wiggle-wag

Ms Hollie and I were talking about a couple of songs the other day... turns out they're both from 1911, a good year for ragtime novelty songs.

When Ragtime Rosie Ragged The Rosary

Words by Edgar Leslie. Music by Lewis F. Muir

Original sheet music

Lyrics without the notes

Listen to piano midi
(I didn't find a period recording on line with a short search)


Red Rose Rag

Words by Edward Madden. Music by Percy Wenrich.

Original sheet music

Lyrics without the notes

Listen to an Edison cylinder recorded by the Premier Quartette
infrogmation: (Default)
2004-06-30 08:53 pm
Entry tags:

Oxyrhynchus

Ancient Egyptian mythology:

"Oxyrhynchus, the 'sharp- nosed fish'[...] According to legend, this fish ate the phallus of Osiris when the god’s body was cut into pieces by his brother Seth. Isis, as 'Abtu, Great Fish of the Abyss,' was identified with the penis-swallower. The fish cult spread to many parts of Egypt."

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Inspired by this, we have decyphered a hieroglyphic inscrption, and discovered it to be an ancient Bronze-Age-Pan-Alley Pop-Tune from 1902 B.C.E.

The Oxyrhynchus Rag
by Sneferu Von Tilzer

Friday Night in Egypt, don't know what to do?
Amen-ho-step over here, come learn a dance that's new.
It's the finest raggy dance, if you'll let me brag,
A fishy thing they call the Oxyrhynchus Rag.

First you wriggle all around just like a pile of squids,
Then do the vulture-trot beside the pyramids,
Everyone rush forward like a locust swarm,
Sway like a papyrus raft, caught in a storm.
Turn your chest forward and your face in profile
And throw your genitalia into the Nile.
When a fishy eats it you do the slow-drag.
And that's the Oxyrhynchus Rag
Sweet Isis
Do that Oxyrhynchus Rag!