{"id":339,"date":"2020-05-30T15:52:52","date_gmt":"2020-05-30T20:52:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/slator.ndgeek.com\/wp\/?p=339"},"modified":"2023-08-14T16:41:28","modified_gmt":"2023-08-14T21:41:28","slug":"of-thee-i-sing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/slator.ndgeek.com\/wp\/2020\/05\/30\/of-thee-i-sing\/","title":{"rendered":"Of Thee I Sing"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By Nem W. Schlecht<\/p>\n

In March of 2006, Brian and I were hanging out at the Turf and he asked me to use my Google-foo (or some site I had mentioned in my podcast for getting song lyrics) to try to figure out the lyrics to one of his long-time favorite songs – “Of Thee I Sing” by Leon Russell.  His comment, specifically:<\/p>\n

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p.s. “of thee I sing” is a remarkable tune in that, if you play it back to back, in a loop, it is almost seamless. You can listen to it for hours.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I assume he made this comment from actual experience.  If you are unfamiliar, take a listen below.  Leon is energetic and although he doesn’t necessarily mumble, neither does he enunciate.<\/p>\n

It actually took me months (October 2006 – I admit, I probably initially forgot all about his request), but eventually I e-mailed him lyrics I had found.  However, neither Brian nor I agreed with what I found!  The lyrics had “Got” instead of “Brought” in the 2nd line and “stained” instead of “strained” near the end.  We adjusted them and went with what I have here.<\/p>\n

I must have listened to this song at least 30-40 times trying to figure out what the heck Leon is saying – I’m sure Brian listened to it many more times than that!<\/p>\n

As an update, I just now (May 2020) searched for these lyrics again and found a much more reliable\/accurate source and I see that Brian and I were both correct with our version.  So, the mystery was solved and Leon sings on…<\/p>\n

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Leon Russell – Of Thee I Sing (Lyrics)<\/p>\n

Hung up in a Pennsylvania mining town
\nBrought down to Boston in time for tea
\nI don’t know exactly just what’s going down
\nI better hang around until I see<\/p>\n

With beauty like a knife, She cuts me even more
\nShe changes right before my eyes into something ugly and sore
\nWith beauty like a knife, she cuts me even more
\nShe changes right before my eyes into something strange- and more<\/p>\n

Don’t bomb the inn I’m on holiday
\nBut Oklahoma’s just a jet away
\nAnd the blood is on the books in Ohio
\nSo badly strained what can I say<\/p>\n

With beauty like a knife, she cuts me even more
\nShe changes right before my eyes into something ugly and sore
\nWith beauty like a knife, she cuts me even more
\nShe changes right before my eyes into something strange- and more<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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(Unfortunately, YouTube took down this video.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Nem W. Schlecht In March of 2006, Brian and I were hanging out at the Turf and he asked me to use my Google-foo (or some site I had mentioned in my podcast for getting song lyrics) to try to figure out the lyrics to one of his long-time favorite songs – “Of Thee […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"index","bgseo_robots_follow":"follow","footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/slator.ndgeek.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/slator.ndgeek.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/slator.ndgeek.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slator.ndgeek.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slator.ndgeek.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/slator.ndgeek.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":383,"href":"https:\/\/slator.ndgeek.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339\/revisions\/383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/slator.ndgeek.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slator.ndgeek.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slator.ndgeek.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}