miso
A happy a cappella song featuring heavy breathing, chest pounding, and lyrics from the back of a condiment package.
And a true story. Occurred and written down in spring of 1990, recorded by Andrew Rappaport in the “counting the moon” sessions in June 1992 in a few takes, while grinning madly. I never found out what “shinshu honzukuri miso shiro” means, and I hope I never will.
shinshu honzukuri miso shiro
i was eating a miso-mustard sandwich (my favorite),
and reading the box it came in (the miso).
it was written in japanese (phonetic),
which i can’t read (pathetic),
so all i know are the words
my pronunciation may be awful,
and i expect it is,
’cause all i know of Japanese
i learned from menus and cookbooks.
tjw: vocals, chest pounding, hand claps.
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More Miso
Ha! We just bought a package of shinshu honzukuri miso to try something new in the kitchen. Thought it would be a good idea to read a little about it before using. Your site came up! Love the random quote, the quote of dreamers and planners (40 hours of work imagined during one hot shower). Life is good when that’s the biggest challenge. And we really enjoyed the song. Thanks for brightening our day. Now off to find out more about our miso!
Hee hee!
Thanks! I’m delighted that this 20-year-old song is still participating in serendipitous connections! Cheers.
P.S. I still like it as a sandwich ingredient. And it seems more versatile than other misos - milder and smoother.
My new favorite song
LOL… This is my new favorite song (for today at least)! Nice harmony, cute words, professionally executed. I absolutely love it! Wish more people had your attitude toward music, and that I could find others who do.
— James Newton (of piclist.com)
Ha!
Thanks so much! This one was totally spontaneous and very successful… clearly I have to capture that spontaneity and do it over and over again. Or no, wait…
Cheers.
Sheet music? LOL
So I’ve emailed this song to a few people in the local area, and two of them have said they want to learn to sing it. They have asked me to ask you if you have sheet music. LOL… is that funny or what? Ok, I’ve done my job… I asked.
Cool!
That is funny - but I’m honored! It was mostly improvised, and I never wrote it down. But it would be amusing to pull out the master and transcribe it. Let’s see… The tracks are labeled “Panting dog” (+ isolated sushi menu words), “Melody + harmony” (two vocals, + finger snaps on beat), “Harmony” (on choruses 2, 3, 4), “Chest pounding” (+ narrative vocals), and “Parentheses”. That might be some help! If they’re interested in a more detailed transcription, do have them contact me!
Postscript
This is one of the most popular songs I’ve done, and it probably took the least amount of time. There’s a lesson there of some kind.