'There’s a Queue Down at the Graveyard' - lyric video
A GRAVE MATTER…
How do you write a cheerful song about death?
No doubt certain cultures have managed it better & more consistently than the traditionally repressed Western European’s. Mexico springs to mind. I reckon their Day of the Dead, despite the fateful subject matter, is a fun day out for all the family.
I’ve always admired the processional New Orleans approach too. Now that is how to do a good funeral.
I’m obviously generalising a bit here, to suit my own narrative since I admit to suffering from existential angst on a daily basis.
The loss of one’s own life and that of loved ones and heroes is not to be quipped about, but I have been seeking to write an archetypal old blues song addressing the unifying human truth that we all gotta die sometime, so why don’t we just get along with each other better.
I’m probably, in reality, just trying to comfort myself & reduce the aforementioned anxiety.
I suppose my new/old song “There’s a queue down at the graveyard” is just an attempt to find the wistful positives to life’s inevitable entropy.
It’s the antithesis of the specificity of Saint James Infirmary as sung by Cab Calloway, a great storyteller, where we are forced to share in the irredeemable loss of a single dear life from Cab’s first-person perspective.
Another compelling storyteller that greatly influenced my early memories of “a good song rendition” would definitely be the Disney actor, Phil Harris, the voice of Baloo the bear and Thomas O’Malley, the alley cat. I think his songs charmed me as a frightened kid, who at the age of five or six was just realising that, one day, mum and dad wouldn’t be there anymore.
Special mention must also be made to Louis Prima, (Baloo’s Old King Louis’ nemesis) & Joel Grey’s incredible Emcee in Cabaret, I grew up loving them all & any remote/shameless resemblance to these guys is purely intentional.