Celebrating Valentine's Day @ the start of our Mardi Gras Week!
We're kicking off Mardi Gras Week with a celebration of Valentine's Day!
Yeah You Rite!
IF EVER I CEASE TO LOVE
In a house, in a square
In a quadrant,
In a street, in a lane,
In a road.
Turn to the left
On the right hand---
You see there my true Love's abode.
I go there a' courting
And cooing to my love like a dove
And swearing on my bended knees,
If I Ever Cease To Love,
May The Sheepheads Grow on Apple Trees
If Ever I Cease To Love
CHORUS:
If Ever I Cease To Love
If Ever I Cease To Love
May the moon be turned to cream cheese
If Ever I Cease To Love
"If Ever I Cease to Love" is a music hall song published by the English Lion comique George Leybourne, who was popular in the Victorian music venues, in 1871. It has been performed by several musical artists and theatrical entertainers, including Lydia Thompson, who featured the song in her traveling operetta Bluebeard. Though Leybourne is best known for his composition “The Daring Young Man On The Flying Trapeze”, the comedic lyrical content and catchy melody of "If Ever I Cease to Love" became a popular song in New Orleans during Mardi Gras season. Since the first King Rex parade in 1872, the song has been ceremoniously played to the Krewe's figurehead, Rex, who bears the title "King of Carnival" in New Orleans.
In 1872, the School of Design selected "If Ever I Cease to Love" as the royal anthem to be played for their appointed monarch, Rex, a position which is considered to be one of the highest honors in the City of New Orleans (a different individual is selected every year to reign as Rex and bear the title "King of Carnival" for that year's festivities). Already, the composition was in popular demand among the city's populace for its lighthearted premise, and interpretations by several songwriters.
Here's some other Mardi Gras love songs
BEAU JOCQUE & THE ZYDECO HI ROLERS - I'M A GIRL WATCHER
NEW ORLEANS NIGHTCRAWLERS - FUNKY LISA
DANNY BARKER
In 1972 Danny Barker established a youth music program at New Orleans’ Fairview Baptist Church. For about four years the Hurricane Brass Band played regularly, before it began to fade, but a core group kept playing together, expanding the bands repertoire and morphing into the Sixth Ward Dirty Dozen, then the Dirty Dozen Brass Band.
DIRTY DOZEN BRASS BAND
DANNY BARKER & THE DIRTY DOZEN BRASS BAND
- DON'T YOU FEEL MY LEG
PROFESSOR LONGHAIR - WHOLE LOTTA LOVING
WISHING ONE & ALL A HAPPY MARDI GRAS VALENTINES DAY!
