You more lovely than the day

As much as I love finding out new stuff, which is why my appetite for books, music, and movies is so voracious, I suppose, there's one thing I love even more: finding out that something I previously believed to be true is, in fact, not true. And the version of that that I love the most is when I discover it for myself--though it is also quite enjoyable to have someone else reveal such a thing to me.

Like when then four year old Jimmy revealed to me that the tunes of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and "The A.B.C." song were identical. (After I'd spent 37 years not knowing that.) Or when I was trying to find The Arrow in the FedEx logo (which I'd read about but not seen represented pictorially) without success, and I turned to Jacqueline and asked her if she could see it (as a Fedex truck passed us on the road) and she immediately pointed it out.

This morning there was a little "news" blurb about Keith Urban doing a great job on a Bee Gees song at a Grammy Tribute for the Gibb Boys. Which made me think about all of the great songs that the Bee Gees had done. And not for the first time I went looking for a greatest hits album which would include all of the Must Haves:

"Lonely Days"

"Holiday"

"Words"

"To Love Somebody"

"I've Gotta Get a Message to You"

"I Started a Joke"

"How Can You Mend a Broken Heart"

"Run to Me"

"Stayin' Alive"

When I've gone on this quest previously, I'd always find collections that had most of them, but never all of them. This time out I happened upon The Record - Their Greatest Hits released in 2001, and it was all there. So I went over the list in my head to make sure I hadn't forgotten any of the necessities. Check, check, check . . . oh, wait a minute. What about that "Toast and Marmalade for tea" song? I looked through the titles on The Record. Nope, nope, nope. Nope. Unless . . . I didn't really know if the title was "Toast and Marmalade" or what. So I Googled the first line. And... 

The

 was revealed to me.

The song was, indeed, entitled "Toast and Marmalade For Tea." But it was NOT by the Bee Gees. 

Oh my.

It was by a group called Tin Tin. 

Well, as is usually the case when a truth, big or small, is revealed to me, especially when it contradicts one of my previously held beliefs, I was sure that The Internet was wrong. So I pried the tops off of a few crates with my Google crowbar. And? "Toast and Marmalade for Tea" was a song by Tin Tin. Albeit produced and played bass by Maurice Gibb, so there was a little Bee Gee in it, at least.

So there you have it. Written by Steve Groves, it's "Toast and Marmalade For Tea."

Toast and marmalade for tea

Sailing ships upon the sea

Aren't lovelier than you

Or the games I see you play

You more lovely than the day

When the sun is in your eyes

I see through your disguise

Or the games I see you play

And it's a lovely little song, well worth the Tubing. Also an odd little song, what with the warbly piano. And the fact that it's really only got two verses (the lyrics above are complete, they're just repeated three and a half times) and no chorus at all. And the disrupted syntax of the lines. And the bizarre way that the last two lines of each verse seem to completely contradict the first two lines of each verse.

Hmmpf.

There it is.