Happy Thanksgiving!

By Pat Padua

In the Muse wishes you and yours a very happy Thanksgiving. Between mashed potatoes and halftime, the musically inclined among our readership may wish to celebrate the day in song with Geo. W. Morgan’s’ “National Thanksgiving Hymn,” dedicated to then President Rutherford B. Hayes. After dinner, take an invigorating constitutional to work off that second slice of pie, and as ye walk, instead of early Christmas Carols, sing James Blyler’s  ”The Turkey Gobbler’s Ball,” from Ziegfeld Follies of 1911. The lyrics by Havez and Donnelly tell the tale not of a Thanksgiving feast, but of a barnyard animal sing-along led by the eponymous song bird. Gobble gobble!