Songs in the Key of Tea - A YouTube Playlist (link)
As promised, after two Daily Playlists of songs about coffee, here’s one for a hot brewed beverage that is even more versatile, a fact proven by the walls of jars of dried leaves, spices and floral ingredients that adorn our local tea houses.
And I’ll be honest, as much as I love coffee, my day almost always starts with a hot cup of Earl Grey, which wakes me up enough to have the manual dexterity to deal with making a cup of coffee an hour or two later.
Given the calming and healing properties of tea, it’s not surprising to find that many of the songs have a meditative quality, so after a brief fanfare by Sam Brown, we have songs like P.E.I. songwriter Ashley Condon’s Chamomile Tea and Harry Nilsson’s philosophical Think About Your Troubles. But there’s also a winsome take on the classic Tea for Two by jazz legend Blossom Dearie, the Kinks’ rousing Have a Cuppa Tea and Gordie Sampson’s Old Ways, with an evocative opening line about that pot of tea that sits on the stove all day, just like it did in my grandparents’ kitchen in Saint John.
And make sure you listen to the end for a goofy bonus track by my favourite four-footed pianist and his boomerang fish-throwing friend.