Artist	Song
Tommy Makem with the Clancy Brothers	Waltzing with Bears
Jefferson Airplane	Lather
Cannonball Adderley	African Waltz
Jim Croce	Time in a Bottle
Dave Brubeck Group	Kathy's Waltz
Elliot Smith	Waltz #2 (XO)
Leo Kottke	Crow River Waltz
Fairport Convention	Genesis Hall
Mireille Mathieu	Les Bicyclettes de Belsize
Tim Hart and Maddy Prior	Dancing at Whitsun
Les Paul and Mary Ford	Mocking Bird Hill
Richard Thompson	Waltzing's for Dreamers
Patti Page	Changing Partners
Cass Elliot	Dream a Little Dream of Me
Elvis Costello	You've Got to Hide Your Love Away
Dolores Keane and John Faulkner	Jimmy Mo Mhile Stór
The Proclaimers	Cap in Hand
Kristin Hersh	Down in the Willow Garden
The Chieftains with Tom Jones	Tennessee Waltz; Tennessee Mazurka
Richard and Linda Thompson	Withered and Died
Priscilla Herdman	Do You Think That I Do Not Know?
Nolan Anderson	Sleepy Bear Waltz

Comment:

Even when we'd have our words wring tears from the stars, human speech is like a cracked kettle, upon which we beat out such tunes as set the bears to dancing.
Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary, II,ii.
Clearly, there are limits to what human speech can do.
When I was in eighth grade, I was making an oral presentation of the Beatles song, She's Leaving Home to my music appreciation class and said before God and everyone that the song was in common time. Oh, the embarrassment. Being thirteen, I had to stick to the story in the face of all evidence manifest to the contrary. Every twelfth beat, I was right on.
Some folks can't carry a tune in a bucket; me, I can't keep time in a bottle. And when I had that thought the other day, it occured to me that Time in a Bottle is also a waltz. In it goes.
Waltzes are versatile. Although they are most frequently songs invoking a yearning towards the dance floor, they can also tell us of other feelings. Dolores Keane and Mireille Mathieu mourn for their absent lovers in three/four time. The Proclaimers waltz out the chagrin of a failed nationalist agenda. Kristin Hersh nimbly three-steps her way through the muddled thoughts of a homocidal incompetent. And Priscilla Herdman uses the boxstep to sing one of Henry Lawson's saddest poems.
There are limits to human speech -- the bears know what's what. That's why they dance. One-two-three, one-two-three, there you go.
(The sculpture is by Enook Manomie of Iqaluit. Google him and buy if you're so inclined. All I can afford is to steal a .gif of his work.)

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