Bet on Stewball, and you might win..
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Tonight’s entertainment en route to the tips is indisputably “one of the most depressing songs ever recorded.” The original version, as written by Hungarian pianist Rezső Seress — who would later jump to his death from his apartment window — was about the darkness of war; it wasn’t until Hungarian poet László Jávor wrote much bleaker, gloomier lyrics that the ball really got rolling:

As time went on, Gloomy Sunday was connected to a rash of suicides in Hungary. In all, seventeen people died. Two people shot themselves while listening to a band playing the tune. Several others drowned themselves in a river while clutching the sheet music…

That’s the story, anyway. Without further ado, here’s cabaret performer Hildegarde — who, apparently immune to the song’s effects, died just a few months shy of her 100th birthday — singing the appropriately named Gloomy Sunday.
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In tonight’s entertainment en route to the tips, recorded in 1958, Ella Fitzgerald sings Irving Berlin’s Isn’t This A Lovely Day?
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In tonight’s amusement en route to the tips, replete with dancing poolside bikinis, Frank Sinatra impersonator Frank Sinatra Jr. takes a flying backyard leap at Cole Porter’s Love For Sale.
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Tonight’s tips video gives us a rare behind-the-scenes look at a traditional Irish Funeral.
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You’d better straighten up and fly right, mister, because Mama Spank.
h/t Judith
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In tonight’s entertainment en route to the tips, courtesy of SDA reader Plainsdrifter, we watch Irish singers Daniel O’Donnell and Mary Duff in live performance as they harmonize sweetly on an old waltz-time song with a gentle, music box melody written in 1868 by Septimus Winner:  here’s Whispering Hope.
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Tonight, to bring peace to all the peoples of the world, we Listen To The Flower People.
They love you.
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Tonight we take take a calm ride into the tips with Sergio Mendes & Brasil ’66’s rendition of Fool On The Hill.
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In tonight’s amusements en route to the Tips the British television show Look Around You looks at some of interesting properties of Water, Calcium, and Ghosts.
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Tonight we sing along at home with Sonny Terry’s whoopety-ass whooper Old Lost John. Let’s make some noise..
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Vive la liberté.
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Tonight, a short primer on a survival skill that might come in handy some day if you’re not too damned cold to remember it.
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Tonight, John Prine finds himself a victim of The Great Compromise.
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In tonight’s decidedly non-musical tips video Professor Janice Fiamengo answers questions after her lecture “What’s Wrong With Women’s Studies.”
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Tonight, a short clip from the 1952 Paramount Pictures release Son Of Paleface. (Trigger warning.)
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During the recording of San Quentin (Live from Prison) in 1969, Johnny Cash was backstage taking a short break while Carl Perkins entertained the inmates. He pulled out a piece of paper with the words to a new song, one unfamiliar to his backing musicians, written by Playboy cartoonist Shel Silverstein. When he took to the stage again he put the lyrics on a music stand, spent a minute or so teaching the band the chord sequence, and then launched into a largely extemporaneous performance of what would nonetheless become the definitive version of A Boy Named Sue.
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Roy Orbison wasn’t a technically great singer — he was “pitchy”, and his signature sound formed in his throat and head as much as in his chest – but like Edith Piaf and Billie Holiday he was profoundly musical in a way that could elevate his songs into a magical realm nearer to dreams than reality. In tonight’s entertainment en route to the tips, we listen to his 1963 release Blue Bayou.
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And from everyone at SDA, may you all enjoy the best of health and happiness in 2015.

In tonight’s seasonal entertainment en route to the tips the Pražští barokní sólisté, under the direction of Adam Viktora, perform Agnus Dei I from Czech composer Jan Dismas Zelenka’s 1740 opus Missa Sanctissimae Trinitatis.
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