Word: wail
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...almost hear the faint, far whisper of their forgotten songs. Youth, strength, aspirations, struggles, triumphs, despairs, wide winds sweeping, beacons flashing across uncharted depths, faint bugles sounding reveille, far drums beating the long roll, the wail of sirens, the crash of guns, the thud of bombs, the rattle of musketry-the still white crosses...
When he sings House of the Rising Sun or John Henry, he does something to his story that gives it personal significance. Perhaps it is a plaintive wail in his voice, perhaps it is the way he takes a note and releases it as though it were a word that carries a meaning for the first time. Certainly it has something to do with the way he handles his guitar, an instrument which brings an important supplementary voice to his work...
Back in the '20s and early '30s, Bessie Smith was the rage of the blues world. She could punch a tune or wail it soft. She stood 5 ft. 9 in., weighed 210 Ibs., and she drank gin as if it were water. She died in an automobile crash in 1937. Her friends thought she was about 50, but nobody knew for certain...
...world's greatest seaport lay 90% idle last week, New York's usual chorus of hooting ships reduced to an occasional lonely wail...
...hold the camera on his subject for more than a split-second; he uses light and shadow to reveal or conceal, as he wishes; and he seems to have spent a good deal of time on the sound effects for the film. They are no more than the wail of a distant siren, or the call of a loon on a lake, but they are immensely effective...