I think I usually reference the fact that my go to source for information on songs is the wonderful songfacts.com, written by DJs and rock journalists and originally built as a database of facts for radio djs to throw out before or after a song. “You know, before Cyndi Lauper won a Tony, she wrote this little song with one of The Hooters…” Anyway, the Songfacts entry on Time After Time is exhaustive about the composition and recording of the song and there’s nothing to add in that department. The rest of this post will assume you went to their site and read about the song. Meanwhile, I want to consider the idea of this song becoming a standard, like “I Got Rhythm” or “All of Me.” Cyndi Lauper’s video: The trailer for the 1979 film “Time After Time” whose title inspired Lauper. H.G. Wells follows Jack the Ripper into the present (1979) and falls in love with Mary Steenburgen along the way. Yikes. Hyman says that the chorus originally had an upbeat reggae feel. That changed when the lyrics of the verse suggested a more bittersweet tone. Still, if you want to know what a reggae version would sound like, One definition of a musical standard is simply that everyone knows the song. A plethora of cover versions helps suggest ubiquity. (SAT vocabulary words bonus!) We’ll slowly work our way towards some jazz versions. A pop-punk version with male lead vocal from Quietdrive, because that’s the name of a band. (As a reminder, I link to videos that I am ashamed to make you watch here. For this song, especially, there are a LOT of covers). Cool dancing in the R&B version by INOJ but the song is simply faithful to the original, with a new drum track and some gospel echoes. Canadian twins Tegan and Sara. That’s another weird accent. Does this song bring out odd accents that I never noticed before? That said, their commentary at the end — that the song can’t sound too happy and loyal, but has to have an undercurrent of tears — seems right. This is just weird, but if it’s from a group called Science-Monkey and it’s from Japan and it’s under 2 minutes long, I need to embed it: Rob Thomas of Matchbox 20 solo acoustic. (And sometimes I embed just because it’s a car wreck that you can’t turn away from.) What’s with his odd enunciation? He sings like he’s simultaneously trying to get a glob of peanut butter unstuck from his teeth: Okay sorry for that. Seriously, though, here’s a nice version by the amazing Eva Cassidy. Nice, simple accompaniment with a beautiful voice — I like the pause before the chorus but I think that kind of thing works only after the audience has internalized the song, as they would with a standard. We all know it, we’re waiting for something, and then the silence builds on our anticipation. Similarly, when Cassidy plays around with the melody a bit, we know where the “real” melody is and this lets her be an echo or harmony to the tune in our head. I have no idea who this kid is, but this is an amazing instrumental version on acoustic guitar: Speaking of amazing guitarists, jazz player Tuck Andress and his wife Patti (aka Tuck and Patti) include the song in their repertoire. Tuck really hits the harmonics on his guitar solo, and Patti just goes off on a tangent around the world, before getting the audience to sing harmonies (the crowd could be a little more enthusiastic). Jazz, with its emphasis on improvisation needs standards precisely for the reasons cited above regarding Eva Cassidy. Familiarity allows for a contained creativity that allows the audience to explore while still having structure. Cyndi Lauper said that her favorite cover artist was Miles Davis. Well, why not? Aside from being one of the great jazz musicians and composers of the 20th century, his use of her song helps solidify its position as a pop standard (of course he also covered Scritti Politti but that’s another story). Okay, here’s Cyndi from a recent 2005 performance with Sarah Mclachlan singing alongside.
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Charlotte McCaffrey was the guitarist in a band called The Eyes when a punk with purple hair, ripped stockings and dressed in a garbage bag invited her to join an all-female music group. She did, even though none of her new bandmates knew how to play their instruments. They came a long way, however ,and McCaffrey wrote some big hits for her new band, The Go-Gos, including “Vacation,” “Head Over Heels,” and their first single (released in the UK, second in the US), “We Got the Beat.” That’s McCaffrey to the left of the stage. She’s the introverted Go-Go who is a proud songwriter but doesn’t crave the spotlight. Songfacts.com asked McCaffrey about writing “We Got the Beat” and she told them:
Here’s Smokey Robinson and the Miracles’ “Going to a Go-Go”: Familiar opening drum beat, no? Some random facts about the single’s chart position: “We Got the Beat” stalled at #2 on the Billboard Charts behind Joan Jett’s “I Love Rock and Roll” (which she didn’t write). That same year, 1982, “We Got the Beat” was competing with the Rolling Stones’ version of “Going to a Go-Go” released as a single off the live album Still Life . (I remember thinking the Stones looked old in 1982.) So, I mentioned that “We Got the Beat” was both the first and second single from the Go-Gos. A version was released in the UK before being re-recorded and released again in the States. Here’s the audio from their UK release on Stiff Records (their label-mates included The Specials and Madness): The sound quality is pretty different — the UK version is definitely flatter and the drums and guitars are muddier. The drums don’t start the song. The subsequent remix for US release in early 1982 is much cleaner and a bit faster. The AV Club has a very good retrospective of Beauty and the Beat, the Go-gos’ first record. There’s a lot there about the sexism they faced as the first all girl band to write and record their own songs to make a #1 record, and the change from punk to pop. The article quotes the great rock critic and historian Greil Marcus who reviewed the album in Rolling Stone:
More videos! Early footage of the punk rock phenomenon that was The Go-Gos in 1979. Here they cover Josie Cotton’s terrific “Johnny Are You Queer?” in 75 seconds (it’s worth it to hear Cotton’s version so you can hear the lyrics). The Go-Gos prove that, Yeah, they “still got it” from September 2012: One woman (and a looper): I’m only posting this as a sort of virtual milk-carton, can someone make sure that these kids were not performing under duress? Call home, children. This is not the same song — it’s “Wipeout” — but the group is called We Got the Beat youth percussion and came up on my YouTube search and I was impressed: “Stand” by REM is the dumbest song I’ve ever written about here. (But there’s actual musicological stuff if you scroll down this page.) Who wants to learn the dance? Maybe Lego dancers will help you learn the moves. The thing is, I like the song and Michael Stipe is on the record as intentionally challenging his bandmates to write a dumb, bubblegum song, you know like “Yummy Yummy Yummy (I Got Love in My Tummy)” or the Archies’ “Sugar Sugar.” Seems like if he wanted to write bubblegum pop, he should have written about food. Oh wait, Weird Al helped them with that: The proof of a great pop record is whether Alvin and the Chipmunks do a cover and it looks like Berry, Buck, Mills & Stipe succeeded: So about the composition of this song, guitarist Peter Buck said:
He also intentionally used what he thought of as the overused wah-wah pedal to add to the stupidity of the song. (Before we get too far down this rabbit hole, we should point out that the lyrics are about being more aware of your surroundings and your life and are not all that different from “Once in a Lifetime” ["You may find yourself..."]. So lyrically, not so dumb. Musically, goofily so.) And perhaps the ultimate tribute to stupid pop songs is to be used as the theme song to a television show about a stupid person (Chris Elliott’s “Get a Life”): Wait, this is becoming as inane as the song itself. Surely we can find something musically interesting to discuss here? Yep. And it’s called the truck driver’s gear change. What I’m talking about here is the end of the song, when the chorus repeats and goes up two half tones. And then does it again. There’s a funny website that discusses what this is in a sarcastic manner: From the Frequently Asked Questions of The Truck Driver’s Gear Change Hall of Shame:
I love this website. I can’t remember when I first found it, but the comments on the songs are very funny and you can waste many minutes/hours/days here. From the commentary about “Stand“:
I, as you’ve seen, subscribe to the theory that R.E.M. does the gear change intentionally to conform to the standards of pure pop. What do you think? Comments welcome. The Talking Heads earned their chops playing at CBGBs, the infamous Lower East Side club on the Bowery where The Ramones, Television, Patty Smith, and others made their debuts (including the first American performance by The Police). This fall of 2013, a “based-on-a-true-story” Hollywood film called “CBGB” is coming out starring Alan Rickman as Hilly Kristal, the owner of the club. Apparently it’s available on DirectTV Video on Demand now until Oct 2, and then will be in theaters starting October 11, 2013. Here’s a trailer: A little more info is on this blogpost from Moviefone where you can also see a really annoying interview with Malin Ackerman who continually refers to Deborah Harry as “Blondie.” Presumably she’s also the girl who refers to Ian McCulloch as “Echo” and the rest of his bandmates as “the Bunnymen.” Anyway, the director is Randall Miller, who has mostly worked in television. The soundtrack will be good, and it might be fun to see actors playing our favorite punk rockers and new wavers… Field trip, anyone? For the composition of Remain in Light (including “Once in a Lifetime”), Byrne built on the layered, production-centered composition techniques that developed from his collaboration with Brian Eno on My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. Essentially, the band went in with a blank slate and built up grooves, starting with a guitar lick or a drum beat. Others would add parts to the track. (All quotes are from Byrne’s How Music Works [2012].)
Basically, they took away many of the regular composition tricks. “While punk rock was celebrated for needing only three chords, we had now stripped that down to one.” (p. 159) Writing melodies over these tracks was necessarily more difficult but he points out that this method has one main advantage: “more emphasis gets placed on the groove.”
As for the lyrics…
Okay, enough reading, here’s a video from a British Talking Heads documentary: Americana singer-songwriter Josh Ritter goes off on a tangent at one of his concerts. He really milks that preacher style and looks like he’s receiving the light when he gets to the chorus: Byrne says they couldn’t play these songs as a four piece, but he does a credible job with Crowded House (I love the guy with the mallet in the center behind Neil Finn at keyboards [the "Eno seat"]). Pushing the trance aspect: The Smashing Pumpkins deconstruct (not to the best effect) “Once in a Lifetime” (I link for completeness, but there’s a reason I didn’t embed — it kind of sucks). Here’s another link to what it would sound like if Nico (from the VU) covered the song. A nice acoustic sound featuring a singer with a great accent: Just wanted to point out the great Talking Heads cover band names: This Must Be the Band, We Are Not Talking Heads, Start Making Sense, The Rocking Heads Does the ecstatic groove remain when the Muppets cover “Once in a Lifetime”?: If you like singing in harmony (and if you don’t, you may be on the wrong webpage), I highly recommend the feature documentary “20 Feet from Stardom.” The film focuses on background singers in rock/pop music, some of whom perform on stage and others who mostly appear on recordings. From the interviews it seems that the director, Morgan Neville, cast his net wide, but in the end focused his film on African American women. Which is fine, since they are clearly the dominant force in this corner of the music industry. Among the featured performers is Darlene Love, famously trapped in anonymous Phil Spector recording contracts and turning to cleaning houses before mounting a comeback. There’s Merry Clayton, the haunting voice on the Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter” (“Rape! Murder!”) who is a goddess among back ups but who never got any traction as a solo performer. And there’s Judith Hill, set to break out on Michael Jackson’s last tour before he died. My favorite was Lisa Fischer whose musicality is a wonder to behold. The film deftly traces a trend in recorded music while still allowing for multiple, personal perspectives of individual women. But mostly, there’s the music. These women can sing. And they harmonize. And they swing. And as you watch you’ll realize how much you want to sing along. Highly recommended. Earlier this summer, while discussing what songs to perform at the NFS Open Mic, Neil suggested “Psycho Killer” by the Talking Heads and he sent me a few interesting videos. Well, that looked like the beginning of a blog post, so I finished it up and I’m posting it. “Psycho Killer” is one of the few Talking Heads songs credited to all the band members at the time: David Byrne, Chris Frantz and Tiny Weymouth, who first performed it in the pre-Jerry Harrison band The Artistic. Byrne has stated that he wanted to make the song a slow ballad, which would have made the song “creepier.” But the faster, New Wave sound was catchier for a new rock band’s audience. The song was one of the demos that the Talking Heads submitted to CBS (they were later signed to Sire Records). From “How Music Works” (2012) by Byrne:
Here’s early footage of the band playing the song at CBGB’s, the famed club in New York’s Bowery that hosted shows by Blondie, The Ramones, Television and Patti Smith, as well as the first Stateside shows by The Police. From the documentary “Chronology”: You’ll notice that the song is played faster than the later recording (it’s even faster on CBS demo), Byrne hasn’t fully defined the “Fa fa” melody and there is a different second verse:
Later to become the more psychotic:
Makes you wonder about the influence (at least with tempo) of the track’s eventual producer Tony Bongiovi (yeah, you read that right — Jon Bon Jovi’s second cousin). An alternate take of the studio version with Arthur Russell on cello was recently (summer of 2013) released on Soundcloud. The presence of Russell connects the Heads with the downtown New York avant garde music scene. I wish I could embed, but things are screwy so you’ll have to go here to listen. But come back!
Also, check out this version, for historical perspective, performed the year after T-Heads 77 was released: By the way, that “Fa fa fa fa” part? Probably inspired by the great Otis Redding song “Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song).” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyvGs3xlF2E The Heads’ love of old R&B comes through in a number of places, most obviously on their cover of Al Green’s “Take Me To the River.” That song was featured on the soundtrack and film “Stop Making Sense” (directed by Jonathan Demme, later to hit it big with “Silence of the Lambs,” speaking of Psycho Killers). And of course that film opens with David Byrne solo (well, with a cassette tape): Since the band broke up, Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz (who are married) formed the group Tom Tom Club and they perform the song with Tina singing lead:
From their induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002, the Talking Heads perform “Psycho Killer” 25 years after the initial release of the song. What occurs to me is that the Heads didn’t write songs of youth. There’s nothing ridiculous about older people singing this song — in fact, it might be more appropriate with a tinge of gray hair and experience. In his introduction to the band at the induction, Anthony Kiedis of The Red Hot Chili Peppers said the effect of the band was to make him feel smart, make him want to dance (and make him want to have sex with librarians).
Cover versions! For full geek cred, the song sounds great on ukulele (lots of ukuleles) in this version by The Ukulele Orchestra (which also has the best vocal harmonies of any version on this page): More geekery: Ed Robertson of Barenaked Ladies sings the song on stage with some other songwriters. Ed makes sure the crowd knows when to go to the “Whoa whoa ho” (after the chorus repeats) and he also translates the French, in case you were wondering: If you wondered what the song would sound like with more piano and an oddball instrumental outro (no doubt connecting to the next song), here’s Phish (beware, the audio is good but the video was shot by… well, let’s just say, a Phish fan): The weirdest version of this song that I’ve heard may also in some strange way be truest to the song (especially if you consider Byrne’s idea that the song was to be a ballad, and his own solo version from “Stop Making Sense”). It’s not embeddable for some reason, so you need to click through the text link. Please, if you watch nothing else on this page, check out Xenia Rubinos from The AV Club’s cover project. Where the heck is Cripple Creek?
That’s the debate among commenters at Songfacts.com. I think I have a pretty good answer, but let’s just review the song a bit first. Not the best audio ever, but here’s The Band playing live on Ed Sullivan from 1969 performing Up On Cripple Creek: The cameramen were obsessed with close-ups for some reason. (The same cinematographer later worked on the recent film version of Les Miserables [kidding].) Glad Robbie shaved that moustache off. And of course, from 1976, Martin Scorsese captured The Band featuring Levon Helm on lead and nice backing vocals from Rick Danko and Robbie Roberston on “The Last Waltz”: And here’s a clip from “Classic Albums: The Band” currently available on Netflix, that discusses the writing and production of the song — the most telling moment may be the use of a keyboard through a wah-wah pedal. (You can see — but barely hear — the keyboard at 0:52 in that Ed Sullivan clip.) Stevie wonder apparently, used this technique after the Band. So what’s the song about? The narrator is looking forward to the end of his job (on a mountain) so he can go down to Lake Charles, LA and see his girl, Bessie. When he does see her, they go to the horse track and get lucky, although Bessie is such a free spirit she just throws her share of the winnings into the narrator’s face, “just for a laugh.” She’s clearly a quirky girl, possibly a Manic Pixie Dream Girl before her time. By the end of the song, we realize the narrator has a home where he lives with his “Big Mama” (a wife?) but instead of going there, he’s thinking about visiting Bessie again. Oh, and when he’s with Bessie, she takes him to “Cripple Creek.” There are commenters on Songfacts who claim that the song refers to Cripple Creek, CO, and others who make a claim for Cripple Creek, VA, and others who point out that there is no Cripple Creek near Lake Charles, Louisiana, but maybe the Whiskey Chitto is the body of water they refer to. So where, exactly, is she taking him? The next clip might help explain: Mandolin virtuoso Sam Bush played “Up On Cripple Creek” at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival in 2012 with some amazing guests: Jerry Douglas on dobro, Jonathan Edwards on harmonica, and Bela Fleck on banjo among them. Great arrangement. Sam Bush, et al, segue from “Up On Cripple Creek” to a bluegrass standard, “Cripple Creek” at about 7:00. This song is canonical — 3 chords and found in many beginning bluegrass songbooks, it’s the equivalent of Twinkle Twinkle on piano. As proof of the song’s ubiquity, all the players know the song enough to all take turns at a solo. (I love how one guy plays a pretty good banjo solo but when Bela takes over with his solo and just goes off around 10:55, the guys at stage left bend forward to watch his playing and then throw their heads back laughing at his banjo insanity). “Cripple Creek” is an American standard. In other words, there’s no way Levon didn’t know this song. Those guys in The Band were archivists of American music; check out how they join together to sing “Old Time Religion” in a clip from “The Last Waltz.” So, more about the song “Cripple Creek.” The lyrics to this song are all about kids wading in mud, climbing trees, and tearing around the countryside, free. The chorus:
It’s the essence of childish, innocent fun. Bessie isn’t taking the narrator of “Up On Cripple Creek” anyplace geographically, she’s taking him to a place of innocence and pleasure that his “big mama” back home no longer gives him. Cripple Creek is a state of mind. Up on Cripple Creek she sends him, indeed.
Okay, some more cover versions: Here’s Little Feat in Jamaica in 2012 (What’s up with Little Feat? What kind of band has 4 guitarists, and two mandolin players? I mean, besides the Newton Family Singers…): Notice what song they segue into at the end there… The audio is pretty bad here, but for those Bruce Springsteen fans among you, here’s Levon’s All Stars in Asbury Park with the Boss. Tell me our own Bob doesn’t sound just like Bruce on that 3rd verse. Here’s The Band again with an alternate take on “Up On Cripple Creek”: And don’t miss this one, a local jam in Berkeley, CA saluting Levon with “I Shall Be Released” and then at 4:00, they start (a capella) an “Up On Cripple Creek” that’s lighter on electric instruments and a lot more focused on voices and makes time for solos on cello and autoharp (!). These folks sound all right, too: Here's an essay from Newton Family Singers' Jan Gilpin, who's been adding her flute as well as her voice to the sound of our group. Like many of us, she shares her love of music with her family, although -- also like many of us -- she's finding that making music has a lot of competition for her children's attention. It’s that time of year again – my oldest son Everett, a freshman, must choose electives for next year. The Newton North catalog is full of interesting classes, but his schedule only has room for a few. He tells me TV Production is his first choice, then maybe Robotics. “What about Band?” I ask him. He’s played saxophone since elementary school. Is he really going to give it up? This is one of the hardest things about watching your kids grow up – it’s like pruning your garden. If you cut back all the scraggly and wayward branches, the rest of the plant will be stronger and healthier, and the blooms will look better. But which branches to cut, to sacrifice for the rest of the plant? And who gets to decide what to cut? I have always tried to include music in my children’s lives. I played them Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Taj Majal and They Might Be Giants. I took them to music classes where they learned songs from around the world, banged on drums and shook little eggs filled with sand. I signed my two oldest sons up for piano lessons, and encouraged them to learn an instrument in school. Both chose the saxophone and joined the school band. While my kids learn a great deal, and improve each year, they would rather spend their free time doing other things. So far they haven’t completely rebelled, but I wonder if I’m paddling against the current. Growing up, music was always part of my life. At church each week the whole congregation would sing hymns a cappella, in four-part harmony, as best we could. As a family we sang around the piano, in the car, and caroled in our neighborhood. My sisters and I all took piano lessons. One memorable Christmas I received my very own flute under the tree. I was thrilled to get it, and knew it had not been an easy purchase for my mom because money was tight. Maybe I liked the flute because no one else in my family played it. My older sister, who was always better at piano, became my accompanist. We would spend hours practicing together, aiming for that magical moment when we finally mastered a particularly difficult piece. Music was a part of what drew me to my husband. When I first met him in college, he was working as a DJ at the local dive bar. Later I was impressed to find out he had managed the college radio station the previous summer. He also grew up with music in his life, playing the French horn and trombone in school, and serving as the bugler for his summer camp. He didn’t mind getting up extra early to run to the clock tower to play Reveille; it was fun to wake everyone else up! Neither of us ended up with a career in music, but we still wanted our three sons to learn to play, just as we wanted them to learn to swim, or ride a bike. In this age of slick commercial radio, iTunes, American Idol and The Voice, it can seem like music making is only for professionals, or people who are amazingly talented. But making music together can be a wonderful way to connect with others – whether it be family, friends, or strangers. Some of our influence has rubbed off: music has become very important to Everett. He is always talking about his growing Spotify list. The other day he proudly announced it had reached 400 songs. He often walks around the house with his smart phone, bopping around to his latest favorites. Sometimes he offers me one of his ear-buds and insists I listen along. “Isn’t this a great song?” he says, looking eagerly at my face to see my reaction. I smile and nod my head to the music. Whenever he hears songs that appeal to him – on the radio, in TV ads, You Tube videos or movie trailers – he can’t wait to look them up and add them to his list. My husband and I also offer suggestions from our youth, and some of them are among Everett’s favorites. The other day when we were cleaning the house, he cranked up “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard,” and everyone stopped bickering and started dancing. He may be more of a music consumer than a creator, but for now I’ll take it. I recently bought a book of classic pop tunes for the saxophone, with piano accompaniment. The pieces are easy enough to master with just a little practice, but have complex arrangements that are fun to play. Once a week or so, I make the boys play a few with me, and together we tackle “House of the Rising Sun,” or “When the Saints Go Marching In.” They grudgingly agree, and we dive into the piece, trading the melody and harmony back and forth, working out the kinks as we go along, sharing the satisfaction of playing together. Then it’s all over and they’re back doing their own thing. But I’m hopeful that the musical connection we made will linger with them for at least a little while. Of course there are forces working against me. My sister and I often played because we didn’t have much to occupy us in the afternoons besides homework or Love Boat reruns. My boys have computer games, apps, Facebook, YouTube and hundreds of channels on cable to distract them. But these can also be sources of inspiration. They discovered one of their all-time favorite songs on You Tube: “Star Wars (John Williams is the Man)”. Recently they’ve figured out how to play the catchy saxophone hook in the song “Thrift Shop.” And I still have my youngest son, Toby, who hasn’t started any instruments yet, but still shakes little eggs in his music class and sings with me each week in the Newton Family Singers. My hopes and dreams for him are still just buds on branches, no need to prune just yet.
Everett finally decided on his electives: Robotics; TV Production; and two blocks of Symphonic Band. He chose the minimum commitment but he didn’t quit. I guess he’ll be giving that scraggly branch another season in the sun. Ooh, I just thought of another song I can tell Everett to add to his Spotify list! The Water Is Wide is a beautiful, traditional song. How traditional? It's out of copyright so I can post it here: X:577 T:The water is wide C:anon. O:Scotland Z:Transcribed by Frank Nordberg - http://www.musicaviva.com F:http://abc.musicaviva.com/tunes/scotland/the-water-is-wide.abc M:C L:1/8 K:F z A (3GFG|"F"A4-"Bb"AG (3FFD|"F"C4 z2 FE| w:The wat-er is wide,_ I can-not get o'er, Neith-er "Dm"F4-FG A(B/A/)|"Gm"G4-"C"GG AB|"Am"c4-cB/A/ G<F| w:have_ I wings to_ fly._ Give me a boat_ that can car-ry "Bb"A4-AG FD|"C7"C4-CC (3DFG|"F Bb"F8-|"F"F4|] w:two,_ and both shall cross,_ my true love and I. W: W:The water is wide, I cannot get o'er, W:Neither have I wings to fly. W:Give me a boat that can carry two, W:and both shall cross, my true love and I. W: W:I leaned back against an oak, W:Thinking it was a mighty tree, W:But first it bent and then it broke, W:So did my love prove false to me. W: W:I put my hand on some soft bush, W:Thinking the sweetest flower to find, W:I pricked my finger to the bone, W:And left the sweetest flower behind. W: W:Oh, love is handsome and love is kind, W:Gay as a jewel when it's new, W:But love grows old and waxes cold, W:And fades away like morning dew. W: W:The water is wide... Can't read it? It's in ABCnotation, a cool text based system for writing melodies that produces sheet music when you put it in an ABC converter like this one. So the output ends up like: Click to embiggen! You may be pleased to learn that the Newton Family Singers will not be singing "I put my hand on some soft bush" in front of our friends and neighbors. In fact, this song is very old and there are many variations of lyrics that have been sung to this melody. The melody itself seems borrowed from "Jamie Douglas" a ballad of unhappy love that is often identified as Child Ballad 204; one of 305 English and Scottish ballads collected by Francis James Child and published between 1882 and 1892. Child was a brilliant Bostonian and the first person given the title Professor of English by Harvard University; in seeking to preserve poetry from Great Britain, he became the Alan Lomax of sheet music. Here's "Jamie Douglas": The title “The Water Is Wide” and the modern lyrics date from 1906 when Cecil Sharp assimilated lyrics, probably from multiple sources, into the song. As usual, we need to thank Pete Seeger for popularizing the song during the mid-20th century folk revival. Emmylou Harris and Teddy Thompson (son of Richard and Linda) performed the song at Seeger’s 90th birthday concert (they are backed up by Kate and Anna McGarrigle and Martha and Rufus Wainwright, among others). The English composer Benjamin Britten, known for writing The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, wrote an arrangement for The Water is Wide for piano and voice (1948). Here he plays piano accompaniment for singer Peter Pears (Britten’s life partner).
Okay, so we’ve established some pedigree for “The Water Is Wide” and clearly it’s a beautiful melody. So beautiful, in fact, that composers and songwriters went to that well quite often. Strap on your seatbelts… here we go: The British composer John Rutter’s Suite For Strings (1971) uses the melody in the 3rd movement A number of Christian hymns borrow the melody, including “: “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” “An Upper Room did our Lord Prepare,” “The Gift of Love,” and “Thou Gracious God, Whose Mercy Lends” (that last one sung by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir). In 1963, The New Christy Minstrels released a familiar tune as “Last Farewell”: Bob Dylan wrote “Lay Down Your Weary Tune” around a now familiar melody, performed here by The Byrds: Similarly, U2 credits The Edge with the words and music to “Van Diemen’s Land” from 1988’s Rattle and Hum but, well…
And now, with feedback, Neil Young’s environmentally concerned “Mother Earth (Natural Anthem)” (the singing is quite nice once you get past the first minute of electric guitar):
In 1991, the French singer Renaud recorded “La ballade nord-irlandaise” (The Ballad of Northern Ireland”), introducing the tune widely to the francophone world.
Okay, back to “The Water Is Wide.” During the Lilith Fair concerts, Sarah MacLachlan, Jewel and the Indigo Girls collaborated on a version of the song: Check out the a capella at 3:07 As someone (maybe) once said, “Good artists borrow; great artists steal.” Or maybe there are melodies that burrow into our heads and we can’t let go. If so, this seems to be one of them. |
AuthorJack Cheng directs the Clemente Course in Dorchester, excavates in the Middle East, and writes in Waban, MA. Archives
October 2019
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