The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #14088   Message #1264269
Posted By: GUEST,.gargoyle
04-Sep-04 - 02:15 PM
Thread Name: Origins: Peat Bog Soldiers
Subject: RE: Help: Peat Bog Soldiers
Notation at the base of my sheet music and then books' commentary:

Words by Wolfgan Langhoff and Esser;
Last verse by Theodore Bikel.
Music by Rudi Goguel.
Copyright 1965 by Stormking Music Inc.
All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Peat Bog Soldiers choise of Theodore Bikel.
Something to Sing About - The Personal Choices of America's Folk sings Collected and Arranged by Milton Okun, p. 103-106.

"....Bikel speaks and sings in more languages than most of us could readily identify. He is expecially adept i the language and folklor of Eastern Europe and Israel, reflected his own itinerant youth from Vienna to the Middle East. If there is a better interpreter of Russian Gypsy music about than Theo, let him step forward with his balalaika. If there is a performer more steeped in the songs of the Eastern European Jewish ghettos, let him speak. And if there is a more articulated and forthright singer of the bold new fulk music of Israel than Theo, may my left hand wither, or some less frightening Biblical injuction....."

Bikel's added verse:

Then will the peat bog soldier
March no more with their spaded to the bog.
Then will the peat bog soldiers
March no more with their spades to the bog.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle