The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #75645 Message #1331198
Posted By: open mike
18-Nov-04 - 12:36 PM
Thread Name: My Singing Calendar
Subject: RE: My Singing Calendar
this one, or a version of it wqs first heard by many when sung by james taylor.
THE NIGHTINGALES SING (4)
One morning, one morning, one morning in May I spied a young couple, a goin' this way One was a lady, a lady so fair The other a soldier, a brave Grenadier.
Good morning, good morning, good morning to thee O where are you going, my pretty lady? O, I'm going to walk to the banks of the sea; To see waters gliding, hear the nightingales sing.
They had not been standing but a moment or two When out of his knapsack a fiddle he drew And the tune that he played made the valleys to ring "Hark! Hark!" cried the lady, "hear the nigntingales sing."
"Pretty lady, pretty lady, it's time to give o'er" "O no", cried the lady,"please play one tune more I'd rather hear your fiddle, and the touch of one string Than to see waters gliding, hear the nightingales sing."
"O soldier, O soldier, will you marry me?" 'O no, pretty lady, that never can be I've a wife in old England and children twice three Two wives in the army's too many for me."
"I'll go back to London and stay for a year And drink wine and whiskey, instead of small beer But if ever I return it'll be in the spring Just to see waters gliding, hear the nightingales sing."
note: an Appalachian version. Tune has been adapted to Patriot Games, God On our Side RG Recorded by Jean Ritchie, Doc Watson