0h, yeah! How much time have you got?

As 53 says above, ". . . sometimes to play less is better." One pet peeve that will incite me to the verge of violence is -- Well, let me set this up so you'll know exactly what I mean. The following is an excerpt from something I wrote for the "Tales of Walt Robertson" thread back around the first year, dealing with one of the many things that I learned from Walt.

He showed me that less is more in other ways, too. The way he sang Johnny, I Hardly Knew You. It's very much an anti-war song. In some versions it has several angry, almost strident verses. The DT database gives seven verses, and I have often heard it sung this way -- with great energy, almost quick-march, flogging the audience with its already obvious message. Sometimes the audience (the already converted) responded with shouts, whistles, foot stomp-ing, and roars of applause. All hyped up to rush out and fight for Peace.

The first time I heard this song, it was Walt who sang it. But that was not the way he sang it. Now, Walt certainly knew all the other verses, but he chose to sing only these four, at a moderate, conversational tempo, almost like a funeral march, but not too slow:

With their guns and drums and drums and guns
Hurroo, hurroo
With their guns and drums and drums and guns
Hurroo, hurroo
With their guns and drums and drums and guns
The enemy nearly slew you
My darling dear, you look so queer.
Johnnie, I hardly knew you.

Where are your legs that use to run
Hurroo, hurroo
Where are your legs that use to run
Hurroo, hurroo
Where are your legs that use to run
When you ran off to carry a gun?
I fear your dancing days are done.
Johnnie, I hardly knew you.

Where are your eyes that use to smile
Hurroo, hurroo
Where are your eyes that use to smile
Hurroo, hurroo
Where are your eyes that use to smile
When my heart you first beguiled?
How could you run from me and the child?
Johnnie, I hardly knew you.

I'm happy for to see you home
Hurroo, hurroo
I'm happy for to see you home
Hurroo, hurroo
I'm happy for to see you home
But darling dear, you look so wan
So lean in flesh and high in bone.
Johnnie, I hardly knew you.

(American Northwest Ballads, Folkways Records FP 46)

His soft, emotionally restrained delivery paints a simple but graphic picture of intense, personal tragedy. He usually left an audience in a long moment of hushed silence at the end of that song. Message delivered, quietly and without bombast. Power in simplicity.

I sing the song the way I learned from Walt. My peeve is this: it frequently happens when I sing this song at a party, hootenanny, or song circle that someone who has more ego than brains and possesses all the musical taste of rusty hinge says, "Hey! You left out three verses!" then he (it's invariable a guy -- women know better) proceeds to sing the three verses! (#!@&%#!!) He has no idea at this point that he is involved in a near death experience.

My second pet peeve, running a dead heat with those who insist on clapping along, are -- well, let me put it this way: I'm singing in a coffeehouse. A guy asks me to sing Greensleeves. Then, as I sing it, he tries to accompany me on the bongos.

Don Firth