The Saddest Song of All--Part II

Subject: RE: The Saddest Song of All--Part II
From: kendall
Date: 10 Dec 99 - 03:22 PM

I was referring to Stan Rogers as a boor, not Garnet, I never knew him

Subject: Lyr Add: THE OUTSIDE TRACK (Henry Lawson)
From: lamarca
Date: 10 Dec 99 - 03:07 PM

"The Outside Track" is a poem written by the Australian poet Henry Lawson, and was set to music by Gerry Hallom, an English singer of Australian songs. Garnet Rogers learned it from Gerry. I sing it putting back the first stanza and final chorus that Hallom left out; it's one of my very favorite sad songs:

THE OUTSIDE TRACK by Henry Lawson

There were ten of us there on the moonlit quay,
And one on the forward hatch.
No straighter mate to his mates than he
Ever said, "Old Len's a match!
'Twill be long, old man, ere our glasses clink,
"Twill be long, ere we grip your hand,"
So we dragged him ashore for a final drink
And the whole wide world looked grand
Chorus:

For they marry and go,
And the world rolls back,
They marry, and vanish and die,
But their spirits shall live on the outside track
As long as the years go by.

The port lights glowed in the morning mist
As it rolled on the waters green,
And over the railing we grasped his fist
As the dark tide came between.
We cheered the captain, we cheered the crew
And our mate, times out of mind.
We cheered the land he was going to
And the land he had left behind.
Chorus

We roared "Lang Syne" in a last farewell
But my heart felt out of joint.
I well remember the hush that fell.
As the steamer passed the point.
We drifted home through the public bars,
We were ten times less by one
Who sailed out under the morning stars
And under the rising sun.
Chorus

Then one by one, and two by two
They've sailed from the wharf since then.
I've said goodbye to the last I knew,
The last of the careless men.
And I can't but think that the times we had
Were the best times after all,
As I turn aside with my lonely glass
And drink to the barroom wall.
Chorus

Final Chorus:

So I'll try my luck
For a check Outback
And a last farewell to the bush
For my heart's away on the Outside Track
At the back of the steerage push.


This is from memory - I'll double check it in my book of Lawson's poems when I get home tonight. I'm surprised it's not in the DT.

Subject: RE: The Saddest Song of All--Part II
From: emily rain
Date: 10 Dec 99 - 02:54 PM

i haven't waded through all the posts on the last thread, so maybe someone's mentioned "there were roses" already. it took me a week of singing it several times an hour before i could get through it without choking up.

we gathered at the graveside on a cold and rainy day
the minister, he closed his eyes, and for no revenge he prayed...

oh, that a minister should ever have to do such a thing just tears me up.

also, when i'm feeling sad about my love life, i find myself involuntarily singing "loving hannah". depression is the pits, but i guess it's good for something.

Subject: RE: The Saddest Song of All--Part II
From: Metchosin
Date: 10 Dec 99 - 02:43 PM

The saddest songs of all are Stan's songs 'cause he's not with us anymore....

Subject: RE: The Saddest Song of All--Part II
From: Metchosin
Date: 10 Dec 99 - 02:36 PM

Re Garnet's abrasiveness: Maybe he finds it hard to resolve his love for his brother while being overshadowed by Stan's legendary stature.

Subject: RE: The Saddest Song of All--Part II
From: Metchosin
Date: 10 Dec 99 - 02:25 PM

Outside Track was Garnet Rogers again.

Subject: ADD: What Shall We Drink to Tonight?
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 10 Dec 99 - 02:25 PM

I can't remember who wrote this one (I think it was a Scottish band) but this another one that gets to me. In some ways, I have been there and certainly done the wine bit. The person I learned it from told me he had was going through a split up when he first heard the tune and it took him a while before he was able to sing it.

What Shall We Drink to Tonight?

Remember a time not so long ago?
You couldn't say goodbye now you can't say hello
So I'll pick up the glass and I'll pour me some wine
And say what shall we drink to tonight?

What shall we drink to tonight?
What shall we drink to tonight?
I'll drink to the lassie who should have been mine
That's what I'll drink to tonight

Now that your gone these things I recall
The way that you smiled, the best smile of all
So I'll pick up the glass and I'll pour me some wine
And say what shall we drink to tonight?

What shall we drink to tonight?
What shall we drink to tonight?
I'll drink till the landlady calls that it's time
That's what I'll drink to tonight

Now that I've heard that you've found someone new
It could have been me if it wasn't for you
So I'll pick up the glass and I'll pour me some wine
And say what shall we drink to tonight?

What shall we drink to tonight?
What shall we drink to tonight?
I'll drink till this bottle is empty and dry
That's what I'll drink to tonight

What shall we drink to tonight?
What shall we drink to tonight?
I'll drink to the lassie who should have been mine
That's what I'll drink to tonight

Jon

Subject: RE: The Saddest Song of All--Part II
From: kendall
Date: 10 Dec 99 - 02:15 PM

Jeri, check your personal thread

Subject: RE: The Saddest Song of All--Part II
From: Jeri
Date: 10 Dec 99 - 02:12 PM

Outside Track. (Can't remember who wrote it right now.) How about Eric Bogle's The Cockie?

Subject: RE: The Saddest Song of All--Part II
From: kendall
Date: 10 Dec 99 - 01:59 PM

that one that goes, we drifted on home through the public bars, we were ten times less by one... and..I turned around with a lonely glass, and drank to the bar room wall.

Subject: RE: The Saddest Song of All--Part II
From: kendall
Date: 10 Dec 99 - 01:52 PM

I'd never heard Small Victory before..wow!! How could such an abrasive boor write such beautiful stiff.??

Subject: Lyr Add: THERE'LL NEVER BE PEACE TILL ... (R Burns
From: Julie
Date: 10 Dec 99 - 01:38 PM

The saddest song for me is this old Scottish Jacobite song. Jamie is King James VIII and III, the old Pretender. It also has a haunting tune - I bawl every time I sing it.

By yon castle wa' at the close of the day,
I heard a man sing, though his head it was grey
And as he was singing, his tears down came -
"There'll never be peace till Jamie comes hame!"

The church is in ruins; the state is in jar,
Delusion, oppression and murderous war,
We dare na weel say't but we ken wha's to blame -
There'll never be peace till Jamie comes hame!

My seven braw sons for Jamie drew sword,
But now I greet round their green beds in the yerd;
It brak the sweet heart o my faithfu' auld dame -
There'll never be peace till Jamie comes hame!

Now life is a burden that bows me down,
Sin I tint my bairns and he tint his crown;
But till my last moments my words are the same -
There'll never be peace till Jamie comes hame!

HTML line breaks added. --JoeClone, 6-Oct-02.

Subject: RE: The Saddest Song of All--Part II
From: catspaw49
Date: 10 Dec 99 - 01:14 PM

That's lovely................

Spaw

Subject: Lyr Add: SMALL VICTORY (Garnet Rogers)
From: Metchosin
Date: 10 Dec 99 - 12:13 PM

SMALL VICTORY
(Garnet Rogers)

"You've no business buying a mare like that, but buy her if you must."
He bit the end off his cigar and spat it in the dust.
"She's old, she's lame, and barren too; she's not worth feeding hay,
But I'll give her this:"—he blew smoke at me—"She was something in her day.

"I recall her well ten years ago; she was a winner in her prime.
She was fast and lean and willing, but they raced her past her time,
And though she had the heart, her legs were gone; it wasn't see hard to see
They kept her at it in the hopes of one more small victory.

"So she was shunted round from track to track, from Kentucky up to Maine.
They'd run her in cheap claimers, all doped up to mask her pain,
And if it's my advice you want, I'd say: The poor thing's had her day.
You'd be throwing good cash after bad. It's best—." He turned away.

Oh, they led her round the auction shed and the bidding started low.
"She'll go for dog food," someone said. "The market's been that slow."
But she raised her head and pricked her ears, and before the hammer fell,
She was mine. My friend turned round to me: "You're soft-headed, I can tell."

"But she's been shoved from pillar to post," said I, "and always done her best.
They used her up; they wrung her dry; you'd think she'd earned her rest,
So if she does naught but end her days beneath some shady tree,
I'll have saved her from the knacker's yard, and that's enough for me."

Oh, that was near two years ago; she's filled out some since then,
The more so since she's been in foal; she eats enough for ten,
And this morn as I crept to the barn around 'bout half-past three,
There stood nursing on still trembling legs one more "small victory".

Subject: RE: The Saddest Song of All--Part II
From: Mbo
Date: 10 Dec 99 - 11:48 AM

I've just read the lyrics to an old Irish song called "Beneath the Gallows Tree" I haven't heard the tune yet, but the subject matter is very sad.

--Mbo

Subject: RE: The Saddest Song of All--Part II
From: Metchosin
Date: 10 Dec 99 - 11:02 AM

Garnet Rogers' tear jerker "Small Victory" is a triumph of compassion for those who need a boost. Always does it for me.

Subject: RE: The Saddest Song of All--Part II
From: oldest living folkie
Date: 10 Dec 99 - 10:32 AM

Saddest song...Stan Rogers "White Squall"

Subject: RE: The Saddest Song of All--Part II
From: Jeri
Date: 10 Dec 99 - 10:29 AM

Kendall, don't forget there's a loud-but-friendly session about an hour south of you on Fri evening (as in tonight) starting around 4:30. Great music and great conversation (even if it is during the music.)

Subject: Lyr Add: SADDEST POEM (Pablo Neruda)
From: Håvard
Date: 10 Dec 99 - 10:01 AM

SADDEST POEM (Pablo Neruda)

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.

Write, for instance: "The night is full of stars,
and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance."

The night wind whirls in the sky and sings.

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

On nights like this, I held her in my arms.
I kissed her so many times under the infinite sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her.
How could I not have loved her large, still eyes?

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
To think I don't have her. To feel that I've lost her.

To hear the immense night, more immense without her.
And the poem falls to the soul as dew to grass.

What does it matter that my love couldn't keep her.
The night is full of stars and she is not with me.

That's all. Far away, someone sings. Far away.
My soul is lost without her.

As if to bring her near, my eyes search for her.
My heart searches for her and she is not with me.

The same night that whitens the same trees.
We, we who were, we are the same no longer.

I no longer love her, true, but how much I loved her.
My voice searched the wind to touch her ear.

Someone else's. She will be someone else's. As she once belonged to my kisses.
Her voice, her light body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, true, but perhaps I love her.
Love is so short and oblivion so long.

Because on nights like this I held her in my arms,
my soul is lost without her.

Although this may be the last pain she causes me,
and this may be the last poem I write for her.

Håvard

Subject: RE: The Saddest Song of All--Part II
From: Bert
Date: 10 Dec 99 - 09:49 AM

I think that most of us guys get very emotional about The Bobbit song by Tom Paxton.

Subject: RE: The Saddest Song of All--Part II
From: Dan Evergreen
Date: 10 Dec 99 - 09:25 AM

It isn't exactly the same as sad, but a very emotionally moving song for me is "Sweet Rose of Allendale." I cannot always finish the lines, "My life had been a wilderness,/Unblessed by Fortune's gales,/Had Fate not linked my lot to her,/The Rose of Allendale." The same is true of "I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen", speaking to the universal theme of love and depression.

Subject: RE: The Saddest Song of All--Part II
From: Skipjack
Date: 10 Dec 99 - 09:17 AM

Sorry to hear you've been down, Kendall. It's a black tide many are sucked down by, many more than we know. I am battling my own demons right now, and I play a session every night, which is the firewall I need to keep them away. I hope you have this luxury available to you.

Subject: RE: The Saddest Song of All--Part II
From: Mbo
Date: 10 Dec 99 - 09:10 AM

I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but Carlene Carter's "Unbreakable Heart" always makes me want to cry.

--Mbo

Subject: RE: The Saddest Song of All--Part II
From: MTM
Date: 10 Dec 99 - 09:02 AM

Jeff Buckley's "Last Goodbye" is erving the same purpose for me.

Subject: RE: The Saddest Song of All--Part II
From: kendall
Date: 10 Dec 99 - 08:11 AM

I find that what I think is the saddest song depends on the mood I'm in at the time. Lately I've been battling depression and Utah Phillips' song The Faded Roses of December is right up there. Also, his, Ashes on the Sea will usually get to me.

Subject: RE: The Saddest Song of All--Part II
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 10 Dec 99 - 07:43 AM

Now that is sad - knowing that 'the band played....' goes to 'When I'm cleaning windows'!

My saddest song has to be Kate Rusby's version of 'the Recruited Collier', but 'Over the hills and far away' does tend to make the old (hairless) bosom heave somewhat....

LTS

Subject: RE: The Saddest Song of All--Part II
From: Skipjack
Date: 10 Dec 99 - 07:14 AM

Here's a thought.

If a song is trembling your bottom lip, try the Humphrey Littleton cure, and sing it to a different melody.

For example, why get choked up during "The Band Played Waltzing Matilda" when you can sing it to the tune of "When I'm Cleaning Windows!"

Just a thought.

Subject: The Saddest Song of All--Part II
From: Mbo
Date: 09 Dec 99 - 09:23 PM

I believe this great long-running thread needs a second part, the first one's the biggest thread I've ever seen. Let see this one prosper as much as it's predecessor!

--Mbo