Songs of Flanders and Swann

Subject: RE: Songs of Flanders and Swann
From: Stringsinger
Date: 10 Jul 11 - 10:34 AM

I always liked "It all makes work for the working man to do".

I appreciate Laura Flanders (daughter) as well. Bright lady.

Subject: RE: Songs of Flanders and Swann
From: Amos
Date: 10 Jul 11 - 10:35 AM

Flambe:

AMazon will ship their book to you in good time--it includes scores and lyrics. The book includes A TRansport of Delight (The Omnibus).


A

Subject: RE: Songs of Flanders and Swann
From: GUEST,Skipper Jack
Date: 10 Jul 11 - 02:24 PM

I have the book: "The Songs of Michael Flanders & Donald Swann."
Forty One songs contained therein complete with the music scores!

Subject: RE: Songs of Flanders and Swann
From: Mr Happy
Date: 23 Jan 12 - 07:44 AM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOA_SUKEZRE&feature=share

Subject: RE: Songs of Flanders and Swann
From: GUEST,Owen Smith
Date: 09 May 15 - 06:05 AM

Hi all, glad I came across this thread. I am a young drama student (16 from Kent, UK!) and really need the sheet music for 'The Gasman Cometh', but it is not available on its own. I really want to avid spending £18 on a songbook considering I only want one song from it!! I was wondering if anyone who had the book would mind scanning in the sheet music for just that song? I realise the last post on this thread was some 3 years ago now, but 'GUEST,Skipper Jack' or 'John in Brisbane' or anyone else who has a copy, if you're out there, please help me out!!

Thanks very much in advance

Subject: RE: Songs of Flanders and Swann
From: Will Fly
Date: 09 May 15 - 06:18 AM

Hi Owen - I have a Flanders & Swann song book. I'll check it out for "The Gasman Cometh".

Watch this thread.

Cheers,

Will

Subject: RE: Songs of Flanders and Swann
From: GUEST,Owen Smith
Date: 09 May 15 - 09:09 AM

Hi Will,

Thanks ever so much! Quick reply too! If you need my email it is
[e-mail]

Thank you!

Subject: RE: Songs of Flanders and Swann
From: Will Fly
Date: 09 May 15 - 12:08 PM

Still checking, Owen - the book is in a heap of music books in the music room and I haven't been able to get to wade through it yet. I'll do it as soon as I can!

Subject: RE: Songs of Flanders and Swann
From: GUEST,Owen Smith
Date: 09 May 15 - 02:30 PM

Not a problem :) no rush just yet!

If you do happen to find it, and you happen to have a version of 'A song of the weather', I'd love that too! But the Gasman Cometh is still on my wishlist as it's been written into the script as a definite!

Best wishes

Subject: RE: Songs of Flanders and Swann
From: GUEST,Owen Smith
Date: 01 Jun 15 - 03:18 PM

Hi, any updates??

Subject: RE: Songs of Flanders and Swann
From: GUEST,Ray
Date: 02 Jun 15 - 08:54 AM

So impatient and he also wants to deprive musicians of their royalties!

Subject: RE: Songs of Flanders and Swann
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 02 Jun 15 - 09:28 AM

Have you tried googling the "gasman cometh sheet music"? No? I did and found this

http://www.musicnotes.com/sheetmusic/mtdFPE.asp?ppn=mn0127398

Ok, you still have to pay but only a couple of quid!

Subject: RE: Songs of Flanders and Swann
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 02 Jun 15 - 09:37 AM

Swann
From: GUEST,Ray - PM
Date: 02 Jun 15 - 08:54 AM

So impatient and he also wants to deprive musicians of their royalties!

Well, the relatives of F&S anyway, not sure what they did to deserve it...
But there is a ~$6 version of the sheet music here
sheet music and actually 50% of it seems to be on the illustration page, maybe you could get a friend to work out the remaining chords?

Subject: RE: Songs of Flanders and Swann
From: Will Fly
Date: 02 Jun 15 - 09:58 AM

Apologies Owen - I've been away in Devon and Derbyshire and just had a 3rd grandchild added to my tribe! F&S went out of my head with all the excitement.

Will try and dig out the music shortly...

Subject: RE: Songs of Flanders and Swann
From: GUEST,Ted Crum (Steamchicken)
Date: 03 Jun 15 - 11:05 AM

Swann's music sounded wonderfully complex and full, but in fact is very simple in it's construction, and many of their songs are perfectly playable on D/G melodeon. I've been singing many of them for years in folk clubs to the delight/horror of my friends, and am surprised that so few other singers have taken up such gems as The Bedstead Men, All Gaul and January brings the Snow. Might even have enough for an evening: anyone want to book me!?

Subject: RE: Songs of Flanders and Swann
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Jun 15 - 12:20 PM

I don't know may of their songs but one I remember from school was Ostrich song

this one is new to me.

Subject: RE: Songs of Flanders and Swann
From: keberoxu
Date: 05 Nov 15 - 08:52 PM

"The Reluctant Cannibal!" Tricky thing about that song is that it is largely spoken monologue, and monologues change from show to show; thus, on recordings of different evenings of "Drop of a Hat" there were striking changes in recorded versions.

I grew up listening to the recording of The Reluctant Cannibal in which, after said cannibal a/k/a "Junior" hollers (Donald Swann in his very high voice),
"I Won't Let Another Man Cross My Lips!" ,

Michael Flanders (Chief Assistant of the Assistant Chief!) rants about what a coward Junior is, afraid of ending up in a pot himself: and,
"You're going the right way about it, too, son. They'll eat you even if they can't digest your opinions!"

Subject: Lyr Add: TO KOKORAKI (trad. Greek)
From: keberoxu
Date: 29 Mar 16 - 07:30 PM

One of the longer bits from At the Drop of a Hat was Donald Swann hamming it up with "To Kokoraki, Kikirikiki!"

In terms of lyrics, though, there isn't much to the little song. It is a Greek alternative to Old MacDonald Had A Farm, and like the latter, there is much repetition, and only a short phrase that is new at each repetition. So why not attempt to put it here? If anybody has an author for this, PLEASE speak up. I failed in my attempts to locate an author. Numerous Greek artists have made recordings of the song. For all I know, the author is the Greek version of Anonymous. Here goes.

TO KOKORAKI (?? ????????, lit. "The Cockerel")

Otan tha pao keera mou sto pazari                When I go, Madame, to the marketplace
Tha sou agoraso ena kokoraki                      I shall buy for you a rooster
To kokoraki ki ki ri ki ki                        The rooster goes ki ki ri ki ki
Tha se xipnaee kathe pro-ee                      And every morning it will wake you up

That's -- almost -- it.
Here's what you add:

ena petinari                                     a wee chick
To petinari tsiu tsiu                            The chick goes tsiu tsiu....

mia kotoula                                       a hen
Ee kotoula ko ko ko                               The hen goes ko ko ko....

mia gatoula                                       a cat
Ee gatoula miaou miaou                            The cat goes miaou miaou....

ena skilaki                                       a dog
To skilaki bow wow                               The dog goes bow wow....

ena arnaki                                        a sheep
To arnaki baa baa                                 The sheep goes baa baa....

ena gaidouraki                                    a donkey
To gaidouraki hee haw                            The donkey goes hee haw....

ena gouranaki                                     a pig
To gouranaki SNORRRRRRRT                         The pig goes SNORRRRRRRT....

and I can't find the Bee who goes BZZZZ BZZZZ, which only pops up when Swann gets loose of Flanders on occasion.

"I have left out the last EIGHT verses..."

Subject: RE: Songs of Flanders and Swann
From: GUEST,keberoxu
Date: 16 Aug 16 - 04:03 PM

If the following link works, a live performance of Flanders and Swann, I mean an excerpt of same. This includes:

All Gall (as in De Gaulle)
My Horoscope
a shambolic monologue by Michael Flanders
The Armadillo

video of Flanders and Swann performance a little under ten minutes

Subject: RE: Songs of Flanders and Swann
From: GUEST,keberoxu
Date: 16 Sep 19 - 07:58 PM

There is much information about
Flanders and Swann at this website,
which, alas, you can't get to without using an archive webpage capture,
as the site has, I suppose, been allowed to expire or something.

Flanders and Swann Online (capture)

Subject: RE: Songs of Flanders and Swann
From: The Doctor
Date: 17 Sep 19 - 04:58 AM

If it is of interest to anyone I have the complete recording of F & S, as above, on video(keberoxu 16 Aug - my birthday), now transferred to DVD.

Subject: Lyr Add: THE WHALE (MOPY DICK) (Flanders & Swann)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 26 May 21 - 07:47 PM

THE WHALE (MOPY DICK)
As recorded by Flanders & Swann on “At the Drop of a Hat” and “The Complete Flanders & Swann”

The bottlenose whale is a furlong long,
And likewise wise, but headstrong strong,
And he sings this very lugubrious song
As he sails through the great antarctic ocean blue:

“Oh, why do I swim through seas antarctical, ooh!
Freezing cold in ev’ry particle, ooh!
Some porpoises invited me to come and join their school.
They brought me here then swam away and shouted: ‘April fool!’

“If ever I catch that school of porpoises, ooh!
They won’t get no habeas corpuses, ooh!
I’m lost alone in a frozen zone and I'm almost frozen, too,
A shivering quivering bottlenose whale,
The bottlenose whale with the flu-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-choo!

“Oh, I used to play like a gay leviathan, ooh!
Squirting up jets like a soda siaphon, ooh!
Now ev’ry time I try to lift my hankie to my nose,
A great harpoon goes whistling by to a shout of ‘There she blows!’

“I like my oceans equatorial, ooh!
Where the water’s warm and the breeze less boreal, ooh!
It’s Fahrenheit minus twenty-nine and I don’t know what to do,
A rubbery, blubbery bottlenose whale,
The bottlenose whale with the flu-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-choo!.”

The bottlenose whale is a furlong long,
And likewise wise, but headstrong strong,
And he sings that very lugubrious song
As he sails through the ocean blue.

Though red your nose, though your toes are froze,
Though cold it seems to you,
Remember the tale of the bottlenose whale,
Who has not even got his own hot water bot,
The bottlenose whale with the flu-oooooooo. Ah-choo!

* * *
Sometimes it sounds like they’re singing “bottlenosed whale” but since Wikipedia uses the spelling “bottlenose whale” I have decided to omit the “d.”

Subject: RE: Songs of Flanders and Swann
From: keberoxu
Date: 27 May 21 - 04:28 PM

Jim Dixon, I too think it sounds like "bottle-noseD Whale."

My order was just delivered, in the form of a CD, of
At the Drop of Another Hat.
I got through my entire childhood without this album
or the songs on it,

and so I was an adult when I was introduced to
The Gas Man Cometh,
Twenty Tons of TNT,
the one about thermo-physic- heatisworkandworkisheat ...

Subject: Lyr Add: THE WARTHOG (Flanders and Swann)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 29 May 21 - 08:10 PM

THE WARTHOG (THE HOG BENEATH THE SKIN)
As recorded by Flanders and Swann on “The Complete Flanders & Swann”

The jungle was giving a party, a post-hibernation ball.
The ballroom was crowded with waltzing gazelles, gorillas, and zebras, and all.
But who is that animal almost in tears, pretending to powder her nose?
A poor little warthog who sits by herself in a pink satin dress with blue bows.
Again she is nobody's choice,
And she sings in a sad little voice:

“No one ever wants to court a warthog,
Though a warthog does her best.
I've spent a lot of money for a warthog.
I am kiss-proofed and prettily dressed.
I've luster-rinsed my hair,
Dabbed perfume here and there.
My gums were tinted when I brushed my teeth.
I'm young and in my prime,
But a wallflower all the time,
'Cause I'm a warthog, just a warthog; I'm a warthog underneath.”

(Take your partners for a ladies’ excuse-me!)

Excited and radiant, she runs on the floor to join the furore and fuss.
She taps on each shoulder and says “Excuse me!” and each couple replies: “Excuse us!”
Then having no manners at all,
They sing as they dance round the hall:

“No one ever wants to court a warthog,
Though a warthog does her best.
Her accessories are dazzling for a warthog.
She is perfumed and daringly dressed.
We know her 'these and those'
Are like Marilyn Monroe's.
Her gown is just a scintillating sheath,
But she somehow fails to please
'Cause everybody sees
That she's a warthog, just a warthog; she's a warthog underneath.”

Head hanging, she wanders away from the floor,
This warthog whom nobody loves,
Then stops in amazement, for there at the door
Stands a gentleman warthog impeccably dressed, in the act of removing his gloves.
His fine chiseled face seems to frown
As he looks her first up and then down.

“I fancy you must be a sort of warthog,
Though for a warthog, you look a mess.
That makeup's far too heavy for a warthog.
You could have chosen a more suitable dress.
Did you have to dye your hair?
If that's perfume, give me air!
I strongly disapprove of scarlet teeth,
But let us take the floor,
'Cause I'm absolutely sure
That you're a warthog, just a warthog
The sweetest little, neatest little
Dearest and completest little
Warthog underneath.”