Little Yellow Roses

Subject: Little Yellow Roses
From: mikesamwild
Date: 16 Jul 10 - 11:13 AM

Following discussions on Jon Boden's Folk Song a Day and threads on Mudcat songs about the Spanish Civil War, I did a bit of poking about. Here's Adam Faith's jaunty waltz-time 1962 version arranged by John Barry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VX0-QP8We8c

Jackie DeShannon did a version, similar tune, with different words. !963 single and on LP In the Wind 1965. Trevor Peacock is credited with her words and music. The tune has echoes of Scarborough Fair

There is a suggestion that the original poem was written by J Hooker Hamersley a New York lawyer, investor and poet (died 1901) If so it's not from a translation of a Spanish Civil War song by a doomed Republican soldier. He was a very rich US Republican who was a friend of Vanderbilt, JP Morgan, etc! He wrote a book Seven Voices in 1898

The song seems to have got into Jon Boden and Fay Hield's repertoire via the Forest Camps songbook (I'd guess via Adam Faith's version)

There is a comment on another website that a Sheila Lewis set the poem to music.

I'm not having much luck with Google.

As Fay's album will soon be out it might be nice to find out some more about this moving song.

Subject: RE: Little Yellow Roses
From: mikesamwild
Date: 16 Jul 10 - 11:18 AM

Here's J DeS .J http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pv53_f8XNs
Just checked out Dolly Parton's Yellow Roses. Not at all related.

Subject: RE: Little Yellow Roses
From: GeoffLawes
Date: 16 Jul 10 - 11:21 AM

Hi Mike, I was responding to your post on the Spanish Civil Songs site while you were posting here. Here is a clickable link to Adam Faith.
ADAM FAITH'S YELLOW ROSES

Geoff

Subject: RE: Little Yellow Roses
From: Crow Sister (off with the fairies)
Date: 16 Jul 10 - 11:44 AM

Blimey..

Chim chimeny

Which of these songs was composed first?

Subject: RE: Little Yellow Roses
From: mikesamwild
Date: 16 Jul 10 - 12:29 PM

Trevor Peacock is the character actor who is in Vicar of Dibley. He wrote Mrs Brown You've Got a Lovely Daughter! He was very prolific with words and lyrics in the 50-60 period

maybe all that acoustic guitar and castanet stuff got the song linked to Spain.

I wonder if the original poem was by Hamersley it may have been about the American Civil War.

Anybody know Mr Peacock to ask him? ( not the one in Are You Being Served)

Subject: RE: Little Yellow Roses
From: GeoffLawes
Date: 16 Jul 10 - 08:04 PM

I have been given the email address of the theatrical agents for Trevor Peacock and have sent them a message asking them to pass on my request that Trevor Peacock help us to sort out the provenance of the song(s). I will let you know if anything comes of this Mike.

Subject: RE: Little Yellow Roses
From: GeoffLawes
Date: 19 Jul 10 - 11:33 AM

Mikesamwild passed on the suggestion culled from Jon Boden's Folksong A Day site that the origin of the song Yellow Roses was in a competition winning poem published prior to the Spanish Civil War.I contacted the person who suggested this and she said she got this idea from a book in the Glasgow reference library which refered to a poem called Yellow Roses by J. Hooker Hamersley which had won a competition although no words to the poem were given. I tried to contact Glasgow reference library unsuccesfully but in the process was referred to the Ask a Librarian Service.

The ASK A LIBRARIAN web service found me the following link to the volume of poems called Seven Voices by J. Hooker Hamersley, published in 1898 and published now on the web by Google Books. On page 3 is a poem called Yellow Roses but its words bear no relationship to the lyrics of the song we are discussing in either of its two recorded versions. If you want to see for yourself click the link and then click the PRINT option on the left side of the page and then the pdf download option which appears.
HAMERSLEY'S Yellow Roses

The same informant gave me the link to Trevor Peacock's agent and I am still awaiting a response to my enquiry in that direction.

Subject: RE: Little Yellow Roses
From: mikesamwild
Date: 23 Jul 10 - 09:08 AM

Thanks for the detective work Geoff. That seems to leave Mr Peacock as a key contact.

Subject: RE: Little Yellow Roses
From: mikesamwild
Date: 23 Jul 10 - 09:11 AM

Geoff that link doesn't seem to work for me, can you let me know what the words are?

Subject: RE: Little Yellow Roses
From: mikesamwild
Date: 24 Jul 10 - 05:58 AM

I went on Google Books and found a n extract in Werner's anthogyof Readings and Recitations no15, 1896. J Hooker hamersley wrote a poem Yellow Roses.

'Of rich yellow roses a cluster he sent in the long ago --- in the long ago. A wee dainty note in its heart lay hid ,'mong the buds concealed like a fairy sprite ..... etc (yukky)

Not the song we are investigating but that shows it wasn't an American Civil War song.


More a 'generic' anti war song , maybe by T Peacock?


In the 60s there were quite a few like Universal Soldier by Buffy St Marie / Donovan, Phil Ochs, Dylan , Where have all the flowers gone and so on.


There is still no connection with a Spanish poem, translated and then set to music.

Subject: RE: Little Yellow Roses
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 24 Jul 10 - 11:13 AM

I liked the tune of this so much I made a MIDI of it. I'll see if Joe can post it.

It sounds eastern European to me, or maybe Rom. I suspect that twiddly bit in the intro was a little descant such as you hear in old dance tunes. So I used it that way.

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Click to play (melody)

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Click to play (full)

Subject: RE: Little Yellow Roses
From: mikesamwild
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 01:38 PM

The tune is the same as the Adam Faith and Jackie DeShannon songs of the 60s ( go on YouTube ). John Barry orchestrated the Adam Faith one. Sounds like Chim Chimenee type song. Th estern Europen sound may just be the Tin Pan Alley feel that came from Jewish songwriters from the Yiddish traditions here and in the States.

Subject: RE: Little Yellow Roses
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 25 Jul 10 - 11:35 PM

There's a slight delay in the MIDI. Watch this spot.

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Click to play (melody)

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Click to play (full)

Subject: RE: Little Yellow Roses
From: Joe Offer
Date: 26 Jul 10 - 04:49 AM

MIDI files posted for "Little Yellow Roses" - see links above. Thanks, Leeneia.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Little Yellow Roses
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 26 Jul 10 - 11:27 AM

You're welcome, Joe.

Now anybody who wants to learn the tune can click on the melody and hear it in the key of Dm, which is derived from F. This means that B's are flat and C's become C#. Chords are Dm, Gm and A. (The original was in three flats, not my favorite territory.)

Most of this tune is in the harmonic minor, a very old form. (We call it the 'belly-dance minor.") In the middle it throws in one B-natural note. You could argue that this little passage is in a different scale, but why bother? It's just a little embellishment.

There are a lot of tunes that use this sound. I believe all these would qualify:

Chim chim in ee
My Favorite things
Black Nag - 17th C.
God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen - 16th C
O Come O Come Emmanuel - ancient chant?
and many more

It makes a beautiful piano piece. And I find that if I sing 'la-la-la' in my head, it helps me forget the words.

Thanks for starting this thread, mikesamwild.

Subject: RE: Little Yellow Roses
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 26 Jul 10 - 12:18 PM

Oops! That passage with the B natural in it involves more than I thought. In the melody, measures 22 to 28 change all the A's to A minor.

Silly me!

Subject: RE: Little Yellow Roses
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Jan 19 - 09:56 PM

Regardless of it's mysterious origins, here is an English volunteer fighting in the International Freedom Battalion (Northern Syria) in early 2017 singing the poem beautifully. There is some history, possibly of dubious orgins in the description of the video. https://youtu.be/cEyK5fmT2RY

Subject: RE: Little Yellow Roses
From: GeoffLawes
Date: 07 Jan 19 - 08:58 AM

Hello GUEST ,
                      I have turned your web address in to a blue click link below so that Mudcatters can easily access the Youtube video "Socialist volunteer fighter sings 'Yellow Roses' in Rojava" about which you tell us in your post above .

https://youtu.be/cEyK5fmT2RY
The origins of Little Yellow Roses were tracked down in the Mudcat thread “Songs in English About the Spanish Civil War”
https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=128093
where there is a response, Date: 31 July 12, from the creator of the song , Trevor Peacock . He says
Around 56 years ago I was involved writing scripts, and then some songs for BBC TV. The pop world was in its infancy, and I wrote for, amongst others, Joe Brown, The Vernon Girls, Jess Conrad, and Adam Faith. I seem to remember writing Little Yellow Roses for a B side for Adam in about 1962. I wrote the tune and the lyrics, and John Barry did that particular arrangement, as I worked with him a lot. I hadn’t heard the song for half a century until your letter arrived. I don’t remember writing it for the Spanish Civil War specifically – it was a song for ALL freedom fighters really. So I’m afraid Fay Hield has made the wrong assumption. I’m now wondering if it’s registered with PRS, so I’d better check. I hope this clarifies the situation.
Yours, Trevor Peacock
There was a PS written on the back of the envelope which said “Yes, fully documented with P.R.S.”Little Yellow Roses”

Subject: RE: Little Yellow Roses
From: leeneia
Date: 07 Jan 19 - 12:21 PM

I'm the person who made the MIDI posted above. I had the music in the book on my piano. It was a good tune, but I couldn't get away from the thoughts of war associated with it, so after some months I threw it away.

In order to make the MIDI, I had to listen to the song, including the lyrics, repeatedly. I although I wanted to, I could not get the lyrics out of my mind.

Subject: Lyr Add: LITTLE YELLOW ROSES (from Fay Hield)
From: GeoffLawes
Date: 07 Jan 19 - 06:44 PM

Little Yellow Roses - Fay Hield
Little Yellow Roses - Yan Tan Tether Settle Folk Gathering 2016
Little Yellow Roses - Sophie Crawford
Little Yellow Roses - Liz Lawley
Little Yellow Roses - Jackie DeShannon
Little Yellow Roses - Adam Faith

LITTLE YELLOW ROSES
As recorded by Fay Hield on "Looking Glass" (2010)

I lay on my back with the sun in my eyes.
Soon I will know what no living man knows.
All of my life's been a fight against lies.
Death brings the truth and it's my turn to know.

CHORUS: Send my mother a lock of my hair.
Send my father the watch that he gave me.
Tell my brother to follow me if he dare.
Tell them I'm lost now, and no-one can save me.
Remember, remember, send my love little yellow roses.

My father taught me that all men are equal
Whatever colour, religion or land;
Told me to fight for the things I believed in.
This I have done, with a gun in my hand.

CHORUS

I met my love in a garden of roses.
She pricked her finger; how sharp the thorn grows!
We made a promise that till Death did part us
We'd never look on that wild yellow rose.

CHORUS

Subject: RE: Little Yellow Roses
From: GeoffLawes
Date: 07 Jan 19 - 06:52 PM

AND Socialist volunteer fighter sings 'Yellow Roses' in Rojava