Origin: Stouthearted Men (Hammerstein, Romberg)

Subject: stout hearted men: where is it from?
From: Benjamin Bodhránaí
Date: 09 Sep 99 - 06:21 AM

When all else fails I ask the folk.

Musical tune, "give me some men who are stout hearted men, who will fight for the right they adore, start me with ten.." etc.

What is this and where is it from, I'm sure it's a musical!!! (Which isn't technically right for the forum, but I have exhausted all my other avenues) and it's driving me mad going around and around and around in my head.

Thanks

BB

Subject: RE: stout hearted men: where is it from?
From: AndyG
Date: 09 Sep 99 - 06:58 AM

Stouthearted Men
The quest starts here ?

AndyG

Subject: RE: stout hearted men: where is it from?
From: AndyG
Date: 09 Sep 99 - 07:22 AM

And in complete contrast the Jeanette MacDonald & Nelson Eddy Home Page filmography gives me.

New Moon (MGM, 1940). Produced and directed by Robert Z. Leonard.
Based on the Sigmund Romberg operetta.
Songs:
"Lover, Come Back to Me,"
"Wanting You,"
"Softly as in a Morning Sunrise,"
"Stouthearted Men,"
"One Kiss,"
"Marianne."
Cast:
Jeanette MacDonald, Nelson Eddy, Mary Boland, George Zucco, H.B. Warner.

AndyG

Subject: RE: stout hearted men: where is it from?
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 09 Sep 99 - 07:51 AM

Great show, great songs. The film is very different from the stage version, though.

Steve

Subject: RE: stout hearted men: where is it from?
From:
Date: 09 Sep 99 - 10:05 PM

And that movie was a remake of an earlier(1930) MGM movie of the same title.

Subject: RE: stout hearted men: where is it from?
From: DougR
Date: 10 Sep 99 - 01:34 PM

AndyG, you saved me from offering bad advice. I would have said, "Student Prince," by Romberg.

Dang, that's the second time I've been wrong since 1941!

DougR

Subject: RE: stout hearted men: where is it from?
From: okscout
Date: 12 Sep 99 - 08:39 PM

I sang this song in high school choir. It was rousing and I loved it. Victor (Herbert) (Hughbert) Hugo?!? seems to be attached in my memory of reading that sheet music.

Nancy

Subject: ADD: Stouthearted Men
From: Joe Offer
Date: 08 Jan 04 - 12:58 PM

My dad used to sing this song constantly. I thought it was something from the Marine Corps, but then I saw all this stuff about it being from a Nelson Eddy/Jeanette MacDonald movie musical. Well, I found it in a book called 100 Best Songs of the 20's and 30's, which appears to have full sheet music, not just the chorus that you find in most sources. Also, in italics, it has a U.S. Navy version, which is probably the U.S.M.C. connection (the Marines are part of the Navy). I knew the song was by Sigmund Romberg, but I hadn't known that the lyrics were written by none other than Oscar Hammerstein II. Copyright 1927, but Harms, Inc.

Interestingly, when I searched for this song, it came up on Barbra Streisand sites. I wonder what Dad would think if I told him Babs was singing "his" song. Guess I'll have to send him the CD.

STOUTHEARTED MEN
(Sigmund Romberg-music, Oscar Hammerstein II-words, 1927)

You who have dreams, If you act
They will come true!
To turn your dreams to a fact
It' s up to you!
If you have the soul and the spirit
Never fear it, you'll see it through.
Hearts can inspire other hearts with their fire
For the strong obey
When a strong man shows them the way!

Give me some men
Who are stout-hearted men
Who will fight for the right they adore.
Start me with ten
Who are stout-hearted men
And I'll soon give you ten thousand more, Oh!
Shoulder to shoulder
And bolder and bolder
They grow as they go to the fore!
Then there's nothing in the world
Can halt or mar a plan,
When stout-hearted men
Can stick together man to man!

[U.S. Navy Version]
Give me some men
Who are stout-hearted men
Who will fight for the right they adore.
Give me some men
Who will fight like the men
Who have fought in the Navy before! Oh!
Give me some guns
For the stout-hearted sons
Of the ones who have won every war!
Then there's not a chance on earth
For freedom's cause to die,
When stout-hearted men
Are on the sea and in the sky!


My dad is a little short guy with a gentle soul. The Marine Corps was his one brush with machismo - well, that and getting a Jesuit education. Hearing him sing this song always makes me chuckle.

Subject: RE: stout hearted men: where is it from?
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 08 Jan 04 - 01:02 PM

Wasn't it in 'Little Mary Sunshine' as well?

Subject: RE: stout hearted men: where is it from?
From: ard mhacha
Date: 08 Jan 04 - 01:04 PM

My late elder brother`s deep Bass voice boomed it out throughout my childhood, great song.

Subject: RE: stout hearted men: where is it from?
From: SueB
Date: 09 Jan 04 - 12:57 AM

Stouthearted Men is from the Gilbert and Sullivan light opera
by the name of Brigadoon, yes? Another I liked from that one,
asks, "Is life a boon? If so it must befall, that death when e'er it fall, must fall too soon. Though four score years He give, one would pray to live, another moon. What kind of plaint have I, who perish in July (who perish in July)? I might have had to die, perchance in June..."

---

Is Life a Boon? (click)

Subject: RE: stout hearted men: where is it from?
From: LadyJean
Date: 09 Jan 04 - 01:13 AM

"Stouthearted Men" Comes from one of Sigmund Romberg's silly operettas, "The New Moon". It involves, among other things, the French Revolution, Pirates, and a delightful song, "I Want to Be Like the Girl on the Prow", about the ship's figurehead. Traditionally, the chorus men form a V, with the female lead, Marianne, at the point like a figurehead.
I've never seen the movie, but I did see a stage production. My mother, whose name was Marianne, assured me that she loathed the song "Marianne We All Adore You" every bit as much as I detest "Jeannie With The Light Brown Hair", and Rod McKuen's "Jean". Two of the men in the chorus were obviously gay, which gave "Stout Hearted Men" a whole new meaning.

Subject: RE: stout hearted men: where is it from?
From: Metchosin
Date: 09 Jan 04 - 01:53 AM

The best and most bizzare version of this song is by Shooby Taylor and is sung as a scat piece.

Subject: RE: stout hearted men: where is it from?
From: Metchosin
Date: 09 Jan 04 - 01:56 AM

Go Shooby, Go!!!

Subject: RE: stout hearted men: where is it from?
From: SueB
Date: 09 Jan 04 - 02:31 AM

Hold on - if Stouthearted Men came from the same Gilbert and Sullivan light opera as Is Life A Boon?, then it came from The Yeomen of the Guard, NOT Brigadoon, so I volunteered some erroneous information. Yes, it was definitely NOT Brigadoon. It DEFINITELY was The Yeomen of the Guard.

My memory is not what it used to be (and may never actually have been as good as I used to think it was...)

Metchosin, thanks SO MUCH for sharing the Shooby scat version!

Subject: RE: stout hearted men: where is it from?
From: Metchosin
Date: 09 Jan 04 - 02:41 AM

your welcome, I think it truly brings one in touch with the real origin of the word "scat".

Subject: RE: stout hearted men: where is it from?
From: SueB
Date: 09 Jan 04 - 02:58 AM

Hold on again - I just came up with this from Google:

The New Moon, as Eric Myers informs us, was Romberg's final hit. (The plots of these shows tend to be so byzantine and zany, one can scarcely get into them.) It contains one very familiar song, "Stouthearted Men," which is sometimes mistaken for a Gilbert and Sullivan number. (An endearing line: "Start me with ten who are stronghearted men, and I'll soon give you ten thousand more." The lyrics are by Oscar Hammerstein II, who was co-lyricist on The Desert Song. He was to move on to much greater things, chiefly with his partner Richard Rodgers.) Thomas Hayward is the dreamy tenor here, and Lee Sweetland—a wonderful name for an operetta singer—is the dreamy baritone. It may be said that listening to Romberg at length increases one's regard for the masters of opera proper, even the "low" variety: Puccini's Gianni Schicchi, in comparison to The Desert Song, is a late Beethoven quartet.

Proving once and for all that my memory isn't worth a nickel. I shouldn't even try. I couldn't make the blickies work, and I didn't know what you all were going on about, since I was sure I had never heard of Romberg or The New Moon... Oh, well. My heart's in the right place.

Subject: RE: stout hearted men: where is it from?
From: JJ
Date: 09 Jan 04 - 08:47 AM

Not to pile on or anything, but BRIGADOON was written by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe.

Subject: RE: stout hearted men: where is it from?
From: SueB
Date: 09 Jan 04 - 09:27 AM

That settles it. I'll be making an appointment for a medical evaluation right away. Early onset Alzheimers - it can happen to anyone...

Subject: RE: stout hearted men: where is it from?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Jan 04 - 01:55 PM

Now "stout-hearted" should have something to do with Guinness. I wonder if the Dubliners ever thought of having a go at this one? And then a few years down the road, and everyone would say it was a hallowed Irish Rebel Song...

Subject: RE: stout hearted men: where is it from?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 09 Jan 04 - 02:58 PM

A number of parodies. Here is one from the Kentucky-Louisville Mission (Baptists?): Truth is restored we've been called by the Lord

For those having difficulty following the lyrics of Shooby Taylor, they are available at: Shooby
This surely is the aural equivalent of banging one's head with a hammer!

Subject: RE: stout hearted men: where is it from?
From: LadyJean
Date: 09 Jan 04 - 11:17 PM

"New Moon" also includes the song, "Softly as in a Morning Sunrise". Are there other kinds of sunrises?
Sir Arthur Sullivan was certainly capable of writing something as sappy as Stout Hearted Men, but W.S. Gilbert, Never!

Subject: RE: stout hearted men: where is it from?
From: Joybell
Date: 09 Jan 04 - 11:36 PM

Of course for the other kind you'd have to use the line "Hardly as in an Evening Sunrise". I'd love to see an evening sunrise. Maybe if I stayed up REALLY late. Joy

Subject: RE: stout hearted men: where is it from?
From: MartinRyan
Date: 11 Jan 04 - 04:47 PM

McGrath

Not the Dubliners, but didn't Josef Locke specialise in this one?

Regards

Subject: RE: stout hearted men: where is it from?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 Jan 04 - 07:41 PM

That's what I'd have thought, Martin - but it's not in this discography (Not under that title anyway.)

I can't imagine that he could have resisted singing it, but maybe it never got put out as a record.