Origins: William He Had Seven Sons

Subject: Origins: William He Had Seven Sons
From: MickyMan
Date: 19 Jun 19 - 08:47 PM

Looking for any background/source info on "William He Had Seven Sons". I know it's in "There's A Hole in My Bucket" by Trinka/Feierabend but was wondering if anyone had any additional info. Thanks!

Subject: RE: Origins: William He Had Seven Sons
From: Joe Offer
Date: 20 Jun 19 - 12:23 AM

I hadn't heard this song before. The lyrics are very simple:

William (Willum) he had seven sons, seven sons, seven sons,
William he had seven sons, and this is what they did:
Number one was chopping wood, chopping wood, chopping wood,
Number one was chopping wood, and that is what he did.

Number two jumped up and down...
Number three was stacking wood...
Number four was hammering...
Number five was painting doors....
Number six was clapping...
Number seven was sleeping....

Here's a very nice performance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzvXaGD-Qj0

Here's notation for the melody:

http://kristinbamberger.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/William-He-Had-Seven-Sons.pdf

It's not in any of the school music books that we have indexed. I gather from my Google search that the song is used in the Kodaly music program.

Subject: RE: Origins: William He Had Seven Sons
From: MickyMan
Date: 20 Jun 19 - 05:30 PM

Thank you to Joe Offer for all of that info. At this point this song isn't in the Mudcat database.
I actually saw this in a Kodaly school music group, and they were looking for more information on its origins. They knew it as traditional, but were hoping for more sourcing.    I thought that Mudcat might be a place where more may be known about it, so I asked about it here.

Subject: RE: Origins: William He Had Seven Sons
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 21 Jun 19 - 09:43 AM

Can't help thinking there must be some relation to the Dutch children's song Vader Abraham had zeven zonen, even with a completely different tune,   but search results too muddled by Pierre Kartner's song of the seventies to get much more detail.

Subject: RE: Origins: William He Had Seven Sons
From: Joe Offer
Date: 22 Jun 19 - 12:10 AM

Charlie Baum posted lyrics to "Father Abraham" in this message (click). It's similar to a song I heard at Boy Scout camp here in California.

"Father Abraham"

Father Abraham had seven sons
Seven sons had Father Abraham
And they never laughed
And they never cried
All they did was go like this:
[repeat ad nauseam, each time cumulatively adding in a motion until every verse is an aerobic exercise on steroids]

Subject: RE: Origins: William He Had Seven Sons
From: Joe Offer
Date: 22 Jun 19 - 12:13 AM

This is the one I learned at Boy Scout camp: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rADes6sVSXQ

Here are the lyrics from the video:

"Father Abraham, had many sons,
And many sons had Father Abraham,
And I am one of them, and so are you,
So let's just praise the Lord!"

but in Scout camp, the last line was "As we go marching on."