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Origins: Put Your Little Foot (Varsouvienna)

Related threads:
Put Your Little Foot (8)
Lyr Req: Versa Vienne (Shoe the Donkey) (4)
Tune Req: Put Your Little Foot / Varsouvienne (21)
Lyr Req: Suzie Anna, Susiana, waltz aka put your (6)


GUEST,MTM 20 Mar 00 - 08:23 AM
Sorcha 20 Mar 00 - 09:08 AM
Jacob B 20 Mar 00 - 10:34 AM
Malcolm Douglas 20 Mar 00 - 02:41 PM
Stewie 21 Mar 00 - 03:53 AM
Joe Offer 21 Mar 00 - 04:17 AM
Tony in Darwin 21 Mar 00 - 08:19 AM
Sorcha 21 Mar 00 - 09:25 AM
alison 21 Mar 00 - 09:45 AM
GUEST,Q 31 Jul 03 - 09:09 PM
DonMeixner 31 Jul 03 - 11:59 PM
clueless don 01 Aug 03 - 08:29 AM
Hrothgar 04 Aug 03 - 06:55 AM
Bob Bolton 04 Aug 03 - 11:39 PM
GUEST,VAM12000@YAHOO,COM 30 Sep 04 - 08:51 PM
Bob Bolton 30 Sep 04 - 10:26 PM
Q (Frank Staplin) 30 Sep 04 - 10:48 PM
Q (Frank Staplin) 30 Sep 04 - 10:59 PM
masato sakurai 01 Oct 04 - 05:03 AM
Bob Bolton 01 Oct 04 - 05:28 AM
McGrath of Harlow 01 Oct 04 - 06:53 AM
masato sakurai 01 Oct 04 - 08:23 AM
Bob Bolton 01 Oct 04 - 08:55 AM
GUEST 03 Feb 06 - 06:11 AM
GUEST 03 Feb 06 - 11:46 AM
GUEST 03 Feb 06 - 11:47 AM
Helen 08 Feb 06 - 02:58 PM
Sorcha 08 Feb 06 - 03:12 PM
Q (Frank Staplin) 08 Feb 06 - 03:36 PM
Joe Offer 16 Apr 09 - 03:06 PM
Q (Frank Staplin) 16 Apr 09 - 04:27 PM
bubblyrat 17 Apr 09 - 02:30 PM
Gweltas 16 May 09 - 11:18 PM
GUEST,Bob Coltman 17 May 09 - 12:15 PM
Gweltas 17 May 09 - 04:30 PM
Rowan 17 May 09 - 06:59 PM
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Subject: Varsouvianna
From: GUEST,MTM
Date: 20 Mar 00 - 08:23 AM

Does anyone have the lyrics to this waltz? It's one of the few tunes specifically called for in Tennessee William's "Streetcar". I've heard one field recording alternatively titled "Mais Azul". I'm not sure if it is originally a French or Spanish tune. Any info would be appreciated!


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Varsouvianna
From: Sorcha
Date: 20 Mar 00 - 09:08 AM

Somebdoy correct me if I am wrong, but I thought that the Vasovienne was a type of dance step and a type of tune, not a tune in itsself. "Put Your Little Foot" is a Varsoveinne, but most people dance it as a schottische.


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Varsouvianna
From: Jacob B
Date: 20 Mar 00 - 10:34 AM

I've only danced the Varsouvienne to one tune. The lyrics I once heard sung to it went

Put your little foot
Put your little foot
Put your little foot right here
Put your little foot
Put your little foot
Put your little foot right here
Put your little foot right here
Put your little foot right here
Put your little foot right here
Put your little foot right here

Not very inspiring as a song, but slightly useful for remembering the dance.


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Varsouvianna
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 20 Mar 00 - 02:41 PM

Sorcha is right; "Varsovienne" is a generic term for a type of mazurka originating in Warsaw, but the form became widely popular around 1850-70, and a lot were written at that time, amongst them the one MTM is presumably talking about, which was rapidly absorbed into the tradition.  This from the notes accompanying English Country Music (Topic Records 1976):

The Waltz Vienna:  

La Varsoviana,  a French dance devised supposedly in the Warsaw style, was introduced into Parisian society in 1853 and quickly spread around Europe and America.  Francisco Alonso's original composition was in eight parts and although traditional musicians have developed many melodic variations, most versions of the tune seem to relate to some part or other of the original.  The dance, at least as it was done in Sussex, is a round dance with one phrase of stepping -heel, toe, chassé, chassé- and one of waltzing.  Known also as Verse Vienne, La Va, Step Waltz, Paddy Candy, Shoe The Donkey, Cock Your Leg Up Hi Ho and La Valse Du Pauvre Garçonnet, it has been recorded by many Irish, Scots, English and American musicians.


There's a 1952 recording of Sligo fiddler Michael Gorman playing The Varsoviana on one of Peter Kennedy's Folktracks tapes; it's very similar to the version that was current in East Anglia at the same time, though taken at a slightly faster pace and with a more emphatic rhythm.  Gorman says that it was danced much the same way as the Polka Mazurka.

All this doesn't really answer the original question, except to show that the piece was never intended to be a song, and cosequently doesn't have lyrics as such, though of course odd bits of words such as Jacob B. gives have sometimes become attached to it.

Malcolm


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Subject: DTADD: Varsouviana (Put Your Little Foot)
From: Stewie
Date: 21 Mar 00 - 03:53 AM

Here's how Glenn Ohrlin would sing it:

VARSOUVIANA (PUT YOUR LITTLE FOOT)

Instrumental

Put your little foot, put your little foot, put your little foot right there
Put your little foot, put your little foot, put your little foot right there
Take a step to the right, take a step to the left
Take a step to the rear but forever stay near

Instrumental

Put your arm around, put your arm around, your arm around my waist
Hold your arm around, hold your arm around, your arm around my waist
While the moon's shining bright and the music's just right
And you're holding me tight, we will dance through the night

Instrumental

Put your little foot, put your little foot, put your little foot with mine
With you little foot, with your little foot, with your little foot keep time
Charming tender melody, in my heart a memory
There you'll always be, varsouviana's part of me

Instrumental

Source: Glenn Ohlin 'Cowboy Songs' Philo 1017.

Oh that is so simple and so lovely! I have unbounding respect for what Ohrlin has done for the promotion of cowboy music - and the cowboys took the varsouviana for their own. I'm sure Bob Bolton and Tony Suttor can give examples of the love of the tune in the Australian bush tradition as well. Glenn Ohrlin wrote:

Another of my favourite pieces in the whole world is this old dance. At the ranch dances and public dances I went to in Arizona in '43 and '44, they always played varsouviana, also known as Put Your Little Foot, at least once. The first time I heard it was at a one room schoolhouse between Superstition Mountain, Miami and Florence Junction in '43. This was way off the main highway. I was on a Clemens Company ranch nearby and had gone to the dance with the ranch manager, his son and daughter-in-law and a kid cowboy from Texas I was running with at the time. I thought it was really nice music and the dance was fine watching. Also there was a hell of a fight after the dance, as some miners from Miami or Globe showed up and didn't make too big a hit with the cowboys. If anyone thinks cowboyin' died out with the end of the long trail drives, they should have seen the cowboys in that country busting through the brush and cactus after wild cattle. Me and the kid from Texas could keep up with camp and lead in a few the natives had caught but that was about it. In fact, they sent us to their feedlot and farm near Chandler where we got to dances in town. More 'Put Your Little Foot' and more fist fights after. People were tough then, but not so dirty and I got treated fine wherever I went.

Cheers, Stewie {only too glad to give a plug for someone like Ohrlin}.


Click to play


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Subject: Origins: Put Your Little Foot (Varsouvienna)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 21 Mar 00 - 04:17 AM

Here's what the Traditional Ballad Index says:

Put Your Little Foot (Varsouvienna)

DESCRIPTION: "Put your little foot (x2) Put your little foot right there... Take a step to the right, Take a step to the left, But forever stay near." Further invitations to move closer follow: "Put... your arm around my waist... We will dance through the night."
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1943
KEYWORDS: dancing nonballad
FOUND IN: US(So)
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Ohrlin-HellBoundTrain 45, "Put Your Little Foot" (1 text, 1 tune)
Abernethy-SinginTexas, p. 82, "Put Your Little Foot" (1 text, 1 tune)
Meredith/Anderson-FolkSongsOfAustralia, pp. 47, 79-80, 182, 218, 230, 241, "Varsovienna" (6 tunes)
Meredith/Covell/Brown-FolkSongsOfAustraliaVol2, pp. 19, 31, 38, 66, 99-100, 137, "Varsoviana" (and variant spellings) (6 tunes)

RECORDINGS:
Glenn Ohrlin, "Varsouviana" (on Ohrlin01)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Put Your Little Foot Right Out
Varsouvienne
NOTES [99 words]: The "Varsouvianna" (Varsouvienna, etc.; described as a variation on the mazurka) tune is very common, and is cited sporadically in the references here. How often it bears this particular set of lyrics is less certain; few if any of the Australian versions, for instance, have words. - RBW
Ohrlin remarks that "Put Your Little Foot" was usually the cue for a fight to start. - PJS
Thomas/Leeder-SinginGatherin, p. 48, has a fiddle tune titles "Foot Prints or Put Your Little Foot Right Here," which looks as if it is this tune, but without lyrics any such classification is of course tentative. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.7
File: Ohr045

Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Song List

Go to the Ballad Index Instructions
Go to the Ballad Index Bibliography or Discography

The Ballad Index Copyright 2024 by Robert B. Waltz and David G. Engle.

If you want sheet music, try here (click) and here(click).
-Joe Offer-


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Varsouvianna
From: Tony in Darwin
Date: 21 Mar 00 - 08:19 AM

Stewie,

Thanks for the accolade, but I'd always defer to Bob when it comes to Australian trad. dance music and variants of the varsovienna. Aussie muso Dave De Hugard has an enormous repertoire of these tunes, as does Jacko Kevans.

Incidently, if anyone can put me in touch with Jacko at the moment, please let me know via the personal pages; much obliged.

Cheers,

Tony


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Varsouvianna
From: Sorcha
Date: 21 Mar 00 - 09:25 AM

I have another tune for a Varsovienne, collected by Ira Ford in the Appalachians. I could try and abc it later today, if anyone is interested. It's just called Varsvienne #2.


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Varsouvianna
From: alison
Date: 21 Mar 00 - 09:45 AM

copied from another thread

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Irish Washer Woman From: Bob Bolton Date: 21-Mar-00 - 07:32 AM

G'day Angel,

The Varsovienne (generally Varsovienna in Australian country areas) is remarkably resilient here. Dozens of different tunes collected in Australia, many country areas where it is still danced.

Of the many tunes, only three sets of words come to mind: "Put Your Little Foot", "Kick Your Leg Up, Sal Brown" and "The Babes in the Woods". I don't know all the words to any variant - I only play the music!

BTW: Research on historical principles, instead of believing what the French have to say, indicates the true origins are Swedish. They have the best versions, with a 3-part structure comprising: The "Turn around and point" section, a Mazurka and a Circular Waltz. All parts are in 3/4 but have quite distinct character.

Regards,

Bob Bolton

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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Irish Washer Woman From: Bob Bolton Date: 21-Mar-00 - 07:34 AM

G'day Angel,

The Varsovienne (generally Varsovienna in Australian country areas) is remarkably resilient here. Dozens of different tunes collected in Australia, many country areas where it is still danced.

Of the many tunes, only three sets of words come to mind: "Put Your Little Foot", "Kick Your Leg Up, Sal Brown" and "The Babes in the Woods". I don't know all the words to any variant - I only play the music!

BTW: Research on historical principles, instead of believing what the French have to say, indicates the true origins are Swedish. They have the best versions, with a 3-part structure comprising: The "Turn around and point" section, a Mazurka and a Circular Waltz. All parts are in 3/4 but have quite distinct character.

Regards,

Bob Bolton


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Varsouvianna
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 31 Jul 03 - 09:09 PM

La Varsovianna (sp?) became very popular in Spain and Mexico. Still a popular folk dance left over from the days of Mexican sovereignty in New Mexico, Arizona, California.
Steps for this and two other dances are given at this California site: La Varsouviana on page eight


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Varsouvianna
From: DonMeixner
Date: 31 Jul 03 - 11:59 PM

Known around here as Shoe The Donkey

Don


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Varsouvianna
From: clueless don
Date: 01 Aug 03 - 08:29 AM

The "A" part of "Put your Little Foot" is almost identical to the "A" part of "Shoe the Donkey" (trivial aside: For the longest time, I thought it was "SHOO the Donkey"), but the "B" parts are noticeably different.


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Varsouvianna
From: Hrothgar
Date: 04 Aug 03 - 06:55 AM

I thimk all the Scandinavian countries have their own separate versions. I know a Norwegian one.

I'll be seeing some experts tomorrow night - I'll see what they know.

A varso is on the programme for our Colonial Ball this Saturday night - one of the big nights of our dance year.


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Varsouvianna
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 04 Aug 03 - 11:39 PM

G'day Hrothgar,

Like many dances that had a separate life in European tradition, the Varso was taken up by the French Ballroom dance masters ... and had brief period as a worldwide "dance craze" ... about the 1880s. In many countries, after it was no longer the latest fashionable dance, it survived among keen dancers ... in Australia for at least another century.

I know that a Tasmanian band I talked to in the mid 1980s said they needed to have a few varsos up their sleeves when playing in the rural districts around Devonport/Deloraine. I might also mention the my wife Patricia's grandmother, born in Tasmania in 1876, knew the dance ... and recognised piano pieces Pat played as being Varsos ... so she may have learnt it at the end of its fashionable period. She had an almost untouched memory of 19th century dancing, as she married a non-dancer, in 1910, and never danced again.

It certainly does not surprise me that there is a Norwegian version. Various European nationalities have the dance lurking in their local folklore - often with interesting localisations of the name: Italian - Vesuviana in Naples contexts ... but Varsoviana in musical compositions; One of the oddest is the Germanic settlers in Queensland (Australia) calling it Vater Weisskopf ... more or less "Santa Claus" ("Father Whitehead").

A lot of mis-reading come from trying to term the French for 'woman from Warsaw' into something more local or comprehensible. One shift goes: Varsovienne / Varsovienna / Valse Vienna / Waltz of Vienna /... Viennese Waltz ... ?. Interestingly, several of the tunes collected as Valse Vienna or Waltz of Vienna are attached to dances using the second and third parts of the Swedish Varsovienne - the Mazurka step and the round waltz, rather then the first two, as in the form most danced in Australia.

Regards,

Bob Bolton


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Varsouvianna
From: GUEST,VAM12000@YAHOO,COM
Date: 30 Sep 04 - 08:51 PM

Does anyone have this waltz with the words or where I can find it. I want to dance with my father to this at my wedding but am having and extremely hard time finding it.


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Varsouvianna
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 30 Sep 04 - 10:26 PM

G'day (VAM12000 ... ?),

As you will see in the preceding posts, over the 4½ years, the varsovienne /'varouvianna' /'varsovienna' /&c is a dance ... not, in its own right, a song. There are several songs attached to some of the many varsovienne tunes (not 'waltzes' ... they are played in a 3/4 time signature but the dance uses either two or three different rhythm patterns within the overall 3/4, for different parts of the dance).

The song Put Your Little Foot, quoted above by Jacob B and Stewie is pretty banal ... really only enough of a song to keep you singing along with the distinctive varsovienne rhythm(s) ... almost an extension of the short mnemonics that dance musicians use to remind themselves of the first few bars of a tune they are playing from memory.

One longer song that was widely popular in Australia, in connection with the varsovienne was called "Babes in the Woods" ... but seems to be somewhat different from the song of that name remembered in America. I don't recall anything like the full words ... but could probably dig them out ... of some book ... somewhere!

However, you request seems to suggest that you have a specific song in mind ... possibly something written about / or to go with a specific varso tune ... ? If that is so - could you give some of the words ... even a single line of the song might be enough for some alert Mudcatter to recognise ... and help you out.

In regards the 'tune' ... there are dozens in collection from Australia - and I imagine there will be many in American and British books - but very few songs.

Regards,

Bob Bolton


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Varsouvianna
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 30 Sep 04 - 10:48 PM

We used to dance a Spanish-Mexican version of the dance, La Varsouvianna, when I was in grade school to high school (New Mexico). This old dance form (Polish 18th c.?) was popular everywhere in the 19th c. Many tunes, of course, as has been pointed out. Never heard any words except the silly 'put your little foot' sometimes taught to children. That little rhyme, and the stereotyped version of the particular tune to which it was put, may be in google somewhere.


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Varsouvianna
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 30 Sep 04 - 10:59 PM

Just reread this thread and saw the Ohrlin lyrics posted by Stewie. Probably as close to what you are looking for as one can get. Looking in Ohrlin's book, I see he has 9/8 time, and gives sheet music.
Glenn Ohrlin, 1973, "The Hell-Bound Train," pp. 110-112; University of Illinois Press.


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Varsouvianna
From: masato sakurai
Date: 01 Oct 04 - 05:03 AM

The Ohrlin version (ABC, lyrics & midi) with others has been posted at Lyr Add: MIDI Add: 'Put Your Little Foot'.


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Varsouvianna
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 01 Oct 04 - 05:28 AM

G'day masato (& all),

The Glen Ohlin version is a rather odd rendition (transcription timing errors ... ?) of a standard Varsovienne tune attached to Put Your Little Foot lyrics. The other versions are further from good dance rhythm ... except the "Oldtime Fiddle Book" version, which a a totally different tune - also collected here in Australia - but as a waltz (it lacks all the distinctive internal and external rhyhms of a Varsovienne). That ("OTFB") tune was collected here as someone's (I should check ... but I'm on my dodgy dial-up that vanishes when not watched ... or even then!) Waltz ... and is better known as the tune to a song (popular among post-WWII students as) She Played Her Guitar.

I have also found a collected version of the song Babes in the Wood - as popular in Australia to the tune of one of the standard Varso tunes. I'm about to nip out for some necessary shopping ... but I'll post the words and a MIDItext version of the tune later tonight. (Well ... that might depend on whether it looks significantly different from the versions in the DigiTrad ... the first of which seems to be the same tune as Glenn Ohlin's Put Your Little Foot.

Regards,

Bob


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Varsouvianna
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Oct 04 - 06:53 AM

The Copper Family version of Babes in the Wood fits well enough to the Varsovianna tunes - in fact the tune they use is really in range of being a variant. That had never occurred to me before. Here the words are, in the DT


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Varsouvianna
From: masato sakurai
Date: 01 Oct 04 - 08:23 AM

Bob, thanks. But I transcribed it as it is.

~Masato


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Subject: Lyr/Tune Add: BABES IN THE WOOD (Austalia)
From: Bob Bolton
Date: 01 Oct 04 - 08:55 AM

G'day Masato,

Maybe what I'm really saying is that the song, as it stands, deviates from the timing of the dance. Since it isn't presented here as the dance ... that could stand to reason! I play for a lot of dancing - and the rhythm of a varsovienne is firmly ingrained, so it immediately sounds wrong - to me - when the rhythm varies to another end.

Anyway, here is the version of which I wrote earlier:

Babes in the Wood

My dear do you know
How a long time ago,
Two poor little babes
Whose name I don't know,
Were stolen away
On a fine summer's day,
And lost in the woods
As I've heard people say.

And when it was night,
How sad was their plight,
The poor little things
They laid down and died.
And when they were dead,
Then the robin so red,
Brought strawberry leaves,
And over them spread.

All the day long,
He sang them this song,
Poor babes in the wood,
Poor babes in the wood.

Meredith, John, Covell, Roger & Brown, Patricia, Folk Songs of Australia, vol. 2, New South Wales University Press, Kensington, NSW, 1987, p. 295.

Collected from George Blackman of Mudgee

You can see how these words descend from the 17th century set included in the DigiTrad. The tune seems different from those in DigiTrad - which mostly seem to be variants on the tune we know in Australia - and you have in DigiTrad - as Put Your Little Foot. There are dozens of distinct (and distinctive!) varsovienne tunes collected in Australia - including ones firmly related to specific communities, such as the "Germanic" refugees of the 19th century and Italian immigrant communities.

This is George Blackman's tune for the words. It only fits to the first part of the varsovienne dance … perhaps that's the only stage of the dance when they sang!

I have supplied the tune in Alan of Australia's (no longer supported by Mudcat) MIDItext format. At least, you can extract the ABC Format portion from the latter part of the file … and I can supply the MIDI to whoever wants it.

Click to play


ABC format:

X:1
T:
M:3/4
Q:1/4=128
K:C
E11/2F/2|G2c2B2|F4D3/2E/2|F2A2G2|E4E2|E2D2E2|
F4G2|A2G2B,2|C4E3/2F/2|G2c2B2|F4D3/2E/2|F2A2G2|
E4E2|E2D2E2|F4G2|A2G2B,2|C6|G2c2B2|F4D3/2E/2|
F2A2G2|E4E2|E2D2E2|F4G2|A2G2B,2|C4E3/2F/2|
G2c2B2|F4D3/2E/2|F2A2G2|E4E2|E2D2E2|F4G2|
A2G2B,2|C13/4||



Regards,

Bob Bolton


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Varsouvianna
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Feb 06 - 06:11 AM

Hi - my name is James and I'm an actor in London, England. I'm looking for a version of a Varsouvianna waltz for A Streetcar Named Desire which may have spanish lyrics that go 'el pan de mais (three times) sin sal' - I don't suppose anyone could be of any use? If so, please email me at jamesdhogg@yahoo.co.uk and I'd be very grateful.

J


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Varsouvianna
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Feb 06 - 11:46 AM

Josef Marais did a ditty called Johnny Chuchabee to the "Put your little foot" tune.


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Varsouvianna
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Feb 06 - 11:47 AM

OOps. That was Jan Pieriweet. Different song. And what did they do with my cookie?
dick greenhaus


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Varsouvianna
From: Helen
Date: 08 Feb 06 - 02:58 PM

I emailed James (Guest, 03 Feb 06 - 06:11 AM ) and suggested that Put Your Little Foot might be the most likely Varsovienna referred to in the play.

I think, though, that the midi versions mentioned in the Mudcat thread are not really the way the song should sound. It is a dance tune, so it is played in a specific dance rhythm.

I found a midi file which is close to the way I have heard Varsoviennas played for dances. I'm in Australia and our versions are different but this one sounds (to me) like a Southern U.S. version which would be probably more appropriate for A Streetcar Named Desire.


Put Your Little Foot: gitpicker.com

There are some sheet music links in the following thread, and a also couple of "Click to Play" links, but these midi links don't have the right rhythm either, in my opinion.

http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=61757

Helen


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Varsouvianna
From: Sorcha
Date: 08 Feb 06 - 03:12 PM

I have another in Trad Music of America, by Ford that is just called V. #1....I could scan and send e mail?


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Varsouvianna
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 08 Feb 06 - 03:36 PM

There are many varsouvienes, tunes to a Polish dance form, popular in the 19th c. all over Europe and North America. The Mexican 'La varsouviana' is just one that has remained popular in the American Southwest and Mexico.
Whether the one commonly sung as 'put your little foot' is the one sought by guest James is not clear. He may be after a Spanish-French Creole version from New Orleans.
Malcolm Douglas succinctly explains above (click) that the dance, which came to Paris in the 1850's, spread everywhere.

The tune linked following Stewie's post above, is the one commonly heard in New Mexico-Arizona. This doesn't help with the request by James, however.

The lyrics about 'corn bread without salt' I have not heard.


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Varsouvianna
From: Joe Offer
Date: 16 Apr 09 - 03:06 PM

Q sent me sheet music for "La varsoviana," and I transcribed it to a MIDI which you can play here (click)
The pattern for the dance is here (click).
Trouble is, I can't quite figure how the song goes. If somebody wants to help, I can e-mail you the sheet music and maybe you can advise me if it's correct.

I think the pattern is AAB AAB - but all I've been able to get Noteworthy to do is the AAB part once. I think that's enough for you to get the idea of it.

-Joe-


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Varsouvianna
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 16 Apr 09 - 04:27 PM

In thread 120047, "Blow, Nelson," Greg Stephens compared the tune of that Trinidadian song with "Waltz Vienna" and "Shave the Donkey," forms of Varsouvianna in the UK. La varsouvianna

Joe Offer kindly posted here the tune and dance positions of "La Varsouviana" as known in the American Southwest (New Mexico).

Comparisons?


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Varsouvianna
From: bubblyrat
Date: 17 Apr 09 - 02:30 PM

Martin Wyndham-Read,who is something of an authority on Australian music,uses the tune that I know as Varsoviana,or at any rate the A part,for his version of the song "Babes in The Wood"----I have never heard any words to the B part.


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Varsouvianna
From: Gweltas
Date: 16 May 09 - 11:18 PM

To add to the many Irish names of the Mazurka tune known as the verse o vienna/varsovienne it is also called "Father Murphy's Top Coat" and "Shoe The Donkey", in County Cork and in North Kerry, (where I hail from) it is called "Patsy Healey" and it has specific dance steps. There is a version in Cornwall UK (where I now live)called "Turkey Rhubarb", which also has specific dance steps, completely different in style to the Irish version of the dance. While the A part of the tunes in Ireland and Cornwall are very similar, the B parts of the tune are quite differerent.
I've found a clip on you tube of the Irish steps but haven't succeesed in locating a similar clip of Turkey Rhubarb. Perhaps some more erudite Mudcatter might convert the link posted here into a blue clicky for me ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxzpI4F6rIM

Kindest regards,
Anne XX


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Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Turkey Rhubarb
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 17 May 09 - 12:15 PM

Just googled "Turkey Rhubarb" and lo:

http://www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/~zierke/steeleye.span/songs/turkeyrhubarb.html

Turkey Rhubarb
[Trad. arr. Tim Hart & Maddy Prior]

Tim Hart and Maddy Prior recorded this song for their second duo album Folk Songs of Old England Vol. 2. The record's sleeve notes comment:

Another Bedfordshire song from the collection of Fred Hamer this one being from the singing of Harry Scott. Fred describes this as a "cross between a signature tune and a street call used by a hawker who carried rhubarb in season as part of his stock-in-trade". Although rhubarb in fact came from the mountains between Turkey and Siberia, in the last century anything with a vaguely Eastern origin was attributed to Turkey.

Turkey Rhubarb, Turkey Rhubarb, Turkey Rhubarb I sell
I come here from Turkey to make you all well
Don't you all know me, oh me name it is Dan
For I am the celebrated Turkey Rhubarb man


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Varsouvianna
From: Gweltas
Date: 17 May 09 - 04:30 PM

Ta muchly for that information, Bob. You were more successful in your search than I was.
However it's a pity that there doesn't seem to be a recording of the Turkey Rhubarb tune available on line, or even a midi file, so that people who are not familiar with both tunes could actually compare them. I'll see if I can persuade some of my Cornish friends to post a recording of it on the net.


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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Varsouvianna
From: Rowan
Date: 17 May 09 - 06:59 PM

Not being a reader of music I can't tell whether one of the most popular tunes used in SE Oz for the Varsovienna (and, I think, may be in SHirley Andrews' "Take your partners", probably the most authoratitive tome on traditional social dance in Oz) is represented above but I can make a coupe of relevant comments.

From the scan of the movements that Joe Offer posted above it appears that source requires couples to use what in Oz would be termed a "promenade hold"; a position where both couples are facing the line of dance. Most versions I've seen (and taught_ in Oz use a closed couple hold (as in a circular waltz) and use waltz steps (forward and then reverse) for the A part of the tune (most versions use only an A and a B part) and mazurka steps for the B part.

The tune version that was most popular among folk scene bush dance musos in the 1970s and 80s had words for the A part but I never heard any for the B part; the words gave the tune its usual title;

They said she was a virgin,
a virgin, a virgin;
they said she was a virgin,
only 19 years old.

Shirley mentioned that musos who played for social dances in the bush (and some of the men dancing) would occasionally smirk when some tunes were played; this was one of them and the usual tune for "The Ball of Kerriemuir" was another.

Cheers, Rowan


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