Lyr Req: Bye Bye Blackbird (Dixon/Henderson)

Subject: bye bye blackbird
From:
Date: 25 Aug 97 - 01:00 PM

I need the words to Bye Bye Blackbird. If anyone has them I would apprediate it it you could e-mail them to me at: [e-mail]

or fax them to me at:

[phone]

Thanks.

Edmund B. Pyle, III

Subject: Lyr Add: BYE-BYE, BLACKBIRD
From: Gene
Date: 25 Aug 97 - 01:31 PM

BYE-BYE, BLACKBIRD

Pack up all my cares and woes.
Feelin low, here I go.
Bye-bye, blackbird.
Where somebody waits for me,
Sugar's sweet and so is she.
Bye-bye, blackbird.
No one seems to love or understand me.
All those hard luck stories that they hand me.
Pack my bags and light the light.
I'll be coming home tonight.
Blackbird, bye-bye.

Subject: Lyr Add: BYE-BYE, BLACKBIRD
From: BBJ
Date: 25 Aug 97 - 04:41 PM

Gene doesn't say where he got his version, so it's hard to say which is (more) correct. At the risk of being off base, I submit the way I learned it:

BYE-BYE, BLACKBIRD

Pack up all my cares and woes,
Here I go, singin' low,
Bye-bye, blackbird.

Where somebody waits for me,
Sugar's sweet, so is she,
Bye-bye, blackbird.

No one here can love or understand me.
Oh, what hard luck stories they all hand me.

So, make my bed and light the light,
I'll be home late tonight.
Blackbird, bye-bye.

HTML line breaks added. --JoeClone, 28-Feb-02.

Subject: RE: bye bye blackbird
From: Gene
Date: 25 Aug 97 - 06:09 PM

No problem BBJ...I usually say...HERE IS A VERSION... since so many artists for one reason or another see/saw fit to alter the original lyrics of many a song....

Subject: Lyr Add: BYE-BYE BLACKBIRD
From: Gene
Date: 25 Aug 97 - 06:51 PM

BYE BYE BLACKBIRD
(Music/Lyrics: Henderson - Dixon)
Year: 1926; Original Key: F

I have one version of an artist singing A SONG HE WROTE and yet he sang the lyrics wrong -

In that vein, here's 2 more versions....

Pack up all my cares and woe;
Here I go, singing low;
Bye, bye blackbird.

Where somebody waits for me;
Sugar's sweet, so is she;
Bye, bye blackbird.

No one here can love and understand me;
Oh, what hard luck stories they all hand me

Make the bed and light the light;
I'll arrive late tonight;
Blackbird, bye, bye.

---

BYE BYE BLACKBIRD
(words by Mort Dixon, music by Ray Henderson - written in 1926)

Pack up all my care and woe;
Here I go, singing low;
Bye Bye Blackbird

Where somebody waits for me;
Sugar's sweet, so is she;
Bye Bye Blackbird

No one here can love and understand me;
Oh, what hard luck stories they all hand me

Make my bed and light the light;
I'll arrive late tonight;
Blackbird, Bye Bye

Subject: RE: bye bye blackbird
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 25 Aug 97 - 08:20 PM

There's a verse that goes with whichever version of the chorus you pick. Anyone have it?

Subject: RE: bye bye blackbird
From: pascack/2aol.com
Date: 27 Aug 97 - 06:03 PM

funny, but i was looking for this same song just a few weeks ago..i don't know of any other verses, but i would like to know the right chords..any key'll do thanks in advance..just list them in order and i'll figure where they go walter [e-mail]

Subject: Lyr/Chords Add: BYE BYE BLACKBIRD
From: Alan of Australia
Date: 28 Aug 97 - 12:03 PM

FPack up all my care and woe;
C7Here I go, Fsinging low;
Bye GdimBye GmBlackC7bird
Where somebody waits for me;
Sugar's sweet, so is she ;
GmBye C7Bye FBlackbird
F7No one here can love and underCmstand D7me;
GmOh, what hard luck stories they all Bbhand C7me
FMake my bed and light the light;
C7I'll arrive D7late tonight;
GmBlackbirdC7, ....Bye FBye

Cheers,
Alan

Subject: RE: bye bye blackbird
From: Joe Offer
Date: 28 Aug 97 - 03:53 PM

Alan, do you have some magic program that creates your special effects, or do you arduously enter all those html codes by hand? I wanna play around with special effects, too, but I don't want to do the hard work involved.
And I'll be damned if I'll clutter my memory with lots of codes. I have enough trouble remembering lyrics.
Search the forum for "shit" for the very pertinent lyrics of "Shit, I've Forgotten the Words."
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: bye bye blackbird
From: Alan of Australia
Date: 28 Aug 97 - 08:19 PM

Joe,
No magic program & I can't remember the codes either, my memory is cluttered enough teaching C++ to technicians & I decided I would refuse to learn HTML. I just do a lot of copy & paste off line, preview the result with IE (or netscape) & then paste the result here.

Re your above mentioned lyrics - I can relate to that perfectly & I thought your "mistake" with the last line was very clever.

Cheers,
Alan

Subject: RE: bye bye blackbird
From: Alan of Australia
Date: 28 Aug 97 - 09:45 PM

Joe,
I should also mention that the editor I use offline (click here for The Semware Editor) has good macro capability so I've set up hot keys for some of the HTML codes - saves typing and memory.

Cheers,
Alan

Subject: Lyr Add: BYE BYE BLACKBIRD (Dixon/Henderson)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 01 Sep 97 - 04:23 PM

Dick, I found what purports to be the official version of the song. Here goes:

BYE BYE BLACKBIRD
1926, Lyrics by Mort Dixon, Music by Ray Henderson

[Verse One]
Blackbird
Blackbird singing the blues all day
Right outside of my door
Blackbird
Blackbird
Why do you sit and say
"There's no sunshine in store"
All thru the winter you hung around
Now I begin to feel homeward bound
Blackbird
Blackbird gotta be on my way
Where there's sunshine galore

[chorus]
Pack up all my care and woe
Here I go, singing low
Bye Bye Blackbird
Where somebody waits for me
Sugar's sweet, so is she
Bye Bye Blackbird
No one here can love and understand me
Oh, what hard luck stories they all hand me
Make my bed and light the light
I'll arrive late tonight
Blackbird, Bye Bye

[Verse Two}
Bluebird
Bluebird calling me far away
I've been longing for you
Bluebird
Bluebird
What do I hear you say
"Skies are turning to blue"
I'm like a flower that's fading here
Where every hour is one long tear
Bluebird
Bluebird this is my lucky day
Now my dreams will come true.

[Chorus Repeated]

Another well-known song by lyricist Mort Dixon is "I'm Looking Over a Four-Leaf Clover." Ray Henderson has "Alabamy Bound," "Button Up Your Overcoat," and "You're the Cream in my Coffee" to his credit.

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: bye bye blackbird
From: Joe Offer
Date: 01 Sep 97 - 04:24 PM

Sorry - I have no idea where to find the tune for the verses.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: bye bye blackbird
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 01 Sep 97 - 07:08 PM

Thanx, Joe. There's a huge body of songs that have survived only through their choruses; I've been trying to make a point of dredging up the entire songs. I think I can find th tune in some fake book or other.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Bye Bye Blackbird
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 20 Dec 12 - 01:10 PM

First sung by Gene Austin in 1926.

This turned up as my earworm yesterday. Glad to find the entire song posted by Joe 15 years ago.

Tune for verses- search net for sheet music. Couldn't find sheet music for the chorus.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Bye Bye Blackbird
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 20 Dec 12 - 07:40 PM

If this truly was first published in 1926, it shouldn't be in the public domain, and therefore I wouldn't expect libraries to have the sheet music on their websites, but here it is anyway, from the UCLA Archive of Popular Music:

http://digital.library.ucla.edu/apam/librarian?VIEWPDF=SX145058PDF

The catalog entry here says 1908, but the notice at the bottom of page 1 of the sheet music says 1948. Most other sites say 1926. Go figure.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Bye Bye Blackbird (Dixon/Henderson)
From: pdq
Date: 20 Dec 12 - 08:33 PM

Seems that Mort Dixon was born in 1892 so the 1908 date is not realistic.

He served in WWI doing shows for sevicemen.

Other credits include "Nagasaki", "I'm Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover" and "I Found a Million Dollar Baby in a Five and Ten Cent Store."

Unless it is a different song than I know, "Nagasaki" is a candidate for he worst song ever written.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Bye Bye Blackbird (Dixon/Henderson)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 20 Dec 12 - 09:22 PM

Ray Henderson born 1896.

Someone at UCLA slipped up.

pdq, those lyrics are immortal, esp. when sung by Cab Calloway.

With sweet Kimoner, I pulled a boner
I kept it up at high speed
I got rheumatics aand then psyatics
Halatosisis, thats guaranteed.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Bye Bye Blackbird (Dixon/Henderson)
From: GUEST,Omar
Date: 01 Aug 13 - 06:45 PM

I've been researching classic songs to work up lead sheets for an amateur guitar group. This one had me stumped for finding the "original version" because it's been cut down to just the chorus for more than 50 years and all the versions readily available on the internet for free only show chords for that. Most of these are simplified, and most sound pretty good, but aren't the original song, exactly. It's become a jazz standard and most chord progressions for those are unrecognizable when you just strum the chords, as I and my flock do. People do this song in so many different keys that you wouldn't know that it was in F originally. (The first recording by Gene Austin is in A♭!)

So, it was a great relief to find Jim Dixon's post with the link to the PDF in the UCLA library. If you want to find the "original", this is it, the real McCoy. It's in F and has both verses with full sheet music and chord names that you can figure out for guitar if you use an app like Guitar Chords Magic. I'm in the process of working this one up now. If someone wants to start with the genuine article to work up their own version, I strongly suggest that you use the UCLA version.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Bye Bye Blackbird (Dixon/Henderson)
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 02 Aug 13 - 11:35 AM

I believe the song is public domain now. The UCLA sheet shows it was renewed in 1948. If they renewed for 28 years, that would have expired in 1976.

Anyhow, I felt that I would enjoy playing this song on the piano, intro, verse, chorus and all, so I made a MIDI of it. I'm sending it in for posting, and it should show up here soon if Joe Offer is in fine fettle. You can listen to the MIDI and learn the melody for the long-lost parts about the blackbird and the bluebird.

It has an introduction (harp) vocal part (recorder) and selected embellishments (guitar.) The sheet music has chords, but I've been experimenting, and they don't have to be as complicated as they show. The piece was written in an era when people felt they it was sophisticated to use the black notes, whether they actually sounded good or not.

---

Click to play (joeweb)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Bye Bye Blackbird (Dixon/Henderson)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 02 Aug 13 - 05:12 PM

I kinda doubt that it's in the public domain in the U.S. It used to be that songs went into the public domain 70 years after publication, so we got a new batch of songs every year - until we hit the songs published in 1923. That's when the Sony Bono Copyright Extension Act of 1998 went into effect. I forgot how long that act extended copyrights, but I do recall that it meant that we wouldn't get any songs added to the public domain during my foreseeable lifetime.
Note that I added leeneia's MIDI above. Nice arrangement, leeneia.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Bye Bye Blackbird (Dixon/Henderson)
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 02 Aug 13 - 08:20 PM

Thanks. I hope the people who posted here are encouraged to learn the little-known parts of the song.

I had a thought. The blackbird is in the first verse, the bluebird is in the second. The first one is a European bird, the second an American favorite. Is the song about a man who went to Gay Paree and had a bad time? Now he wants to come home.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Bye Bye Blackbird (Dixon/Henderson)
From: GUEST,tom
Date: 06 Mar 16 - 01:02 PM

USA Copyright ends 70 years after the date of composer's death.
Many artists Thought this was a Public Domain song. Cost them a lot.
so always research any song written after 1922.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Bye Bye Blackbird (Dixon/Henderson)
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 06 Mar 16 - 07:39 PM

Of course, this is also the theme of a "Rugby song" (Hash Harriers, etc.,)
Starting (As I don't want to quote it all)

Once a boy was no good,
Took a girl into a wood,
Bye, Bye, Blackbird.
Laid her down upon the grass,
Pinched her tits and slapped her ass,
Blackbird Bye, Bye,.
Took her where nobody else could find her,
To a place where he could really grind her,
Bye, Bye, Blackbird.

This is not quite as I remember it, but found at Rugby Songs

Cheers
Nigel