The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #124031 Message #2736710
Posted By: GUEST,AndyJames
02-Oct-09 - 12:15 PM
Thread Name: Origins: In the Valley Watching Cattle
Subject: Origins: In the Valley Watching Cattle
So a choir teacher teaches me this song which he says is "in the folk tradition" and now I'm teaching it to children. But Google doesn't tell me anything about it. What kind of folk song doesn't have Google on its back?
Anyway, here are the lyrics:
In the valley watching cattle
There I heard the sounds of battle
And I found a four-leaf clover
Hiding in the yellow grass
And I found a four-leaf clover
Hiding in the yellow grass
Tell me, tell me, four-leaf clover
If the war will soon be over
Then I'll run to meet my father
Riding over the mountain pass
Then I'll run to meet my father
Riding over the mountain pass
Pigeon, pigeon by the fountain
Fly across the snowy mountain
Take this ribbon to my father
Tell him that it comes from me
Take this ribbon to my father
Tell him that it comes from me
Father, father, brave and clever
Drive the foe across the river
Turn around and come back quickly
Then so happy we shall be
Turn about and come back quickly
Then so happy we shall be
The only reference I found is this pdf of a handwritten score.
Help! Am I teaching schoolchildren a Maoist ballad?