The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #169   Message #3044310
Posted By: GUEST,Nancy Schimmel (Malvina's daughter)
01-Dec-10 - 02:12 PM
Thread Name: Origins: Turn Around (Reynolds/Greene/Belafonte)
Subject: Lyr Add: TURN AROUND (Original version)(Reynolds)
The song originally had a boy verse and a girl verse. Harry Belafonte changed it.

When Belafonte recorded the song, he sang "Little dirndls and petticoats" instead of "Little sunsuits and petticoats," saying that you don't wear petticoats with sunsuits. "I wasn't thinking of wearing," said Malvina. "I was thinking of ironing." Since dirndls aren't popular any more, people may want to revert to the original line. The entire original song went like this:

TURN AROUND
(Malvina Reynolds)

Where are you going, my little one, little one,
Where are you going, my sonny, my own?
Turn around and you're two, turn around and you're four,
Turn around and you're a young man going out of my door.

Where are you going, my little one, little one,
Little sunsuits and petticoats, where have you gone?
Turn around and you're tiny, turn around and you're grown,
Turn around and you're a young wife with babes of your own.

The chorus was added by Alan Greene for the Belafonte recording, and Malvina also sang and recorded it that way.