Origins: Black Socks (round)

Subject: Origins: Black Socks (round)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 30 Oct 17 - 10:29 PM

We never seem to have much luck tracing the origins of camp songs and scout songs and rounds. We have this song in the Digital Tradition, but no information about its origins.

Here are the DT lyrics:

BLACK SOCKS

(GEDC)

Black socks, they never get dirty.
The longer you wear them, the stronger they get.
Some times I think of the laundry,
But something inside me says: "Don't send them yet."

-----------------------------------------------------------------

From the singing of Judy Cook
@kids @clothes
filename[ BLAKSOCK
TUNE FILE: BLAKSOCK
CLICK TO PLAY
TUNE FILE: BLAKSOC2
CLICK TO PLAY
DC



This song is not in Sol Weber's Rounds Galore or in The Penguin Book of Rounds. I did find it in The Great Rouunds Songbook by Esther L. Nelson (1985, Sterling Publishing - page 47).

But can anyone tell us where this round comes from?
-Joe-

Subject: RE: Origins: Black Socks (round)
From: GUEST,Stevebury
Date: 31 Oct 17 - 03:07 PM

?Black Socks? was a favorite in the circles I was singing in around Philadelphia by the early 1970?s. So I learned it by ear, not from a page. I did look through a few dozen rounds books in my library, and there are a couple of other published sources.

* ?Black Socks? is included in ?Rise Up Singing? (published 1988; p 188); the revised larger print edition (2004?) lists it as ?public domain?.

* As Joe notes, it is in Nelson?s ?The Great Rounds Songbook? but Nelson doesn?t credit anyone for anything, so that?s not much help. Her tune is essentially the same as in ?Rise Up Singing?.

* ?Black Socks? isn?t in ?Rounds Galore?, but it is included in Sol Weber?s ?Unofficial Set of Additional Rounds? (rev, 1997; p 7). Sol tended to include sources or composers when he knew them, so we can pretty much assume he didn?t know who wrote it.

The tune I learned is rather different from Judy Cook's in DT. The tune in ?Rise Up Singing? is closest to what I learned. The DT version does not note when the successive parts come in: it?s a fairly close canon, with successive voices entering on each measure. (Up to four parts, before it gets too muddy.)

I will be interested to know whether anyone else can help track down a composer, or an earlier version!

-- Stevebury

Subject: RE: Origins: Black Socks (round)
From: RTim
Date: 31 Oct 17 - 04:03 PM

The longer you wear them the BLACKER they get...........

Tim Radford

Subject: RE: Origins: Black Socks (round)
From: Ged Fox
Date: 31 Oct 17 - 04:49 PM

It is a parody of "White Wings"
"White wings, they never grow weary, they carry me cheerily over the sea, etc." Banks Winter, 1912

Subject: ADD: White Wings
From: Joe Offer
Date: 01 Nov 17 - 01:26 AM

I guess "Black Socks" IS a parody of "White Wings."

White Wings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Y0wPwKbAIA

WHITE WINGS

White Wings, they never grow weary.
They carry me cheerfully,
Over the sea.
Night falls, I long for thee dearly.
I spread out my White Wings,
And fly home to thee.

http://www.contemplator.com/america/wwings.html has a longer version.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Origins: Black Socks (round)
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Feb 21 - 04:16 PM

My husband remembers his godfather, the sail maker Colin Ratsey singing it. He would have been a teenager during the first World War. My husband somehow understood that his godfather had learned it in his youth.

Subject: RE: Origins: Black Socks (round)
From: Felipa
Date: 22 Feb 21 - 06:21 PM

for what it's worth, I learned very slightly different words

Black socks, the longer you wear them the blacker they get
Sometimes I think I should wash them
But then a voice says to me, don't do it yet
not yet, not yet, not yet.

not to the tune of white sail, though there is some similarity
this tune https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AOeL-QgDco

Subject: RE: Origins: Black Socks (round)
From: clueless don
Date: 24 Feb 21 - 06:33 AM

One more version - I heard this from a Girl Scout Troop back in my daughter's Scouting days:

Black socks
they never get dirty
the longer you wear them
the blacker they get.

Some - times
I think I should wash them
But something inside me keeps saying
not yet
not yet
not yet
not yet.