Songs that surprisingly _are_ trad

Subject: RE: Songs that surprisingly _are_ trad
From: Severn
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 06:17 PM

Elvis was great for a while at recycling traditional tunes. Besides the Aura-Lee transmitted song previously mentioned, "Plaisir d'Amour" was morphed into I Can't Help Falling In Love With You" and "O Sole Mio" into "It's Now Or Never", and there were probably more. Of course He hired some Hollywood hacks to do this for him, so we still can't venerate Him for His "stealing" the way we do with, say, Woody, A.P. Carter and W.C. Handy. But then they're FATHERS and Elvis was a KING, and Kings can afford that kind of thing, and we Americans haven't had a royal family since.....But I digress.

Anyway, research shows that Aura and her sister Voca harmonized very well, but sister Ana was the wild one of the Lee family. Quite a colorful family tree.


Severn

Subject: RE: Songs that surprisingly _are_ trad
From: Linda Mattson
Date: 07 Apr 05 - 02:43 AM

A while back paddymac said: "Aura Lee is an old Irish tune that predates the US Civil War by a long time. "

I'd love to find that on a recording or sheet music. Found nothing on google older than US civil war.

Do you know of a source?
-Linda

Subject: RE: Songs that surprisingly _are_ trad
From: CapriUni
Date: 01 Apr 05 - 08:09 PM

Thanks, DaveO!

This works for other forms of expression, too, from painting, to dance, to literature... you name it.

Wasn't it Pete Seeger (or his father?) that said "Plagiarism is the root of all culture."?

Subject: RE: Songs that surprisingly _are_ trad
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 01 Apr 05 - 06:04 PM

CapriUni:

That's a wonderful answer! Both as humor and as fact.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Songs that surprisingly _are_ trad
From: CapriUni
Date: 01 Apr 05 - 04:32 PM

Being a music (and gardening) illiterate I'd like to know: How do you compost a tune? :-)

Step one: Learn a tune by heart.

Step two: Bury it deep in the back of your mind.

Step three: Let your conscious mind forget it, while your subconscious breaks it down into simpler componants, and mixes it with bits of all the other tunes you have learned by heart and buried.

When you need a new tune, get into a slightly meditative state, reach down int the back of your mind, and see what you pull up. I assure you, you'll find a rich organic, mix of all the tunes you've composted!

Subject: RE: Songs that surprisingly _are_ trad
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 01 Apr 05 - 04:13 PM

Being a music (and gardening) illiterate I'd like to know: How do you compost a tune? :-)

Subject: RE: Songs that surprisingly _are_ trad
From: mandoleer
Date: 31 Mar 05 - 07:38 PM

When you look at the marriages to foreign princesses that took place, no European country has had a native royal family for a hell of a long time. So what? When you look at what gets elected in most places, accident of birth looks more appealing than political desire (and in some cases, a full wallet).

Subject: RE: Songs that surprisingly _are_ trad
From: English Jon
Date: 31 Mar 05 - 05:53 PM

The English haven't had a royal family since 1066.

J

Subject: RE: Songs that surprisingly _are_ trad
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 31 Mar 05 - 06:29 AM

RVW composted the tune that is now associated with Linden Lea. The poem was around for a long time before him, so it may well have picked up another tune. I'd be interested in the dots to it as I'm crap at working out tunes from names!

LTS

Subject: RE: Songs that surprisingly _are_ trad
From: pavane
Date: 31 Mar 05 - 06:10 AM

If I remember right, Kidson presented 4 different tunes for Scarborough Fair, none of them the one that S&G or Carthy used. The Dransfields also used a different one.

Subject: RE: Songs that surprisingly _are_ trad
From: mandoleer
Date: 31 Mar 05 - 05:41 AM

When I was part of a wandering duo, we always used the Whittingham Fair version, just to be awkward. Is that a different Linden Lea to the one with Vaughan Williams's music? 'Cos RVW wasn't composing in 1859...

Subject: RE: Songs that surprisingly _are_ trad
From: GUEST,Fullerton
Date: 31 Mar 05 - 02:46 AM

One guitar tutor book (Progressive guitar book 1) claims that Aura Lee is Swiss!

Subject: RE: Songs that surprisingly _are_ trad
From: GUEST,Don Firth (crawled in through the cat flap)
Date: 30 Mar 05 - 12:57 PM

Yeah, Bill, I had the same go-round about Scarborough Fair (The Elfin Knight, Child #2) shortly after Simon and Garfunkle recorded it. I'd been singing a slightly different version for about five years, and a guy told me I wasn't singing it right. I even showed it to him in a book of ballads, and because the words were slightly different, he insisted that it wasn't the same song. Dope slap!!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Songs that surprisingly _are_ trad
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 30 Mar 05 - 11:48 AM

Heard a group last summer do 'the ship that never returned' - and the guy next to me growsed "What a rip-off of 'Charlie on the MTA'!"

Subject: RE: Songs that surprisingly _are_ trad
From: GUEST,Bill D
Date: 30 Mar 05 - 11:44 AM

The song that I have had to PROVE was old to some people is "Scarbourough Fair". I know that most of YOU are not fooled, *grin*, but having been recorded so many times, and having been quite popular by a couple of famous groups, many believe it was composed by one of them.

Subject: RE: Songs that surprisingly _are_ trad
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 30 Mar 05 - 02:04 AM

But a publication date is a good indicator to possible age.... if it was published in 1880, then it's a fair bet it's a pretty old tune!

LTS

Subject: RE: Songs that surprisingly _are_ trad
From: paddymac
Date: 29 Mar 05 - 10:23 PM

"Aura Lee" is an old Irish tune that predates the US Civil War by a long time. Seems like we have had a number of conversations about it here. Must always be careful about accepting publication dates as some sort of "birth date."

Subject: RE: Songs that surprisingly _are_ trad
From: Naemanson
Date: 29 Mar 05 - 08:28 PM

I'm going to change my name to TRAD and reap millions in royalties!

Subject: RE: Songs that surprisingly _are_ trad
From: GUEST,Dave'sWife at work
Date: 29 Mar 05 - 04:43 PM

I think a lot of folks assume that both the WORDS and tune to 'Love Me Tender'are trad becuase it was featured in a film Elvis starred in that was set during The Civil War. I could be wrong, but I believe the words are modern.

Subject: RE: Songs that surprisingly _are_ trad
From: GUEST,Liz the Squeak
Date: 29 Mar 05 - 03:03 AM

Elvis did a couple that were traditional... 'Wooden heart' was a popular German tune/song before 'G.I. Blues', and one of the ones from 'Blue Hawaii' was a traditional tune, but I can't for the life of me remember which one!

I sometimes sing 'Linden Lea' by William Barnes, to the delight of ladies of a certain age, who inform me that they learnt to sing it at school, and are surprised to find out it was probably only 90 - 100 years old when they learned it. It was written in 1859 - does that make it old enough for trad?

LTS

Subject: RE: Songs that surprisingly _are_ trad
From: Jim McLean
Date: 28 Mar 05 - 07:05 AM

PS Eric, The English Royal Family was recorded by Nigel Denver in 1966 on Major Minor 'Scottish Republican Songs'.

Subject: RE: Songs that surprisingly _are_ trad
From: Jim McLean
Date: 28 Mar 05 - 06:18 AM

I wrote it Eric, Dom was as old friend and sang it now and again. He had another song to this tune but not about the royal family. His song began 'How many of your best friends are Jews ..' 'If jackboots were marching which would you choose..'

Subject: RE: Songs that surprisingly _are_ trad
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 28 Mar 05 - 03:45 AM

Isn't that one of Dominic Behans songs Jim ? I remember him singing it at the Grass Roots Folk Club in Halifax in the late sixties or early seventies.

eric

Subject: RE: Songs that surprisingly _are_ trad
From: Jim McLean
Date: 27 Mar 05 - 04:08 PM

I wrote The English Royal Family to the tune English Country garden, maybe grim words but accurate.

Subject: RE: Songs that surprisingly _are_ trad
From: Leadfingers
Date: 27 Mar 05 - 12:58 PM

And dont forget that a lot of revival singers have deliberately written songs in the traditional idiom , some so well that a lot of people now sing these songs in the mistaken belief that they are Trad ! Dave Dodds is one such , as is Dave Webber and the late Keith Marsden .

Subject: RE: Songs that surprisingly _are_ trad
From: JohnB
Date: 27 Mar 05 - 12:11 PM

Six up fer T'Rose Tree :)
JohnB

Subject: RE: Songs that surprisingly _are_ trad
From: pavane
Date: 27 Mar 05 - 11:18 AM

An English Country Garden is some modern (rather grim and inaccurate) words set to a traditional Morris tune.

Subject: RE: Songs that surprisingly _are_ trad
From: Nerd
Date: 27 Mar 05 - 01:22 AM

Yes, Sloop John B is traditional, and has been collected from Bahamian fishermen and sailors.

My favorite song that surprisingly is trad is "Bo Diddley." He just took the common African-American children's song "Hambone" and replaced the name "Hambone" with "Bo Diddley."

Subject: RE: Songs that surprisingly _are_ trad
From: Linda Mattson
Date: 27 Mar 05 - 12:36 AM

From Mudcat threads it looks like the song Aura Lea (popular in US Civil War times) was written in 1861, but there is also mention of a British song "Nora Lee" so I wonder.

Perhaps the song's old but not Traditional (using the definition that Traditional songs are songs with no known author.) However, I didn't find anything written about the tune.

Subject: RE: Songs that surprisingly _are_ trad
From: Linda Mattson
Date: 27 Mar 05 - 12:19 AM

Boab, I think the tune for Elvis' Love Me Tender is the same as the song and the southern fiddle tune known as Aura Lee. But I don't know if either song or tune is traditional. I'll do some research, since I know the tune.

Subject: RE: Songs that surprisingly _are_ trad
From: Boab
Date: 27 Mar 05 - 12:02 AM

Something 'way back in memory tells me that I was informed that "Love Me Tender" was a "trad" too. [???]

Subject: Songs that surprisingly _are_ trad
From: Linda Mattson
Date: 26 Mar 05 - 11:51 PM

I was totally amazed to learn years ago that the Beach Boys' song "Sloop John B" was traditional.

-Linda (waiting to see if someone contradicts that)