'The Camels are Coming;'Tune info please

Subject: 'The Camels are Coming;'Tune info please
From: Anglogeezer
Date: 19 Sep 25 - 01:19 PM

Has anyone any information for the origin/source of the tune "The Camels Are Coming"?
A web search reveals very little apart from the following :-

1). "The Camels Are Coming", published in 1932, was an anthology of military aviation stories written by W. E. Johns.
2). "The Camels Are Coming" was also a comedy/adventure film, (entirely unrelated to the W.E. Johns book), released in 1934.
3). In the 1850s & 60s the U.S. Army experimented with camels as pack animals in Texas, when they arrived at San Antonio the locals rushed about calling "The Camels Are Coming!"
Camels were also trialled in British Columbia in 1863/63 on the gold fields.
4). "The Camels Are Coming" was an advertising slogan for "Camel" cigarettes in the early twentieth century.

Below is the ABC for the tune that I have ...

Jake

********************
X:1
T:The Camels Are Coming
M:6/8
L:1/8
K:G
|: "G"G2GB2d | "C"edc"G"d3 | "G"g3"C"ceg | "G"d2B"D"A3 |!
"G"GAB "D"ABc | "G"d2B"C"e3 |"G"dcB"D7"A2B | [1"G"G3"D"A3 :| [2"G"G3"D"F3 |]!
[|"Em"E2BE2B | "Em"E2BE2B | "Am"c2c cde | "Em"(B3B3) |!
"Em"E2BE2B | "Em"E2BE2B | "A7"A2A AB^c | "D"(d3d3) | "Em"E2BE2B | "Em"E2BE2B |!
"Am"c2c cde | "Em"(B3B3) | "Am"c2c cde | "G"d2d dcB | "Em"BcB"B7"A2F | [1"Em"E3"D7"D3 |] "Last Time" "Em"E6 |]!

Subject: RE: 'The Camels are Coming;'Tune info please
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 19 Sep 25 - 01:34 PM

Surely the tune is "The Campbells Are Coming."

Subject: RE: 'The Camels are Coming;'Tune info please
From: Helen
Date: 19 Sep 25 - 02:02 PM

That was my first thought, too.

Subject: RE: 'The Camels are Coming;'Tune info please
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 19 Sep 25 - 02:28 PM

We might add that "The Campbells Are Coming," like the tune given here, is in 6/8 time. Converting that ABC to staff notation to compare with "The Campbells Are Coming" is beyond what I can do in my head, but it's the same meter.

Subject: RE: 'The Camels are Coming;'Tune info please
From: Lighter
Date: 19 Sep 25 - 02:28 PM

Some have indeed called it "The Camels are Coming"...but this tune ain't it.

Subject: RE: 'The Camels are Coming;'Tune info please
From: Helen
Date: 19 Sep 25 - 02:46 PM

I found this site:

Michael Eskin's ABC music converter

It converts the ABC to tune notation and it can be played as a MIDI file. When I looked at the notation and listened to the audio it did not look or sound like the old Scottish song "The Campbells Are Coming".

Also when I searched for "The Camels Are Coming" there seemed to be a few songs with that name. This Australian Folk Music site shows some music notation and information but the tune notation is different to the notation shown on the ABC Converter site.

Anglogeezer, it would help if you could give us the information on the specific song you are searching for, including the lyrics or some of them, and who sang it, how you know about the song, etc. Any other information would be useful to narrow down the search. Thanks.

Subject: RE: 'The Camels are Coming;'Tune info please
From: Anglogeezer
Date: 19 Sep 25 - 03:46 PM

Helen asked .....
**************************
From: Helen - PM
Date: 19 Sep 25 - 02:46 PM
....it would help if you could give us the information on the specific song you are searching for, including the lyrics or some of them, and who sang it, how you know about the song, etc. Any other information would be useful to narrow down the search.
**********************************

It was brought to a session I was at some years ago in Beverley, East Yorks, along with the comment, "Here's a nice little tune" nothing more.
I know it only as a tune. No suggestion that any words are associated with it.
I have, in the past, done quite a bit of research into old tunes & their titles but this one has beaten me.
I was once looking for a tune from a manuscript with the title "Vulcan Scaife", which turned out to be "Vulcan's Cave" (aka. King of the Cannibal Islands), mis-hearing must have been a common occurrence in the oral tradition!

The australian tune seems to be a simple mis-hearing of "Camel" for "Campbell".

Jake

Subject: RE: 'The Camels are Coming;'Tune info please
From: Helen
Date: 19 Sep 25 - 04:20 PM

When I did a search for "The Camels Are Coming" there were a few videos including this one with lyrics:

"The Camels Are Coming" with a distinctive C&W sound.

There also appears to be a religious song with the same name.

I think the big clue that it is not a simple mis-hearing of Camel for Campbell is that W E Johns wrote a book in the Biggles series with the title "The Camels Are Coming" and it was later made into a movie in 1934. As I recall from my dim distant memory the Biggles series was comedy and parody.

Subject: RE: 'The Camels are Coming;'Tune info please
From: GUEST,gillymor
Date: 19 Sep 25 - 04:53 PM

That is a fun and goofy little jig. Thanks for posting it.

Subject: RE: 'The Camels are Coming;'Tune info please
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Sep 25 - 06:52 PM

I said in my original post, the 1934 film was unrelated to the Biggles books.

Subject: RE: 'The Camels are Coming;'Tune info please
From: Helen
Date: 19 Sep 25 - 08:00 PM

Oops, my bad! :-)

I thought I saw a comment on one of the sites I looked at which linked the book and movie but it is an interesting coincidence, if nothing else, that both the book and the movie are about air pilots.

W E Johns - fiction

The Camels Are Coming (film)

Subject: RE: 'The Camels are Coming;'Tune info please
From: Robert B. Waltz
Date: 19 Sep 25 - 08:08 PM

Helen wrote: t is an interesting coincidence, if nothing else, that both the book and the movie are about air pilots.

I haven't seen the film, but the Sopwith Camel was the main British fighter plane at the end of World War I. It was also their best fighter. If the British were making a film to glorify their WWI air force, the Camel would be prominent.

Subject: RE: 'The Camels are Coming;'Tune info please
From: GUEST,Banjoflower
Date: 20 Sep 25 - 05:01 AM

It's a 32bar jig played as a set with Lizzie Lichine by the
Coventry ceilidh band Peeping tom
Its on their cd "A sight for sore eyes "

Banjoflower

Subject: RE: 'The Camels are Coming;'Tune info please
From: Lighter
Date: 20 Sep 25 - 08:02 AM

This sounds to me like a folkie tune composed by one who just thought the fun was punny.

FWIW, there was a Porky Pig cartoon from long, long, long ago, in which a camel actually sang a couple of bars of "the camels are coming" to the tune of...well, you know.

Subject: RE: 'The Camels are Coming;'Tune info please
From: Anglogeezer
Date: 20 Sep 25 - 04:31 PM

Banjoflower said ...
************************************************
Subject: RE: 'The Camels are Coming;'Tune info please
From: GUEST,Banjoflower - PM
Date: 20 Sep 25 - 05:01 AM

It's a 32bar jig played as a set with Lizzie Lichine by the
Coventry ceilidh band Peeping tom
Its on their cd "A sight for sore eyes "
******************************************
Thanks for that information, it has set me off on the right track at last.
Both tunes are in "The Peeping Tom Tunebook, by Ben Woodward & Ian Wilson"
Mallys has a copy so I'll send for that.

Thanks
Jake

Subject: RE: 'The Camels are Coming;'Tune info please
From: GUEST,Banjoflower
Date: 20 Sep 25 - 04:40 PM

You're welcome

Gerry

Subject: RE: 'The Camels are Coming;'Tune info please
From: Helen
Date: 20 Sep 25 - 06:45 PM

Porky In Egypt scene (Camel hallucinating)

The song starts at about 1 minute.