Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?

Subject: Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 20 Jul 09 - 07:00 AM

We're all, I expect, used to hearing the loud bonging & sometimes distorted & raucous, chimes of the ice cream vans announcing their presence in the neighbourhood.

I've heard 'em use a variety of themes, a recent one round here being 'Greensleeves'

Other common tunes are 'Papa Piccolino', & the 'famous' 'O Solo Mio' [Just one Cornetto!]

I was at Cleckheaton FF a few weeks back, & was heartened to hear 'The Trumpet Hornpipe' [Captain Pugwash] blaring out near the campsite, & wondered, is this a new way of introducing folk tunes to the masses?

What think you?

Subject: RE: Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 20 Jul 09 - 07:37 AM

Greensleeves has been used for many years and now I'm hearing ' You Are My Sunshine ' I've no idea which ice cream man it is.

Dave H

Subject: RE: Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?
From: DMcG
Date: 20 Jul 09 - 08:13 AM

I have visions of driving round playing various "Bronson" tunes on the chimes. Not stopping to sell any ice-cream, of course. I wonder what the rules are on that ...

Subject: RE: Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?
From: Susan of DT
Date: 20 Jul 09 - 08:13 AM

One of the companies around here (NJ, US) plays Turkey in the Straw.

Subject: RE: Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?
From: GUEST,Dani
Date: 20 Jul 09 - 08:15 AM

Would LOVE to know who picks the tunes and how!

In our neighborhood:

"Do you hears hang low,
do they wobble to and fro,
can you tie them in a knot,
can you tie them in a bow?"

... ad nauseum.

Dani

Subject: RE: Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?
From: Bernard
Date: 20 Jul 09 - 09:22 AM

In the old days when they were 'real' musical box movements amplified, they were stuck with the tune it came with. I have hilarious memories of one ice cream van (Eldorado, as I recall, in an old Ford Thames!), with a really weird sounding tune, totally unrecognisable.

I asked the vendor about it at the time (I'd be around 14, now 61!), and he said it was supposed to be Greensleeves, but the pin barrel must have been in the wrong way!

Nowadays they are mostly electronic, and come with a variety of tunes. I don't know how easy it is to change the selection, or if they are fixed in some way on installation...

You can tell the electronic ones, because they always start at the beginning of the tune, whereas the mechanical ones would start where they left off!

Subject: RE: Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?
From: GUEST,Uly
Date: 20 Jul 09 - 10:46 AM

Mostly they do Turkey in the Straw, but there's one notable one that does the Tetris song.

Subject: RE: Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?
From: fat B****rd
Date: 20 Jul 09 - 12:34 PM

When I was a lad in late 50s Cleethorpes the Sunday afternoon Midland Counties ice cream van would be round playing (I think)"March Militaire". The tune still causes salivation.

Subject: RE: Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?
From: The Sandman
Date: 20 Jul 09 - 12:39 PM

bet they are not playing Lord Randall.

Subject: RE: Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?
From: SINSULL
Date: 20 Jul 09 - 12:49 PM

tHE eNTERTAINER AND tURKEY iN tHE sTRAW HERE IN mAINE.
dAMN cAPSLOCK!

Subject: RE: Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?
From: SINSULL
Date: 20 Jul 09 - 12:50 PM

You would have loved seeing Dennis flying up the street trying to silence Turkey In The Straw during Judy's concert. It stopped - I was amazed. No argument about civil rights or freedom of speech or anything.

Subject: RE: Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?
From: Valmai Goodyear
Date: 20 Jul 09 - 02:50 PM

What would be a suitable song? Davy Lowston? Lord Franklin?

Any tune ought to be modal: preferably in freezian mode, which is like phrygian mode, only chillier.

Valmai (Lewes)

Subject: RE: Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?
From: Darowyn
Date: 20 Jul 09 - 03:09 PM

My jazz trumpet playing friend was green with envy when I told him that our local ice cream man plays "The Peanut Vendor".
"That's what you get in a posh place like where you live," he said.
My guess is that the driver does not know the name of the tune he uses, unless ground nut oil is a bigger ingredient than i thought.
Cheers
Dave

Subject: RE: Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 20 Jul 09 - 03:23 PM

Last year we had one that played Popeye the Sailor Man (a folk melody that has inspired numerous Traditional Folk Verses of the bawdy variety). Haven't heard it this year though. Maybe I'll write a song about its passing.

Subject: RE: Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?
From: GUEST,petr
Date: 20 Jul 09 - 03:25 PM

ditto for the entertainer and turkey in the straw..
here in Vancouver. What bugs me though, its only the A part, never the B
come on can't you put in the whole tune?

at one of the citifest (free folk festivals) a few years ago a fiddler was on stage when the Ice Cream van went by playing Turkey in the Straw and the fiddler broke into a great rendition in response. Got a good laugh out of that.

Subject: RE: Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?
From: Bernard
Date: 20 Jul 09 - 04:27 PM

The length of the tune used to be limited by the circumference of the barrel in mechanical boxes, but there should be no such limitation with them thar new fangled lecktrickery doodads!

Round here there was one that played a snatch from Swan Lake ballet at about five times the 'proper' speed. Only the short snatch that goes 'Ding... dingadingading - a-ding - a-ding - a-dingadingadong...!' Aaah... you had to be there!

Subject: RE: Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?
From: Tangledwood
Date: 20 Jul 09 - 06:18 PM

I've heard 'em use a variety of themes, a recent one round here being 'Greensleeves'

I recall icecream vans playing that about fifty years ago. I think they've been doing it for so long that it's sometimes considered to be a folk song nowdays.

Subject: RE: Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?
From: glueman
Date: 20 Jul 09 - 06:54 PM

I remember Popeye well. The frustrating part was the chime never went beyond the sixth note after the second repeat verse, inviting the mind to finish the refrain. I think it was an ascending minor which left an expectant musical chasm.

He sold Tonibell Miniballs among other ice cream, a plastic pyramid of raspberry ripple with a bubblegum at the base. My wife knows them by some other name.

Subject: RE: Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?
From: Padre
Date: 20 Jul 09 - 11:36 PM

Singout magazine had an article in about 1964 which used an ice cream chime tune as the basis for finger-picking instruction. The tune was called "Vanilla Varmint."

Subject: RE: Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 21 Jul 09 - 12:19 AM

Ethnomusicologist Dan Neely once did some research on ice cream truck music in NYC. See HERE

Subject: RE: Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 21 Jul 09 - 01:53 AM

Yeah, mostly they do "Turkey in the Straw," but in Dani's neighborhood, they do "Do Your Ears Hang Low?"

What's wrong with this picture?

Dani.....

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?
From: Splott Man
Date: 21 Jul 09 - 03:48 AM

Round yer they plays We'll Keep a Welcome In the Hillsides, well they would wouldn't they.

When I was a kid in Surrey, the Walls van had it's own 5-note riff, which I can still remember.

When I first went over the water, the tune there was Redwing.

Subject: RE: Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?
From: GUEST,buspass
Date: 21 Jul 09 - 04:38 AM

Anybody else remember the scene in 'Comfort & Joy' the Bill Forsyth film based on the Glasgow icecream wars where the heavies gather round a cassette recorder playing toy xylophones to make the chimes for the vans!
A friend of ours always tells his numorous kids that the icecream man only plays the chimes when he's got nothing left to sell! [He is from Yorkshire!]

Subject: RE: Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?
From: rich-joy
Date: 21 Jul 09 - 05:45 AM

The new "Mr Whippy" ice cream vans of the 60s, in Australia, played "Greensleeves", which led to a popular folk trio of the time : "The Twilighters" : writing a clever parody called "Creamsleeves" ... have the words somewhere if anyone's interested!

Cheers, R-J

Subject: RE: Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?
From: GUEST,Jonny Sunshine
Date: 21 Jul 09 - 11:34 AM

Round here we get two vans, one playing Oranges and Lemons, the other plays Girls and Boys Come Out to Play. As a result, my kids have learned the words (including variations to both) and get very excited and sing along when they hear a "music van". Sooner or later they're going to work out they also sell icecream. ;-)

Subject: RE: Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?
From: Dave Roberts
Date: 21 Jul 09 - 11:38 AM

Wasn't there another thread on this a while back? I seem to recall mentioning that Middlewich ice cream vans currently play the 'Wheels' cha-cha, as popularised by Tony Holland the musical muscle man on 'Opportunity Knocks'

Subject: RE: Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?
From: Gibb Sahib
Date: 21 Jul 09 - 12:12 PM

BTW, here nowadays (Hartford County, Connecticut) the trucks play "Camptown Races".... which of course I hear as "Sacramento" -- HOO-DAH!

Subject: RE: Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?
From: Barbara
Date: 21 Jul 09 - 01:28 PM

Dani, I think what Joe is trying to say is that "Do your ears hang low" and "Turkey in the Straw" are practically the same tune, only with a few more passing notes in "Turkey".
Perhaps, Joe, in Dani's neighborhood the resident ice cream truck is missing a bell or two?
Blessings,
Barbara

Subject: RE: Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 21 Jul 09 - 04:27 PM

Barbara,
Not necessarily.
'Do your balls hang low' to give it its earlier title goes to the Sailors' (College) Hornpipe (Blue Peter TV theme) in my neck of the woods, Yorkshire.
Do yer balls 'ang low, can you swing em to and fro?
Can yer tie em in a knot can you tie 'em in a bow?
Do yer get a funny feelin' when yer bang 'em on the ceilin,
Do yer get a funny feelin' when yer balls 'ang low?

Subject: RE: Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?
From: Bugsy
Date: 22 Jul 09 - 12:56 AM

I remember in Stevenage UK in the late 50's Tonibell (who were originally Toni's round our way) used to have their own tune (it even had words.

Tonibell Tonibell Tonibell time
Tonibell Tonibell Tonibell time
Friendly guy, come and buy when the bells chime
He comes your way at, everyday at, Tonibell time.

And Walls Icecream also had their own chime which was just 5 notes
A,D,F#.A.D (The last D being a high D)

Don't remember Lyons or Neilson's though

Subject: RE: Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?
From: Splott Man
Date: 22 Jul 09 - 03:48 AM

There was a new chime on our block last night - the Harry Lime Theme

Subject: RE: Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?
From: Bugsy
Date: 22 Jul 09 - 04:02 AM

Can anyone remember the Eldorado Ice cream van chime?

Cheers

Bugsy

Subject: RE: Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?
From: rich-joy
Date: 22 Jul 09 - 04:31 AM

re my post at 5.45AM on the 21st -
I should've known better than to offer lyrics without first checking the DigiTrad! - coz the words to "Creamsleeves" are already in older threads, along with much discussion.
:~)

Cheers!
R-J

Subject: RE: Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?
From: Mr Red
Date: 22 Jul 09 - 05:17 AM

At the volumes I hear - introduction is a little understating the case.

But it does come from a long tradition of calling their wares. In the days of street cries ice cream sellers used to shout "Poco um Gecca" which morphed into Hokey Pokey. Well that was what I read but it may have been a fairly localised call & probably London.

round here "Greensleeves is my delight" (not).

Subject: RE: Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 22 Jul 09 - 06:36 AM

If Harry Christophers doesn't know who wrote "Greensleeves" (he's sure it wasn't Henry the Eighth, though), then we can be quite sure it's an E. trad./English traditional folk song: as used by John Gay in the folk-opera The Beggar's Opera; a record number, apparently, of ice-cream vans; and, I've just learnt, in parody by an Aussie folk-group.

Subject: RE: Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?
From: Mr Red
Date: 22 Jul 09 - 07:44 AM

The Song Greensleeves has been documented to about 50 years after Henry VIII's death. The inference is that he might have written it but the evidence is not there. He was an accomplished musician. There is a record of a Morris tune called Greensleeves (from the time of his encumbancy) but I am not sure if we know how the tune went.
Here endeth the gospel according to Paul Burgess (who is erudite on these matters).

I have no doubt the street sellers of old were regarded with less than universal cuteness. Plus ca Change.

Subject: RE: Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 22 Jul 09 - 11:38 AM

I used to hear Beethoven's 'Fur Elise' from the ice cream truck, but no more. Now it's 'Turkey in the Straw.'

A couple years ago, I was visiting my sister in Denver, CO. We decided to get festive and buy a treat in the park. $2.75! Not worth it.

Could the music about a turkey be a sly reference to the asuteness of those who buy their stuff? Just wondering. (For those not familiar with it, in the U.S., 'turkey' is slang for stupid person. Not just stupid actually, but stupid and self-destructive.)

Subject: RE: Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?
From: open mike
Date: 22 Jul 09 - 11:54 AM

yes i recall Beethoven's 'Fur Elise' and another symphonic tune...
i have heard an alarm clock that also uses that tune...something in a minor i think...can't recall the name..(etude?)

Subject: RE: Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 22 Jul 09 - 04:55 PM

Bugsy,
I think Nielsen's was 'Big Ben chimes ten.' The song went:-
                      'Niel-sen's Ice-cream, Niel-sen's Ice-cream.'
which is also used by Pompey (Portsmouth) fans on the terraces.

Subject: RE: Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?
From: Bugsy
Date: 22 Jul 09 - 10:02 PM

"I think Nielsen's was 'Big Ben chimes ten.'"
You May well be right Steve. I also seem to remember a company that played "Forgotten Dreams"

Cheers

Bugsy

Subject: RE: Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?
From: GUEST,Jack Campin (in Transylvania)
Date: 23 Jul 09 - 09:04 AM

I hadn't heard of a Nielsen's ice cream - the Nielsen connection that comes to my mind is a two-note figure that some ATMs play - it's the same as the repeated two notes at the start of Carl Nielsen's Fifth Symphony.

Subject: RE: Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?
From: Ian Fyvie
Date: 23 Jul 09 - 11:05 PM

A sad thought that, with folk music effectively banned in English schools, ice cream van chimes are the only Folk youngsters are likely to hear.

Ian Fyvie

Subject: RE: Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?
From: davyr
Date: 24 Jul 09 - 06:50 AM

I've heard of a made-up Morris dance called "Mr Softee", danced to the tune played by vans selling that brand of ice cream in the States.

Subject: RE: Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?
From: Splott Man
Date: 25 Jul 09 - 06:57 PM

Tonight we were treated to the theme from Match of the Day (BBC Sport)

I can't work out if it's one ice cream van with several tunes or different ice cream vans.

Subject: RE: Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?
From: GUEST,Bizibod
Date: 25 Jul 09 - 07:13 PM

Our ice cream van used to play "O Sole Mio" .
It amused my kids to hear these words sung in a very operatic Italian style. Amuses me still.


"I'ma Pavarotti, the ice-a cream man,
I'm stuck for ever eensida thees van,
I can't squeeze out through the door,
And so I'll stay here , for e-e-ver mo-o-o-o-ore !"

Not sung that for years, *>D
                         *

Subject: RE: Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?
From: Jane Bird
Date: 27 Jul 09 - 04:33 PM

Our local ice cream van changes its tune from time to time. Tonight it was The Liberty Bell, played slightly too fast, so that it sounds a bit unhinged!

Subject: RE: Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 27 Jul 09 - 05:08 PM

Tonight we had O Sole Mio, aka Just-a One Cornetto. I wonder what happened to Popeye?

Subject: RE: Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?
From: Mr Happy
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 07:30 AM

ttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FbRMmJMJDI

Subject: RE: Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?
From: Dave Illingworth
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 07:43 AM

"buspass",

The lovely thing about that scene in the film "Comfort and Joy",
was they had to record the tune over and over again for each ice-cream van. as they had no facilities to record multiple cassettes.
I've been there (not in the ice-cream trade). We must be thankful I suppose for some technological advances......

Has anyone come across a mobile fish-and-chip van with a jingle ?

Then there is the old joke about parents telling their children that the ice-cream-van music was a way of saying "Sorry - no ice-creams left"........

Subject: RE: Ice Cream Chimes: Folk?
From: Will Fly
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 07:51 AM

I note that the OP for this thread is "Mr. Happy". I don't suppose you're a first cousin to Mr. Whippy and Mr. Softee, are you?

I detect a subtle secret salivation campaign here... do you have shares in Ben & Jerry or Hagen-Daasz?

:-)