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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: English Country Garden From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 04 Dec 07 - 03:12 PM The following from the Philharmonic Winds site, about Percy Grainger, includes a portion of a letter from Percy Grainger to Cecil Sharp concerning royalty from the song. "Country Gardens is one of the English Folk tunes that was collected and notated by British Folk tune revivalist, Cecil Sharp. It was collected from some rural part of England. The rough sketch by Grainger was scored for ...whistlers and a few instruments about 1908. Worked out for piano, spring, 1918. This was a birthday gift for his mother, Rose in July 3, 1918. "The name of Percy Grainger and Country Gardens, based on the folk song The Vicar of Bray, seem to be inseparable. At the ending of a concert in 1918 he played his arrangement on this tune, given by Cecil Sharpe. The audience was very pleased with it, and Grainger decided to have it published. Country Gardens broke all selling records; in the U. S. only more than 40,000 copies a year were sold. Until his death in 1961, Country Gardens generated a great deal of Grainger's income. In his letter to Sharp he wrote: "At the risk of seeming impertinent, I take the liberty of again making a suggestion with regard to the royalty of Country Gardens. It has proven even more of a success than I had expected, and you will see from the enclosed photocopy that it has broken Schirmer's sales records. I hope you will forgive me if I ask you once again if you will consider sharing the royalty with me. I feel that it is quite undeserved that I should enjoy the whole of it myself." Percy Aldridge Grainger "Country Gardens inevitably overshadowed his other works, which caused the composer much astonishment and disquiet. Grainger remarked: "The typical English country garden is not often used to grow flowers in, it is more likely to be a vegetable plot. So you can think of turnips as I play it." He rather ([he] received the same level of enthusiasm for his Hill Songs, Lincolnshire Posy of the Warriors. But whatever it is, it is difficult to deny that this work had hidden the merits and the wider acceptance of other works of his." Country Gardens The sheet music was published by Schirmer, and also by Schott, London, 1919. Schott title: "Country Gardens": English Morris dance tune, collected by Cecil J. Sharp and set for piano by Percy Aldridge Grainger. British Folk music settings, no. 22. A copy is in the National Library of Australia, Music collection. On the sheet music is the note, "Birthday gift, mother, July 3, 1918." http://nia.gov.au/nia.mus-an6245130 |
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Subject: Lyr Add: AN ENGLISH COUNTRY GARDEN (Nana Mouskouri From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 04 Dec 07 - 08:57 PM AN ENGLISH COUNTRY GARDEN (Sharpe/Jordan) As recorded by Nana Mouskouri on "Songs of the British Isles" (1976) How many gentle flowers grow In an English country garden? I'll tell you now of some I know And those I'll miss I hope you'll pardon. Daffodils, heartsease and phlox Meadowsweet and lily stocks Gentian, lupin and tall hollyhocks Roses, foxgloves, snowdrops, forget-me-nots In an English country garden. How many insects find their home In an English country garden? I'll tell you now of some I know And those I miss I hope you'll pardon Dragonflies, moths and bees Spiders falling from the trees Butterflies sway in the mild gentle breeze There are hedgehogs that roam And little gnomes In an English country garden. How many songbirds make their nests In an English country garden? I'll tell you now of some I know And those I miss I hope you'll pardon. Bobolink, coo cooing doves Robins and the whirlwind(?) thrush Bluebird, lark, pigeon, nightingale We all smile in the spring When the birds all start to sing In an English country garden. The bobolink is an accidental visitor to England; only about 25 sightings of this bird which breeds in North America and winters in South America. Other versions of the song include quail, cardinal, etc., which are American birds. The J. Rogers version may have been responsible for these birds appearing in the song. The Mouskouri lyrics otherwise list English birds. Transcribers of this song seem not to know some of the commonly grown flowers, and mis-spellings such as flox or flocks, instead of phlox, are common on the internet. Ladies smocks, mentioned in some versions, are also known as cuckoo flowers or bitter cress (Cardamine). Few folksong singers seem to have added the song to their repertoire, probably because of its association with Grainger and the more classical type of program. Does anyone have the lyrics as collected by Sharp? |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: English Country Garden From: Rowan Date: 04 Dec 07 - 10:17 PM In Oz, most people who recognise the tune or words to the song maintain, vehemently, that "it was written by Percy Grainger" and often refuse to acknowledge the origin of the arrangement was a Morris tune. Grainger was an interesting character, who was almost the first to use wax cylinder recordings when collecting songs and tunes in the field; he used them to demonstrate the inability of Sol fa techniques to deal adequately with the grace notes, microtones and rhythm shifts that he routinely encountered among sources who were regarded, by academics, as incapable of such things because they hadn't received formal music education. He invented a music generator that was a precursor to electronic music synthesisers, clothing made of terry towelling and numerous other oddities; he even composed orchestral arrangements that included concertinas. All this is celebrated in the Percy Grainger Museum at Melbourne University, which has a vast collection of info about him. He also had an odd and intense relationship with his mother, Rose, and was known to practise self flagellation, which accounts for one parody, common in Oz, that starts Whip me, beat me, tie me to a tree in an English Country Garden But I forget how the rest of it goes; I prefer playing the Morris tune as collected from Kimber by Sharp, and as played for me on my (then new) Crabb by the Rev. Barraclough in the anteroom to the Cecil # House library. Cheers, Rowan |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: English Country Garden From: Q (Frank Staplin) Date: 04 Dec 07 - 11:04 PM When I was a child, I heard Grainger play it in a concert he gave in my home town. This was in the 1930s. Community Concerts or something like that- a subscription series for small town folk outside of the big cities. Grainger did call it a morris dance, tune as noted in an earlier post of mine; I would like to see the version collected by Sharp, which I haven't been able to find. |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: English Country Garden From: Snuffy Date: 05 Dec 07 - 09:11 AM "Country Gardens" is the Morris dance. The Morris Ring Archive has this extract from a letter of Kimber to Sharp: Of course they did not know the tune (Country Gardens). I says, wonder where they got that tune from. One man said it was the "Vicar of Bray" , but as I told him there was a lot of difference in Country Gardens and Vicar of Bray, as much as chalk and cheese are.It is probable that the ECG words were retro-fitted in the 20th century |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: English Country Garden From: Big Al Whittle Date: 05 Dec 07 - 11:22 AM That bit of Ken Russell's film Delius where Grainger comes to visit him, is a thing of great beauty. |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: English Country Garden From: GUEST,GREGS GREATS 78s Date: 19 Oct 08 - 07:36 PM William Kimber (or "Merry" Kimber as my father knew him) was an english concertina player for the Headington Quarry Morris Men at the turn of the last century (The Headington Quarry Morris Men still dance every May Day on Magdalene Bridge in Oxford). There is an interview on tape with the BBC that was broadcast on the BBC Home Service in the early 1960's where he recounts how Cecil Sharp came to visit William Kimber to note down the Headington Morris dance tunes including Shepherds Hey and Country Gardens. Percy Grainger stole the tunes and claimed full writing credits for both which he can be heard playing on his 1929 Columbia 78 cat no D 1664 although all he actually did was re-arrange them for piano (which in my opinion he played badly). The "Words" and the word "English" was added at a much later date - This is a tradition morris dance tune going back probably 200 years or more. Much later William Kimber himself recorded the original tune on his concertina for HMV - although by that time he was playing it much much fater than he would have if he were actually playing for dancers!! Christine Kimber, his Grand Daughter, taught us Country Dancing when I was a child growing up in an Oxfordshire Village - ah happy days.... |
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Subject: Lyr Add: ENGLISH ROYAL FAMILY (parody) From: Jim McLean Date: 20 Oct 08 - 04:50 AM I wrote this in 1965/6 for an LP of Scottish Republican Songs recorded by Nigel Denver. How many more did we have in Sixty-four Of the English Royal family The Queen she had four, with expenses for a score Of the English Royal family Margaret is doing her best trying to keep up with the rest Did she have a little girl or boy Did Viscount Linley have a brother? Does it matter? It's another Of the English Royal family Marina - time to change Marina ... The Duke of Kent believed that his wife should conceive For the English Royal family So out in Hongkong they increased the merry throng Of the English Royal family But up in Scotland there's the rub, guess who joined the puddin' club Princess Alexandra So princes, dukes and peers as well help to increase and to swell The English Royal family Oysters - don't forget the oysters ... |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: English Country Garden From: GUEST Date: 17 Apr 14 - 10:41 AM What do you do if you haven't got a loo in an English Country Garden? You pull down your pants and you suffocate the ants in an English Country Garden. You pluck a leaf and wipe your underneath in an English Country Garden. You take a spade and you cover what you've made in an English Country Garden. Or roll it in a ball and throw it o'er the wall in an English Country Garden. And that's what you do if you haven't got a loo in an English Country Garden. |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: English Country Garden From: Tradsinger Date: 17 Apr 14 - 02:10 PM The Internet, which of course never lies, says that Robert M.Jordan wrote the lyrics in 1958. Does anyone know anything about Jordan? No words were collected with the Morris version. Were there any words with the C18 version? Tradsinger PS - love the parodies |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: English Country Garden From: Snuffy Date: 24 Apr 14 - 09:31 AM Songs from CJS Field Notes COUNTRY GARDENS Old woman if you please Will you come along with me Into my fine country gardens (Kimber Apr 28. 1907) |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: English Country Garden From: GUEST,Herb Helbig Date: 18 Jul 21 - 10:54 AM Does anyone know a version that starts In country gardens On moonlit nights .... |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: English Country Garden From: GUEST,Ray Date: 19 Jul 21 - 07:13 AM Robert M Jordan? Presumably American as you’re never likely to find a bluebird in an English country garden. They’re a species confined to the Americas ..... and, of course, the white cliffs of Dover! |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: English Country Garden From: leeneia Date: 19 Jul 21 - 09:42 PM Maybe you aren't lucky enough to have bluebirds, but surely you have blue birds. The blue tit comes to mind. This video gives the tune that I have always known as 'Country Gardens.' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiZzpRME_DY When I try to match the lyrics given here to it, they don't seem to fit well. Are there two tunes by this name? ==================== I remember a version from the 50's that started: I never knew I'd fall in love with you on a pleasing Sunday afternoon. That's all I can remember. I believe it was a duo, and the woman had the most irritating, bright and chipper voice. I never listened long, but now I think that with a different singer it might be a charming little song. |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: English Country Garden From: GUEST,Ray Date: 20 Jul 21 - 04:02 AM “Ther’ll be bluetits over, the white cliffs of Dover”! Pity bluetits are mainly yellow! |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: English Country Garden From: GUEST,Henry Piper (of Ottery ) Date: 20 Jul 21 - 05:03 AM Leeneia There are at least five or six variations and possibly more on the Morris tune "Country Gardens" Each village that sustained a Morris dancing side had its own version of the tune or even a different tune for the Dance of that name, which varied according to the dancing style of the side, and the memory of the musicians(s) who played for them,.....village sides often had to "borrow" musicians from each other, and were quite used to dancing to slightly different versions of their tunes. The version arranged by Percy Grainger was from the village of Headington Quarry as Collected by Cecil Sharp from the playing of William Kimber the sides musician at the time. It is not exactly as Kimber played it and his playing varied Subtly over later years including speeding up enormously almost to the point of being undanceable !! At the time of collection no words were associated with the Morris tune and all subsequent "Pop" versions seem to have originated with Jimmie Rogers in the "Sixties" . |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: English Country Garden From: clueless don Date: 20 Jul 21 - 06:35 AM I didn't notice if anyone had already pointed out that Allan Sherman (perhaps best known for his parody "Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah") did a parody of English Country Garden. He called it "Here's to the crabgrass". The first few lines (from memory) were Here's to the crabgrass Here's to the mortgage in fact, here's to suburb-i-a. Lay down your briefcase far from the rat race where nothing can disturb i-ya. Don |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: English Country Garden From: GUEST,Raggytash Date: 20 Jul 21 - 07:30 AM There was a spoof version of which I can recall but one line. How many crows can you pick from your nose in an English country garden |
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