Origins: English Country Garden

Subject: RE: English Country Garden Lyrics
From:
Date: 07 Jun 98 - 06:34 PM

I thought Jimmie Rodgers was dead. Are there two? Around the water tank, and that stuff?

I remember this tune as being the theme for many years of a radio gardening show aired in Easter Canada.

Subject: RE: English Country Garden Lyrics
From: jehill
Date: 06 Jun 98 - 01:06 PM

I found a copy of an LP today by Jimmie Rodgers including "English Country Garden" at a record fair. On the sleeve it says for this track "traditional adapted, J. Rodgers" there is no mention of Percy Grainger writing the words. Jimmie Rodgers seems to be an American folk singer not a pop/c&w like I said before so I was wrong there.

Regards

John

Subject: RE: English Country Garden Lyrics
From: Alan of Australia
Date: 06 Jun 98 - 11:59 AM

G'day,
I expect this song would be familiar to most Aussies. I'm also sure that the words were written by Percy Grainger.

Cheers,
Alan

Subject: RE: English Country Garden Lyrics
From: JEHill
Date: 04 Jun 98 - 12:46 PM

I think you will find that the lyrics are not English at all. They reflect an American rose-tinted view of what England must be like.
There are still a large nunmer on the other side of the pond that think we still all live in thatched-roofed cottages with roses around the door. I guess it would be nice if we did but its not like that here at all alas.
I don't believe you will find these lyrics before the Jimmie Rodgers record, who it must be stressed is an American pop/c&w singer and is still around.
Regards John

Subject: RE: English Country Garden Lyrics
From: SlowAlan
Date: 04 Jun 98 - 10:38 AM

Country Gardens is a Morris dance tune - that is why Percy Grainger teamed it with Shepherds Hey, also a Morris Tune. I think Grainger recorded a piano roll called Morris Medley.

Grainger, I think, got his tunes from the FieldTown Morris versions of the tunes, which also occur in other Morris traditions. The Longborough dancers also call a variant of the tune Highland Mary - though I do not have a clue why, it is called Country Gardens elsewhere. I am sure that the lyrics are fairly recent - they have a sick ring of English 19th century sentimentality.

Subject: RE: English Country Garden Lyrics
From: jehill
Date: 02 Jun 98 - 01:16 PM

The tune to this song is definately much older than the words. I'm pretty sure that the lyrics only date back to the Jimmie Rodgers recording.

Subject: RE: English Country Garden Lyrics
From: Bruce O.
Date: 02 Jun 98 - 11:05 AM

An ABC of the old "Country Gardens" tune used for "The Vicar of Bray" is on my website, B488. The tune seems to be first found in a ballad opera, and is listed in my ballad opera tune index, and there's another early copy, listed in my dance tunes file CNTYDAN2. I've never seen any 'original' words to the tune.

Subject: RE: English Country Garden Lyrics
From: Jerry Friedman
Date: 01 Jun 98 - 07:02 PM

Either I'm hallucinating, or...

one of my piano books contained a piece whose tune fit the words Alastair gave: "How many flowers do there grow, in an English country garden?" Some adult told me that the words "in an English country garden" went with the tune. But the piano book said it was an old dance tune called "Dorothy". FWIW.

Subject: RE: English Country Garden Lyrics
From:
Date: 01 Jun 98 - 08:33 AM

The song in Question was recorded by Jimmie [F] Rodgers in the early sixties. This is the same fella that had hits in the fifties such as "Honeycomb" and "O-Oh I'm falling in love again." For some reason it only seemed to have been a hit over here in the UK rather than his native US. There was another person of the same name who died in 1933 but this one is still alive. Of course only an American would think that you would find Blue-birds in England but there y'go. The Lyrics posted above by Alistair UK are those to this recording.

Regards

John Hill

Subject: RE: English Country Garden Lyrics
From: BK
Date: 31 May 98 - 06:40 PM

Mary O'hara has a lovely ballad of this name on one of her albumns; I think the words are a bit different than those I see here, but if I have time, I'll check.. If the words here are not those you need, let me know, and I'll try to find the vinyl - that's one problem; since we moved here the vinyl's harder to access than the CD's 'cuz we don't have the room in this house to have them readily accessable..

Cheers, BK

Subject: RE: English Country Garden Lyrics
From: rich r
Date: 30 May 98 - 08:51 PM

From one of my 1950's piano instruction books I remember only the following 2 lines:

Come let us go where soft breezes blow
And the lovely country gardens grow.

rich r

Subject: Lyr Add: ENGLISH COUNTRY GARDEN
From: Alastair UK
Date: 30 May 98 - 08:13 PM

I've just found these - the complete words as far as I know:

How many flowers do there grow,
in an English country garden.
I'll tell you now, of some that I know,
and those I miss, you'll surely pardon.
Daffodils, hearts-ease and flocks,
meadow lea, and lilies, stocks,
Gentle lupins and tall hollyhocks.
There are roses, fox-gloves, and forget-me-knots,
in an English country garden.

How many insects find their homes
in an English country garden.
I'll tell you now of some that I know,
and those I miss, you'll surely pardon.
Dragonflies, moths and bees,
spiders falling from the trees,
Butterflies sway in the mild gentle breeze.
There are hedgehogs that roam
and little garden gnomes,
in an English country garden.

How many songbirds fly to and fro,
in an English country garden.
I'll tell you now of some that I know,
and those I miss, you'll surely pardon.
Babbling, coo-cooing doves,
robins and the warbling thrush,
Bluebirds, lark, finch and nightingale.
We all smile in the spring,
when the birds all start to sing
in an English country garden.

Subject: RE: English Country Garden Lyrics
From: Anne Cormack
Date: 15 Mar 97 - 01:52 AM

There was a song that was widely played on radio when I was a kid called English Country Garden, I can't remember many of the words, but they were something like:

How many kinds of flowers can you grow

In an English country garden,

I'll tell you now of some that I know

And those I miss, I beg your pardon,

(then followed a long list of different flowers which I can't remember)

I don't know if this is the song you mean, but it might jog someone else's memory....

Good luck!!

Anne

Subject: RE: English Country Garden Lyrics
From: Dick Wisan
Date: 13 Mar 97 - 10:29 PM

Are you thinking of the tune Percy Grainger made out of "The Vicar of Bray"? Used to be played, along with the Shepherd's Hay (Hey?) by pit musicians between the acts on Broadway theatres (in the days when there were pit musicians at non-musicals).

If so, we sang it in school. Let's see how much of it I can remember.

Fiddlers a-tuning, timing it clean
While the morris dancers tread the green
(bis) Blossoms of the pear tree
Deck anew the bare tree
Spring is a-bringing leaf and flow'r
Now it's toe, now it's heel
Now all together wheel
While the old folks test
Who dances best

That's _not_ all of it, and I've probably left out bits in the middle, but it's not bad after not thinking of it for the last thirty years or so.

Subject: RE: double threads
From: ricky
Date: 13 Mar 97 - 09:43 PM

This is a common problem/why?

Subject: RE: English Country Garden Lyrics
From: Ricky Rackin
Date: 13 Mar 97 - 09:41 PM

I remember John Roberts singing a lovely ditty that went : "Newspapers torn and strewn across the lawn That's an English country garden" !!! Are you out there John?

Subject: RE: English Country Garden Lyrics
From:
Date: 13 Mar 97 - 07:57 PM

Does it have lyrics?? I thought it was just a dance tune

Subject: English Country Garden Lyrics
From:
Date: 13 Mar 97 - 04:02 PM

Iwould Like the lyrics for the above song.