Lyr Req: Get away from the window...

Subject: Lyr Req: Get away from the window...
From: topical tom
Date: 26 Oct 07 - 07:11 AM

I am looking for the lyrics of an old song. Four lines in the song were:

            Get away from that window, my love and my dear.
            Get away from that window, don't you hear?
            We'll be back tomorrow (some other) night
            When we're looking for a fight
            And the razors will be flying in the air.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Get away from the window...
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 26 Oct 07 - 08:20 AM

I haven't got the words, but a song with that name is listed on Trikont        US-0226. Black and White Hillbilly Music. It was recorded in Richmond, Indiana, in December 1928 by The Pickard Family

The song is one of a number of parodies of the English song Go From My Window in which a young housewife tries to warn her adulterous lover that her husband is at home. But I'd guess that the Pickard's version is the most likely to be the one you're thinking of.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Get away from the window...
From: GUEST,Ian cookieless
Date: 26 Oct 07 - 08:30 AM

This seems to be the same song as 'Go From My Window', popular and widespread in the 16th and early 17th centuries. The earliest known text is in John Fletcher and Francis Beaumont's play of 1611, 'The Knight of the Burning Pestle' (Act III, scene v). Because the song was already well-known and thus served a purpose in the play - a common ploy in Shakespeare's time - the text is partial, giving only the first verse. By this time the tune had been used frequently by composers as the basis for sets of variations (see below).

The (tune and) text used below predates the melody and words used by folk singers today.

1. Go from my window, love, go
Go from my window, my dear
The wind and rain
Will drive you back again
You cannot be lodged here

2. Go from my window, love, go
Go from my window, my dear
The wind is in the west
And the cuckoo's in the nest
You cannot be lodged here

3. Go from my window, love, go
Go from my window, my dear
The devil's in the man
And he cannot understand
That he cannot be lodged here


The more usual rendering today is more like this:

1. Go from my window, my love, my dove,
Go from my window, my dear,
For the wind is in the west and the cuckoo's in his nest,
And you can not have a lodging here.

2. Go from my window, my love, my dove,
Go from my window, my dear,
O the weather it is warm, it will never do thee harm,
And you can not have a lodging here.

3. Go from my window, my love, my dove,
Go from my window, my dear,
The wind is blowing high, and the ship is lying by,
And you can not have a harbouring here.        

4. Go from my window, my love, my dove,
Go from my window, my dear,
The wind and the rain have brought him back again,
But he can not have a harbouring here.

5. Go from my window, my love, my dove,
Go from my window, my dear,
The devil's in the man, that he will not understand
That he can not have a lodging here.                 

This is one of a very small number of traditional songs that have genuinely survived in tradition continuously since the Renaissance. (The only other example I can think of is The Three Ravens that appeared in Thomas Ravenscroft's Melismata, 1611.) The song must already have been well-known when, in 1567, it was used as a template for an anti-Catholic song in The Gude and Godlie Ballatis, collated by Scottish editors. A version of the ballad, Goe from the windowe goe, was licensed in England on (the later than Gude and Godlie date of) 4th March 1588, but it is lost unless parts of it are echoed or reproduced in Merrythought's song in Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher's play of 1613, 'The Knight of the Burning Pestle', where the first set of surviving words appear.

There is a mass of evidence for the huge and continued popularity of the song. Renaissance lutenists and harpsichordists continually set variations on the tune. To name but a few: anonymous in the Folger Dowland MS, c. 1590; John Dowland in William Barley, A New Booke of Tabliture (for orpharion), 1596; Thomas Morley (1557-?1603) in his First Book of Consort Lessons; John Munday in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, compiled by Francis Tregian in the early 17th century; Thomas Robinson in his The Schoole of Musicke, 1603; John Dowland again in the Jane Pickeringe MS, 1616. There was also William Byrd, Orlando Gibbons, Edward Collard ...

Still later, and now in the Baroque period, the playwright John Fletcher refers to it in two other plays (besides Burning Pestle): Monsieur Thomas (1639) and The Woman's Prize (1640). Later still, a rewritten text appeared in Thomas D'Urfey's Pills to Purge Melancholy, set to the tune of Tomorrow is Saint Valentine's Day.

Due to its widespread popularity amongst Renaissance virtuosos, we have no doubts as to the original tune. The melody that has survived to this day in the oral tradition is remarkably similar to that used by Elizabethan composers, and the first known words have also changed little.

In oral tradition, this song has been collected from James Parsons in the 19th century by Revd. Sabine Baring-Gould; and from persons unknown (to me) by William Alexander Barrett, and by Peter Buchan (published 1828).

Hope this helps and is something like what you're looking for.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Get away from the window...
From: topical tom
Date: 26 Oct 07 - 09:40 AM

Fred McCormick :

          The version on Trikont by The Pickard Family is indeed the one I remember my mother singing. Good job! Unfortunately, there is only a brief clip of the song so most of the words are missing, but that's the one.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Get away from the window...
From: topical tom
Date: 26 Oct 07 - 09:44 AM

GUEST ,Ian cookieless : Thanks for all that research. I think the versions you posted are the original ones, and mine is a parody of them.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Get away from the window...
From: Peace
Date: 26 Oct 07 - 10:13 AM

You may also wish to search under

"Begone From The Window"

or

"Gwra Mos Dyworth An Fenester"

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Also, check

Go From my Window"

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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Get away from the window...
From: Peace
Date: 26 Oct 07 - 10:20 AM

http://www.informatik.uni-hamburg.de/~zierke/shirley.collins/songs/gofrommywindow.html


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Tom, this seems to be the stanza you recall:

"Begone From The Window / Gwra Mos Dyworth An Fenester



Begone From The Window / Gwra Mos Dyworth An Fenester Words English, Cornish, French REFERENCES

Old Cornwall Society Magazine April 1927 p 14 - 15

From singing of Jas Thomas NOTES

" This curious old Chorus is evidently the original of the darkey (*Darky)chorus:-

Go away from the window my lover my dove

Go away from the window! Don't you hear?

Come again some other night

For theres going to be a fight

And the razors will be flying in the air

This however misses the meaning of the song which is kept in an old French one sung in Burgundy:-

Qui frappe,qui frappe

Mon mari est ici"

That is from

www.an-daras.com/music/m_tuneindex_p_begonewindow.htm

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Get away from the window...
From: topical tom
Date: 26 Oct 07 - 10:37 AM

Thanks a lot, Peace. The last stanza (not the old French song) is the one I recall.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Get away from the window...
From: Peace
Date: 26 Oct 07 - 10:55 AM

You're always welcome, TT.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Get away from the window...
From: GUEST,Jim Carroll
Date: 26 Oct 07 - 01:45 PM

We recorded a cante-fable version from west Clare storyteller Francie Kennelly in which a wife warns her lover outside the window that her husband is not away an expected, by singing the verse;
"Go from my window, you silly young man...." etc.
The story was included on a cassette of storytelling issued by the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library, entitled .... 'And that's My Story,' which is an anthology of storytelling from Britain and Ireland.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Get away from the window...
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 26 Oct 07 - 01:57 PM

See also thread Lyr Req: A parody of 'go from my window' for further background and the text from the Godlie Ballatis.

Number 966 in the Roud Folk Song Index. Only a few examples are listed (the cante-fable version Jim mentions is not yet included), but these include a songster text of 1846 (where songs like this have survived for a long while without great change, that is usually down to reinforcement from print) and a recording made from the traditional singer Wiggy Smith as recently as 1974.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Get away from the window...
From: open mike
Date: 26 Oct 07 - 02:24 PM

reminds me of
"Go away from my window
leave at your own chosen speed.
you're not the one i want dear,
you're not the one i need...."

perhaps a Dylan song?

(no, no, no, it ain't me babe,,,)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Get away from the window...
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 25 Mar 12 - 06:38 PM

Topical Tom, I think the song you're looking for is an old (excuse the term) "coon song" hit, "Razors in the Air." It is accessible at Brown University's African-American Sheet Music archive, just click on "Razors in the air" in this brief alpha list and you can see all the pages of the original sheet music:

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/sheetmusic/brown/titleR.html

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Get away from the window...
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 25 Mar 12 - 07:03 PM

Of course whether Tom's still checking this forum after all these years ... well I hope so.

Wanted to add that probably Tom first heard this extremely rare (and some would say racist-tinged) song from ... and this is in some ways the weirdest of all ...

The Kingston Trio.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Get away from the window...
From: topical tom
Date: 26 Mar 12 - 10:51 AM

GUEST, Bob Coltman: Yes, I'm still checking this forum. No, I never heard this song sung by The Kingston Trio. In fact, I've never heard it sung by anyone but my mother, many moons ago. The Kingston Trio? Wow, who knew! Thanks for all the info, everyone!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Get away from the window...
From: GUEST,Bob Coltman
Date: 26 Mar 12 - 07:47 PM

Tom, you're welcome. I've just now run across another version of the song in Wehman's Songster #4, an 1890s era songster, at

http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/songster/04-git-away-from-dat-window.htm

It's kind of a jumble, as some of the Wehman's songs can be; they derived from the vaudeville stage and were not always perfectly coherent. But they're a valuable check on what was happening musically some 115-120 or so years ago. Anyway here it is:

Git Away From Dat Window

From Wehman's Songster #4.

Hop along, sister Mary, hop along,
Hop along, hop along;
Hop along, sister Susie, hop along,
And well get dar just in time.
See de sun set in de evening
Up in de field ob com;
Oh, niggers, do take warning
When Gabriel blows his horn.

Cho:        Git away from dat window, my love and my bride,
        Git away from dat window now I say,
        Call around some oder night, for dere's gwine to be a fight,
        Dar'll be razors a flyin' through de air.

Eighteen hundred and seventy-six,
Glory hallelujah
The year I got my jawbone fixed,
Glory hallelujah!
I hung my jawbone on de fence,
Glory hallelujah!
I haven't seen my jawbone since,
Glory hallelujah!