Lyr Req: October songs

Subject: Lyr Req: October songs
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 16 Sep 08 - 08:01 PM

Oh there are some great ones. Some obvious ones. Please provide clickies to other prevoius threads if you want but I prefer to have fresh threads..I hate it when people say oh we discussed that already in 1994.

We were talking about October Roses. The Violet Jacobs thread reminded me of the last Halloween in France, where I think she hopes to meet the spirit of her lover lost in France on Halloween.

Then there was that great one Kate L. did at Sunnycamp years ago where a disfigured girl was having all sorts of fun that day and then realized she had to wait another year for more fun because I guess she was disguised or accepted or whatever that yaer. A great song. mg

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: October songs
From: Suegorgeous
Date: 16 Sep 08 - 08:47 PM

October Song by Bert Jansch (obvious I spose!)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: October songs
From: Joe_F
Date: 16 Sep 08 - 10:21 PM

The man who drinketh small beer and goes to bed quite sober
Falls as the leaves do fall that fall off in October.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: October songs
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 16 Sep 08 - 10:41 PM

In some climates, Urge For Going is an October song.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: October songs
From: Barbara Shaw
Date: 16 Sep 08 - 10:43 PM

Fallen Leaves by Grandpa Jones.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Autumn Leaves (Johnny Mercer, et al.)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 17 Sep 08 - 01:02 AM

It ain't folk, but I sure do like Autumn Leaves. I like just about everything done by Johnny Mercer - Mercer translated this song from the French.
"Those Were the Days" is another favorite, and it feels like October to me.
-Joe-

Subject: Lyr Add: OCTOBER SONG (Robin Williamson)
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 17 Sep 08 - 01:49 AM

October Song as performed by Bert Jansch was written by Robin Williamson:

October Song
(Robin Williamson)

I'll sing you this October song
Oh there is no song before it
The words and tune are none of my own
For my joys and sorrows bore it

Beside the sea
The brambly briars in the still of evening
Birds fly out behind the sun
and with them I'll leaving.

The fallen leaves that jewel the ground
They know the art of dying
And leave with joy their glad gold hearts
In the scarlet shadows lying.

When hunger calls my footsteps home
The morning follows after
I swim the seas within my mind
And the pine-trees laugh green laughter.

I sed to search for happiness
And I used to follow pleasure
But I found a door behind my mind,
And that's the greatest treasure.

For rulers like to lay down laws
And rebels like to break them
And the poor priests like to walk in chains
And God likes to forsake them.

I met a man whose name was Time
And he said 'I must be going'
But just how long that was
I have no way of knowing.

Sometimes I want to murder time
Sometimes when my heart's aching
But mostly I just stroll along
The path that he is taking.

First recorded on The Incredible String Band.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: October songs
From: Will Fly
Date: 17 Sep 08 - 03:33 AM

Ah, Diane - one of Robin Williamson's best ever - together with "The First Girl I Loved" - thanks for putting down the lyrics to this. Coincidentally, I was transcribing this from the original vinyl to my computer only the other day.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: October songs
From: GUEST,George Henderson
Date: 17 Sep 08 - 04:35 AM

How about the Bell ringing Song.

One day in October neither drunken nor sober

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: October songs
From: MartinRyan
Date: 17 Sep 08 - 04:45 AM

Joe

"Autumn Leaves" is one wonderful tune - it can carry so many differently coloured settings. Mercers's set of lyrics are great too - but are they in any sense a translation from French? I've a vague memory that there either weren't lyrics originally or that they were quite different. Anyone know?

Regards
p.s. My own favourite for this time of years is Burns' "Westlin' Winds"

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: October songs
From: MoorleyMan
Date: 17 Sep 08 - 05:51 AM

Yes, Suegorgeous.. Robin Williamson's has got to rank as THE October song for me too.
As golden a classic as the season's burnished leaves, and as poetically inspirational.
Not an easy song to sing, or to interpret, but so worth the effort.

There are some brilliant cover versions around (as well as several different treatments by Robin himself over the years, some with Mike Heron and some not). Check out the ones by Brian Peters, Dick Gaughan and Bernie Parry in particular (and IMHO each inb its own way surpassing the Bert Jansch one, good though that is).

But a couple of omissions/typos seem to have crept into your transcription, Diane, so I've corrected them for the benefit of DT...

I'll sing you this October song
Oh there is no song before it
The words and tune are none of my own
For my joys and sorrows bore it

Beside the sea
The brambly briars in the still of evening
Birds fly out behind the sun
and with them I'll be leaving.

The fallen leaves that jewel the ground
They know the art of dying
And leave with joy their glad gold hearts
In the scarlet shadows lying.

When hunger calls my footsteps home
The morning follows after
I swim the seas within my mind
And the pine-trees laugh green laughter.

I used to search for happiness
And I used to follow pleasure
But I found a door behind my mind,
And that's the greatest treasure.

For rulers like to lay down laws
And rebels like to break them
And the poor priests like to walk in chains
And God likes to forsake them.

I met a man whose name was Time
And he said 'I must be going'
But just how long ago that was
I have no way of knowing.

Sometimes I want to murder time
Sometimes when my heart's aching
But mostly I just stroll along
The path that he is taking.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: October songs
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 17 Sep 08 - 06:12 AM

OK, the U fell off the beginning of 'used' in verse 5. But I didn't say someone else wrote it. Bert Jansch tells the story of how he learned it in Edinburgh straight after Robin had written it in, I think, 1965. Dick Gaughan also pays tribute to Robin's exquisite songwriting whenever he performs it.

And talking of Westlin Wind (as someone was), Dick Gaughan's rendition of this is sublime.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: October songs
From: Mr Happy
Date: 17 Sep 08 - 06:23 AM

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=wER6TM1Jlhc

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: October songs
From: Suegorgeous
Date: 17 Sep 08 - 07:10 AM

Whoops - knew I shouldn't have posted that late at night without checking! :(

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: October songs
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 17 Sep 08 - 07:21 AM

Three Score And Ten places the event in October, though it was really February.

Subject: Lyr Add: POEM IN OCTOBER (Dylan Thomas)
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 17 Sep 08 - 07:22 AM

If it must be a song there is that line Rod McKuen's song - 'the girl in Portland before the winter chill, we used walk along together on October Hill.'

not a song, but my October favourite:-

'Poem In October'

    It was my thirtieth year to heaven
Woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood
    And the mussel pooled and the heron
            Priested shore
       The morning beckon
With water praying and call of seagull and rook
And the knock of sailing boats on the net webbed wall
       Myself to set foot
            That second
In the still sleeping town and set forth.

    My birthday began with the water-
Birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name
    Above the farms and the white horses
            And I rose
       In rainy autumn
And walked abroad in a shower of all my days.
High tide and the heron dived when I took the road
       Over the border
            And the gates
Of the town closed as the town awoke.

    A springful of larks in a rolling
Cloud and the roadside bushes brimming with whistling
    Blackbirds and the sun of October
            Summery
       On the hill's shoulder,
Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly
Come in the morning where I wandered and listened
       To the rain wringing
            Wind blow cold
In the wood faraway under me.

    Pale rain over the dwindling harbour
And over the sea wet church the size of a snail
    With its horns through mist and the castle
            Brown as owls
       But all the gardens
Of spring and summer were blooming in the tall tales
Beyond the border and under the lark full cloud.
       There could I marvel
            My birthday
Away but the weather turned around.

    It turned away from the blithe country
And down the other air and the blue altered sky
    Streamed again a wonder of summer
            With apples
       Pears and red currants
And I saw in the turning so clearly a child's
Forgotten mornings when he walked with his mother
       Through the parables
            Of sun light
And the legends of the green chapels

    And the twice told fields of infancy
That his tears burned my cheeks and his heart moved in mine.
    These were the woods the river and sea
            Where a boy
       In the listening
Summertime of the dead whispered the truth of his joy
To the trees and the stones and the fish in the tide.
       And the mystery
            Sang alive
Still in the water and singingbirds.

    And there could I marvel my birthday
Away but the weather turned around. And the true
    Joy of the long dead child sang burning
            In the sun.
       It was my thirtieth
Year to heaven stood there then in the summer noon
Though the town below lay leaved with October blood.
       O may my heart's truth
            Still be sung
On this high hill in a year's turning.

    -- Dylan Thomas

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: October songs
From: Dave Earl
Date: 17 Sep 08 - 08:03 AM

The October winds lament around
The Castle of Dromore

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: October songs
From: GUEST,An Anonymous Benefactor
Date: 17 Sep 08 - 08:36 AM

To you all of good heart & good cheer, here is a free mp3 of October Song being performed by the Incredible String Band live at the Filmore some forty years ago in June 1968 - Robin Williamson : guitar & singing / Mike Heron - sitar. A thing of rare beauty, and joy forever...

Click the link below & savour!

October Song - ISB : Filmore June 1968

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: October songs
From: Arkie
Date: 17 Sep 08 - 10:42 AM

Here are a few more:

In The Month Of October, recorded by Alan Mills on Songs of the Maritimes album
The Winds of October recorded by Gary Fjellgaard
October Winds, recorded by Houghton Weavers,and others
This October Day, recorded by Cindy Church

Subject: Lyr Add: THE CASTLE OF DROMORE
From: ard mhacha
Date: 17 Sep 08 - 11:00 AM

To add to Breton Caps lines


The Castle of Dromore

The October winds lament
Around the Castle of Dromore,
Yet peace is in its lofty halls,
My loving treasure store.
Though autumn leaves may droop and die
A bud of spring are you.
Sing hush-a-bye loo, la loo, lo lan,
Sing hush-a-bye loo, la lo.

Bring no ill winds to hinder us,
My helpless babe and me,
Dread spirit of Blackwater banks,
Clan Owen's wild banshee.
And Holy Mary pitying us
In heav'n for grace doth sue.
Sing hush-a-bye loo, la loo, lo lan,
Sing hush-a-bye loo, la lo.

Take time to thrive, my rose of hope,
In the garden of Dromore.
Take heed, young eagle, till your wings
Are feathered fit to soar.
A little rest and then the world
Is full of work to do
Sing hush-a-bye loo, la loo, lo lan,
Sing hush-a-bye loo, la lo.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: October songs
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 17 Sep 08 - 02:56 PM

Cliffs of Bacceliu.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: October songs
From: kendall
Date: 17 Sep 08 - 03:02 PM

Robin Williamson's October Song is head and shoulders above all others. (In my not so humble opinion)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: October songs
From: SINSULL
Date: 17 Sep 08 - 04:21 PM

Three Score and Ten


The Reuben James
"Twas the last day of October..."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: October songs
From: SINSULL
Date: 17 Sep 08 - 04:22 PM

OOOPS
"October's night brought such a sight..." from Three Score and Ten.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: October songs
From: oldhippie
Date: 17 Sep 08 - 04:33 PM

Mentioned in a previous thread about Halloween songs, "John's Garden" by Peter Mayer, about pumpkins in the pumpkin patch that must decide between dying on the vine, or becoming jack-o-lanterns.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: October songs
From: Celtaddict
Date: 17 Sep 08 - 06:08 PM

Don't forget Tommy Makem's 'Grey October Clouds.'

Subject: Lyr Add: OCTOBER (from Slumbering)
From: GUEST,cStu
Date: 17 Sep 08 - 06:19 PM

October by slumbering is bewitchingly witchy


October, October
Warmer and colder
Summer is over
But she'll keep the Sun
In her big, black cauldron
Tis the season
For death and the night
So say the spell
Make the ghosts tell

Circle the stones
Dance with the bones
Follow the shadows
On All Hallow's Eve
Happily we grieve
Drink to the Dead
In October

When the Sun has just gone down
It is time
To sing the rhyme
Bring them out

Orange glowing embers light our way to November

Waltz through the stones (Through the stones)
Dance with the bones (With the bones)
Death is romancing (It's romance!)
A nightmare perchancing (Spin...)
Spin like the leaves (...like the leaves)
Drink to our friends
Who met their ends

When the Moon glows in the sky
Do they fly?
In the sky...

Circle the stones (Circle the stones)
Dance with the bones (Dance with the bones)
Take Death's hand (Take his hand)
To Underland (Underland)
Raise up a glass (First do no harm)
To souls who have passed (Now work the charm)
Drink to the Dead (Make a toast)
Drink to the Dead (To the ghost)
In October, in October

Ooh, October...

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: October songs
From: Willa
Date: 17 Sep 08 - 06:22 PM

Martin Ryan:
Autumn Leaves Music by Joseph Kosma
English Lyrics, Johnny Mercer, Additional verse lyric by Geoffrey Parsons, French Lyrics by Jacques Prevert

Les feuilles mortes se ramassent a la pelle. Tu vois, je n'ai pas oublie.
Les feuilles mortes se ramassent a la pelle. Les souvenirs et les regrets aussi.
Et le vent du nord les emporte dans le nuit froide d'oublie. Tu vois, je n'ai pas oubliela chanson que tu me chantais.

Refrain
C'est une chanson qui nous ressemble. Toi tu m'aimais et je t'aimais.
Nous vivions tous les deux ensemble, toi qui m'aimais, moi qui t'aimais.
Mais la vie separe c'eux qui s'aiment. Tous doucement, sans faire de bruit.
Et la mer s'efface sur le sable les pas des amants desunis.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: October songs
From: MartinRyan
Date: 17 Sep 08 - 06:29 PM

Thanks, Willa. Any chance of a rough translation?

Regards

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: October songs
From: Ron Davies
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 08:13 AM

Two wonderful ones:

Carter Family: The Schoolhouse on the Hill

"And there the ripe nuts glistened in the glow
Of rich October skies"

And one not specifically October, but sure sounds like a perfect October song to me--and sung in the definitive version, to my mind, by our own Art Thieme--though I've heard others do it well also: Bye and Bye

"The time of the year that I like the best
The time when the mule walks round the press
Gals put on their gingham dress
Bye and bye
Leaves are red and the ground is cold
Sap's gonna rise, so I've been told
We don't care if the frost is coming
Bye and bye"

That's just the chorus.

Wolfgang posted the entire song 19 May 2000: 10:27 AM

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: October songs
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 09:21 AM

To you all of good heart & good cheer, here is a free mp3 of October Song being performed by the Incredible String Band live at the Filmore some forty years ago in June 1968 - Robin Williamson : guitar & singing / Mike Heron - sitar. A thing of rare beauty, and joy forever...

Click the link below & savour!

October Song - ISB : Filmore June 1968

Bloody Hell! Has anyone bothered to find out what this actually is? It's a near pristine archive recording from 1968 of the ISB reconstructing October Song according to the extended eastern flavoured acid-folk they were famous for on Hangman's Beautiful Daughter and bringing it in at around 10 minutes! This is fucking historic! And it's up there for free! Although in my experience of YOUSENDIT it'll be there for a max of 100 downloads or 7 days maximum. Get it whilst you can.

Anonymous Benefactor, we are in you debt, sir!

Subject: Lyr Add: LES FEUILLES MORTES (Prévert, Kosma)
From: Willa
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 04:29 AM

Hi Martyn
Here's a translation (and some more lyrics)
Les Feuilles Mortes
Lyrics by Jacques Prévert, (1945)
Music by Joseph Kosma, (1945)


Oh! je voudrais tant que tu te souviennes,
Des jours heureux où nous étions amis,
En ce temps-là, la vie était plus belle,
Et le soleil plus brûlant qu'aujourd'hui.
Les feuilles mortes se ramassent à la pelle,
Tu vois, je n'ai pas oublié.
Les feuilles mortes se ramassent à la pelle,
Les souvenirs et les regrets aussi.
Et le vent du Nord les emporte,
Dans la nuit froide de l'oubli.
Tu vois, je n'ai pas oublié
La chanson que tu me chantais...

(Oh! I really hope you remember
Those happy days when we were friends.
In those times life was more beautiful
And the sun brighter than today's.
The dead leaves gather on the rake.
You see, I have not forgotten...
The dead leaves gather on the rake,
As do the memories and the regrets,
And the north wind carries them
Into the oblivion of the cold night.
You see, I have not forgotten
The song that you used to sing to me.)

Refrain
C'est une chanson qui nous ressemble,
Toi qui m'aimais, moi qui t'aimais.
Nous vivions tous les deux ensemble,
Toi qui m'aimais, moi qui t'aimais.
Mais la vie sépare ceux qui s'aiment,
Tout doucement sans faire de bruit.
Et la mer efface sur le sable,
Les pas des amants désunis.

(It's a song that we resemble.
You, you loved me and I loved you
And we lived together,
You who loved me, I who loved you.
But life separates those who love,
Gently, without making a sound,
And the sea erases from the sand-
The footsteps of separated lovers.)

Les feuilles mortes se ramassent à la pelle,
Les souvenirs et les regrets aussi
Mais mon amour silencieux et fidèle
Sourit toujours et remercie la vie.
Je t'aimais tant, tu étais si jolie.
Comment veux-tu que je t'oublie ?
En ce temps-là, la vie était plus belle
Et le soleil plus brûlant qu'aujourd'hui.
Tu étais ma plus douce amie
Mais je n'ai que faire des regrets
Et la chanson que tu chantais,
Toujours, toujours je l'entendrai !

(The dead leaves gather on the rake
As do the memories and the regrets
But my love, quiet and loyal,
Always smiles and is grateful for life.
I loved you so much, you were so beautiful.
How can you expect me to forget you?
In those times, life was more beautiful
And the sun brighter than today's.
You were my kindest friend
But I only created regrets
And the song that you used to sing,
I hear it always, always...)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: October songs
From: MartinRyan
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 04:32 AM

Many thanks!

Regards