Lyr Req: None But One / Nonesuch (Jean Ritchie)

Subject: Nonesuch (None but One) lyrics
From: dulcimer42
Date: 30 May 09 - 08:03 PM

Looking for lyrics to the old tune Nonesuch. I know Jean Ritchie sings it on one of her albums under the title None but One. Would love to find lyrics for this. Thanks for your help.

Subject: RE: Nonesuch (None but One) lyrics
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 31 May 09 - 04:11 AM

I've just used Nonesuch for one of Ron Baxter's new lyrics written for our Demdyke! show concerning the arcane folk-lore of Lancashire. This one's his personal take on the various Green Men in the region.

Their God died, nailed to a tree
Why in His temple should I be?
Yet there my image you will see
Carved in wood or stone.
Though He arose, as doth the Spring,
New life unto this world to bring
He's not me, and I'm not Him
For Him I do not know.

I dwell with the greenwood trees
And when they rustle in the breeze
'Tis then that folk think they see me,
And perhaps they do.
Through Summer sun, through Winter cold
I'm there with oak, and ash, and thorn.
I'll never die, 'cause never born,
Forever I've been here.

Yet in May some still are found
As the pipe, and tabor sounds
Bedecked in leaves they dance around
Doing homage unto me.
But of their homage I've no need
Of their worship I take no heed
Let them believe, what they believe,
It matters not to me.

For I am…..just what I am
Though that you'll never understand
Jack in the Green, or the Green Man
You may call me what you will.
Though He arose, as doth the Spring,
New life unto this world to bring
He's not me, and I'm not Him
For Him I do not know.


No recordings of it so far, but for accompaniment I use one of my Hungarian Citeras (This One) - very much in dulcimer family!

Subject: RE: Nonesuch (None but One) lyrics
From: maeve
Date: 31 May 09 - 05:06 AM

transcription here, dulcimer42

Subject: RE: Nonesuch (None but One) lyrics
From: Charley Noble
Date: 31 May 09 - 11:08 AM

Dulcimer42-

I'm thinking that one line was not quite transcribed right:

"I'm [Am] mine and are thine, [G?] father, mother,[Am]son,"

I believe it should read:

I'm [Am] mine and I'm thine, [G?] father, mother,[Am]son,

But maybe Jeanne herself will clarify what's right if she checks this thread.

Wonderful song and tune!

Charley Noble

Subject: Lyr Add: NONE BUT ONE (Jean Ritchie)
From: kytrad (Jean Ritchie)
Date: 31 May 09 - 03:32 PM

Good Lord! I never knew my diction's so bad. I guess it is due to my Kentucky speech, or that the melody moves along fairly fast on that little refrain. I wrote the poem first, as a poem, and soon it sang itself to the old "Nonesuch" tune. For the little refrain I wrote a melody to match the main one. That is the high part, "And sounding all around a sound;" it's not a real part of the "Nonesuch" melody.


NONE BUT ONE
(Jean Ritchie)

Across the plain there moves a sway,
It moves with human sound;
And some do walk and some do run,
Some fall upon the ground.
And some do stop to help the weak,
Some trample on the others
And some do laugh and some do weep-
And all of them are brothers

Refrain: And sounding all around a sound'
         Around and everywhere;
         And none but one can understand
         And none but one can hear-
         I mine and I thine, father, mother, son,
         I me and I thee, and all of us are one.

I saw four travelers in a dream
All in the wind and weather;
The chain they carried in their hands
It bound them all together.
And some were yellow, some were red
And older than the others,
And some were black and some were white,
And all of them were brothers.

Repeat refrain.

While I have your attention.....! I have never claimed to be a poet- not what a Poet would call a Poet. But, most of my written songs have started out as poems, just random observations and commenting on things I have noticed in life around me as I go. Anyway- this is only an excuse for giving you-all another. On this the last day of May, here's an especial May poem; I call it May Day Day. It has been recorded, on a Pacific Cascade album, Jean Ritchie At Home,which I fear is out of circulation now:

Cold and dark the winter; in March it snows again.
Through the rains of April, Spring comes stealing in-
Smiling o'er the meadows in the rising light of day,
Beauty is reborn again every first of May.

Cho: And when I'm walkin with my darlin on a May Day Day,
    Walkin with my darlin on a May Day Day,
    O there's nothin much a-doin, and there's little for to say-
    But O my heart is happy on a May Day Day!

Folks are cold and distant, the world's about to freeze.
Never has the world known harder times than these.
Suffering world, forgive me, and grant me just a day-
I cannot help but hope again, every first of May.

Subject: RE: Nonesuch (None but One) lyrics
From: Charley Noble
Date: 31 May 09 - 08:15 PM

Jean-

I've always loved the "Nonesuch" tune and was absolutely delighted when you provided words for it.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: None But One / Nonesuch (Jean Ritchie)
From: kytrad (Jean Ritchie)
Date: 01 Jun 09 - 09:45 PM

Thank you, Charlie....and it's good not to be called a tune-thief! Well, I thought back then, that, as I discovered "the Sway" in England, my poem about the Sway ought to have an English melody. Besides,these wonderful old country-dance tunes are so lovely- they should have words so folks could sing (as well as dance to) them. But I'm sure that can be argued.........

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: None But One / Nonesuch (Jean Ritchie
From: Charley Noble
Date: 01 Jun 09 - 10:37 PM

Jean-

I believe it was Pete Seeger on his recording Nonesuch with Frank Hamilton that exposed me to that tune and the range of tunes one might explore with the five-string banjo. Some time someone will fit some words to "Singing in the Country", if someone hasn't already done so!

I, on the other hand, have been mining the old-time tunes that I learned in Michigan with the Elderly Music crew for some of my settings for the nautical poems of C. Fox Smith. Some would argue with that!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: None But One / Nonesuch (Jean Ritchie)
From: GUEST,iancarterb
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 12:41 AM

I'm shocked- shocked! - that a distinguished artist would borrow a tune for a sweet poem! It scans perfectly with the tune. I too have always loved Nonesuch, and from the same source Charley cited.
It wasn't Nonesuch but another Pete Seeger album, a live concert- I think with Brownie McGee- that he included in the intro to one song -'Tarrytown'?- that "Woody Guthrie used that melody for some of his best tunes."
I don't think the Tune Police will be showing up in Port Washigton any time soon.:)
Carter Bannerman

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: None But One / Nonesuch (Jean Ritchie)
From: kytrad (Jean Ritchie)
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 09:20 PM

Carter Bannerman! Where have you been so long? It's been many years since we and lots of other great folks were singing, playing and eating Anne Warner's terrific vittles together, at the Frank Warner homestead near us.   Remember?    Blessings, Jean

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: None But One / Nonesuch (Jean Ritchie)
From: GUEST,iancarterb
Date: 02 Jun 09 - 09:56 PM

Jean-
A person could forget such things?! Not I! Gerret sent me, a year ago or so, the end-of-camp picture from Pinewoods 1965 and it includes many of my lifelong influences, including you- Frank and Anne, Larry Older, Jack Langstaff, Lee Haring- makes it hard to type with short breath. Blessings, indeed!
Carter

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: None But One / Nonesuch (Jean Ritchie)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 03 Jun 09 - 03:19 PM

I found a MIDI of the traditional tune "Nonesuch" at JC's ABC Tune Finder. It's a little fast for singing, perhaps, but you'll get the idea.
There's a very nice instrumental recording of "Nonesuch" on the Folk-Legacy CD, Golden Ring: A Gathering of Friends for Making Music.
-Joe-

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Click to play

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: None But One / Nonesuch (Jean Ritchie)
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 04 Jun 09 - 07:22 AM

Just done a wee demo of Ron's Green Man / Nonsuch song from the Demdyke show which debuts at Fylde this year. Listen to it at:

http://www.myspace.com/sedayne

The main instrument here is a Hungarian Citera, one of the various European board zithers said to be ancestors of the Appalachian Dulcimer...

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: None But One / Nonesuch (Jean Ritchie
From: Charley Noble
Date: 04 Jun 09 - 08:13 AM

Most likely I first heard the tune "Nonsuch" on the Golden Ring recording.

There's actually a Nonsuch River in Maine, mostly a dry river bed in the summer which helped explain why it had that name.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble