Lyr/Chords Req: HELP What if a Day or a Month

Subject: HELP What if a Day or a Month or a Year
From: Tom Blodget
Date: 13 Aug 99 - 01:32 PM

> I hope this is the right way to request help. > > In a music class 20 years ago at Chico state we sang a song that went > What if a day or a month or a year, cross thy delight with a thousand > sweet tormentings, a thousand sweet tormentings...the middle part went: > Fortune, honor, beauty, youth are but blossoms dying > Wheel or woe, time doth go, time hath no returning > > It's very melodic and beautiful, written in the 17th or 18th century; I have figured out most of the music > but don't have all the words (there are more verses and another middle > part); and i'm not completely sure about the chords. > > . Thanks! > > Tom Blodget [e-mail]

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: HELP What if a Day or a Month
From: Wolfgang
Date: 13 Aug 99 - 01:39 PM

What if a Day,
Or a Month,
Or a Yeare?
by Thomas Campion

from Richard Alison's
An Howres Recreation in Musicke (1606)


What if a day, or a month, or a yeare
Crown thy delights with a thousand sweet contentings?
Cannot a chance of a night or an howre
Crosse thy desires with as many sad tormentings?
Fortune, honor, beauty, youth
Are but blossoms dying;
Wanton pleasure, doating love,
Are but shadowes flying.
All our joyes are but toyes,
Idle thoughts deceiving;
None have power of an howre
In their lives bereaving.

Earthes but a point to the world, and a man
Is but a point to the worlds compared centure:
Shall then a point of a point be so vaine
As to triumph in a seely points adventure?
All is hassard that we have,
There is nothing biding;
Dayes of pleasure are like streames
Through faire meadowes gliding.
Weale and woe, time doth goe,
Time is ever turning:
Secret fates guide our states,
Both in mirth and mourning.



MIDI: What if a Day by Thomas Campion - Sequenced by John Cowles



Text Source:
The Anchor Anthology of Sixteenth-Century Verse. Richard S. Sylvester, ed.
Anchor Press/Doubleday, Garden City: 1974. p. 549.

copied from http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/whatday.htm

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: HELP What if a Day or a Month
From: Tom Blodget to Wolfgang
Date: 15 Aug 99 - 01:39 PM

Thank you very very much; I'll just have to work the chords out. This little site is amazing. Again, thanks!

tom

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: HELP What if a Day or a Month
From: Wolfgang
Date: 17 Aug 99 - 01:29 PM

you're welcome, Tom, we all like to help if we can...Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: HELP What if a Day or a Month
From: Snuffy
Date: 01 Apr 01 - 12:44 PM

The Young Tradition recorded a polyphonic a capella version of this song for Transatlantic, in an arrangement by Dolly Collins. They change one or two of the words, repeat some line endings and the whole Chorus, and only sing the one verse. The tune varies slightly from the one Wolfgang linked to.

WHAT IF A DAY
(Thomas Campion)

What if a day, or a month, or a year
Crown thy delights with a thousand sweet contentings?
A thousand sweet contentings?
May not a change of a night or an hour
Cross thy delights with as many sad tormentings?
As many sad tormentings?

CHORUS (x2)
   Fortune, honour, beauty, youth
   Are but blossoms dying;
   Wanton pleasure, doting love,
   Are but shadows flying.
   All our joys are but toys,
   Idle thoughts deceiving;
   None have power of an hour
   Of his lives bereaving.


Recorded by The Young Tradition, arrangement by Dolly Collins
VRH

MIDI file: WHATIFA.MID

Timebase: 480

Tempo: 160 (375000 microsec/crotchet)
Key: G
TimeSig: 4/4 48 8
Name: What If A Day
Text: C:Thomas Campion
Start
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End

This program is worth the effort of learning it.

To download the March 10 MIDItext 98 software and get instructions on how to use it click here

  X: 192
  T:What If A Day
  M:4/4
  L:1/4
  C:Thomas Campion
  S:The Young Tradition, arr Dolly Collins
  B:An Howres Recreation in Musicke (1606)
  K:Em
  E2^DE|F2 EF |G2 FE |^D4  |
  G2 FG|A2 GA |cB AG |A2 AA|
  A2 G2|G2 F2 |E4    |E4   |
  E2^DE|F2 EF |G2 FE |^D4  |
  G2 FG|A2 GA |cB AG |A2 AA|
  A2 G2|G2 F2 |E4    |E4   |:
  B3  c|d2 A2 |c2(BA)|B4   |
  B3  c|d2 e2 |c4    |B4   |
  B3  c|d2 A2 |c2(BA)|B4   |
  B3  c|d2 e2 |c4    |B4   |
  E3  F|G4    |D3  E |F4   |
  C3  D|E2(DC)|B,4   |E,4  |
  E3  F|G4    |D3  E |F4   |
  C3  D|E2(DC)|B,4   |E,4 :|
  

Wassail! V

Subject: Lyr/Tune Add: What if a Day
From: Snuffy
Date: 01 Apr 01 - 12:47 PM

Forgot to put Add: in the header

Subject: RE: Lyr/Chords Req: HELP What if a Day or a Month
From: GUEST,Bruce O.
Date: 01 Apr 01 - 12:59 PM

The song is anonymous in Philotus, 1603. Thomas Campion later composed a tune for it, but there' no evidence that the song is by Campion. See ZN2799 in the broadside ballad index on my website for several 17th century broadside copies (including Bodley Ballads- Rawlinson and Douce collections, Mudcat's Links). An ABC of the tune is B501 on my website. See Simpson's 'The British Broadside Ballad and Its Music', #501 for numerous 17the century copies of song and tune.