Tune Req: The Old Old Song (Charles Kingsley)

Subject: RE: Tune Req: The Old Old Song (Charles Kingsley)
From: nutty
Date: 18 Aug 11 - 02:57 PM

That extra Keith Marsden verse is as follows ..................

Then time is on your side, lad
With every colour bright
Age forever black, lad
And Youth forever white
But time he changes sides, lad
And colours slip away
'Til the black and white of youth, lad
Turn slowly all to grey

Subject: RE: The Old Old song, Charles Kingsley
From: Artful Codger
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 04:21 PM

Actually, remove or alter the "N:" line in my ABC transcription. It seems that the poem appeared untitled in Kingsley's fairy tale "The Water-Babies" (1862[-3], printed serially in Macmillan's Magazine), where it was introduced as follows (bold emphasis mine):

[...] And soon my lady put a pretty little tombstone over Tom's shell in the little churchyard in Vendale, where the old dalesmen all sleep side by side between the limestone crags. And the dame decked it with garlands every Sunday, till she grew so old that she could not stir abroad; then the little children decked it for her. And always she sung an old old song, as she sat spinning what she called her wedding-dress. The children could not understand it, but they liked it none the less for that; for it was very sweet, and very sad; and that was enough for them. And these are the words of it: — [poem follows]

The poem was anthologized with the title "The 'Old, Old Song'" (with or without interior quotes), though I don't know if Kingsley himself assigned or endorsed this title.

Subject: Tune Add: WHEN ALL THE WORLD IS YOUNG LAD
From: Artful Codger
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 03:42 PM

"When all the world is young, lad", in the Franklin Square Song Collection (1887), p. 20; music by Mrs Chas. Barnard. Also reprinted in A Treasury of Favorite Song, Volume 2.

  X:1
  T:When All the World Is Young Lad
  C:Words by Charles Kingsley, music by Mrs Chas. Barnard
  %%writehistory 1
  S:The Franklin Square Song Collection, 1887
  N:Kingsley titled his poem "The 'Old, Old Song'".
  M:2/4
  Q:"Allegretto"
  L:1/8
  K:A
   E | c>B B>A | A2 G z/d/ | d>F G>F | E3 c |
  w: 1.~When all the world is young, lad, And all the trees are green, And
  w: 2.~When all the world is old, lad, And all the trees are brown, And
  %
   c>B B>A | A2 G d | d>c c>B | A3 A |
  w: ev-'ry goose a swan, lad, And ev-'ry lass a queen; Then
  w: all the sport is stale, lad, And all the wheels run down; Creep
  %
   AG Af | (f>e) c>A | cB BA | (AGF) E |
  w: hey for boot and sad-dle, lad! And round the world a-way;__ Young
  w: home, and take your place* there, The spent and maimed a-mong;__ God
  %
   c>B B>A | A2 G d | d>F G>F | E3 E |
  w: blood must have its course, lad, And ev-'ry dog his day. Young
  w: grant you find one face there You loved when all was young. God
  %
   cd e^e | (gf) A> B | cE [1 {A}c>B | A3 :|2 "^rit." B>A | A3 ||
  w: Young blood must have its course, lad, And ev-'ry dog his day.***
  w: God grant you find one face there You loved when*** all was young.
  %%vskip .25in

Note: The abc2ps program used by the folkinfo.org converter apparently takes any last word in the title preceded by a comma and moves it to the front (anticipating titles like "Watch Fob, The"), so I had to remove the comma between "Young" and "Lad" to prevent the title from becoming "Lad When All the World Is Young". This is an "unadvertised feature", apparently; certainly the behavior is non-standard—and often unwanted, with no work-around that I could discover.

Subject: RE: The Old Old song, Charles Kingsley
From: nutty
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 08:29 AM

Keith Marsden -late of Cockersdale put a tune to this and also wrote an extra middle verse ------

Then time is on your side, lad
With every colour bright
Age forever black, lad
And Youth forever white
So Hey for boot and horse, lad
And all the world away
???? must have it's course lad
And every dog it's day

I'll try and complete the verse if I remember the rest later.

The song is in print in "Picking Sooty Blackberries" a book of Keiths Songs.

Subject: The Old Old song, Charles Kingsley
From: The Maverick
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 03:56 AM

Anyone know if this has been set to music as a song and where I could hear it?

The Old, Old Song - Charles Kingsley

When all the world is young, lad,
And all the trees are green;
And every goose a swan, lad,
And every lass a queen,—
Then hey for boot and horse, lad,
And round the world away;
Young blood must have its course, lad,
And every dog his day.

When all the world is old, lad,
And all the trees are brown;
And all the sport is stale, lad,
And all the wheels run down,—
Creep home, and take your place there,
The spent and maimed among:
God grant you find one face there
You loved when all was young.