Origins: Pied Piper of Hamelin - songs

Subject: Origins: Pied Piper of Hamelin - songs
From: Joe Offer
Date: 15 Aug 13 - 03:28 AM

I got an e-mail request for lyrics and origin information for a Pied Piper song that begins like this:

Once upon a mystical time in a place called Hamelin Town,
......
A piper of great renown
With his pipe a tune he played,
And for the usual fee,
He offered to lure the rats away,
And drown them in the sea.

....(different tune, maybe a chorus sounding like a pipe do-doodle-oo-doo)

He did his job, and he did it well,
...
But now that the rats they could not return,
The townsfolk would not pay.
With his flute, he began to play,
The children danced with glee;
And as the villagers watched aghast,
He danced....to the sea

[chorus]

---

Click to play (joeweb)

Subject: RE: Origins: Pied Piper of Hamelin - songs
From: Phil Cooper
Date: 15 Aug 13 - 08:04 AM

Could it be a folk processed version of the Malvina Reynolds song? I remember hearing that way back, but my memory of it may be spotty and we could be talking about two different songs.

Subject: RE: Origins: Pied Piper of Hamelin - songs
From: Phil Cooper
Date: 15 Aug 13 - 08:17 AM

I just went over to youtube. I put in Pied piper of hamelin and there were interesting results, but not this song. I also put in Malvina Reynolds to see if I was right about her writing a song about it. There are a lot of Malvina Reynolds songs and footage to look at, but not of that song. Though I was reminded of how many good songs she wrote. But this is not the time for a thread drift.

Subject: RE: Origins: Pied Piper of Hamelin - songs
From: Elmore
Date: 15 Aug 13 - 08:26 AM

Michael Cooney used to do that song. As I recall, he said Malvina Reynolds wrote it.

Subject: RE: Origins: Pied Piper of Hamelin - songs
From: Elmore
Date: 15 Aug 13 - 08:58 AM

Just Google Hamelin Town by Malvina Reynolds, and you'll find a couple of web sites with the complete lyrics.

Subject: RE: Origins: Pied Piper of Hamelin - songs
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 15 Aug 13 - 12:44 PM

Any royalties or whatever to the estate of the descendants of Robert Browning?

Or even acknowledgments?

Thought not!

~M~

Subject: RE: Origins: Pied Piper of Hamelin - songs
From: Lighter
Date: 15 Aug 13 - 01:45 PM

Back in 1957 CBS aired "The Pied Piper of Hamelin," a musical starring Van Johnson and Claude Raines. It was one of the earliest made-for-TV movies.

The songs were set to melodies from Grieg and the dialogue was in rhyme.

Some of us recall it as one of the greatest TV experiences ever, at least for those of the appropriate age. I don't know if it's on DVD, but it would be worth looking into.

Subject: RE: Origins: Pied Piper of Hamelin - songs
From: Joe Offer
Date: 16 Aug 13 - 12:52 AM

Well, the Malvina Reynolds song titled "Pied Piper" is in this thread, but I don't think that is the song that was requested.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Origins: Pied Piper of Hamelin - songs
From: Joe Offer
Date: 01 Sep 13 - 06:42 PM

refesh.

Any chance it's a Danny Kaye / Sylvia Fine creation?

Subject: RE: Origins: Pied Piper of Hamelin - songs
From: Jack Campin
Date: 01 Sep 13 - 09:17 PM

Any royalties or whatever to the estate of the descendants of Robert Browning?

Why should there be? He didn't invent the story.

According to Romanian traditions, the children ended up founding the Saxon population of Brasov in southern Transylvania. There should be Romanian songs about it, whether in German, Romanian or Hungarian.

Subject: RE: Origins: Pied Piper of Hamelin - songs
From: Elmore
Date: 01 Sep 13 - 09:46 PM

Liked Malvina Reynolds' version better than Robert Browning's.

Subject: RE: Origins: Pied Piper of Hamelin - songs
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Sep 13 - 01:54 AM

theres a few versions of the story on vinyl with songs, one of which is the Danny Kaye version

Subject: RE: Origins: Pied Piper of Hamelin - songs
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 02 Sep 13 - 04:51 AM

True, Jack; but it was Browning who made the figure into a universally comprehensible referent. The fact that everyone knows what is meant by describing someone as 'a Pied Piper' is down to Browning alone; just as Macbeth & Hamlet wouldn't be any sort of symbolic figures if we only had Holinshed & Saxo Grammaticus as our authorities. Not, of course, that I was serious about the royalties; he has obviously been dead much too long to have any such claim. But my point emblematically remains.

~M~

Subject: RE: Origins: Pied Piper of Hamelin - songs
From: Joe Offer
Date: 03 Sep 13 - 04:31 AM

Still no answer to the original question - anybody have full lyrics and information about a song that begins like this:

Once upon a mystical time in a place called Hamelin Town

Anybody?

-Joe-