Same tunes

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 12 Jul 14 - 03:56 AM

Whoops - First line only should be italics.

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 12 Jul 14 - 04:40 AM

Ah -- gotcha. Thank you Dave.

~M~

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 12 Jul 14 - 09:07 AM

We used to sing A B C etc to 'See Saw Marjery Daw', PHJim as kids in the 50s.

For the serious student of this sort of thing 'Folk Songs of the Catskills' by Cazden, Haufrecht and Studer is a gold mine.

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: PHJim
Date: 19 Jul 14 - 01:51 AM

I was just listening to Lyle Lovett singing "If You Were To Wake Up" and I'm sure I've heard another song to that tune, but I'm not sure what. Any help?

If You Were To Wake Up - Lyle Lovett

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 19 Jul 14 - 05:12 AM

Add to list for The Land where the Shamrocks grow (Star of the County Down):
Van Diemen's Land ( Come All Ye Gallant Poachers)

For The Red-haired Boy, add Matt McGinn's Lots of Little Soldiers.
And he has two songs to the tune of My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean, namely Skin, and Right Proper Bar Steward.

Hey Tuttie Tatie is used for 3 of songs, 2 of which are by Burns: the song by that title appears in The Merry Muses cantata, then there's Scots Wha Hae. And to the same tune, but much slower and more lyrically, Lady Nairne's song "Land O the Leal" (a friend said he'd been singing it for years before he realised it WAS the same tune as SWH!)

More Burns:
Dainty Davie, There was a lad born in Kyle (Rantin Rovin Robin), and The Gairdener Wi His Paidle (When Rosy May) all to the same tune.

As for how tunes become song melodies, Green Grow the Rashes was originally a very snappy strathspey, as is Miss Admiral Gordon's Strathspey which has been slowed down and smoothed out to provide the tune for "O A the Airts": the first half of the tune is also used for The Scarborough Settler's Lament in the smooth lyrical version.

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: Jack Campin
Date: 19 Jul 14 - 06:17 AM

The Lyle Lovett thing sounds a bit like "Morning Has Broken".

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 19 Jul 14 - 06:27 AM

"Morning Has Broken" is a popular and well-known Christian hymn first published in 1931. It has words by English author Eleanor Farjeon and is set to a traditional Scottish Gaelic tune known as "Bunessan" (it shares this tune with the 19th century Christmas Carol "Child in the Manger").
                   Wikipedia

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: Jack Campin
Date: 19 Jul 14 - 06:33 AM

Yeah, we've been over that one a lot. But I'm not sure if Lovett's godawful dirge is really the same tune or if something else has been mixed in. The words recall "If I Was A Carpenter" and that may be part of it.

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: Brian Peters
Date: 19 Jul 14 - 07:01 AM

'Searching for Lambs' is pretty close to some versions of 'Geordie' and 'Lord Bateman'. I've seen an article somewhere in which (I think) Bertrand Bronson compared a whole pile of ballad tunes and clamed that they were closely related, but I can't trace it now. Anyone who's come across this paper and knows where it was published, please give me a clue.

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: Jack Campin
Date: 19 Jul 14 - 07:08 AM

The "tune family" idea comes from Hungarian musicology - it's rather more obvious in Hungarian folk. The most enthusiastic proponent of in British folksong studies was S.P. Bayard, who thought there were something like 56 basic tunes for the entire ballad corpus. Bronson followed Bayard a lot of the way but wasn't quite so extreme about it.

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 19 Jul 14 - 11:16 AM

Here's one from Cazden et al.
Baffled Knight (in Pills)=Shantyman's Life=Barbara Allen (US)= Andro and his Cutty Gun =The Boyne Water= State of Illinois

Green Grow the Laurels=If I was a Blackbird=The Beautiful Muff

Again Cazden...
Young Beichan=Betsy the Servant Maid=Bourbon (shapenote hymn)=Captain's Apprentice

Jimmy McBeath's 'Beggar Wench' sounds very much like the English 'Miller's 3 Sons' to me.

Big ship sails on the illy allyo = If you want to find the sergeant I know where he is = Down in Demarara.

Barnacle Bill the Sailor =Hey ho says Rowley, which also has similarities with the jig Dingle Regatta in places.

One of the common 'Bold Grenadier' tunes has similarities with 'Polly Perkins'

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Jul 14 - 11:28 AM

So how many basic generic melodies are there in Blues songs ?

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: Jack Campin
Date: 19 Jul 14 - 12:06 PM

Big ship sails on the illy allyo = If you want to find the sergeant I know where he is = Down in Demarara.

Which are all pretty close to John Brown's Body/Golya, golya.

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: GUEST,gillymor
Date: 19 Jul 14 - 01:03 PM

One of my favorite fiddle tunes:
Killiecrakie/ Planxty Davis

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: Jack Campin
Date: 19 Jul 14 - 02:02 PM

"The Boyne Water" = "Parcel of Rogues", though the tune for PoR has evolved slightly since the text was written. I think there may be a version of PoR in Oswald's Caledonian Pocket Companion - the original form of the text is from the beginning of the 18th century and it was thought of as having a tune of its own before Burns was born.

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: GUEST,DTM
Date: 19 Jul 14 - 03:15 PM

To answer therefore blues tunes query ....... 1

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Jul 14 - 03:19 PM

Oops 'therefore' should read 'the'
I hate predict text. Grrrrrrrrr

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 19 Jul 14 - 05:21 PM

John Brown's Body.
Good spot, Jack.

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: GUEST,raymond greenoaken
Date: 20 Jul 14 - 07:34 AM

My two favourite examples of "Why did I never notice...? –

All Around My Hat = 'Twas On One April Morning

Jack Orion = Donald Whaur's Yer Troosers

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: GUEST,eldergirl
Date: 20 Jul 14 - 09:53 PM

Lyle Lovett's tune is nowt like If I were a Carpenter, apart from being in a minor key.
Words, maybe..

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: Tradsinger
Date: 21 Jul 14 - 02:52 AM

Lord Franklin
Macaffery
The Croppy Boy
Versions of "Father, father, build me a boat"
Bob Dylan's Dream

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: Jack Campin
Date: 21 Jul 14 - 08:20 AM

"The Spanish Lady", "The Basket of Eggs" and the verse of Ewan MacColl's "Tunnel Tigers".

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 21 Jul 14 - 04:44 PM

Nice one, Gwilym

Giving a proper title (master title) to your 'father, father' has always presented difficulties, partly due to the multiplicity of titles it comes with both in oral tradition and on broadsides, and partly the fact that the fuller versions even share an opening line with other ballads 'It was early, early all in the spring'. When I was making my list of master titles the interested parties who contributed suggested using the most widely used title, which makes sense. In this case the most widely used in publication was 'Sweet William'. Unfortunately there are lots of other 'Sweet Williams' amongst the ballads. However I stuck to the rule and so it is in my indexes the title, even though more common titles on the folk scene have been 'The Sailor Boy' and 'The Sailing Trade'.

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 21 Jul 14 - 05:09 PM

Sometimes putting an entirely new set of words to an already existent tune creates a very fine new song, without in any way detracting from the original, which retains its integrity. Such I think is the case with Austin John Marshall's beautiful Dancing At Whitsun, to the tune of the Coppers' The Week Before Easter.

~M~

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: GUEST,gillymor
Date: 22 Jul 14 - 10:39 AM

Richard Thompson's Farewell, Farewell (from Fairport days) uses the tune sometimes used for Willie o' Winsbury.

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: GUEST,LynnH
Date: 22 Jul 14 - 01:53 PM

When I first started making songs I was always worried about unconsciously 'pinching' tunes, not least because this was about the time when "My Sweet Lord" caused Geoprge Harrison to come a cropper. Strange that he hasn't been mentioned here already.

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: Tradsinger
Date: 22 Jul 14 - 02:14 PM

John Blunt (Oxfordshire version)
Jack and Jill went up the hill

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 22 Jul 14 - 03:00 PM

The Ballad Opera form, popular in C18-19, of course set songs to well-known airs of various sorts, many folk. Best known example is, of course, John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, 1728, whose script specifies the tune to be used; not always by the best known title, but usually to be extrapolated. The song A Miser Thus A Shilling Sees goes to the air we should best recognise as The Broom Of Cowdenowes. I recall a Shirley & Dolly Collins record way back, in which Barry Dransfield joined them on one of the tracks to sing a selection of these. Greensleeves & Lillibulero also, unsurprisingly, feature; and, probably best known, Over The Hills And Far Away.

Such recourses can be used in other contexts. I was once musical director, and playing Amiens, the singing member of the Court in Exile in the Forest, in an open-air "hippy" production of As You Like It, in Selwyn College gardens in Cambridge, back in the 1970s. I set It Was A Lover And His Lass to tune of The Little Beggarman; Under The Greenwood Tree to The Gentleman Soldier; Blow Blow Thou Winter Wind to Here's Adieu Sweet Lovely Nancy; What Shall He Have That Killed The Deer? to Hal-an-Tow; The Wedding Hymn to Kelvingrove. Production got good review in the Cambridge Evening News.

~M~

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 23 Jul 14 - 06:18 AM

I remember once visiting Harry Cox with Bob Thomson. Looking thru some of his broadsides & MSS, we came across "The Ship Called Onward" [see my article describing this visit in Folk Review for February 1973]. Harry asked if I knew any song like that, so I sang a stanza of 'The Amphitryte' from the first Penguin Book of English Folk Song, remarking that the tune was like his version of 'Van Diemen's Land', which he called 'Henry Abbot he Poacher'; and when Harry looked a bit puzzled, Bob put in "Or like 'The Painful Plough'".

Bob said afterwards that he wasn't sure Harry thought particularly of his tunes, and that he quite possibly didn't recognise the tunes of any of them being similar, as eg here 'Henry Abbot' and 'Painful Plough'. I said to Bob that I wondered if that really was the case; and I continue to wonder so to this day.

~M~

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: GUEST,silver
Date: 26 Jul 14 - 09:20 AM

Birmingham Jail=Down in the Valley=Connemara Cradle Song

Red is the Rose=Loch Lomond

'Tis the Last Rose of Summer=Vid Roines strand (Swedish/Finnish)

Some tunes are very apt for writing new words to, like Rosin the Beau=Acres of Clams, as delightfully demonstrated by Pete Seeger on his "Singalong Concert" recording. Likewise O Tannenbaum, Streets of Laredo, My Darling Clementine (I've heard that one sung in Bosnian), and, strangely enough, Ode to Joy, from Beeethoven's 9th Symphony.

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 04 Aug 14 - 12:49 AM

Put this on Sweet Thames & Recruited Collier thread. Think it belongs here also --

I once pointed out to Peter Bellamy that one song from The Transports, which he claimed all had original tunes, was very redolent of a traditional song: I Once Lived In Service/The Fair Maid On The Shore. He said he didn't think he'd ever heard Fair Maid -- certainly not one he'd ever sung; and asked me how it went. When I'd just sung him the first couple of lines, he said, "Well, I suppose I must have heard it some time, then, & had it at the back of my mind."

And so these things happen.

And have you ever related Tomorrow Belongs To Me, from Cabaret, to The Rout Of The Blues? Probably coincidental; and maybe nobody else can hear the resemblance I do: but who can really tell?

≈M≈

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 04 Aug 14 - 11:26 AM

sorry I can't remember the titles of the songs, but yesterday we sang a hymn in church. and I finally remembered that it was a Caribbean tune that I had on a steel drum album in the 1970's.

At one time Lutheran service and steel drums were miles apart, but no more.

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Aug 21 - 12:18 PM

The lilly of the vally is mabye a hymn that is a 3 borrowed songs. I have been working on this for a long time. Jambalya a song written and sung by hank williams in 1952 is not called this. grand texas is name first by chuck gillik in 1949. hank williams put a record of chucks song and heard it over again covers of hank's 1953 song was so well sung by males and females all over but nobody will know the 1949 song before williams wrote his new set of. when i got the home i am in started burning cds old songs from the same tune songs you no when you were young in the folk albums well here is a list of them. in 1771 when johny cochrane 1 became riders in the sky the 1955 song rock around the clock has a tune that mistery will be not non's and jambeya song a 1949 cajun tune that you can talk about and get the cuck gilicia song before the song we new. for tomorow my birthday when happy birthday was done 1666 writer the balley sisters were writing a tune that tune is the same tune as a called good morning to all.

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: GeoffLawes
Date: 01 Sep 21 - 08:02 AM

Click Go the Shears and the pumping shanty Strike The Bell both share their tunes with Ring The Bell, Watchman written as a hymn of peace after the US Civil War by Henry Clay Work.

Click go the Shears     https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=+Click+go+the+Shears+
Strike The Bell     https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=strike+the+bell+sea+shanty
Ring The Bell, Watchman     https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Ring+The+Bell+Watchman

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: GeoffLawes
Date: 01 Sep 21 - 08:09 AM

Original Sheet Music for Ring The Bell, Watchman     https://www.loc.gov/resource/ihas.200002355.0?st=gallery

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: GeoffLawes
Date: 02 Sep 21 - 07:15 PM

The Bonny Lass Of Fyvie-o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0Y37E9rqqg
The Constitution & The Guerriere https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtVLwXVAOfY
The Shannon and the Chesapeake https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KU0uSul45-g

Subject: RE: Same tunes
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 02 Sep 21 - 07:31 PM

Puir Rovin' Lassie - tune comes up in a number of other songs that currently escape my late-night memory!
"Kelvingrove" and "The Shearing's no for you".
Not quite the same, but close: "My Old Man's a Dustman" and "The Jeely Piece Song".
"The Wark o the Weavers" - borrowed by Billy Connolly to become "If it wisnae fur yer wellies".