Origins: Green and Yellow / Green and Yeller

Subject: RE: Scout Songbooks Index PermaThread
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 25 Nov 19 - 05:24 PM

Jack
Could you please let me have the text of Gilwell's 1957 'Green and Yellow'?

Whilst I'm here if anyone has any info on the song prior to the 50s it would be very welcome. I think I know who wrote the last verse but the other 2 new verses out of the 6 I would dearly love to know who wrote them. Strangely the nearest Henry my Son versions to the burlesque come from Somerset as collected by Sharp, but he doesn't seem to have published them, preferring versions of Lord Randall.

Subject: Lyr Add: GREEN AND YELLOW (Gilwell Camp Fire Book)
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 26 Nov 19 - 01:56 AM

Green and Yellow

From Thurman & Hazlewood, The Gilwell Camp Fire Book. Pub. London: Pearson 1st edition (1957), Reprinted 1960.

Mother: Where have you been all day, Henery, my son?
        Where have you been all day, my pretty son?

Son:        In the woods, in the woods,
        Mother do be quick,
        For I’m feeling very sick,
        And I want to lay me down and die.

Mother: What did you do in those woods, Henery, my son? etc

Son:        Ate dear Mother, ate dear Mother, etc

Mother: What ate you in the woods, Henery, my son? etc

Son:        Eels, dear mother, eels, dear Mother, etc

Mother:        What colour were those eels, Henery, my son? etc

Son:        Green and yeller, green and yeller, etc

Mother:        Those eels were snakes, Henery, my son? etc

Son:        Oh dear Mother, oh dear mother, etc

Mother:        What colour flowers do you want, Henery, my son? etc

Son:        Green and yeller, green and yeller, etc

Subject: RE: Scout Songbooks Index PermaThread
From: Jack Campin
Date: 26 Nov 19 - 12:33 PM

...and to not give credit where it isn't due, that GUEST wasn't me.

Subject: RE: req/ADD: Green and Yellow / Green and Yeller
From: Joe Offer
Date: 27 Nov 19 - 04:04 PM

refresh - messages moved to this new thread.

Subject: RE: req/ADD: Green and Yellow / Green and Yeller
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 27 Nov 19 - 05:35 PM

Very interesting. The Gilwell 6 stanzas seem to derive from a version on the 50s folk scene, which would be quite logical. There may still be people about who can shed light on how it passed from folk song to burlesque. 3 of those 6 stanzas do not appear in earlier oral tradition.
(2, 4 & 5). (unless you know different!)

Thanks, GG

Subject: RE: req/ADD: Green and Yellow / Green and Yeller
From: GUEST,Martin Ryan
Date: 27 Nov 19 - 05:53 PM

I first heard this, as an Irish Boy Scout on only my second trip out of Ireland, at a Scout jamboree in the English Lake District - probably 1960. Curiously enough, one of my fellow scouts from the 45th Mount Argus on that ocasion was a lad called Tom Munnelly - who went on to become Ireland's foremost collector of traditional songs. Among his collection were several very rare Child Ballads.

Many years later, having long lost touch with Tom, I started attending a Traditional Song Festival in Ennistymon, Co. Clare - organised by the man himself. It took several years for it to dawn on me why he looked (and sounded) familiar!

Regards

Subject: RE: req/ADD: Green and Yellow / Green and Yeller
From: Mrrzy
Date: 27 Nov 19 - 06:07 PM

Pete Seeger's children's records

Subject: RE: req/ADD: Green and Yellow / Green and Yeller
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 27 Nov 19 - 06:14 PM

Thanks, Martin. I already have your version from an earlier thread.
Yes, Pete seems to have had a hand in its popularity. One of the earliest versions I have came from him reprinted in Sing Out. He learnt it from a Londoner on the early folk scene.

Subject: RE: req/ADD: Green and Yellow / Green and Yeller
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Nov 19 - 02:48 PM

Redd Sullivan used. To sing this, with great relish.

Subject: RE: req/ADD: Green and Yellow / Green and Yeller
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 28 Nov 19 - 03:28 PM

Yes, the more I'm coming to the probability that it originated in London.
Redd did our club in Hull many times, on his own and with MartinW. He once came with us to look at a half-submerged wooden keel in Goole, the last of its type, appropriately named Mayday.