Youth of the Heart: Sydney Carter/Donald Swann

Subject: Youth of the Heart: Sydney Carter/Donald Swann
From: keberoxu
Date: 15 Oct 19 - 06:40 PM

As it happens, this song lyric,
with a link to a MIDI file (haven't tried playing it back),
is already in Mudcat's DigiTrad:

The Youth of the Heart

What is missing is the identification of those who
wrote and composed the song.

Sydney Carter wrote the lyrics for a revue
(the Globe Revue),
and the lyrics were set to music
by Donald Swann,
he of
Flanders and Swann / At the Drop of a Hat.

Since I can't enter that information into the
Digital Tradition file,
the least I can do is
begin a Mudcat thread
which sets the record straight.

Subject: RE: Youth of the Heart: Sydney Carter/Donald Swann
From: Joe Offer
Date: 15 Oct 19 - 07:12 PM

The story of Sydney Carter's association with Donald Swann is detailed in Carter's obituary in The Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2004/mar/17/guardianobituaries.religion

The entire obituary is fascinating, but here's an excerpt:

With the second world war, his critical spirit and abhorrence of violence led him into the Friends Ambulance Unit, with which he served in the Middle East, and, in 1944, in Greece, along with a stim ulating group of pacifists, including Donald Swann (obituary, March 25 1994). If any church could come to holding Sydney's allegiance, it was the Society of Friends, with its rejection of dogma, and its reliance on personal experience and social activ-ism, and its affirmation of God's presence in every human being.

After the war, folk music, both sacred and secular, took Sydney over. Much influenced by what he had heard in Greece, he studied its many forms; then, in 1952, he started writing lyrics for Swann, who needed revue material. "I found out that I could do that," Sydney said, "and get paid for it."

He launched what proved to be a long collaboration by providing lyrics for Swann's composition The Youth Of The Heart, which featured in the Globe Revue in London's West End. In the mid-1950s, he was the lyricist on Swann's children's musical, Lucy And The Hunter.

I was a BBC producer when, in 1960, Sydney wrote his most controversial song, Friday Morning. I believe it was also one of the most profound. In it, the robber, crucified with Jesus, cries out:

It was on a Friday morning that they took me from my cell
And I saw they had a carpenter to crucify as well.
You can blame it on to Pilate, you can blame it on the Jews,
You can blame it on the Devil, it's God I accuse.
It's God they ought to crucify, instead of you and me,
I said to the carpenter a-hanging on the tree.


Classic theology says that it was God, but Sydney lets the irony stand. In this, as in the following stanzas, he piles on the guilt, piles it on to God. It leads to the deepest of all questions: is God in Auschwitz or the Twin Towers, the killer or the victim? If there is a God? I had to fight the BBC management to get that song on the air. A brave, liberal head of religious broadcasting was my ally. Today, the fear of a backlash would be far greater.

In 1962, Carter teamed up with Sheila Hancock for the album Putting Out The Dustbin, one track of which, Last Cigarette, on failing to give up smoking, became a minor hit. The songs on the LP were closer to cabaret than to folk, but the pacifist, political singer was there even then. In 1964, the Donald Swann EP, Songs Of Faith And Doubt, comprised six songs by Carter. In the 1960s too, he worked as a critic for Gramophone magazine.

Subject: RE: Youth of the Heart: Sydney Carter/Donald Swann
From: keberoxu
Date: 16 Oct 19 - 05:02 PM

And what is more ...

though the tune and the music
by Donald Swann vary little from version to version

(numerous recorded performances exist),

guess what?

The words have changed.
Mudcat's DigiTrad (links preceding) version
is NOT the version which is sung in the recorded performances.
I wonder what the source is for the DigiTrad words?
I suspect that the DigiTrad version might very well be
what Sydney Carter actually wrote, it's only my hunch though.

Does there exist a recording of
Sydney Carter himself singing this song?
I have not located such -- nor evidence thereof, and I have searched.

Does there exist sheet music for "Youth of the Heart"?
I have looked for this as well,
and for some reason my searches have met with failure.

That leaves me with two alternatives:
the performance recordings that I have spoken of;
and webpages online with the lyrics displayed.

Do any readers know of a recording, or a printed edition,
of "Youth of the Heart"
which matches the DigiTrad text word for word?
And can you tell the rest of us
where to find it? Many thanks in advance.

Subject: RE: Youth of the Heart: Sydney Carter/Donald Swann
From: keberoxu
Date: 16 Oct 19 - 05:13 PM

It's easy to tell the two -- similar -- lyrics apart
from looking at the chorus.

Mudcat's DigiTrad version has this chorus:

For the youth of the heart
Is as the dew of the morning
You'll wake and it's left you
Without any warning.   


All the recorded performances I have heard,
feature this chorus instead:

O! the youth of the heart
And the dew in the morning
You wake, and they've left you
Without any warning.




Then there is the final stanza/verse of the lyric,
which changes entirely.

Mudcat/DigiTrad:
O! those sweet silver dollars, I've counted them plenty
But it's many times over I've mourned my sad fate
If you would know kisses of dew and of morning
Don't wait until noon, or you'll find it's too late



Beginning with Donald Swann, the composer of the music,
all those who record "The Youth of the Heart"
sing this final verse instead:

So all you young lovers, all ready to marry,
Remember my story, and mind what I say.
For I was a wise man, and now I am sorry:
The wisdom of winter is madness in May!

Subject: RE: Youth of the Heart: Sydney Carter/Donald Swann
From: keberoxu
Date: 17 Oct 19 - 01:26 PM

This link goes to a performance (YouTube 'video')
from Save the Land!, a 1972 album by
the Clancy brothers.

I can't tell which of the brothers sings this solo.
"The Youth of the Heart"

And in listening, you may confirm that the text version
is the version sung by Donald Swann,
which is different than the lyric
in Mudcat's DigiTrad.

Subject: RE: Youth of the Heart: Sydney Carter/Donald Swann
From: keberoxu
Date: 17 Oct 19 - 04:58 PM

There is a rare copy of sheet music of this song for sale --
I'm going to purchase it,
and report back to this thread,
which variation of the lyric
is printed in the sheet music score.

Subject: RE: Youth of the Heart: Sydney Carter/Donald Swann
From: GUEST,keberoxu
Date: 19 Oct 19 - 05:17 PM

And this is a live recorded performance
by the composer, Donald Swann.

Subject: RE: Youth of the Heart: Sydney Carter/Donald Swann
From: GUEST,keberoxu
Date: 21 Oct 19 - 03:36 PM

Right, the sheet music I bought has been delivered,
someone took really good care of it for a long time
because the copyright date
goes back to 1951!
Chappell, of course, which is the publisher
for At the Drop of a Hat.


My suspicions are borne out by the sheet music:
the lyric in the score
is the same that
Donald Swann and others have recorded,

which is to say,
a slightly different lyric
than Mudcat's DigiTrad song file.

Perhaps a future post to this thread
ought to spell out, exactly,
the copyrighted Chappell lyric from the score,
in order to demonstrate
how the two song lyrics are similar
as well as how they differ.

Subject: ADD:Youth of the Heart: Sydney Carter/Donald Swann
From: keberoxu
Date: 23 Oct 19 - 05:04 PM

THE YOUTH OF THE HEART
Words by Sydney Carter
Music by Donald Swann


When I was a young man, I hadn't a penny.
"When shall we marry?" My Molly would say.
But I was a wise man, And said to my darling:
"Love that is true love will not fade away."

CHORUS

I went to America looking for money.
I worked all the day, and I slept all alone.
The sweet silver dollars I saved for my darling,
To clothe her in satin and make her my own.

CHORUS

I came back to Ireland, my pockets a-jingle.
The wedding bells rang as I came down the street.
"Oh, where is the colleen I've come back to marry?"
I asked the first neighbour I happened to meet.

CHORUS

"Your love has grown weary of keeping her kisses,
And learning a song that will never be sung.
This morning your Molly has married another:
A penniless man with a heart that is young!"

CHORUS

So all you young lovers all ready to marry,
Remember my story, and mind what I say.
For I was a wise man, and now I am sorry:
The wisdom of winter is madness in May!

CHORUS
Oh the youth of the heart
And the dew in the morning!
You wake, and they've left you
Without any warning.

Copyright 1951 by Chappell & Co., London

Subject: RE: Youth of the Heart: Sydney Carter/Donald Swann
From: GUEST,keberoxu
Date: 27 Nov 19 - 09:03 PM

I still would dearly like to know
if anybody recognizes the Mudcat DigiTrad
version of these lyrics
(link in opening post),

and better still,
knows of a source for them,

now that I have documented the lyric sung by Donald Swann.

Subject: RE: Youth of the Heart: Sydney Carter/Donald Swann
From: keberoxu
Date: 28 Nov 19 - 07:39 PM

refresh

Subject: RE: Youth of the Heart: Sydney Carter/Donald Swann
From: GUEST,SRL
Date: 02 Jul 20 - 02:57 AM

To the person who purchased the Youth of the Heart sheet music, where did you find it?
I would be very interested in obtaining a copy, either from your source or even a digital copy from yourself.

Subject: RE: Youth of the Heart: Sydney Carter/Donald Swann
From: GUEST,keberoxu
Date: 02 Jul 20 - 10:46 AM

Hello SRL,
by chance I found it at Amazon dot co dot UK!
I can guess it rarely appears there either.
And I would be happy to not merely share
but to GIVE you the sheet music actually;

my purchase has served its purpose,
now that this Mudcat thread
documents the variations between
the words as preserved at Digital Traditions
and
the words sung by Donald Swann et alia.

So I am quite ready to let go of my copy
and let someone else have it.
Now, if you had a Mudcat membership,
then you and I could exchange private messages or 'PM' each other
about where I could send the music.

Subject: RE: Youth of the Heart: Sydney Carter/Donald Swann
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Aug 22 - 04:32 PM

Thanks to the people who attributed this song to the people who actually wrote it! It was very well known in the 1950s; it's actually mentioned in a Margery Allingham mystery novel, can't remember which one.

Subject: RE: Youth of the Heart: Sydney Carter/Donald Swann
From: GUEST,Paul Ingraham
Date: 27 Jan 24 - 01:54 AM

to GUEST 02 Aug 22: That mention is in Allingham's The Beckoning Lady, near the very end. The book is available online at Google Books. Here's the passage.

"As Mr Campion came up he was just in time to see him put out a foot absently to trip up an August who was flitting past, but his voice was sad to the point of unsteadiness.

'The youth of the heart and the dew in the morning,
You wake and they've left you without any warning.'

He quoted the lyric softly. 'Oh Minnie, how tragic. How awful, Minnie'.

Subject: RE: Youth of the Heart: Sydney Carter/Donald Swann
From: The Doctor
Date: 29 Jan 24 - 07:24 AM

This is available on the black box collection 'Hat Trick', possibly not on Amazon but at least one copy on ebay, and well worth having. It was part of the original 'At the drop pf a hat' but didn't make it on to the LP. It was subsequently released on an EP to try to satisfy public demand for more.

Subject: RE: Youth of the Heart: Sydney Carter/Donald Swann
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Feb 24 - 01:34 AM

Liam Clancy sang the lead… Lou Killen on Concertina.. great album..”Save the Land” 1972