Lyr Req: When You Were Sweet Sixteen (J Thornton)

Subject: When you were sweet 16 - Full Version
From: GUEST,cujimmy
Date: 02 Feb 00 - 06:20 PM

This song was written by Jim Thornton who fled the famine in Ireland. He wrote it about his wife who perished in Ireland before he left. I know most of the words and would be grateful for all the words of the Full Song not just the short version sung by the Fureys. Thanks for your help - regards - jimmy

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: When you were sweet 16 - Full Versio
From: Brakn
Date: 02 Feb 00 - 07:25 PM

Click here and you will find it.

Mick Bracken

Subject: Lyr Add: WHEN YOU WERE SWEET SIXTEEN (J Thornton)
From: Tiger
Date: 02 Feb 00 - 10:08 PM

Here's what I've got. I've got a MIDI and a recording, if you're desperate.

.....Tiger

From The Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music:

WHEN YOU WERE SWEET SIXTEEN
Words and Music by James Thornton
"Sung With Great Success By Bonnie Thornton. Also Sung With Success By Raymon Moore."
New York: M. Witmark & Sons, 1898.

1. When first I saw the love-light in your eye,
And heard thy voice like sweetest melody,
Speak words of love to my enraptur'd soul,
The world had naught but joy in store for me,
E'en though we're drifting down life's stream apart,
Your face I still can see in dream's domain:
I know that it would ease my breaking heart
To hold you in my arms just once again.

CHORUS: I love you as I never lov'd before,
Since first I met you on the village green.
Come to me, or my dream of love is o'er.
I love you as I lov'd you
When you were sweet, when you were sweet sixteen.

2. Last night I dreamt I held your hand in mine,
And once again you were my happy bride.
I kiss'd you as I did in Auld Lang Syne,
As to the church we wander'd side by side.
The love I bear for you can never die:
Without you I had rather not been born:
And, even tho' we never meet again,
I love you as the sunshine loves the morn. CHORUS

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: When you were sweet 16 - Full Versio
From: Kernow John
Date: 03 Feb 00 - 04:39 PM

Jimmy
If you have any different from this can you post it please.
Baz

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: When you were sweet 16 - Full Versio
From: GUEST
Date: 03 Feb 00 - 05:18 PM

I was at a Fuies concert a few years ago and Finbar said Jim Thornton had gone over to U.S.A from Liverpool in 1847 and he used to play/sing on street corners in Chicago, a priest befriended him and wrote down the words of the song and so it survived. Is this right or am I mistaken, I,m sure that is what Finbar told the audience - The word are the same as I,ve known except " your dear kind face ", and " I know that it would ease my weary heart ", not much different - regards jimmy

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: When you were sweet 16 - Full Versio
From: Martin _Ryan
Date: 03 Feb 00 - 05:28 PM

I don't know if the story is true - but I do know this: it wouldn't be the first time the Fureys embellished/invented a story - often to hilarious effect!

Regards

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: When you were sweet 16 - Full Versio
From: Brakn
Date: 03 Feb 00 - 07:13 PM

Jsut to add....the Furey's only sang one verse.

Mick Bracken

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: When you were sweet 16 - Full Versio
From: Orac
Date: 24 Jun 02 - 08:16 AM

This lovely song got carved up by Al Jolson when he recorded it back in 1930. This bastardised version was copied by Perry Como (and others) in the late 1940's and then later by the Furys, whose version seems to be copied by everyone now. The Furys keep circulating this nonsense that James Thornton was Irish. He was English, born in Liverpool in 1861, he and his family moved to the States in 1869. His wife was not Irish either. She was an American lady that he met whilst he was working as a singing waiter. I would urge anyone wanting to learn this song to go back to the 1898 original, the melody of which is in three parts not two.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: When you were sweet 16 - Full Versio
From: masato sakurai
Date: 24 Jun 02 - 08:57 AM

Thornton, James, composer, author, actor; b. Liverpool, Eng., Dec. 4, 1861; d. Astoria, New York, July 27, 1938. ASCAP 1914 (charter member). To U.S. 1870. Educ.: Elliott School, Boston. To work at an early age, became protégé of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Night watchman at seventeen, began professional career as singing waiter in Boston; in vaudeville for fifty years as monologist, singer, and comedian; introduced own songs. Songs: "When You Were Sweet Sixteen";....
(The ASCAP Biographical Dictionary<.I>, 2nd ed., Crown, 1952 p. 500)

Sheet music is also in Favorite Songs of the Nineties (Dover, 1973, pp. 347-350).

~Masato

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: When you were sweet 16 - Full Versio
From: Orac
Date: 24 Jun 02 - 09:09 AM

I would like to see how Finbar Fury substantiates his claim that J. Thornton "left Ireland in 1847 after the famine" when he wasn't born until 1861 in England. It seems that the Irish try to claim ownership of everything. Another example is "I'll take you home again Kathleen" written by German American Thomas Westerndorf to remind his wife of the Black Forest that she still missed.... nothing to do with Ireland at all.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: When you were sweet 16 - Full Versio
From: nutty
Date: 24 Jun 02 - 09:13 AM

This sheet music on the Levy site was printed in 1898

WHEN YOU WERE SWEET SIXTEEN

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: When you were sweet 16 - Full Versio
From: masato sakurai
Date: 24 Jun 02 - 09:13 AM

Publisher of the Dictionary should have been Crowell, not Crown.

The link to the sheet music (1898). There's a different song with the same title, written by Alfred White, published in 1881, which is at Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music, 1870-1885 (Library of Congress).

~Masato

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: When you were sweet 16 - Full Versio
From: Orac
Date: 24 Jun 02 - 09:20 AM

OK... I know its Furey not Fury ... before anyone says anything

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: When you were sweet 16 - Full Versio
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 24 Jun 02 - 09:28 AM

A link to the sheet music has been posted while I was preparing mine, so I'll just add:

Words & Music by James Thornton. Publication: New York: M. Witmark & Sons, Witmark Building, 1898. "Sung With Great Success By Bonnie Thornton..."

I missed this thread first time round, and hadn't realised that the Fureys had concocted a completely false story about the song, which is a typical parlour ballad of the period, made to formula for money. Many people nowadays, familiar with the "confessional" style of singer-songwriter, don't seem to realise that not all popular song is based on real-life experiences!

The front page of the sheet music, incidentally, has a photograph of Bonnie Thornton looking the picture of health and evidently none the worse for her death in a famine on the other side of the world twenty or more years before she was born.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: When you were sweet 16 - Full Versio
From: Orac
Date: 24 Jun 02 - 09:30 AM

Just out of interest the only recent(ish) authentic version of this song that I have found was recorded by Joan Morris and William Bolcom in 1974 on an album called Vaudeville... well worth a listen. If you can find a copy Harry Macdonaugh recorded it in 1901 on a 7" Berliner ... !!!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: When you were sweet 16 - Full Versio
From: Orac
Date: 24 Jun 02 - 09:36 AM

The recording by the Fureys is nothing like the song written in 1898 ... Al Jolson has a lot to answer for.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: When you were sweet 16 - Full Versio
From: GUEST,Martin Ryan
Date: 24 Jun 02 - 09:37 AM

The Fureys took/take great pride in their inventive backgrounds for songs. I remember a particularly hilarious expanationo f the origins of "Biddy's Battering Ram"!

Regards

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: When you were sweet 16 - Full Versio
From: Orac
Date: 24 Jun 02 - 09:46 AM

Does anyone have a photo of James Thornton?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: When you were sweet 16 - Full Versio
From: nutty
Date: 24 Jun 02 - 09:57 AM

The Levy site also lists this publication although does not show it

Title: When You Were Sweet Sixteen.
Composer, Lyricist, Arranger: Words and Music by James Thornton.
Publication: New York: Shapiro, Bernstein & Co., Inc., 1898 and 1947..
Form of Composition: strophic with chorus
Instrumentation: piano and voice
First Line: When first I saw the lovelight in your eye
First Line of Chorus: I love you as I never loved before
Performer: Featured by Perry Como, Victor Record No. 20-2259.
From the Columbia Picture "The Jolson Story."
Engraver, Lithographer, Artist: unattrib. photo of Como
Advertisement: ads on back cover for Shapiro, Bernstein & Co. stock

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: When you were sweet 16 - Full Versio
From: Orac
Date: 24 Jun 02 - 10:23 AM

It doesn't show the 1947 publication for copyright reasons. I have both the recordings by Al Jolson and Perry Como... they are both dreadful.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: When you were sweet 16 - Full Versio
From: masato sakurai
Date: 24 Jun 02 - 10:46 AM

Harry Macdonough's recording, mentioned by Orac above, can be heard online at The Virtual Gramohone site (Click here).

Performer heading: Macdonough, Harry, 1871-1931
Performer: Harry Macdonough
Title: When you were sweet sixteen / [Thornton, music]
Generic Label: Berliner
Transcribed Label: Improved Berliner Gram-o-phone
Numbers: Issue no.: 172
Matrix no.: [A-769]
Take no.: [1]
Miscellaneous no.: 3
Notes: Distributor: E. Berliner, Montreal
Manufacturer: E. Berliner, Quebec, Canada
Recorded: 3 May 1901 by Victor Talking Machine
Issue Type: Primary Label
Comments: single-sided disc; brown disc; sunken label; paper label; brass spindle grommet; HMV symbol on reverse;; sticker on reverse "First gramophone sold in Vancouver, 1903 Presented June 1904 by Mr and Mrs F.W. B. Walford"
Authority: disc; The Encyclopedic Discography of Victor Recordings, matrix, take no., composer/lyricist
Physical Description: 1 sound disc : 78 r/min (78rpm) ; 17.5cm (7 inch).
Genre: Popular Music
Language: Performed in English
Location: OONL , 78/7 140

~Masato

Subject: RE:When you were sweet 16 - Full Version
From: Orac
Date: 24 Jun 02 - 11:19 AM

Yes I found that too but its only half the song. Maybe its all they could get on a 7 inch record. The full song is quite long.