Lyr/Tune Add: Pretendy Land (Percy French)

Subject: Lyr Add: PRETENDY LAND (Percy French)
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 14 Feb 00 - 01:36 AM

PRETENDY LAND

Lyrics - Percy French, Tune - J.A. Robertson, from Noah's Ark 1907

Oh come little baby across the sea,
Come to Pretendy Land with me,
There's jam for dinner and jam for tea,
And sweeties come falling in showers,
Where you need not think before you speak,
But gabble and chatter and yell and shriek,
Where lessons are only a minute a week,
And play-time is hours and hours!

Over the blanket billow, over the sheets of sand,
When night comes down on Counterpane town
We sail to Pretendy Land,
Over the hills of pillow, by favouring breezes fanned,
With the flag made fast to the bed-post mast,
We sail to Pretendy Land.

Where fairies live in a lovely wood,
Not bad fairies, nor yet too good,
We'll play with Little Red Riding Hood,
And, also with Little Boy Blue,
Where nobody's nasty and nobody's old,
And nobody's ever as good as gold,
And 'though you never do what you are told
Yet nobody's cross with you.

Over the Blanket billow, over the Bolster strand
Both eyes must close e're my baby goes
Away to Pretendy Land,
Over the Hills of Pillow,
Wandering hand in hand.
Not a sigh! Not a sound!
Ah! baby has found
Her way to Pretendy Land.
^^

Subject: RE: LYR/TUNE ADD: Pretendy Land
From: wysiwyg
Date: 14 Feb 00 - 01:45 AM

I love it! Come back tomorrow, I have a poem in a book that should go with this, I have to dig it out-- I think you would like it. It may be at work. Maybe someone can make a tune for it.

There's a Wee Sing song too, Babyland, do you know it?

Subject: RE: LYR/TUNE ADD: Pretendy Land
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 14 Feb 00 - 01:51 AM

Forgot to mention that I'll be sending the tune to Alan so that he can kindly post this to Mudcat MIDI's. Regards, John

Subject: RE: LYR/TUNE ADD: Pretendy Land
From: wysiwyg
Date: 14 Feb 00 - 01:54 AM

Good, I want to do it!

Subject: RE: LYR/TUNE ADD: Pretendy Land
From: Alan of Australia
Date: 14 Feb 00 - 08:17 AM

G'day,
Thanks to John the tune can be found here at the Mudcat MIDI site.

Cheers,
Alan

Subject: RE: LYR/TUNE ADD: Pretendy Land
From: wysiwyg
Date: 14 Feb 00 - 12:53 PM

Awwwwww! It's so cute!!!!

I'll work on chords if no one has 'em, what key are we in here?

Subject: RE: LYR/TUNE ADD: Pretendy Land
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 14 Feb 00 - 06:01 PM

The key is G, but I think you'll find the chords a bit of a challenge. I'd worked out most of them before realising that they were staring me in the face. I won't get the chance to post them for another 24 hours, so if you'd like the intellectual challenge please have a try. If you'd like a himt or two you can view the score from the MIDI by using NoteWorthy Composer - there are quite a few accidentals in the the second quarter of the tune and it changes to (as I recall) Gm and D Major scales. Good luck, John

Subject: RE: LYR/TUNE ADD: Pretendy Land
From: wysiwyg
Date: 15 Feb 00 - 02:23 AM

Thanks for the tip. I did think I heard the tune slip over at least once. I had a similar experience recently with a song that refused to come right and of course it was much simpler than I'd been trying once I "saw" the A&B structure and now I think that one had actually started as two different tunes that got married along the way and had babies.

The next few days are nuts here so if you have the chords first I'll be delighted. I do not have any music software at all but am hoping to address that very soon. I sing by notation but play and arrange much more by ear, and I do like working out chords so if there is a need to do these from time to time and there are tunes I can hear, let me know. I still don't know who does what around here!

BTW-- I use 21-chord autoharp and usually try first for keys I sing well in, then if necessary transpose to the more popular fretters' keys.