Help: Doves and White Birds -- Songs?

Subject: Doves and White Birds -- Songs?
From: granny
Date: 11 Feb 01 - 04:36 PM

Hi, a few questions for ya. What famous OLD/Early American songs come to mind, that use the metaphor of a Dove, or a White Bird? Maybe as the Holy Spirit, or as a symbol for the soul, or peace, or purity. I'm interested in references from any historical time or language, though preferably English.

Also...exactly what is a TURTLE Dove...just another word for DOVE??

One more...who sang the song (entitled?) with the refrain, "White bird...in a golden cage..." or something like that...

Thanks.

Subject: RE: Help: Doves and White Birds -- Songs?
From: GUEST,Joan
Date: 11 Feb 01 - 04:53 PM

I wonder if you mean "only a bird in a gilded cage" - an English music hall song of the 1880's. Other songs are "The Turtle Dove"; many versions of this- one is also called "Fare thee Well, my own true love". A common phrase used of a courting couple ( in more romantic days!)was that they were a pair of turtle doves The song "The Bloody Gardener", which was mentioned in a recent thread, uses the image of a pure white dove as the spirit of the dead girl. How about "oh, for the wings of a dove", made famous many tears ago as a parlour song. Sure you'll get lots of responses on this one.

Subject: Lyr Add: WHITE DOVE^^
From: Stewie
Date: 11 Feb 01 - 05:09 PM

There's the Stanley Brothers classic:

WHITE DOVE

In the deep rolling hills of old Virginia
There's a place that I love so well
Where I spent many days of my childhood
In the cabin where we loved to dwell

Chorus:
White dove will mourn in sorrow
The willows will hang their heads
I live my life in sorrow
Since mother and daddy are dead

We were all so happy there together
In our peaceful, little mountain home
But the Savior needs angels up in heaven
Now they sing around the great white throne

Chorus

As the years roll by I often wonder
If we will all be together some day
And each night as I wander through the graveyard
Darkness finds me trying to pray

Chorus

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Help: Doves and White Birds -- Songs?
From: Pinetop Slim
Date: 11 Feb 01 - 05:26 PM

A group that called itself It's A Beautiful Day recorded a song "White Bird" around 1970 that included the line "white bird in a golden cage" but that one's not early American. "On the Wings of A Snow White Dove" comes to mind, but I don't know how old that one is.

Subject: RE: Help: Doves and White Birds -- Songs?
From: Sorcha
Date: 11 Feb 01 - 05:31 PM

It's not OLD old, but it's sort of an Oldie, and it's American--Wings of a Snow White Dove.

Subject: RE: Help: Doves and White Birds -- Songs?
From: Sourdough
Date: 11 Feb 01 - 06:30 PM

Sometimes the turtle dove is pronouncd "turkel dove". I have a vague recollection of Studs Terkel making some comment about this but the content of his thought won't oblige me by coming forward to make an appearance here.

In "Butcher's Boy", the last line is often,

"On my breast place a snow white dove
And tell the world I died for love."

Sourdough

Subject: RE: Help: Doves and White Birds -- Songs?
From: Amos
Date: 11 Feb 01 - 06:55 PM

Turtle doves (a subspecies of dove) are as old as the Song of Solomon, and appear throughout Eglish and American music as a symbol for peace, innocence, natural purity, and so on.

"Picture the little turtle dove,
Flying from piyun to pine,
A-mourning for his lost freedom,
As I, my love, for mine..."

(Woody Knows Nothin')

"Behold my love, thou hast dove's eyes....
And the song of the turtle is heard on our land....

(Song of Solomon).

If I had wings like Noah's dove
Fly across the river to the one I love...

(Dink's Song, trad)

"And yet in soberness I cared as little for the housemaid as for David Hume. The interests of youth are rarely frank; his passions, like Noah's dove, come home to roost. "

(Old Martality, by Rober Louis Stevenson)

" Now lend me your love, baby please lend me your love
Well lend me your love, baby lend me your love
I know you hear me keep moaning
People, just like Noah's Dove"

('Lend Me Your Love' -- Memphis Slim)

"The finest ship that sails the sea Is still a prison for the likes of me
But give me wings like Noah's dove
I'll fly up harbour to the girl I love
Here's one more day on the Grey Funnel Line

(Grey Funnel Line, by Cyril Tawney)

"My parents flung me into this world
like Noah's dove, too
gentle for my own good
and I've been scaling the sky ever since
offering the words clenched in my mouth
to the sun.

("With an Olive Leaf", Joy Hewitt Mann)

Also:

SNOW WHITE DOVE    

They were very very happy, their marriage was a gem  
But death was soon to take his pretty wife away from him  
With her dying breath she whispered we'll have everlasting love  
And I'll come back to be with you as a little snow white dove  
  
Time went by and nothing happened the dove did not appear  
The young man fell in love again and married in a year  
But the day he brought his new bride home the neighbors were  
To see a snow white dove came fluttering down upon the snowball tree  
  
There she sobbed and moaned heartbroken in a almost human way  
No matter what the weather she would perch there every day  
When the neighbors and the servants, yes the story they had learned  
That in the `guise of this white dove the young wife had returned  

  

from a Digitrad mirror).

Just a few samples.

A

HTML line breaks added. -JoeClone, 3-Apr-01.

Subject: RE: Help: Doves and White Birds -- Songs?
From: Amos
Date: 11 Feb 01 - 08:13 PM

Would some Joe clone put breaks in that last? Geez!! Fumblefingers!

Thanks,

A

Subject: RE: Help: Doves and White Birds -- Songs?
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Feb 01 - 10:12 PM

Shades of Rudy Vallee! 1920s-1930s? Farethewell for I must leave thee/Do not let the parting grieve thee /for the time has come for you and me to say adieu (or something). Dig my grave both wide and deep. Wide and Deep! Put tombstones at my head and feet. Head and Feet!/And on my breast carve a little turtle dove/To signify I died for love. This was always sung with a bottle in hand, so now that I am sober I can't remember the words.

Subject: RE: Help: Doves and White Birds -- Songs?
From: campfire
Date: 11 Feb 01 - 11:56 PM

There's also Hank Williams' "Let the Spirit Descend" which can be found here:

Let the Spirit Descend

Subject: RE: Help: Doves and White Birds -- Songs?
From: granny
Date: 12 Feb 01 - 08:05 AM

Thanks to all of you for your great responses! I think I'm even going to print out this thread if I can. I'm trying to write a bit of an article, with reference to doves, and though I've always known vague scraps of songs about doves/white birds etc., I couldn't really piece them together. This is a help.

Subject: RE: Help: Doves and White Birds -- Songs?
From: granny
Date: 12 Feb 01 - 08:07 AM

...on second thought...this is too much to print...so, I'll just have to come back here...

Subject: RE: Help: Doves and White Birds -- Songs?
From: granny
Date: 12 Feb 01 - 12:57 PM

Okay...I wrote the article I was trying to assemble. If anyone cares to take a look at it, it's here: http://www.themestream.com/articles/326973.html -- The Child's Dream - Doves And White Birds - Imagery In Song

The Child's Dream was dedicated to Abby Hutchinson (mid-1800's folk singer), written by Bernard Covert.

Honestly, I'm not trying to spam the board, here, with ads for me...just wanted to add the results of my "dove" search.

Subject: RE: Help: Doves and White Birds -- Songs?
From: Burke
Date: 14 Feb 01 - 09:03 PM

Don't know if you're still interested, but a lot of the mid 19th century shape note tunes were about a Dove as the Holy Spirit. Take a look at The Turtle Dove, Heavenly dove. Based on Song of Solomon is Spring. It repeats the line about the cooing dove a couple of times, and is hard to sing with a straight face.

The Child's Dream sounds like a typical sentimental 19th cent. song. They were very popular.

Subject: RE: Help: Doves and White Birds -- Songs?
From: GUEST,Rana
Date: 14 Feb 01 - 10:31 PM

As Pinetop said, Its a Beautiful Day, from California,probably San Francisco, recorde aclassis album called White Bird, which had a song on with that refrain. David La Flamme (spelling?)- the group founder, who wrote this great song also released it I believe on a solo album.

Rana

Subject: RE: Help: Doves and White Birds -- Songs?
From: GUEST,Barry T
Date: 14 Feb 01 - 10:47 PM

A song on Lesley Nelson's site... White Wings... uses the metaphor of the sails of a ship, but underneath lies the same theme you are exploring in this thread. Double metaphors, anyone? ;-)

Subject: RE: Help: Doves and White Birds -- Songs?
From: GUEST,Cookdale
Date: 18 Mar 11 - 02:53 PM

I have been looking for the lyrics to a song that goes like this.
Last night as I lay wrapped in slumber, I had a vision rich and rare. I saw a great white bird descending on snowy wings so bright and fair. Oh that great white bird, bringing his holy word.

Subject: RE: Help: Doves and White Birds -- Songs?
From: Sandy Mc Lean
Date: 18 Mar 11 - 03:28 PM

RIP Ferlin!