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Lyr Req: Downfall of Paris?
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Downfall of Paris? From: GUEST,keberoxu Date: 08 May 21 - 05:30 PM Martin Carthy, performing "Downfall of Paris," has been recorded on more than one occasion live (an assortment of YouTube videos, one of them clearly smuggled) and when he is so inclined, he will give a spoken introduction, while tuning his guitar, conveying much of the historical information given in a series of posts in this thread, right down to "Croppies Lie Down." I just witnessed a livestreamed performance with Carthy including this instrumental in his second set, and after seeing the performance online, I much enjoyed looking up and reading this thread. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23Fb9jULyLg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_zBI5KmQcU |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Downfall of Paris? From: Marc Date: 29 Jun 03 - 01:05 PM PeteBoom, Uncle Jaque, are you still involved with fifeing & drumming? Who do/did you play with, how long? I'm a member of Stony Creek Drum Corps, although not very active lately. Marc |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Downfall of Paris? From: The Walrus Date: 29 Jun 03 - 08:58 AM "...I read somewhere that 'The Downfall of Paris' was a popular British army tune, and that the Duke of Wellington forbade the British army bands to play it when they occupied Paris after Waterloo, for fear of pissing off the locals...." If that was the case, then the association must have been with the occupation of Paris in 1814 as otherwise, only the older members of the population would have any association for the tune, and they would be revolutionary - how many Parisians would know the tune as "Downfall..." as opposed to "Ça Ira"?.<1> I wonder how they Parisians dealt with the Prussian bands belting out the 'Pariser Einzugmarche' (apologies to all German speakers for the spellimg). Walrus <1> That said, Napoleon did have the Revolutionary 'tunes of glory' banned after his coronation - 'Marseillaise' (sp?) was only 're-allowed' in the crisis of 1813/14 |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Downfal of paris? From: Malcolm Douglas Date: 28 Jun 03 - 08:43 PM There would have been no point in adding insult to injury; a defeated opponent should be allowed to retain their dignity, and Wellington uderstood that. The story is that they instead played Croppies Lie Down, which would have had no particular connotations for the people of Paris. See the notes at The Fiddler's Companion: Downfall of Paris |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Downfal of paris? From: masato sakurai Date: 28 Jun 03 - 08:38 PM The Downfall of Paris, with variation by Ch. Grobe (Boston: Oliver Ditson, 1856) (and two others; music only) is at Music for the Nation: American Sheet Music. |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Downfal of paris? From: ooh-aah Date: 28 Jun 03 - 07:40 PM I read somewhere that 'The Downfall of Paris' was a popular British army tune, and that the Duke of Wellington forbade the British army bands to play it when they occupied Paris after Waterloo, for fear of pissing off the locals. The soldiers were VERY disapointed, apparently! |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Downfal of paris? From: PeteBoom Date: 23 Aug 01 - 08:12 AM Indeed - Uncle Jaque, Downfall is one of those that us old-line-drummers, taught by old-line-drummers, had to have off, absolutely perfectly (Eastern sticking, of course, with sticks high - mitts right to the face in the opening bit). A long time friend of mine worked for many years as the "post drummer" at one of these interpretave historical sites, where guides wear period costumes and give tours through the fort (in this case) as if giving a tour to someone from their own period. They'd also do concerts in the parade ground a couple of times a day (no amplification for speakers or musicians - PUSH that sound out). They'd do some standard stuff, then afterward, if there was another drummer around, Dan would play Downfall on fife while the drummer thundered through it. Made MANY people just watch and say "oh my." The fife & drum downfall is a close relative to the set dance found in O'Neill's, which seems to be a distant relative to the link Sorcha provided. American quicksteps thunder out at 120 beats to the minute and as Uncle Jaque points out, ya gotta have chops to do it right. If ya can't, find a woodshed and practice... Regards - Pete |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Downfal of paris? From: Uncle Jaque Date: 22 Aug 01 - 09:07 PM In the Fife-&-Drum Corps, "Downfall" is a well known piece. It is a real challange to perform flawlessly on both instruments and to keep a Corps together on it - but a corker of a "jam" tune. The big bass drum hammers out all of the rudiments that the snares do, with the general exception of the roll, and really thunders through Downfall. It hits you like a musical grande finale at the fireworks, and the crowds love it. It can also get you pretty winded on the march, don't you know. The example linked to by Sorcha is definitely a somewhat primative cousin to it, but as a Military quickstep it is done much faster than the MIDI plays it there, and with a lot of machine-gun staccatos in the upper register, ripper triplets, turns and repeats of A thru C parts, and lots of wind. It is a bit of a "show-off" piece in that it takes a fairly well accomplished fifer or Drummer to pull it off competently. I, alas, rarely do so. Frankly, I am rather glad that there are no English lyrics to it, much as I little mourn the extinction of the dinosaurs. fool that i can on occasion be, I might try singing it in the shower and asphyixiate (or drown) myself in the attempt. |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Downfal of paris? From: Jack The Lad Date: 22 Aug 01 - 05:23 PM Here is some information which appears on a press release from The new Scorpion Band. " The original Scorpion Band was formed shortly after the end of the Napoleonic Wars, using instruments demobbed from the army- Clarinet, Cornopean, Trombone and Bass Drum. Their piece de resistance was The Downfall of Paris,known locally as The Downfall of Pears. For several years they were formidable rivals to The True and Original Weathurbury Band in Puddletown , Dorset." Tim Laycock and The New Scorpion Band came to Jacob's Ladder Festival in Israel in 1998.They were amazing! I believe they played "The Downfall of Paris" but I don't remember if there were any words to it . Perhaps Tim has more info on the tune. The New Scorpion Band can be contacted at: enquiries@new-scorpion-band.com Cheers, Jack The Lad |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Downfal of paris? From: Anglo Date: 22 Aug 01 - 02:19 PM [Oh, goody] |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Downfal of paris? From: Anglo Date: 22 Aug 01 - 02:18 PM [Since everyone's testing cedillas here, please excuse me] ç Ç [That's from a Mac - it looks right in the box, but I'll have to see if it translates to the message board, if so I can use diacriticals all over the place :-) ] |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Downfal of paris? From: masato sakurai Date: 22 Aug 01 - 10:07 AM The music of "The Downfall of Paris" (with commentary, but without lyrics) is in Lewis Winstock, Songs & Music of the Redcoats: A History of the War Music of the British Army 1642-1902 (Leo Cooper, 1970, pp. 106-7). He comments, "As for The downfall of Paris, it is now forgotten by this title, although in its day it may have surpassed even The British Grenadiers in popularity" (p. 105). |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Downfal of paris? From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 22 Aug 01 - 06:31 AM ç |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Downfal of paris? From: GUEST,Mario Date: 22 Aug 01 - 06:26 AM Thank you everybody. Just to add a note to the Paris discussion, I don't think this could be related to the city or to the mythological hero. AFAYK it's true the tune derivated from a dance played in a opera show in Paris, but even in the "Ca ira" phase it lost most of his relationship with the original source. Then everything started for the english-speaking people during the 1794 Campaign in France when the West Yorks (Prince of Wales' Own) regiment's band played the tune they had heard so many times from their enemies and from the locals as well, so it became "the Downfall of Paris" just as a "friendly" wish the redcoats were sending to their enemies. |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Downfal of paris? From: Wolfgang Date: 22 Aug 01 - 05:48 AM Kevin, just type the 8 characters in that order as above and you have it (forget for a moment how I did display the string ç without it being printed as ç) Wolfgang (who learned all of his HTML at Mudcat) |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Downfal of paris? From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 22 Aug 01 - 05:30 AM I don't get that Wolfgang - I'd have thought it meant use the key marked & at the same time as the c key and a key marked cedil, but it can't mean that because there isn't such a key... |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Downfal of paris? From: masato sakurai Date: 22 Aug 01 - 05:01 AM Thank you for your instruction. I'm now learning HTML basics. The title is "Ça Ira."
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Downfal of paris? From: Wolfgang Date: 22 Aug 01 - 04:50 AM ç gives ç and Ç gives Ç; (I hope) Wolfgang |
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Subject: Lyr Add: THE DOWNFALL OF PARIS (tr. Jay Williams) From: masato sakurai Date: 21 Aug 01 - 09:36 PM There's an English translation of this song with music under the original title "Ca Ira" (not "Downfall of Paris") in Wanda Whitman, Songs That Changed the World (Crown, 1969, p. 5).
Everything will go, it will go. There's another English tr. in this site, along with historical background info, Real audio file (sung in French), discography, etc.
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Downfal of paris? From: Malcolm Douglas Date: 21 Aug 01 - 08:03 PM The tune appears to have been composed originally as a contredanse (Carillon Nationale) and subsequently used by Ladré and Le Fayette for Ça Ira, as Frank Kidson, who knew what he was talking about, states. There may well have been a later reference between Paris the prince and Paris the city, but I have not seen the text of Shield's opera; until someone here comes up with that, it seems pointless to speculate. As I said, the English title is not the original. I have not come across any set of Downfall of Paris which is not derived from Ça Ira/ Carillon Nationale, but if anybody knows of one I'd be interested in hearing it. |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Downfal of paris? From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 21 Aug 01 - 07:51 PM I knew there must be a way of getting that Ç - other than just lifting it and pasting it, the way I did just now.
Fascinating. The links seems to suggest that it started as a revolutonary street song, then got used in an opera, with the title "Downfall of Paris" referring to the Trojan, and then moved out from there.
But then could it be that it started with the theatre song and moved out into the streets, as a sort of musical pun on the idea of Paris falling. (I know the production is given as 90 and the song in the sytreets as 89, but the man might have written it earlier and tried it out in public.) |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Downfal of paris? From: Armen Tanzerian Date: 21 Aug 01 - 07:41 PM Yes, but those devious Marxists will sneak it in whenever they can. |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Downfal of paris? From: Malcolm Douglas Date: 21 Aug 01 - 07:32 PM The information I linked to is the best you're likely to get just now, though Walrus adds some useful additional stuff. The tune is, as I said, Ça Ira, renamed in England The Downfall of Paris and subsequently taken up in Ireland -with a hornpipe rhythm- as a setdance tune, and in America as a fife piece; a march again. Mississippi Sawyer clearly derives from it. As per my link, the Paris bit comes from Shield's opera of 1790, and refers to the Trojan prince, not to the city. The Internationale is completely irrelevant to this discussion. |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Downfal of paris? From: The Walrus Date: 21 Aug 01 - 06:28 PM Sorry, "...The same tune was mutated into a march proper (as opposed to a "pas de charge") ..." should have read:- "...Over time, the same tune was mutated into a march proper (as opposed to a "pas de charge")..." Regards Walrus |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Downfal of paris? From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 21 Aug 01 - 06:25 PM And they've got two versions in Klingon - but sadly no audio file of these. |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Downfal of paris? From: The Walrus Date: 21 Aug 01 - 06:24 PM We might be on slightly different wavelengths here as there seem to be several (related)tunes called "Downfall of Paris" and possibly (probably?) some unrelated ones. The first one I know of is merely a retitling of the French "Ça Ira" ( If this is the one, there are, AFAIK no English lyrics), this became a British Regimental march in the 1790s, when one regiment (33rd Foot?) attacked using the same insistant drum beat, as the Colonel was reputed to have ordered "We'll beat the Frenchies with their own damned tune". The same tune was mutated into a march proper (as opposed to a "pas de charge") and was played by various bands as they passed by the assorted royals & military leared after Paris fell in 1814 (The most autocratic of monarchs Czar Alexander, Kaiser Franz(?) and Fredric Wilhelm of Prussia with Wellington and assorted general officers being seranaded by bands playing what was once the bloodiest of revolutionary anthems). As far as I can tell, the march mutated into at least one fiddle tune, and another march. That's without other unrelated tunes which used the same title (Remember the RTevolutionary/Napoleonic wars lasted something like 26 years). Regards Walrus |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Downfal of paris? From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 21 Aug 01 - 06:22 PM The Downfall of Paris is in Thomas Hardy's collection too.
And it's got nothing whatever to do with Ca Ira. (I haven't ever learnt how to do cedillas on my Cs).
Actualy, is it necessarily anything to do with Paris the city? Could it just be about the Trojan Wars, where Paris was a rather prominent character (since he started it all by eloping with Helen). Can someone enlighten us on that point?
As for the Internationale - this page links to umpteen versions in 27 languages, lots of them Audio files.And the versions of the song it links to in English include Billy Bragg's, which is a good 'un. But it still sounds best in French, of the versions I've heard anyway.
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Downfal of paris? From: GUEST,Chris B (Born Again Scouser) Date: 21 Aug 01 - 05:33 PM Never heard of a song called 'The Downfall Of Paris'. However, there is a lovely Irish set dance tune of the same name. You can find it on the Chieftains album 'Bonaparte's Retreat' or on the Andrew Cronshaw record 'Wade In The Flood'. Works a treat on guitar, especially if you tune EAEDAE (top to bottom). Watch that fourth string though! |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Downfal of paris? From: Armen Tanzerian Date: 21 Aug 01 - 05:16 PM We've got our kings and centuries mixed up here. Louis XVI was executed during the French Revolution. The head of government who who sent troops from Versailles to Paris to crush the Paris Commune was Adolphe Thiers, who became the first president of the Third Republic. |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Downfal of paris? From: Sorcha Date: 21 Aug 01 - 04:49 PM Is that the same tune as this one? Played as a slow hornpipe? If so, I never knew it had any words. Ira Ford, in Traditional Music of America, says that Miss. Sawyer was named after test run of a saw mill. At the picnic party that evening it was discovered that the sawyer was also a fiddler. He was asked to open the dance and this is the tune he played. It became known as Miss. Sawyer. No lyrics given and I have never heard any. I also don't think is bears even a passing resemblance to Downfall. |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Downfal of paris? From: MMario Date: 21 Aug 01 - 04:40 PM Does "Mississippi Sawyer" have lyrics? That is derived from The Downfall of Paris according to several sites I read. BTW - (just in case people are wondering) no, I didn't forget my first letter. MMario |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Downfal of paris? From: Malcolm Douglas Date: 21 Aug 01 - 04:31 PM There's no connection between The Internationale and The Downfall of Paris. I'm not sure that there are any words in English (presumably you don't just mean a translation from the French?), unless Shield set any in his opera of 1790 that gave the tune its English title; there may well have been broadside songs set to Ça Ira, of course, but I don't know of any at present; I still have a number of references to look at. The tune began its life as a dance tune, and returned to that rôle after its revolutionary adventure. What little information I have so far is here: South Riding Tune Book: Notes: The Downfall of Paris, with a couple of useful links. |
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Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Downfal of paris? From: Quincy Date: 21 Aug 01 - 04:18 PM Found this Mario....don't know if it's of any help though! "The most well-known song of the socialist and communist movements is certainly "The Internationale," written in Paris at the time of the downfall of the Paris Commune in 1871. Anarchist workers" collectives had taken control of Paris and established an equal, guaranteed income for everyone - they took control of the factories and public institutions in the city and for several months Paris was a functioning commune, until King Louis XVI's guards marched from Versailles to Paris to destroy the revolution. The Paris Commune was a source of inspiration for the budding American labor movement, as immigrants from Europe brought the Internationale and words like sabotage (throwing wooden shoes, sabots, into the gears of machines was one way of shutting down a factory) along with ideas about Communism, Socialism and Anarchism from Marx and Bakunin. The Paris Commune was also inspiring to the Bolsheviks in Moscow and Petrograd, and "The Internationale" was the national anthem of the Soviet Union until 1944.
These lyrics were written in English by Charles Kerr: |
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Subject: Downfall of paris? From: GUEST,Mario Date: 21 Aug 01 - 02:57 PM Hy everybody. I've disperately been searching for "the Downfall of Paris" english lyrics without result. All I was able to find was the original french version ("Ca Ira (3 tms) / les aristocrats on le pendra"), but no way to find the english one. Anyone knows something about? |
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