Lyr Req: 'To hear the birds whistle and sing'

Subject: To hear the birds whistle and sing...lyr
From: Mudlark
Date: 25 Aug 01 - 02:06 AM

Grrrr...have searched but dont know the name of this song (as I dont know the actual name of a lot of the songs I've known forever...)but the last verse is:
The next morning with speed
The two lovers agreed
To be married and before it was spring
Now she's no longer afraid
to go down in the glade
To hear the birds whistle and siii-iii---iiing
to hear the birds whistle and sing.

Lyrics would be great, or even the name so I can successfully search...

Thanks for the help...

Subject: RE: To hear the birds whistle and sing...lyr
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Aug 01 - 04:45 AM

Could it be a version of The Nightingale?

Subject: RE: To hear the birds whistle and sing...lyr
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 25 Aug 01 - 09:43 AM

Further discussion of variants, and links to earlier discussions and examples here and elsewhere are in this thread:  Lyr/Chords Req: The Nightengale Sings.

I somehow missed the DT file that GUEST points to last time around; it was transcribed from an American recording and no tune or traditional source is indicated.  It is very close, aside from some minor alterations in wording and the order of verses (and the inclusion of two additional verses) to the set published by Baring Gould in Songs of the West (revised edition, 1905).  Baring Gould had -to begin with- only the tune, and printed the text published by Robert Bell in his revision of Dixon's Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of the Peasantry of England (1857):  The Sweet Nightingale; or, Down in Those Valleys Below  (the link is to an e-text at  Poets' Corner).

He later got a number of texts from tradition, but perhaps they were a little too suggestive for publication at that time!  He notes that the song in that form derives from a piece written by Bickerstaff for Arne's opera Thomas and Sally (1760), a dialogue between the Squire and Sally, which begins:

Well met, pretty maid;
Pray don't be afraid,
I mean you no mischief, I vow.
Pshaw! what is't you all?
Come, give me your pail,
I'll carry it up to your cow.

If Bickerstaff followed the story we are familiar with, he presumably based it on earlier examples, which as Bruce Olson pointed out in an earlier discussion, go back to the early 17th century.  Arne's tune seems not to have made it into tradition.

Subject: RE: To hear the birds whistle and sing...lyr
From: Mudlark
Date: 25 Aug 01 - 02:19 PM

To Guest and Malcolm..

Thanks so much for the help...Guest's rendition is longer than the one I heard (about 40 years ago now) and the chords look right. Thanks also, Malcolm, for all the background...very helpful. And the Bickerstafff stuff looks like it might be the version I heard...as I recall it was sung as a 2-part (2 person) song with man and maid taking turns w/their lines...

Thanks again for the help...I love the melody, such a gay and lilting tune and am glad to once again be able to put all the words to it.