Lyr Req: Farewell to the Mountains (Davy Crockett)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Farewell by Davy Crockett
From:
Date: 14 Jul 03 - 10:36 PM

I finally found this 45. DavyCrockett/Farewell. If anyone is interested let me know. I can load it onto Kazaa.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Farewell by Davy Crockett
From: GUEST,lighter
Date: 15 Jul 03 - 06:44 PM

Davy's "Farewell" knocked me out when I heard Fess Parker sing it on Disney's Alamo episode. But the fact is, he didn't write it.

The poem's initial connection with Crockett is its appearance in Chapter II of the one-time bestseller "Col. Crockett's Exploits and Adventures in Texas," first published in the summer of 1836, a few months after Crockett's death. Though the book was marketed as fact to a trusting public, Crockett's biographer James Atkins Shackford decisively exposed the "Exploits" as a money-grubbing hoax suggested by the Philadelphia publisher E. L. Carey and carried out by Richard Penn Smith, a successful novelist of the period. The fakery was revealed in print as early as 1839 (and again by Edgar Allan Poe in 1842), but Smith's fraud is so entertaining that apparently few people wanted to believe Davy's "Exploits" weren't the real thing.
   
Smith made the story up. We know Crockett died at the Alamo, but little is known of the details of his "adventures" in Texas, except for the significant fact that he signed an oath of allegiance to the new Texas government. That was more than a month before he reached the Alamo.

For the evidence, see Shackford's biography, "David Crockett: The Man and the Legend" (1956), esp. pp. 273-81.

As for the "Farewell," if Penn didn't write it, he stole it from someone (not Davy) who did.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Farewell by Davy Crockett
From: SINSULL
Date: 15 Jul 03 - 07:00 PM

Damn! First the Easter Bunny and now this. I too have a 45rpm which will make it to AllanC one of these days.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Farewell by Davy Crockett
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 15 Jul 03 - 07:03 PM

Disappointing, but unsurprising, I suppose. So much misinformation has been promulgated over the years about such people that it's hardly to be wondered at. The Abbott book, of course, was published online "as is", without comment as to its accuracy. Thanks for the information.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Farewell by Davy Crockett
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 15 Jul 03 - 08:13 PM

It is difficult to sort truth from fiction in the Abbott book (see link in Malcolm's post with the lyrics of "Farewell... from Chap. 11," above, 31 Aug. 01)- and repeated by Sharon A, but it seems evident that many of the entries in Crockett's "Journal," quoted throughout Abbott's book, were fictitious. Crockett papers exist, but they mostly concern politics and his hate for General Jackson.

One statement in the book said that the poem "Farewell..." had been polished by a man called Peleg (or Pegleg?) Longfellow of the Nashville Banner newspaper.

Very little time was spent in Texas by Crockett before he was killed. He seems to have been looking for a political base with the Texans, at least from the few records of that time in Texas.

Who did pen the poem?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Farewell by Davy Crockett
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 16 Jul 03 - 01:45 PM

Wasn't Ernie Ford's rendition of "Farewell" on the flip side of "The Ballad of DC" rather than "16 Tons"?? I had both of these 45's (though 16 Tons belonged to my mother) so I could be getting them mixed up, but that's what my aging boomer's memory tells me. If anyone is looking for his recording of it, they might want to keep this possibility in mind.

My record jacket had a wicked drawing of a guy with a rifle and a coonskin cap, and I used to get into fierce school-yard arguments about whether it was "born on a mountain in..." or "born on a mountain-TOP in..." because Ford sang one and Ebsen sang the other. Never did sort that one out...

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Farewell by Davy Crockett
From: GUEST,skyesong
Date: 11 Dec 03 - 01:27 PM

"Farewell" was on the flip side of Ernie Ford's "Ballad of Davy Crockett" but was not sung by Ford -- it was sung by a choir or group but 'I wish I may be shot' if I remember who it was. Fess Parker sang it in the movie, to the accompniment of an autoharp. Parker also recorded "Ballad of Davy Crockett" -- I have it on a CD called 'Best of the Golden West'.

Subject: Lyr Add: FAREWELL TO THE MOUNTAIN (English)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 19 Jan 04 - 02:12 PM

Lyr. Add: FAREWELL TO THE MOUNTAIN (English)

Farewell to the mountain,
And sun-lighted vale,
The moss-border'd streamlet,
And balm-breathing gale,
All so bright, all so fair,
Here a seraph might drwll--
'Tis too lovely for me,
Farewell! Oh, farewell!

Farewell! for how sweetly,
Each sound meets mine ear,
The wild bee and butterfly,
They may rest here,
Hark! their hum how it blends,
With the deep convent bell--
Such strains are of heaven,
Farewell, oh! farewell!

This song could be the inspiration for "Farewell to the Mountains," by Crockett(?). The meter and the feel are the same.

Bodleian Ballads, Harding B 11(802), printed by Neesom, London, 18--.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Farewell by Davy Crockett
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 19 Jan 04 - 10:48 PM

Earliest date on one of the Bodleian copies of this English Farewell- 1814-1844.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Farewell to the Mountains (Davy Crockett)
From: Lighter
Date: 18 Dec 04 - 04:42 PM

With the Bodleian dates in mind - the broadside writer may have stolen it from R. P. Smith !

Subject: Lyr. Add: Farewell to the Home of My Childhood
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 06 Mar 09 - 09:50 PM

Lyr. Add: FAREWELL TO THE HOME OF MY CHILDHOOD
Anon.

1
Farewell to the Home of my childhood,
Farewell to my cottage and vine,
I go to the land of the stranger,
Where pleasure alone will be mine.
When Life's fleeting journey is o'er,
And earth again mingles with earth,
I can rest in the land of the stranger,
As well as in that of my birth.
Yes, these were my feelings when parting,
But absence soon alter'd their tone,
The cold hands of sickness came o'er me,
And I wept o'er my sorrow alone.
2
No friend came near me to cheer me,
No parent to soften my grief,
No brother, nor sister were near me,
And strangers could give no relief;
It's true that it matters but little,
Tho' living, the thought makes one pine,
Whate'er befalls the poor relic,
When the spirit has flown from its shrine,
But oh! when life's journey is o'er,
And earth again mingles with earth,
Lamented or not, still my wish is,
To rest in the land of my birth.

Reminiscent in part to Crockett's "Farewell to the Mountains."

Song sheet, Johnson, Philadelphia. Also Thomas G. Doyle, Baltimore.

Also posted to thread 52484, "Man of Constant Sorrow," but put here to make comparisons easier with Crockett's "Farewell...," posted above by Malcolm Douglas.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Farewell to the Mountains (Davy Crockett)
From: Artful Codger
Date: 07 Mar 09 - 01:28 AM

The tune reminds me of one of the "Away in a Manger" variants, with the major difference being that it starts high. But since the chord progression and melodic pattern are pretty generic, it resembles a lot of other tunes, too.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Farewell to the Mountains (Davy Crockett)
From: GUEST,Tommy D from BIG KC
Date: 30 Oct 09 - 04:38 AM

Someone asked earlier if anyone could post the tune to farewell.

I wish I could........for the tune is in my head and always has been.
I remember hardly able to contain myself waiting for the next episode.

I remember as a kid listening to Fess Parker singing that.
It was the scene from the evening before the last battle.

Davey asked Georgie Russell (Buddy Epson) if he had his guitar. (of course it just so happened to be there)

I remember him singing a couple of the verses, and at the end he closed, "Farewell, farewell, fare thee well, farewell. Farewell, farewell, fair thee well." I vividly recall wiping a tear from each eye.

Davey Crockett became a hero to many of us then. I was a little kid who lived in the inner-city of Baltimore, Md.   Great memory!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Farewell to the Mountains (Davy Crockett)
From: GUEST,RDavS
Date: 24 Mar 10 - 12:31 AM

Don't know much about "Farewell", but Lundy's diatribe against the Texans proves only that he didn't like them. The Texas revolt was a joint effort by newly arrived people from the U.S. and native Tejanos (who traced their ancestry to both Spaniards and Native Americans) in response to the reversal in Mexican government from a Federalist Constitution to a Centralist Dictatorship. The Americans did not go with the purpose of fomenting a revolt, but for the opportunity of land and riches that the government approved land grants offered. They became Mexican citizens and supported the Mexican Constitution of 1824. The Texas declaration of independence did not come until during the siege of the Alamo. Like others, David Crockett figured he'd spend a short time in service to the province of Texas and then bring his family from Tennessee once he secured his grant. David was a legend in his own time and for a while thereafter, but that legendary status almost completely faded by about 1900 and was revived by the Disney productions.