Origin: Those Were the Days (Gene Raskin)

Subject: ADD: Those Were the Days (Gene Raskin)
From: allie kiwi
Date: 09 Feb 02 - 01:42 AM

I've always enjoyed the song sung by Mary Hopkin 'Those were the days'. I heard that it was originally sung in Hebew or Yiddish. does anyone know anything about this - or was it sung in Hebrew after the English version?

Allie

Those Were The Days
(Gene Raskin)

Once upon a time there was a tavern
Where we used to raise a glass or two.
Remember how we laughed away the hours;
Think of all the great things we would do.
CHORUS


Those were the days my friend-
We thought they'd never end.
We'd sing and dance forever and a day.
We'd live the life we'd choose.
We'd fight and never lose
For we were young and sure to have our way.
La la la la la la la la la
Those were the days, oh yes, those were the days

Then the busy years went rushing by us.
We lost our starry notions on the way.
If by chance I'd see you in the tavern,
We'd smile at one another and we'd say...

CHORUS

Just tonight I stood before the tavern.
Nothing seemed the way it used to be.
In the glass I saw a strange reflection-
Was that lonely woman really me?

CHORUS

Through the door there came familiar laughter.
I saw your face and heard you call my name.
Oh my friend we're older but no wiser,
For in our hearts the dreams are still the same....
CHORUS

Subject: RE: Those were the days my friend - history?
From: catspaw49
Date: 09 Feb 02 - 02:24 AM

It was about the last big hit by Lieber and Stoller and was written specifically with Peggy Lee in mind. They composed an entire album for her later. Both just loved her style, delivery, and personality. Mike Lieber and Jerry Stoller were responsible for so many R&B/Motown/Rock hits that it's hard to imagine they were two Jewish white boys!!! I doubt if a Yiddish version was foremost, if at all, in their minds.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Those were the days my friend - history?
From: Joan from Wigan
Date: 09 Feb 02 - 02:42 AM

The sheet music attributes authorship to Gene Raskin, not Lieber and Stoller.

Joan

Subject: RE: Those were the days my friend - history?
From: Joan from Wigan
Date: 09 Feb 02 - 02:49 AM

Pat Richmonds seems to have done a fair bit of research into the song. Check out Pat's website: The Story of Those Were The Days.

Joan

Subject: RE: Those were the days my friend - history?
From: allie kiwi
Date: 09 Feb 02 - 04:36 AM

Thank you so much. That site is a real font of knowledge.

Allie

Subject: RE: Those were the days my friend - history?
From: technission
Date: 09 Feb 02 - 04:59 AM

Ditto about the site!

m - sleepless in shadow of enron

Subject: RE: Those were the days my friend - history?
From: catspaw49
Date: 09 Feb 02 - 07:09 AM

LMAO......Sorry gang, I was thinking of "Is that all there is" for some reason. I don't know how it came to be that I immediately thought of of that instead of the right song, but even this morning, I read that entire website info before it hit me that I was thinking of an entirely different song!!! Geez, what an asshole! Never post late at night Spaw, you friggin' moron!

Spaw

Subject: RE: Those were the days my friend - history?
From: Charley Noble
Date: 09 Feb 02 - 09:13 AM

Thanks for the link to the website above. Nice to have a great song nailed.

Subject: RE: Those were the days my friend - history?
From: Genie
Date: 10 Feb 02 - 04:15 AM

I heard the Limeliters do this song long before the Mary Hopkins recording. Also, I have heard it sung in Russian by a basso profundo, to great advantage.

Genie

Subject: Those Were the Days
From: Doug_Remley
Date: 14 Apr 03 - 12:20 AM

I had just played an old CD from Russia called "Song from the War" and halfway through heard the unmistakeable tune and words of "Those Were the Days" from a 1942 recording. I had always thought it was original for Mary Hopkins but a digital search and an old thread revealed its Russian souce, also. Just wanted to say thanks for sources such as this, and it apparently was a well-loved ballad long before Hopkin's recording,

Subject: RE: Those were the days my friend - history?
From: Doug_Remley
Date: 14 Apr 03 - 01:47 AM

Joan.

Thank you so much for the site, which led to another.

Subject: RE: Those were the days my friend - history?
From: masato sakurai
Date: 14 Apr 03 - 03:09 AM

Rada and Nikolay Volshaninovs' singing of "There were days" (in Russian; said to be by B. Fomin & K. Podrevsky) can be heard HERE.

~Masato

Subject: RE: Those were the days my friend - history?
From: masato sakurai
Date: 14 Apr 03 - 04:54 AM

There're a lot of sites containing the Russian lyrics (Cyrillic font is necessary), a few of which are with English tranlations. See Google search results of "Дорогой длинною".

Subject: RE: Those were the days my friend - history?
From: masato sakurai
Date: 14 Apr 03 - 06:24 AM

Another audio recording in Russian is HERE. Direct link to it is THIS.

Subject: RE: Those were the days my friend - history?
From: Doug_Remley
Date: 14 Apr 03 - 09:09 AM

Again, thank you Masato.

Subject: RE: Those were the days my friend - history?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 14 Apr 03 - 10:15 AM

Spaw, re: "Geez, what an asshole! Never post late at night Spaw, you friggin' moron!"

I hope you aren't really beating yourself up to this extent over an error about a song. If so, you need to take it easier. (This is the sort of language most of us would use for a child abuser or something similar.)

Subject: RE: Those were the days my friend - history?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 14 Apr 03 - 10:36 AM

Yeah, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY you friggin' moron !! ;-)

Art

Subject: RE: Those were the days my friend - history?
From: kytrad (Jean Ritchie)
Date: 14 Apr 03 - 05:29 PM

Gene and Francesca, a popular folk duet in the 60s, are alive and
well and will shortly be interviewed by ASCAP for their archive. I'll give more information when that happens if anyone's interested (my son is doing the camera work). The Pat Richmond site is right-"Those Were the Days," as we know it now, was written by Gene and the melody adapted from the older one (very much changed I think).

Subject: RE: Those were the days my friend - history?
From: mutineer
Date: 14 Apr 03 - 08:39 PM

In their 'Older But No Wiser' album liner notes, Liam Clancy of the Clancy Bros says that Raskin wrote that song about the days when the Clancy Brothers, the Kington Trio, Brendan Behan, and Raskin and his wife used to hang out at the White Horse Tavern in New York: the home of many famous folk sessions!
Cheers;
-pc

Subject: RE: Those were the days my friend - history?
From: masato sakurai
Date: 14 Apr 03 - 11:11 PM

Other audio recordings of "Дорогой длинною":

Bard-Cafe Tsiganskie romansy (No. 3)

Diapasoon home page (No. 7; slow loader)

Song From Collection. Pavel Severov (7th from the top; seems to be a field recording)

I can't read, but something interesting appears to be written in Russian about Mary Hopkin, "Those Were the Days" and the original on THIS PAGE.

~Masato

Subject: RE: Those were the days my friend - history?
From: DonMeixner
Date: 15 Apr 03 - 12:46 AM

What?! It's the Moron's birthday!

Have a happy one Pat.

Don

Subject: RE: Those were the days my friend - history?
From: Doug_Remley
Date: 15 Apr 03 - 02:27 AM

Masato San,

How do you get all these Russian sites? You must at least know the alphabetics to recognize words. BTW, the article on Mary Hopkins is congratulatory for making an old ballad a hit, biographic for her and the song.

Thanks again for the sites. I owe you a dinner at a good "Pectopah'". Don't look it up, it's one of the few Russian words that fit QWERTY keyboards, meaning "Restaran'"

Douglas Remley

Subject: RE: Those were the days my friend - history?
From: AKS
Date: 15 Apr 03 - 03:29 AM

As stated above and in other threads, Dorogoj dlinnoju is of Russian origin from the 1920's: lyrics by Boris Ivanovich Fomin (1900 - 1948) and music by Konstantin Podrevskij (? - ?), both written in somewhat 'gypsy spirit'.

Note also that The Soviet Union had not signed the Bern agreement by that time - did it some time in the 1970's - so technically it was not a very big crime, then, to claim authorship of this "Those Were the Days". Still, it would be fair to give credit to the original authors, too (even though TWdD is NOT a translation of DD, the tune is the same).

AKS

Subject: RE: Those were the days my friend - history?
From: Frankham
Date: 15 Apr 03 - 10:44 AM

I understand that the melody for Dorogoj Dlinnoju is a traditional song and might predate the copyright from the Soviet Union. I don't think it matters much whether you borrow the melody from another song and put your own lyrics to it.
You can claim authorship of the lyrics. Not sure what Gene Raskin did here, but the tune was floating around prior to copyright date. It's a Russian Gypsy tune.

Gene and Francesca were a folkie act during the Sixties and he is a wonderful lyricist and parodist. He penned "A Personal Friend of the Tsar Was I" and the song "Kretchma" (after the famous New York Russian restaurant) That song was popularized by Theo Bikel. I've always been a fan of Gene and Francesca. They did a pretty version of "La Llorona", the famous Mexican folk song.

Every songwriter I know has taken the melody from some song or other and composed their own lyrics to it.   Woody, Dylan, McCartney, Harrison, ....plenty of pop songs based on PD tunes. I think in the realm of folk music, the tune is a vehicle for the words and is of less importance in its originality.

Now if someone were to claim authorship of a tune by Gershwin, Berlin, Porter, or Kern et. al. then that might be a little different. Many of those tunes were original and not PD.

My opinion of course.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: Those were the days my friend - history?
From: masato sakurai
Date: 17 Apr 03 - 08:12 AM

Douglas, these are the steps of how I found the sites.

1. Finding the Russian title in the Cyrillic alphabet at the thread MUS ADD: Those Were The Days, with font shift to Cyrillic

2. Copying the title and pasting it into Google search box (in this case Google Russia is preferable; most search engines are found at Search Engine Colossus)

3. Clicking on a number of "?????????" sites (some are with the words "Those were the days" or "Mary Hopkin")

Incidentally, I copied the HTML-encoded title (string of "&# plus number"s) shown in the Google (not of Russia) search box, and used it when I posted the message at the forum.

~Masato

Subject: RE: Those were the days my friend - history?
From: Hollowfox
Date: 17 Apr 03 - 10:07 AM

Wow, Masato. Many thanks for showing how to do that, and explaining it so clearly.

Subject: RE: Those were the days my friend - history?
From: llareggyb (inactive)
Date: 20 Sep 08 - 09:44 PM

Thanks to Masato, I found the original Russian folksong in Cyrillic & a couple of literal translations. With the help of these & my daughter Rebekkah (who speaks Russian fluently) I put together a singable translation of the Russian original, which I will post next as a Lyr Add. I thought I'd get the cross-references and credits out of the way first!

See various Forum threads linked at top of this thread, e.g. RE: MUS ADD: Those Were The Days, Guest AKS, and Ajda Pekkan

Particular thanks to Igor Matveyev for the clearest literal translation.

Tony P

Subject: Lyr ADD: DOWN THE LONG ROAD
From: llareggyb (inactive)
Date: 20 Sep 08 - 10:03 PM

DOWN THE LONG ROAD
(Russian trad., atrributed to Boris Fomin (tune), Konstantin Podrevskii (lyrics); tr. Tony Patriarche)

Once we rode our Troika, bells a-jingling.
Far away the lights were sparkling bright,
Ah, could we but fly once more, my falcons,*
My grieving soul would once again be light:

Refrain: Down that long road, comrades,
Our moonlight serenades
Flew far away, bells ringing out so clear,
I played my seven-string**
And we would laugh and sing
Until my heart with longing shed a tear.***

Now my life has neither joy nor sorrow,
I recall the years so long before,
Again I see your hands in moonlit silver,
In that Troika where we'll ride no more: Refrain

Swift now pass my days, in sorrow laden,
Little but those memories can I save.
Soon the day will come, my dear companions,
When that long road leads me to my grave: Refrain

*   or "comrades"
** old guitar
*** Repeat all or part of Refrain to "Dai-dai-dai-dai da-da, dai-dai-dai-dai da-da" ... speeding up ad lib

Sources
- This is the original Russian version, Dorogoi Dlinnoyu, of THOSE WERE THE DAYS by Gene Raskin
- paraphrase by TP based on literal translations on web, esp. Igor Matveyev ([e-mail])
   & assisted by Rebekkah Patriarche
Tune: to be added.
T.P.

Subject: RE: Those were the days my friend - history?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 21 Sep 08 - 01:38 AM

I should point out that Russian 'Gypsy' songs is a stylistic term, rather than actually being Gypsy folk songs. They really are cabaret-ish affairs, because most of the singers at the time were Gypsies.

Subject: RE: Those were the days my friend - history?
From: kendall
Date: 21 Sep 08 - 04:42 AM

Another favorite of mine. I sang it at a folk festival here in Maine and they didn't know what to think. It was a bit out of character for me.

Subject: RE: Those were the days my friend - history?
From: Charley Noble
Date: 21 Sep 08 - 10:17 AM

Tony-

Thanks so much for posting this translation.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Those were the days my friend - history?
From: meself
Date: 21 Sep 08 - 10:27 AM

I was struck by a comment made by McGrath of H. on an earlier thread; he was able to articulate an elusive feeling that was evoked by this song, for me anyway (and him, apparently!) when it came out. His comment bears repeating, I think:

"I remember getting a sensation of being pushed forward a good few years (to about now, maybe) in order to be able to look back and feel nostalgic for the period in which I was actually living.

Which means now it becomes a matter of being nostalgic for being nostalgic... "

Although for me, I was young enough when the song came out that it gave me a kind of anticipatory nostalgia for the period in which I imagined myself living perhaps ten years later ...

Subject: RE: "Those were the days" - history?
From: Genie
Date: 22 Sep 08 - 01:57 AM

Frank, you make a very good point and one I've thought a lot about in relation to many songs that are now attributed to a contemporary composer or songwriter but which take all or large parts of their tunes from songs written before 1920 (or perhaps never formally "written" by whoever wrote them in the first place.

[[I understand that the melody for Dorogoj Dlinnoju is a traditional song and might predate the copyright from the Soviet Union. I don't think it matters much whether you borrow the melody from another song and put your own lyrics to it.
You can claim authorship of the lyrics. Not sure what Gene Raskin did here, but the tune was floating around prior to copyright date. It's a Russian Gypsy tune.

...

Every songwriter I know has taken the melody from some song or other and composed their own lyrics to it.   Woody, Dylan, McCartney, Harrison, ....plenty of pop songs based on PD tunes. I think in the realm of folk music, the tune is a vehicle for the words and is of less importance in its originality.

Now if someone were to claim authorship of a tune by Gershwin, Berlin, Porter, or Kern et. al. then that might be a little different. Many of those tunes were original and not PD.]]

I often see pop or show tunes or even folk tunes attributed as "words and music by [somebody from the late 20th C.]," when more than half the tune is borrowed from a classical composer (who probably borrowed the melody from a trad folk tune), etc.   Sometimes they do say "Based on a theme by ______," but not always.   I like to see the sources given due credit when the music composers are listed.

Subject: RE: Those were the days my friend - history?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 22 Sep 08 - 02:20 AM

MIDI files posted by llareggyb (Tony P)

His message:

noticed that THOSE WERE THE DAYS MY FRIEND didn't have a midi file attached in the DT, so here are two: one with just the tune, and one with guitar accompaniment. I've also included the first verse of the lyrics in the MIDI.

On some media players, you can get the lyrics to display in sync while the midi tune plays (I just discovered this myself recently). The only one I know for sure about is WinAmp; to activate the feature you have to find Plugins in the Options menu, go to Input Plugins, select the MIDI Input one, and make sure Display Lyrics is checked! Maybe this could go in the FAQ, if enough people start adding lyrics to their MIDI files – it's a great help with some tunes to see how the words fit. Only verse 1 shows up in the Winamp plugin, but that's better than nothing.

I have also put in a Lyr ADD request with a singable translation of the original Russian lyrics, which are quite different from Gene Raskin's familiar English version, as discussed in several threads. The Lyr ADD is in Those were the days my friend - history?, under Lyr ADD: DOWN THE LONG ROAD. The same midi tune can go with that one when & if it gets added to the DT, although ideally I should change the first verse lyrics to match.

---

Click to play (vocal)

Click to play (with guitar)

Thanks, Tony.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Those were the days my friend - history?
From: s&r
Date: 22 Sep 08 - 02:38 AM

This is where mudcat excels. It's easy to forget the scholarship if you read too much 'below the line'.

Stu

Subject: RE: Those were the days my friend - history?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 22 Sep 08 - 01:35 PM

I see no reason to assume that Fomin DIDN'T compose the melody for Dorogoy Dlinoyu. He was a well known artist who composed many original tunes and composed this one for Yelizaveta Belogorskaya, one of the top singers of the 1920s. She herself was no Gypsy.
What we know as Russian Gyspy music is cabaret songs and showtunes written in a certain manner, usually bearing little relation to them or their music.
He apparently also wrote an early version of the words around 1917, which Podrevsky later fixed in 1924. Most experts believe that Alexander Vertinsky had the song in his repertoire before he became an emigre. It seems that it was quite popular during the Revolution and Civil War.
The sheetmusic, with a portrait of Georgian singer Tamara Tzereteli, sold over 10,000 copies in 1925, until romances as a whle were banned a few years later.

Subject: RE: Those were the days my friend - history?
From: GUEST,Ken Brock
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 12:51 AM

The Russian folksong which became "Those Were The Days" is on an Elektra lp by Theodore Bikel and Geula Gill, titled "Folk Songs from Just About Everywhere", iirc.

Subject: RE: Those were the days my friend - history?
From: pavane
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 03:35 AM

Just a small note: It is Mary HOPKIN (from Pontardawe) as the first poster correctly said, not HOPKINS, as others have written.

Unrelated as far as I know is Gaynor Hopkins of Skewen (aka Bonnie Tyler)

Subject: RE: Those were the days my friend - history?
From: GUEST,TJ in San Diego
Date: 23 Sep 08 - 06:40 PM

I love this site! Nowhere else on the web can a simple question generate so much complex response - akin to asking the time and being instructed on how to build a watch. The process produces so many interesting, if sometimes loosely related, comments and factoids that the whole becomes much grander than the sum of its musical parts.

That said, I heard this song performed by that noted Russian group, The Mickey Finn Show (Fred Finn, et al)back in the late 1960's utilizing the talents of tuba, trombone, clarinet, banjo, drums and rinky-tink piano. It translates well anyhow.

Subject: RE: Origin: Those Were the Days (Gene Raskin)
From: Genie
Date: 02 Aug 09 - 11:31 PM

Does the Russian song "Dorogoy Dlinoyu" usually include the "ta da da da dum da" part that Mary Hopkin includes in her version of TWTD?   Not sure if Gene Raskin did it that way, but the Limeliters did not. When I first heard Mary Hopkin's recording, after being introduced to the song by the Limeliters, I was struck by the similarity of that refrain -- its format, feeling and sound -- to Edith Piaf's recording of "Milord," which I had become familiar with in the early '60s. It seemed very derivative to me -- almost copycat.   I must admit I have no way of knowing how common that sort of belted out "ta da da da" reprise was, but that part of TWTD does resemble the melody of the chorus of "Milord" a lot.

Of course, It's possible Piaf (and her songwriters/arrangers) "borrowed" from the Russian folk song, rather than the other way around.

Subject: RE: Origin: Those Were the Days (Gene Raskin)
From: meself
Date: 03 Aug 09 - 12:11 AM

I suspect you could find any number of songs with similar chorusses or refrains to both TWTD and Milord. I think part of the nostalgic effect of those songs is that they invoke all those other "mid-European" cabaret/tavern songs.

(Can I name any others? No - but I'm sure they're out there).

Subject: RE: Origin: Those Were the Days (Gene Raskin)
From: Janie
Date: 03 Aug 09 - 01:12 AM

Thanks to all for the information regarding this song. I know it from an old LP I have by Melanie, which I acquired long before the days I thought much about the origins of the music I liked.

Subject: RE: Origin: Those Were the Days (Gene Raskin)
From: Artful Codger
Date: 03 Aug 09 - 01:15 PM

The Russian song is also known as "Дорогой дальною" (alternate first line of chorus: Dorogoy dal'noyu/By the distant road) or "Ехали на тройке с бубенцами" (first line of first verse: Yekhali na troykye s bubentsami/We rode on a troika with bells). As others have noted, the lyrics "Those were the days" are in no way a translation from the Russian.

Subject: RE: Origin: Those Were the Days (Gene Raskin)
From: GUEST,Stringsinger
Date: 03 Aug 09 - 03:11 PM

Subject: RE: Origin: Those Were the Days (Gene Raskin)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 23 Nov 10 - 10:14 PM

Oh, dear, the Google translator seems to think the above post was in Yoruba, a major language group in Nigeria. If we could only translate the phrase Mudcat might be able to collect millions!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Origin: Those Were the Days (Gene Raskin)
From: GUEST,Chris P. Bacon
Date: 23 Aug 15 - 05:22 PM

Funny, I found this thread by googling "Those Were The Days" and "Milord". Every time I start humming Milord to myself, I want to sing "Once upon a time there was a tavern" in there...

Subject: RE: Origin: Those Were the Days (Gene Raskin)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 23 Aug 15 - 10:23 PM

A thread well worth refreshing.

Subject: RE: Origin: Those Were the Days (Gene Raskin)
From: keberoxu
Date: 13 Dec 15 - 03:34 PM

I grew up with the Bikel/Gill album on the Elektra label, and I recall well Bikel's singing of what I always thought of as "the Troika song." Mind you, I don't have Russian. But Elektra was always good about attaching printed booklets, with English translations, to long-playing albums of songs in languages other than English. Pity I can't locate that translation now, which I believe was literal and not a singing/rhythmic/metrical version.

And to comment upon a question raised some ways back on this thread: Theodore Bikel certainly does iterate the chorus with "Dai dai dai dai" and so on, and a very macho-sounding business it is too, a long way from sweet-voiced Mary Hopkin.

Subject: RE: Origin: Those Were the Days (Gene Raskin)
From: GUEST,Desi C
Date: 14 Dec 15 - 11:25 AM

Well, I read that Paul McCartney arranged it for Mary from an old Russian Folk song

Subject: RE: Origin: Those Were the Days (Gene Raskin)
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Dec 15 - 06:01 AM

Mary Hopkin won the talent show Opportunity Knocks, with the execrable Hughie Green presenting, in 1968. One of my best mates was beaten by her into second place in the same show! I'll spare him potential embarrassment by refraining from providing any further details. You'll have to ask Mary! Clapometer, anyone?

Subject: RE: Origin: Those Were the Days (Gene Raskin)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 29 May 17 - 10:39 PM

Alexander Vertinsky - Dorogoi dlinnoyu - Дорогой длинною - By the long road: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMaz70bOd7w

Subject: RE: Origin: Those Were the Days (Gene Raskin)
From: leeneia
Date: 30 May 17 - 12:08 PM

Yep, it's the same tune, all right.