ADD: Viva la Quinta Brigada (Christy Moore & not)

Subject: RE: ADD: Viva la Quinta Brigada (Christy Moore & not)
From: GeoffLawes
Date: 09 May 08 - 08:08 PM

I have emailed that site Monique and I am awaiting their reply

Subject: RE: ADD: Viva la Quinta Brigada (Christy Moore & not)
From: GeoffLawes
Date: 11 May 08 - 04:54 PM

I am reproducing, below, the reply from,ALTEVOZ DEL FRENTE,the site to which Monique's link leads.
This favours the idea that the song in praise of the XV is a post civil war adaptation from Pete Seeger on the grounds of some of the words, although these words don't seem to be identical to the one's that Joe gives above for the Seeger song. I also notice that the writer gives 1943 as the date of the Asch recording which is different from yours Joe ? There remains open the question of whether someone, perhaps Pete Seeger merely added a verse referring to the post civil war role of the brigaders or whether they changed the whole song from The Quinta To the Quince Brigada.

So I would still like to know for certain

Was VIVA LA QUINCE BRIGADA sung IN SPAIN while the Spanish Civil war was STILL being fought?

From: Altavozdelfrente.org
To: Lawes
Sent: Sunday, May 11, 2008 5:02 PM
Subject: Re: Viva La Quince Brigade


Sorry, but I don´t speak english although I can understand you email. I apologize for my bad English. Try to answer with the help of a translator online.

I do not have a definitive answer to your question. In my opinion "Long Live The Fifteenth Brigade" is not singing during the Spanish civl war. It was a Seeger´s adaptation from the song "Ay Carmela" (popular song with many letters and different versions) and it was recorded in 1943 in Asch Records for the album "Songs of the Lincoln Brigade."

Look this verse:

"Ya salimos de España,
para luchar en otros frentes
Ay Manuela, Ay Manuela"

"We already leave Spain,
to fight on other fronts
Manuela Ay, Ay Manuela "

This ("We already leave Spain") indicates that "Long Live The Fifteenth Brigade" is later than end of the Spanish Civil War.

Salud.

Eduardo
www.altavozdelfrente.org


In Spanish.

Lo siento, no hablo inglés aunque puedo comprender su email. Intentaré contestar con la ayuda de un traductor online.

No tengo una respuesta definitiva a su pregunta. En mi opinión "Viva la Quince Brigada" no se cantó en el transcuros de la Guerra Civil. Es una adpatación que hizo Pete Seeger de la canción "Ay, Carmela" (canción popular que tenia muchas letras y diferentes versiones). Segeer grabó esta versión en 1943, en los estudios de Asch Records para el disco "Songs of the Lincoln Brigade".

Si nos basamos en la estrofa:

"Ya salimos de España,
para luchar en otros frentes"

veremos que se refiere al final de la guerra, por lo cual entiendo que no se cantó durante la guerra civl.

Salud.

Subject: RE: ADD: Viva la Quinta Brigada (Christy Moore & not)
From: MartinRyan
Date: 11 May 08 - 05:14 PM

On the face of it, Eduardo's translation of the verse referred to is closer to the original than that given by Joe. I'm assuming "juchar" is an error. His interpretation seems to me to make sense.

Regards

Subject: RE: ADD: Viva la Quinta Brigada (Christy Moore & not)
From: MartinRyan
Date: 11 May 08 - 05:28 PM

p.s. In the phrase "..popular song with many letters and different versions.." "many letters" is a very literal translation of "muchas letras". The sense is simply "many lines".

Regards

Subject: RE: ADD: Viva la Quinta Brigada (Christy Moore & not)
From: Monique
Date: 11 May 08 - 07:01 PM

His explanation makes sense. Translation of the last verse but one "Ya salimos de España" = "We already leave Spain": the 1st person of plural of indicative present and of indicative preterit are the same. So, whether it is "We already left Spain" as in Joe's translation or "ya we're leaving Spain" (in present tense, I feel "ya" more as "at last" than as "already"), the war is over.
Letra (sing.) = lyrics (pl.)

Subject: RE: ADD: Viva la Quinta Brigada (Christy Moore & not)
From: GeoffLawes
Date: 12 May 08 - 07:30 AM

Here is a You tube link to Pete Seeger performing the XV song with his grandson Tao in which he says the song was taught to him by friends in the Lincoln Battalion, but is it conclusive.

Pete Seeger

I was hoping that someone would state conclusively the year in which the Seeger/Asch recording was issued or made because the difference in the 1940/1943 dates given above means that Pete Seeger or a brigader friend either had a few months or a few years to originate this version of the song if it had not been sung while the war was being fought. (the International Brigades were withdrawn from combat in September 1938 and then repatriated before the war ended in April 1939)

La Lutta Continua

Geoff

Subject: RE: ADD: Viva la Quinta Brigada (Christy Moore & n
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 14 May 08 - 03:10 AM

My father was a volunteer in Spain, where he was wounded and imprisoned until the end of the war.
He came back with a number of songs including 'Viva la Quince Brigada' which, to my eternal shame, I took no great interest in when I was younger, and so never learned or recorded.
I do remember him singing them around and even 'osmosised' some of them, though, as I have no Spanish, the memories are phonetic.
I am pretty sure 'Viva' was pretty much as Joe gives it, with the addition of a couple of verses I never managed to pick up; one containing a reference to 'reckatays' (hand grenades) (that's how it sounded to me), and another he would never explain as he said "it contained words I should never use" - he was rather strict on that sort of thing.
I would appreciate help with a couple of other songs he had.
One started (again phonetic);

En el Monte de Narranco aye,
Una quente ce mana
Sangre de los Asturiano,
Que muereron en battalia.

Trans;
In the Mountains of Narranco
There is a fountain
That gives forth blood of the Asturians
Who died in battle there.

If you want to write to me,
And you don't know where I am,
In San Perdro De Cadenya (Saint Peter of the Chains),
Without tobacco or money.

Another he called 'An Englishman came to Bilbao' I can only remember the tune for.
Apologies to all for the efforts at spelling.

My father had a pretty hard time in San Sebastian prison in Spain and it was often difficult to get him to talk about it.
He was traumatized by having to witness the execution of dozens of young men, little more than children, who had been arrested in a village in the area. The local priest insisted on their execution because he was afraid he would be identified as a collaborator if the war went the wrong way for him.
When he returned from Spain my father found himself with a MI5 record as 'a premature anti-fascist', which he was extremely proud of, though it did get him blacklisted from work.
The only employment he could get was away from home with Wimpey and MacAlpine, so my sister and I hardly knew him till I was 14, when he finally came home.
I have a recording of a radio programme somewhere on the songs of the Spanish Civil War, made by Jim Lloyd and based on the experiences of Joe Cooney, a friend of The Ian Campbell Folk Group, which I will try and dig out, if anybody is interested.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: ADD: Viva la Quinta Brigada (Christy Moore & not)
From: Mr Happy
Date: 14 May 08 - 03:56 AM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quince

Subject: RE: ADD: Viva la Quinta Brigada (Christy Moore & not)
From: GeoffLawes
Date: 14 May 08 - 06:34 AM

Hi Jim, would your dad be Peter Carroll who wrote 'The Odyssey of the Lincoln Brigade' which I have seen quoted in books on the Spanish Civil War? If your dad came back singing 'Viva La Quince Brigada' that would seem to indicate that the song was sung in Spain and that my idea of its being an adaptation originating from Pete Seeger after the war is mistaken.

Subject: RE: ADD: Viva la Quinta Brigada (Christy Moore & not)
From: Monique
Date: 14 May 08 - 08:30 AM

Jim's post

This one would be a variant of "Si me quieres escribir, ya sabes mi paradero":

En el monte de Naranco
Hay una fuente que mana
Sangre de los Asturianos,
Que murieron en batalla.

Si me quieres escribir
Ya sabes mi paradero
En San Pedro de Cadenas (Google doesn't seem to know about it)
Sin tabaco y sin dinero


Un inglés vino a Bilbao:

Un inglés vino a Bilbao / por ver la ría y el mar / y al ver a las bilbainicas, / ya no se quiso marchar / Vale más una bilbainica / con su cara bonita, / con su gracia y su sal, / que todas las americanas / con su inmenso caudal. (ter.).
Trad.
An Englishman came to Bilbao / to see the river mouth and the sea/ and when he saw the Bilbao girls, / he didn't want to leave. / I'd better a Bilbao girl / with her pretty face, / with her grace and her charm / than all the American girls / with their immense wealth.

(lousy) sheet music here (when here, click the pdf format)

Subject: RE: ADD: Viva la Quinta Brigada (Christy Moore & n
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 14 May 08 - 01:38 PM

Geoff,
No, my dad was Jim - same as me, my grandfather, great... ad infinitum - too lazy to think of another one, I guess.
His nickname was 'Scotty' as he was born in Glasgow, though he had a broad Liverpool accent. He is mentioned in Alvah Bessie's book, 'Men in Battle' (p 82 7 Seas edition) as 'a young Scots lad fast asleep and dribbling) on the train journey over the Pyrenees.
Monique,
Thank you a million times - the end of a long search!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: ADD: Viva la Quinta Brigada (Christy Moore & not)
From: Effsee
Date: 14 May 08 - 02:26 PM

Jim, I think you mean (the late) Bob Cooney of Aberdeen, who was a friend of the Campbells.

Subject: RE: ADD: Viva la Quinta Brigada (Christy Moore & n
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 14 May 08 - 04:49 PM

Effsee
I do indeed, thanks for that.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: ADD: Viva la Quinta Brigada (Christy Moore & n
From: Newport Boy
Date: 18 May 08 - 05:07 PM

Geoff

I was hoping that someone would state conclusively the year in which the Seeger/Asch recording was issued or made because the difference in the 1940/1943 dates given above means that Pete Seeger or a brigader friend either had a few months or a few years to originate this version of the song if it had not been sung while the war was being fought.

I'm always reluctant to claim "conclusively". I have the Naxos reissue of the Almanac's "Sea, Soil & Struggle", and the notes say:

"Songs of the Lincoln Battalion was recorded by Moe Asch in 1942 at the request of veterans of the Spanish Civil War."

The track details for Viva la Quince Brigada give "Asch 330-1, mx BR 4". This may be a reference in the Syracuse University - Belfer Audio Laboratory and Archive, who provided the original 78s for the Naxos CD. (Unfortunately, their library system is down for maintenance at present)

There's no credit for the words, so the general note applies "all songs are traditional or otherwise of unknown origin."

It's very difficult to pin down the date - the internal evidence is conflicting. Most, if not all, of the Almanacs recordings were in 1941 and 1942 (up to June).

The early recordings included Millard Lampell, one of the founder members, who does not appear on Songs of the Lincoln Battalion, so that might indicate a later date.

On the other hand, I haven't seen any reference to Asch's recordings of the Almanacs after mid-1941, other than the Naxos note.

In various discographies I've looked at, for the Almanacs and individual members, Songs of the Lincoln Battalion seems to be missing.

Perhaps we'll never know for sure.

Phil

Subject: RE: ADD: Viva la Quinta Brigada (Christy Moore & not)
From: GeoffLawes
Date: 08 Jun 08 - 02:00 PM

I have stumbled across the Blog of Malcolm Redfellow who expresses some curiosity about the involvement of Pete Seeger in the song but who ascribes the words of Quince Brigade to a Dutchman,Bart Van Der Schelling. I reproduce the interesting'new'information below.


"As far as Malcolm can determine, the song was wished on the folk-music scene by one Bart Van Der Schelling, a musician, activist and member of the Dutch segment of the International Brigade.

Time Magazine has this from 4th August 1941:

World War II has yet to produce a great song, but last week some of its saddest were heard in the U.S. The League of American Writers produced an album of records ($2.75) called Behind the Barbed Wire—six songs of the French, Spanish, Italian and German anti-Fascists who now rot in the French concentration camps of Gurs, Vernet d'Ariège, Argelès-sur-Mer.

The six songs were recorded in Manhattan by a Netherlands-born fighter in the Spanish Civil War, Bart van der Schelling. He wears his chin in a brace, is called "official singer" for the U.S. survivors of the International Brigades of the Loyalists. Singer van der Schelling is backed by an "Exiles Chorus" directed by Earl Robinson (Ballad for Americans). Some of the songs—the Spanish Joven Guardia, the Italian Guardia Rossa, the German Thaelmann-Bataillon, the French Au Devant de la Vie (music by Soviet Composer Dmitri Shostakovich)—were composed during the Spanish War. Most of them are in rough, plodding march time. The one which gives the album its name was composed by a German, Eberhard Schmitt, in the camp at Gurs. Its chorus, translated (not quite so lame in the original):
Behind the wire, our courage is unbroken;
We yield to no one! We're not broken reeds!
Jail or internment, we're masters of our lives,
Nothing counts with us but deeds!
For where Germany's and Austria's sons may be,
One goal they cling to: Liberty! . . .

Malcolm has never come across hair nor hide nor shellac of that 1941 recording, but we find Quinte Brigada [sic] is track 14 on "Fighting the Fascists, 1942-44", which is Disc 4 of Bear Family Records 10-CD compendium of Songs for Political Action. The credited musicians and singers are Pete Seeger, Tom Glazer, Baldwin Hawes and Bess Lomax.

It next turns up in The People's Songbook, originally published by Boni and Gaer in New York in 1948. And from there it became a:

Traditional Spanish Folksong from 'The People's Songbook', also known as 'Ah, Manuela!' it is possibly the war's signature song.

Thereafter, it turns up repeatedly in Pete Seeger's repertoire, notably in the Carnegie Hall Concert of June 8, 1963.

Though fond of the song, Malcolm has some doubts about the honesty of its parentage. It sure ain't "traditional", but van der Schelling or Seeger: does it really matter?

Link to the REDFELLOW BLOG

This full blog posting doesn't consider some of the possibilities discussed in this and other Mudcat threads such as the fifth/fifteenth Brigade confusion which I think address some of his doubts about the XV song. Does anyone have anything more to add about the Dutch writer (if he was the writer).

Subject: RE: ADD: Viva la Quinta Brigada (Christy Moore & n
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 11 Jun 08 - 05:07 PM

Saw Christy at the Edinburgh Festival Theatre recently (very good gig!), and he changed the lyrics to "fifteenth international brigade".

Subject: RE: ADD: Viva la Quinta Brigada (Christy Moore & not)
From: GeoffLawes
Date: 25 Jun 08 - 12:01 PM

Liner notes for Songs of the Spanish Civil War Volume One

The above link reproduces the complete liner notes to the Songs of the Spanish War which may clear up some of the confusions about some of the songs discussed above. It includes the version of Viva La Quince Brigada sung by Pete Seeger but does not attribute authorship. I now believe that this version of the Ay Carmela was written by Bart Van Der Schelling and I some time ago started another thread specifically about him and the evidence that he wrote the song.

Bart Van Der Schelling Any Information ? thread

Subject: RE: ADD: Viva la Quinta Brigada (Christy Moore & not)
From: GeoffLawes
Date: 25 Jun 08 - 12:22 PM

Sorry the link at the top of my last post was to Volume Two of the Songs of the Spanish Civil War not One - it has a photo of Bart Van Der Schelling which I meant to put on the other thread.
Here is the correct link
Songs of the Spanish civil War Volume One

Subject: RE: ADD: Viva la Quinta Brigada (Christy Moore & n
From: Newport Boy
Date: 27 Jun 08 - 02:56 PM

Geoff

Regarding the recording date, I'm now fairly certain it would be 1942. The only evidence I've seen for 1940 is the note added on the Folkways disc to the reproduction of the Asch record notes. I think this is an error.

The banjo on the recording is Pete Seeger. According to Joe Klein in his Woody Guthrie autobiography Pete Seeger spent most of 1940 learning how to play the banjo.... By the time he returned to New York that December, ha wasn't half bad.

That seem to rule out a 1940 date for that recording, and the 1942 date quoted elsewhere seems right.

Phil

Subject: RE: ADD: Viva la Quinta Brigada (Christy Moore & not)
From: GeoffLawes
Date: 14 Nov 09 - 06:46 PM

I have posted links to the old Granada series of six TV films about the Spanish Civil War on the Mudcat link called

Lyr Req: Jack Atky & All: Spanish Civil War Song

The series is on You Tube but is I think unavailable elsewhere. I thought some of you who posted on this thread might be interested.

Regards, Geoff