Lyr Add: Obscure Song-'Gallant Hours' Theme

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Obscure Song-'Gallant Hours' Theme
From: Helen
Date: 24 May 23 - 04:12 PM

I know we already have video links but this short video has the full song at the opening credits, and then the male solo at the closing credits:

Opening & Closing Scenes For "The Gallant Hours"

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Obscure Song-'Gallant Hours' Theme
From: GUEST,TahoeDave
Date: 24 May 23 - 12:58 PM

I was able to find the sheet music, but it is single voice with accompaniment.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Obscure Song-'Gallant Hours' Theme
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 16 Dec 21 - 01:56 PM

See Jim Dixon's post, above. Link is dead but it was right as cited: Edward "Ward" Costello (1919-2009)

“...composed and wrote the lyrics to the theme for The Gallant Hours. Prior to his work in film, Costello served in both the British Royal Air Force and the U.S. Army Signal Corps during the Second World War….

After World War II, he worked as a journalist and as foreign news editor for CBS. Subsequently trained for acting at the Yale School of Drama in Hartford, Connecticut, and at the Old Vic and the University of Birmingham in England.” [wiki]

aka: Star Fleet Adm. Gregory Quinn to the filkie set.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Obscure Song-'Gallant Hours' Theme
From: GUEST,Jonavy
Date: 15 Dec 21 - 03:04 AM

I looked high and low for this song. I searched wagners collections and across spotify. It's so obscure that I think it was made just for the movie and probably went straight to sheet music ..someone somewhere may have a 45 of it and never know what it is.

It is as someone said a haunting theme. Not that I consider myself anywhere near a Fleet admiral Halsey type, I did find the lyrics a reflection of myself after my time in the navy. I knew the lad who joined but could not find him when I retired.. Away he went...

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Obscure Song-'Gallant Hours' Theme
From: GUEST,Dan Kane
Date: 07 Jun 19 - 07:14 PM

I have found that the name of the theme song of Gallant Hours is "Away He Went".

The only full version I have been able to find was on YouTube, https://youtu.be/tpwkjGJqGT0

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Obscure Song-'Gallant Hours' Theme
From: Haruo
Date: 27 Oct 18 - 10:45 PM

Very interesting, albeit inconclusive. Neither Pavlina nor have seen this movie, but she ran across a snippet today on YouTube, including the intro singing of it, and we're both eager to know where it came from.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Obscure Song ?
From: GUEST,Mike Kilian
Date: 31 Aug 15 - 06:00 PM

You can find the beginning of the movie on Youtube. They sing the complete song and the words are clearly distinguished. They are exactly as Oddball has here.

mk

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Obscure Song ?
From: Deckman
Date: 30 Apr 11 - 01:18 AM

So ... "Oddball" ... what is your source for these words? CHEERS, bob(deckman)nelson

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Obscure Song ?
From: GUEST,Oddball Again
Date: 30 Apr 11 - 12:51 AM

(I'd "pasted" the initial lyrics text, edited "More" from
the first line.)

I knew a lad who went to sea and left the shore behind him.
I knew him well the lad was me and now I cannot find him.

Away, away, away he went, in deep and salty water.
His girl she waited years for him. She was his neighbor's daughter

Away, away, away he went and left the shore behind him.
I knew him well the lad was me and now I cannot find him.

Away, away, away he went
Away he went and now I cannot find him.

The rolling sea he would embrace, the rolling sea hath took him.
And passed him on a lonely beach, the roaring sea forsook him.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Obscure Song ?
From: GUEST,Oddball
Date: 30 Apr 11 - 12:50 AM

I knew a lad who went to sea and More.. left the shore behind him.
I knew him well the lad was me and now I cannot find him.

Away, away, away he went, in deep and salty water.
His girl she waited years for him. She was his neighbor's daughter

Away, away, away he went and left the shore behind him.
I knew him well the lad was me and now I cannot find him.

Away, away, away he went
Away he went and now I cannot find him.

The rolling sea he would embrace, the rolling sea hath took him.
And passed him on a lonely beach, the roaring sea forsook him.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Obscure Song ?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 04 Jan 04 - 05:47 PM

Colour in film was of many various processes - incuding splitting, filtering and putting the images on seperate places on the film stock - colour was available in the 1930's - nazi documentary films were often in colour, as was a lot of US war footage.

Don't forget that quite a few popular films have now been computer "colorised" too - the cost is getting cheaper all the time.

Robin

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Obscure Song ?
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 04 Jan 04 - 01:02 PM

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) says Roger Wagner wrote original music for the 1960 film "The Gallant Hours."

A query at militarymusic.com--by someone who is apparently looking for the same song--says Roger Wagner was the conductor, and the words and music to the theme song were written by Ward Costello. (Ward Costello, a.k.a. Edward Costello, was the actor who played Captain Harry Black in the film.) I don't know whether this information is reliable.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Obscure Song ?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 02 Jan 04 - 05:01 PM

Deckman said "It's funny how time warps ones memory. I remember the film as being in black and white, and it was in color. "

I had the same experience recently, watching a new DVD of a classic old Alec Guiness/Peter Sellers comedy, "The Ladykillers." I was amazed to see it in color, since I remembered it as strictly B&W.

Finally realized why: I never saw it in a theater, but watched it many times on late-night 1950s TV -- before color TV. Even though the movie was filmed in technicolor, the television broadcast version was ncessarily monochrome. Deckman, this is probably the same thing that "colors" your memory of "Ther Gallant Hours."

(For those too young to know, color came to film many years before TV.)

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Obscure Song ?
From: Helen
Date: 02 Jan 04 - 12:50 PM

But, does this get you any nearer to finding the song?

Helen

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Obscure Song ?
From: Deckman
Date: 02 Jan 04 - 08:37 AM

Helen, Thank you very much for finding this information. You hit it right on the head. It's funny how time warps ones memory. I remember the film as being in black and white, and it was in color. But, being colorblind, color is not one of the first things I notice or remember. CHEERS, Bob(deckman)Nelson

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Obscure Song ?
From: Helen
Date: 02 Jan 04 - 12:31 AM

Go to AllMovie.com and search for the movie called

The Gallant Hours

There are a couple of links to the people who are credited with the music.

Somsort of genealogy site has this written at the bottom of it:

"I knew a lad who went to sea, and left the shore behind him.
I knew him well, that lad was me, and now I cannot find him."

"Lad" and not "man". They may have some more info.

Helen

Subject: Lyr Add: Obscure Song ?
From: Deckman
Date: 01 Jan 04 - 11:06 PM

I think it was back in the 1950's that I heard this song fragment. Hollywood make a black and white film about "Bull" Halsey, the WW2 Navy Admiral. At the end of the film, as the credits were running, this male solo voice sang these four lines:

"I knew a man who went to sea,
And left the shore behind him,
I knew him well, that man was me,
But now I cannot find him."

The melody was haunting, modal, you could sing it all with two chords: D and C.

I've always wondered if this was piece composed by someone for this film, or if it may be a fragment of something longer, perhaps traditional. Does anyone else remember this piece, or have any information?

Thanks and Merry New Year, Bob(deckman)Nelson