Origin: Barges (Girl Scout song)

Subject: RE: Origin of: 'Barges' (Girl Scout song)
From: Melissa
Date: 22 Oct 07 - 04:17 AM

yeah..I've found hundreds by snooping around in threads and clicking stuff. Mudcat is a pretty easy place to navigate--a treasure.

I would have thought camp songs started building steam in the early 20s? There's a pretty strong emphasis on singing while you Work, Hike or Wait in the earliest GS handbooks. I don't know much about other organizations, but I think the first official GS songbook was printed in 1928.
One of these days, I will probably open a thread to try getting a solid handful of songs to sing as part of a 1920s re-enactment GS troop, but for now, I'm content sitting around following existing threads and picking up information vicariously.
This place certainly attracts people who are generous with their knowledge!

Thanks,
M

Subject: RE: Origin of: 'Barges' (Girl Scout song)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 22 Oct 07 - 02:48 AM

Oh, you'll find hundreds of them here at Mudcat, Melissa. Look at the threads crosslinked at the top of this thread, the "Naughty Kids" threads I spoke of above, and the threads crosslinked with this camp song thread (click). These songs weren't collected by the well-known collectors like Lomax and Sharp and Warner and the like. Camp songs are a newer phenomenon, a product of the post-Depression Twentieth Century. Many of us here grew up with these songs.
And if you can't find a song, start a new thread and ask for it.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Origin of: 'Barges' (Girl Scout song)
From: Melissa
Date: 22 Oct 07 - 02:08 AM

Too bad..I was hoping to get access to a wad of songs I'm starting to forget. I've got plenty of words, but the tunes are beginning to vaporize.

thanks,
M

Subject: RE: Origin of: 'Barges' (Girl Scout song)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 22 Oct 07 - 01:41 AM

Melissa, you asked if anyone has ever "collected" camp songs. Your mention of "floating down the Delaware chewing on her underwear" led me to Google up this (click). I didn't know the Delaware/underwear song, but I knew most of the other songs on the page. There are tens of thousands of camp song pages available. One of the most impressive is the Prairie Home Companion Camp Song Songbook. You'll find many more of that ilk in our Naughty Kids' Greatest Hits threads.

Now, to my mind, the Delaware/underwear songs are the real camp songs, and published songs like "Barges" are of secondary interest. Still, "Barges" intrigues me because we haven't been able to figure out where it came form originally. In general, though, there's a lack of spontaneity and creativity in the songs in "official" songbooks of camps and camping organizations.

As for "collecting" camp songs, that question goes unanswered.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Origin of: 'Barges' (Girl Scout song)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 21 Oct 07 - 09:57 PM

A last verse not seen before by me, but I could have missed the posting. I'll post the four verses and chorus.

BARGES

Out of the window looking into the night,
I can see the barges' flickering light.
Silently flows the river to the sea,
As the barges do go silently.*

CHORUS
Barges, I would like to go with you,
I would like to sail the ocean blue.
Barges, have you treasure in your hold,
Do you fight with pirates brave and bold.

Out of my window looking in* the night,
I can see the barges flickering light.
Starboard shines green and port is glowing red,
I can see the barges far ahead.

Now my heart longs to sail away with you,
As you sail across the ocean blue.
But I must stay beside my ocean clear,(1)
As I watch you sail away from here.

Away from my window on into the night,
I will watch til they are out of sight.
Taking their cargo far across the sea,
I wish that someday they'd take me.

* Minor mistakes here- perhaps suggesting a translation?
(1) ...my ocean pier, ?

Barges

Subject: RE: Origin of: 'Barges' (Girl Scout song)
From: Melissa
Date: 21 Oct 07 - 09:38 PM

I asked a friend who was in Campfire. She learned the song at camp in the early 60s, said it was camp tradition for a long time before then..said she learned that it was about the Erie Canal.

Subject: RE: Origin of: 'Barges' (Girl Scout song)
From: Melissa
Date: 21 Oct 07 - 04:31 AM

Has anybody 'collected' the hoards of songs sung at gs camps?
I'm noticing that in this area, they're being replaced by a different type of song..and hate to think that the traditional ones might get lost.

My niece has gone to camp twice (same camp I worked at) and the only song she learned well enough to remember is the one about floating down the Delaware chewing on her underwear.
That song would have gotten me invited to not come back on camp after session break..

I never did completely buy the bedridden girl story. Mostly because we had that final verse--wondered how she supposedly finished it. It'll be interesting to see if this thread results in an older answer. Of course, I'll probably perpetuate the 'sick child' story to my girls by telling them that's what I learned but later learned that it had Spanish origins (or whatever the story turns out to be..if any comes to be at all)

M

Subject: RE: Origin of: 'Barges' (Girl Scout song)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 21 Oct 07 - 12:48 AM

Joe, it is sometimes sung in Spanish by Girl Scouts in Latin America or Spain. I once found it in Spanish on a Latin American or Spanish children's site on which I didn't make a note. It may just have been a translation from English. I don't know of any Spanish song that is close enough to be related.

Barge struck me as odd; seems to me the girls would be much more likely to sing about ships or boats, more romantic than barges. And barco is boat in Spanish.
Sorry I can't help. The song bothers me too.

Subject: RE: Origin of: 'Barges' (Girl Scout song)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 21 Oct 07 - 12:10 AM

Q, you caught my attention. I've been looking for the orgin of this song for years, and I never believed it came from a bedridden Girl Scout. What's the Spanish song you think it comes from?
-Joe-

Subject: RE: Origin of: 'Barges' (Girl Scout song)
From: GUEST,Kerry
Date: 20 Oct 07 - 05:44 PM

Yes, we still do sing Barges today in Scouting. I learned it when I was just a wee little Brownie scout back in the 1960's and still teach it too all my little scouts today. The old version of Barges is the one that I learned and still teach.

Out of my window, looking in the night
I can see the barges flickering lights.
Silently flows the water to the sea
And the barges do go silently.

Barges, I would like to go with you
I would like to sail the ocean blue.
Barges, is there treasure in your hold?
Do you fight with pirates brave and bold?

Out of my window, looking in the night,
I can see the barges flickering lights.
Starboard is glowing green and port is glowing red.
I can see the barges far ahead.

Chorus again and then hum the third verse.

Subject: RE: Origin of: 'Barges' (Girl Scout song)
From: Melissa
Date: 14 Oct 07 - 12:45 AM

Our third verse is:

Out of my window, looking in the night
I can see those barges' flickering light.
Now is the time when I will soon be gone
and I'll sail with barges on and on.

Barges, I am going now with you
I am going to sail the ocean blue.
Barges, we have treasure in our hold
and we fight with pirates brave and bold.

I learned it in the mid-70s..NW Missouri. Judging by the apparent age of the handwritten songbook we used in the early 80s, the song was in use here for a long time before I learned it.
My guess is that it might have been introduced at one of those Conference gathering things to have been able to get nearly everywhere with very few differences in wording.

I chanced upon mudcat a few years ago by running across a thread about Barges. I was absolutely enchanted to find that there are still Old School scouts on the loose talking about songs I know.
Neat find.

Has anybody heard of a field collection of the songs we think of as Traditional GS?

Melissa

Subject: RE: Origin of: 'Barges' (Girl Scout song)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 13 Oct 07 - 03:09 PM

All the speculative interpretations posted here add up to quite an interesting pile.
Oh, well, I'll add one about source (perhaps already stated somewhere up the thread). The barges come from 'barco,' Spanish for boat or ship; the song is a bad translation from a Spanish original.

Subject: RE: Origin of: 'Barges' (Girl Scout song)
From: GUEST,celeste ellerby
Date: 13 Oct 07 - 10:11 AM

The meaning of this song. a girl is trapped in a bed because she is to sick to move. her bed is beside the sea, so she is used to seeing barges roaming by. she starts wishing she could get onto one of those barges and sail away from the sickness that was killing her. her mother wrote this song for her, as she died 6 months after she was pronounced very, very ill. her mother was so overcome with grief, she couldnt stop thinking about her, so she wrote this song as a sort of RIP.

Subject: RE: Origin of: 'Barges' (Girl Scout song)
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Sep 07 - 06:44 PM

does any one no sail away the girl scout song some one

---

"Sail Away" request thread here (click).

-Joe Offer, Forum Moderator-

Subject: RE: Origin of: 'Barges' (Girl Scout song)
From: GUEST,miribelle
Date: 30 Aug 07 - 09:49 PM

hi, i am a cadette in girlscouts and, yes we still sing barges. i cannot imagine camp arnold w/o it

Subject: RE: Origin of: 'Barges' (Girl Scout song)
From: GUEST,the princess jack
Date: 17 Aug 07 - 08:28 PM

well here are my thoughts the rules of ryhming should be the same in all laguages and seen as the english vesion ryhms (the ends of the last words in the phrases make the same sound)and i can't immagine that those words beeing translated into anyother language could still ryhm. so basically my conclution is that this song must have been originally written in english (unless the words were changed to make them rhym..) here's my other conclution, it seems to have been all over north america since around the 1960's so it had to have been written long enough before that for it to have spread across the country. my other thoughts are that it must have been shared at a camp with alotof people from veriouse places around the country

alright now i heard the version about the sick girl looking out her wiindow ect. but reading everyone elses has really hit me a bit harder cause my little sister (11) has been batteling leukemia for the past 2 years so ya keep looking i will too

Subject: RE: Origin of: BARGES (Girl Scout song)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 09 Aug 07 - 03:54 PM

"Canciones de Nuestra Cabaña," published by World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, pub. Girl Scouts of the U. S. A., 1980, says "Source Unknown."

Spanish lyrics are given for the chorus:

Desde mi ventana puedo ver las luces
de la barcas en el rio. ?Llevarán
tésoros? ?Serán piratas preparados
para luchar? !Como me gustaría
navegar en ellas!

(From my window I see the lights
of the boats (barges) in the river. Are they carrying
treasures? Are pirates preparing
to board? How I would love to sail in them!)

An English translation given with the Spanish, adding a first verse-

Out of my window looking in the night
I can see the barges' flickering light;
Starboard shines green and port is glowing red,
You can see them flickering far ahead.
Chorus:
Barges, I would like to go with you,
I would like to sail the ocean blue.
Barges, have you treasures in your hold?
Do you fight with pirates brave and bold?

With score. P. 8.

Subject: RE: Origin of: BARGES (Girl Scout song)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 09 Aug 07 - 02:29 AM

Timbertall Girl, this is the first hint that this song may have come from a source other than a bedridden Girl Scout (a story I never believed). Please try to give us any other information about where the song may have been published.
Thank you very much.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Origin of: BARGES (Girl Scout song)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 09 Aug 07 - 12:43 AM

Interesting.
Please reference the source with the information on the Russian song.

Subject: RE: Origin of: BARGES (Girl Scout song)
From: GUEST,Guest: Timbertall Girl
Date: 08 Aug 07 - 11:56 PM

I looked and looked for Barges. I can't recall where I finally found it, but it wasn't in any girl scout songbook. It is in the 1968 Chansons etc, but no note as to where it is from. when I found it, it was in Russian and it's origin was noted as Russian. The translation was just like I had learned it which is pretty much what everyone else has. One difference is in the chorus of the 2nd verse:

Bargemen, I should like to be with you
I should like to see the ocean, too
Bargemen, though the river you may roam
On the river, always, you're at home.

& to the person who remembers My Paddles Keen and Bright-It is called the Canoe Round. It can be found in the recreation books-the little pocket sized books made especially for camp song leaders to carry. It is in more than one of these. 4 parts.

My Paddles keen and bright, flashing like silver
swift as the wild goose flies
dip, dip and swing

Dip, dip and swing her back, flashing like silver
follow the wild goose flight
dip, dip and swing.

Subject: RE: Origin of: BARGES (Girl Scout song)
From: GUEST,Glen Arden Girl
Date: 21 Jul 07 - 02:03 AM

My comments won't help you find the origin of the song, but they are a wonderful story of how this song has touched my family's life.
My sister and I learned this song our first year at Camp Glen Arden in North Carolina in the late 70's. As soon as our parents picked us up at the airport we sang this song for them both. It was so beautiful! (Incidently, reading the posted verses above makes me giggle to think how off we were on our own version). Through the years, my sister and I sang the song at family events and special occasions, or whenever my parents just wanted us to stop fighting and harmonize.
This past March, my father was hospitalized in the end stages of a valliant battle with lung and brain cancer. My sister and I were at his bedside in his final moments, and as we waited for my mom to arrive, we sang "Barges" for him one last time. It was the most beautiful moment in my life. We didn't even have to think about it..we just started singing together as if on cue.
My own child will attend Glen Arden this summer, and my mother found this site for me tonight - to remind me to continue the tradition of the song. "Barges"..no matter where it originated, no matter who the composer or writer - is indelible to our family.

Subject: RE: Origin of: BARGES (Girl Scout song)
From: Linda Mattson
Date: 16 Jul 07 - 03:22 AM

Nostalgia! I sang this song at Girl Scout Camp around the early to mid-60's in Wyoming, learned from my favorite counsellor "Piney." We had only the two verses mentioned above, in two part harmony. As to the origin, I most enjoyed the axe murderer story from Kamp Kwagmire, but I imagine the story about a camp counselor writng the song is probably correct.

I don't recall hearing the little dying girl story, so the song didn't seem so sad to me, only a wistful campfire song. Out in the wilds of Wyoming, I had never seen barges, and didn't understand the line about starboard and port!

Another song I remember - the round "Dip Dip and Swing" about canoe paddles. We didn't have a river to canoe in, only a stream to splash in, and rocks and sagebrush.

-Linda

Subject: RE: Origin of: BARGES (Girl Scout song)
From: GUEST,Hannah
Date: 12 Jul 07 - 03:14 PM

The camp I often attend has the counselors singing the song, two verses, (I can't remember if they hum)...
I am looking for a good recording with words in, has anyone seen one?

Subject: RE: Origin of: BARGES (Girl Scout song)
From: GUEST,Sarah
Date: 10 Jul 07 - 06:32 PM

I used to loooooooove the "Counselors" song as a scout :) It's been a while, so here is all I can remember:


Out my tent flap looking out into the night
I can see my counselors having a fight
Curlers in their hair and make-up everywhere
I can see my counselors' underwear

Counselors, I would like to fight with you
I would like to throw a pillow or two
Counselors have you tresures in your purse?
Have you fought brave battles with the nurse?

Subject: RE: Origin of: BARGES (Girl Scout song)
From: GUEST,Alexandra
Date: 27 Jun 07 - 06:23 PM

I go to a camp with children with all forms of Juvinile Arthritis (I have Dermatomyositis) and we sang it on the last night. We could all relate to it. What they told us was that it was written by an extremely sick little girl that could not go out or be a child. She wrote that song one night as she was looking out her window at all the barges. When she died her family passed it on through different charities and eventually the Girl Scouts. I have heared many other "histories" of it but I believe this one to be true, because the camp director, had a name for the little girl who wrote it, if I remember corectly. Next year I will be sure to write it down! Here is a link: http://www.nightheron.com/trees_activityguidebarges.html (By the way, I am refering to the version with the barges, not the counselor/scout/leaders etc)

Subject: RE: Origin of: BARGES (Girl Scout song)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 09 Jun 07 - 05:55 PM

OK, so what we have so far is this:

• from Masato: According to Brunnings' Folk Song Index, "Barges" is in Marion A. Roberts' Chansons de Notre Chalet (Delaware, Ohio; Co-operative Recreation Service, 1968). [but we don't have anybody who has actually seen a 1968 copy of Chansons. It's in my 1971 edition - with no background information whatsoever.]
  
• Barges is on Page 96 of my 1973 Third Edition of Sing Together, so that's the earliest printed version we've actually seen. I've posted the verses from Sing Together above.
  
• The most persistent story about the origin of the song is that it was written by a dying Girl Scout/Guide who spent a lot of time looking out her window...

The bottom line is this: We still haven't found where this song came from, and it has been almost nine years since this thread began.

Bah! Humbug! Foiled again!!!!

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Origin of: BARGES (Girl Scout song)
From: GUEST,Teh Pippin
Date: 09 Jun 07 - 05:11 PM

I've sung this song for Years at Scout Camp in Illinois.

The version I heard was that this song was written by a very ill little girl as she lay in the hospital. When she died, the lyrics were discovered.

The hospital staff, however, was baffled, as the only window in the girls room faced nothing but a brick wall...

Beautiful.

Subject: RE: Origin of: BARGES (Girl Scout song)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 11 Apr 07 - 02:32 AM

Hello, Occasionalpiece - we have the tune at Mudcat MIDIs, http://www.mudcat.org/midi/midifiles/barges.mid. If you have the right software, you can make sheet music from a MIDI file. If not, you can find it in most any Girl Scout songbook. If you still have trouble, e-mail me.
-Joe Offer-
[e-mail]

Subject: RE: Origin of: BARGES (Girl Scout song)
From: GUEST,occasionalpiece
Date: 11 Apr 07 - 01:20 AM

I'm trying to teach this to my newest group of campers, but would love to have the melody written down. Anyone have sheet music, or know where to find it on the web?

Subject: RE: Origin of: BARGES (Girl Scout song)
From: GUEST
Date: 02 Feb 07 - 09:53 AM

I'm glad to find this resource, which confirms my memory of at least the first two verses of the song. Since we're gathering the folklore around the song, I'll just add my own memories of singing it at local campouts, as well as at Camp Miter Peak, in West Texas, in the late 1960s:

"Barges" was often the last song we'd sing at night, beginning it as we made our way from the campfire to our tents. (Picture all the flashlights moving from the fire through the darkness to the tents -- about as close to "flowing down the river to the sea" that desert-dwelling Scouts would get!) I think the counselors and maybe oldest girls would put out the fire while the younger ones made our way to the tents. I vaguely remember humming the third verse as we stood outside the tents, then we'd sing the first two lines of the verse as a sort of "tag." Then everyone moved inside to get ready to bed down. It wasn't a melancholy song to us, but a peaceful one.

After the counselors called for "lights out" and everyone was (supposedly) all quiet, the tentful of oldest girls would begin this parody, joined by the other campers after the second line:

COUNSELORS
(a parody)

Out of my tent flap, looking in the night,
I can see the couns'lors having a fight.
Silently go the campers to their beds,
But the couns'lors do go noisily.

Couns'lors, I would like to go with you!
I would like to stay up very late too!
Couns'lors, have you candy in your tent?
Do you fight with couns'lors old and bent?

(Repeat verse and chorus)

Out of my tent flap, looking in the night,
I can see the couns'lors having a fight.


After a good laugh, the counselors would bid us good night and do whatever it is that counselors do while campers sleep peacefully -- preparing for the next day's activities, most likely.

I really don't remember hearing a story attached to the song, but we certainly used our imaginations, picturing ourselves living by a river and seeing the barges flowing past with green and red lights. (I'll try to remember the "true" origins from Joe Offer and pass them along!)

Subject: RE: Origin of: BARGES (Girl Scout song)
From: GUEST,Seiri Omaar
Date: 30 Jan 07 - 11:27 PM

The parody I learned:
CH: Leaders, I would like to go with you
I would like to sleep in a trailer too.
Leaders, are there cookies in your home
To give to Girl Guides brave and bold.

Out of my tent flap looking in the night
I can see the leaders having a fight.
Softly flies a pillow through the air
And oops there goes some underwear.

Out of my tent flap looking in the night
I can see the leaders walking by...

Gah, I can't remember the rest but there was a reference to makeup in that last verse...

Subject: RE: Origin of: BARGES (Girl Scout song)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 30 Jan 07 - 01:15 AM

Is this (click) the "Linger" they're referring to?
-Joe-

Subject: RE: Origin of: BARGES (Girl Scout song)
From: GUEST,Haley
Date: 29 Jan 07 - 11:01 PM

im a girl guide in canada and um why did someone ask if we still sing this song? of course we do! ha but my favorite song is linger. i just had a camp this weekend and my enrollments on wednsday and were singing this song. all i know is a girl was writing it and she died and never finished that verse so we hum it.

Subject: RE: Origin of: BARGES (Girl Scout song)
From: GUEST,child of the 60's
Date: 11 Jan 07 - 03:35 AM

I ran across this thread TOTALLY by accident. I won't bore you with details, but it started a few minutes ago when I saw the word "linger," which made me think of the song "Linger." We sang both Linger and Barges at Camp Washashe (Girl Scout camp) in Bartlesville, Oklahoma in the mid-60's to early 70's. I loved both of those songs (what is it about the melancholy ones that gets to me, I wonder?)

Anyway, the reason I felt moved to comment is that the version that we sang was a slight variation that I haven't seen here. Instead of "Do you fight with pirates brave and bold," we sang, "Have you fought with pirates brave and bold?" I'm sure it's just because it's the version I learned, but I like that better.

Subject: RE: Origin of: BARGES (Girl Scout song)
From: GUEST,.......
Date: 10 Nov 06 - 11:02 PM

i humm the 3rd verse

Subject: RE: Origin: Barges (Girl Scout song)
From: GUEST,"Nana" (my camp name) Washington State
Date: 30 Aug 06 - 01:02 AM

I'm currently a Girl Scout Leader of 2 troops, Brownines & Juniors in one, and Cadettes & Seniors in the other. All my "girls" know and love this song. It brings tears to many of our eyes too.
We had also heard the story of the sick girl, in a wheelchair that watched the barges sailing up and down the river thru her window. We were not told where she was or which river. It was sad enough to know she was ill and wheelchair bound.
I remember singing it in Scouts in the early '60s & taught it to my adult daughters when they were in Scouts as I have now taught their 2 little sisters 14 & 11. We didn't sing a 3rd verse either, but I sure am enjoying picking up more verses for the more somber version. (We have several verses of the "camp" type ones that the girls like too. Funny how I also have the girls do the "original" version first like someone else mentioned. It's a "respect thing" for me.)

I'll keep checking you guys out to see if someone, somewhere comes up with the real thing. (But, I must admit, I'd be sad if it wasn't something like the sick child story.) Either way, it's a beautiful, melancholy song.
Sondra aka Nana

Subject: RE: Origin: Barges (Girl Scout song)
From: GUEST,Toni Trujillo (New Mexico)
Date: 10 Aug 06 - 05:23 PM

Hi Everyone,

In New Mexico (Just Northwest of Texas and below Colorado) we were told that a little girl wrote this song while she was in the hospital overlooking the Missippi River. She suffered from luekemia and spend many hours looking out to the river watching the barges pass by. The last verse was emphasized as we were told she knew she would soon be gone. This song has always brought tears to my eyes.

As I have read all the comments it's been great to see how the song has evolved over the years -- as a girl scout in the late 50's/early 60's then a GS Leader in the 80's and 90's with my own daughters-- This is the version we sang in and out of camp--

Verse One:
Out of my window lookin in the night
I can see the barges' flickering light.
Silently flows the river to sea,
and the barges too go silently.

Chorus:
Barges, I would like to go with you,
I would like to sail the ocean blue.
Barges, have you treasures in your hold?
Do you fight with priates brave and bold?

Verse Two:
Out of my window lookin in the night,
I can see the barges' flickering light.
Starboard shines green and port is glowing red,
in the night they signal far ahead.

Chorus:
Barges, I would like to go with you,
I would like to sail the ocean blue.
Barges, have you treasures in your hold?
Do you fight with priates brave and bold?

Verse Three:
Out of my window looking in the night
I can see the barges' flickering light.
Now is the time when I will soon be gone,
And I'll sail with barges on and on.

Chorus:
Barges, I would like to go with you,
I would like to sail the ocean blue.
Barges, have you treasures in your hold?
Do you fight with priates brave and bold?

Subject: RE: Origin: Barges (Girl Scout song)
From: AllisonA(Animaterra)
Date: 14 Jul 06 - 07:45 AM

Here's a lasat verse I learned from Steve Schuch :

One of these days and it will not be long
You will look for me and I'll be gone
Face to the wind far out upon the sea
Where the whales and dolphins sing to me

Subject: RE: Origin: Barges (Girl Scout song)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 13 Jul 06 - 07:36 PM

I like that ending, Joanne.

I wonder if we'll ever find the true origin of this song. Maybe it doesn't matter - the legends that have built up and the various versions of the song, are a wonderful (and recent) demonstration of the Folk Process.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Origin: Barges (Girl Scout song)
From: GUEST,Joanne Smith
Date: 13 Jul 06 - 05:51 PM

Hey,

We sung this song with my Brownies today - we heard it was written by a little girl who was about 12 and lived in Holland, she was confined to a wheelchair and couldnt get outside. It seems plausible to me as I know Holland pretty much relied on barge trade. We heard she's still alive and an adult now (but then, telling the Brownies she was dead wouldnt have been a good idea!)

But the last verse we sung had a different ending, it went:

Out of my window looking through the night
I can see the barges' flickering light
Silently flows the river to the sea
I hope one day they'll take me

Still a poignant song whatever way it's sung, I do love it

Subject: RE: Origin: Barges (Girl Scout song)
From: GUEST,Katryna
Date: 14 May 06 - 04:10 PM

We sang this song at Camp Sealth in Washington. I'm not sure the exact year I heard it but must have been long before 1970 maybe even around 1965 or earlier.

I remember the girl was stuck by her window and wrote the song, after a few years of singing just the first two verses, one of the counselors said she had learned the 3rd verse and taught it to use.

Subject: RE: Origin of: BARGES (Girl Scout song)
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 21 Apr 06 - 07:45 AM

I learnt this song as a New Zealand Girl guide in the early 1980's and now sing it often with my daughters. I too was told the story of the sick girl watching the barges on the Thames, in England and writing the song. I actually googled a seach (finding this site) as I was eager to discover its true origin....

Subject: RE: Origin of: BARGES (Girl Scout song)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 21 Apr 06 - 01:30 AM

No, the axe-murderer was only in the boys' version...

It's one of many songs that were written by counselors at camps I've attended (well, "Barges" was written at Girl Scout Camp Singing Hills, which my sister attended). It's really upsetting, 45 years later, to hear people say that the same songs were written by counselors at their camp. I know it's not true, since I personally knew the counselors who wrote those songs. Heck, I'm sure I wrote some of them myself - I just can't remember which ones.

-Joe Offer, who has been to camp about 40 of his 57 years-

Subject: RE: Origin of: BARGES (Girl Scout song)
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Apr 06 - 04:56 PM

I've sung this song at a camp many times. The story was that there was a little girl lying in her bed, watching the barges go by. She was bored and lonely a lot of the time, so she wrote this song to pass by her time. She wrote two verses, but halfway through the song she passed away from her leukemia, never got to finish the third one. I'm actually pretty sure there was no axe-murderer involved...

Subject: RE: Origin of: BARGES (Girl Scout song)
From: Anne Lister
Date: 14 Mar 06 - 06:45 PM

I remember singing this as a UK Girl Guide, back in the 60s. I was sure I had a copy in print from then, but have just sorted through all of my songbooks and it's not there - not even in the Chansons de Notre Chalet.   I also remember the story of the dying child - I always thought of this child as being in the Netherlands, but that might just be because of canals and barges.

Wish I could come up with an origin!

Anne (Lister)

Subject: RE: Origin of: BARGES (Girl Scout song)
From: GUEST,happy camper
Date: 14 Mar 06 - 12:48 AM

Here's the real story; I know because I was told it by the canoeing instructor, Paddly Whitmore, who knew everything. This was at Kamp Kwagmire. The song was composed by a one-time counsellor at that very camp, but before this counsellor could finish the last verse, he was surprised by the mad axe-murderer of Algonquin Park. The counsellor's body was never found, and on certain nights, it was said, he would come prowling around the camp looking for that last verse - or his head; there was some disagreement on that point.

Of course, I went to a boys' camp, which might explain some of the discrepancy between this true story and some of the other not-so-true accounts. Apparently girls had to be sheltered from the hard, cold facts. In those days, anyway.

Subject: RE: Origin of: BARGES (Girl Scout song)
From: GUEST,An ex-girl scout
Date: 13 Mar 06 - 08:54 PM

This was my favorite song from girl scout camp and I was just looking for it as my dad plays folk song on guitar. It was still being sung in the early 90's when I went to camp and the story was much the same. Our version, however, was a wheelchair bound girl on the St. Laurence (being from northern VT).

Subject: RE: Origin of: BARGES (Girl Scout song)
From: GUEST,Necole Hurley
Date: 24 Dec 05 - 07:32 PM

I was looking for the origins to another GS song and found this thread. I know it's an old thread, but I wanted to add one piece of the legend as I'd been told at an international Wider Opportunity (now Destination) in North Carolina in 1993. All of the Scouts and Guids present knew the basic story, but the additional part that was added was that the girl's parents had four verses (I'll search for what I know as the fourth) and had separated them across the country with the hope that the four verses wouldn't be sung as one song (or in the "written" order) as their daughter never got to sing it.

Subject: RE: Origin of: BARGES (Girl Scout song)
From: GUEST,Mary May
Date: 22 Jul 05 - 11:53 PM

Hi there. I love seeing all the various histories of this wonderful song. I grew up as a Guide and am now a Guider here in Canada. The version of the story we learned growing up is very similiar but based out of London England. In the version I learned it was a British Girl Guide dying of leukemia and watching the barges on the Thames from her hospital bed. We still hum the third verse as a tribute to this unknown girl. It is a beautiful song and my two girls who are now in Guides themselves love to sing this song. I have yet to meet a Girl Guide who didn't love it!

Subject: RE: Origin of: BARGES (Girl Scout song)
From: GUEST,Gwen
Date: 20 Jul 05 - 10:41 PM

I learned this haunting song at Camp Newaygo (Michigan) in the 1970s. Since my oldest daughter has learned to talk, she has requested I sing it to her every night. She is now nine (this song has staying power!) The lyrics to the version I learned are as follows:

Out of my window, looking in the night
I can see the barges flickering light.
Lighting up the water from the river to the see
As the barges to go silently.

Barges, I would like to go with you
I would like to sail the ocean blue.
Barges, do you carry any gold
Do you fight with pirates brave and bold.

Starboard shines green and port is glowing red
As the barges do go far ahead.
Lighting up the water from the river to the sea
As the barges do go silently.

Chorus repeats

I think that when I sing this song to both of my school- (and camp-) age daughters they can feel the good spirit of Camp Newaygo channelling through the melody.