The Nightingales Sing

Subject: RE: The Nightingales Sing
From: Barry T
Date: 23 May 06 - 12:51 AM

Oh boy! I'll have to retrace my steps in the Public Library some six or seven years ago, Malcolm.

While searching for lyrics for the song 'The Grenadier and the Lady', I stumbled upon this version, titled 'The Nightingales Sing', with the former title in brackets. From the lyrics one can understand the title variations.

I recall being confused at the time, because there was another distinct lyric and melody for TG&TL, which was the actual object of my search. I have since learned and accepted that confusion is normal when researching these origins.

I'll see if I can find that Library reference one more time for this version... of 'The Nightingales Sing', that is!

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Subject: RE: The Nightingales Sing
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 22 May 06 - 08:33 PM

Many versions, many tune variants. Where did you get the one you arranged?

Subject: RE: The Nightingales Sing
From: Barry T
Date: 22 May 06 - 03:47 PM

For those unfamiliar with this tune, here's my midi with one of the many iterations of lyrics.

http://www.contemplator.com/tunebook/england/nighting.htm

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Subject: RE: The Nightingales Sing
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 22 May 06 - 09:43 AM

I'm sure we're all happy for your happiness Wilfried.

Subject: RE: The Nightingales Sing
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 22 May 06 - 09:05 AM

And now something totally different to shift the subject:
My younger daughter with the cherubic face and the seraphic soprano sang yesterday in a concerto to the memory of W. A. Mozart.
When she started the bravura arias of "Exsultate, jubilate" my heart nearly stopped. This sweet voice, and Mozart's music full of playful sadness (this expression minted by myself brought me an "A" in musics at school)!
She even had a fan club with her: an entire row of former classmates and friends clapped hands and stamped their feet on the floor, and there even were some bravo calls heard. And this in a rural church! Unheard of before.
Since then I call her my dear sweet nightingale.
The felicitations of some listeners to the father I took not so much with pride but with gratitude for such a gifted daughter.

Subject: RE: The Nightingales Sing
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 22 May 06 - 07:40 AM

all i can say is, if you've been singing it since time immemorial and you never twigged that the nightingale was his willy and valley below somewhere gynaecological - gawd 'elp you missus!

Certainly in the Cornish version there are enough hints about the subject matter to any sane adult.

Subject: RE: The Nightingales Sing
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 22 May 06 - 07:37 AM

and
the soldier does not sneer, he says "alas, that never will be"

Subject: RE: The Nightingales Sing
From: Geoff the Duck
Date: 22 May 06 - 07:24 AM

Well thank you, Wilfried, for including me in this delightful thread, if only as the token duck.
Gary an Vera Aspey used to sing a version with the line "for they loved to hear the watter rattle and the nightingale sing".

And, of course the Yetties' "Dorset is Beautiful" had the chorus:-
Oh dorset is beautiful wherever you go
And the rain in the Summertime makes the wurzel bush grow
And it's lovely to see it in the thunder and hail
With your girlfriend, on a turnip clamp, to hear the sweet nightingale.

Quack!
Geoff the (low flying) Duck.

Subject: RE: The Nightingales Sing
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 19 May 06 - 11:59 PM

And the cute little singer is back again ...
It is half past five in the morning (Middle European Day Saving Time, or 03:30 Z), and more than an hour ago I was awoken by my domestic nightingale. I decided not to wake my beautiful wife sleeping so sound and arose stealthily, took grandpa's WWI field glasses and left my house. The pretty little bird didn't sit before my window in the vines as I suspected but six yards up on my rooftop singing loudly. And the next nightingale I heard in the mighty oak planted half a century ago as memorial to one of our freedom fighters in the Napoleonic war. And the next a hundred yards further on a neighbour's [AE: neighbor's] roof. And the next about fifty yards further - hopping around on the lawn courting the travelling spinster (C. Mead) he had attracted by his wonderful song. The sun started to rise, and a flight of ducks in formation circled around the small pond in another neighbour's garden [hi Geoff! Quack!]
Yesterday in the German-Irish club was a session with three guitars, a mandola, a whistle, two singers more and the unevitable (naturally female) bodhran player. At my request they played The Nightingales Sing as posted above - marvelous!
Oh God, how beautiful life can be!

Subject: RE: The Nightingales Sing
From: GUEST
Date: 19 May 06 - 10:52 AM

Mr Happy, the song you want is called The Nightingale and can be found in the DT at the top of this page.

Subject: RE: The Nightingales Sing
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 19 May 06 - 02:57 AM

kytrad - no harm was inteded by my comments. I am glad that I could make up for them with the nightingale songs.
By the way: I would never snigger at love - it is too wonderful, insn't it?

Subject: RE: The Nightingales Sing
From: kytrad (Jean Ritchie)
Date: 18 May 06 - 02:59 PM

The nightengale songs were indeed lovely- it was a joy to hear them.

Subject: RE: The Nightingales Sing
From: GUEST,Wordless Woman
Date: 18 May 06 - 11:36 AM

What lovely birdsounds! In all my trips to the UK, I've never heard a nightingale. Now, through the magic of computers, I have. Thank you very much, Wilfried.

Subject: RE: The Nightingales Sing
From: GUEST,crazy little woman
Date: 18 May 06 - 10:25 AM

Thanks for the links, Wilfried! I have long wanted to hear a nightingale, but I couldn't find a site.

While I was listening, I said to myself, "Sounds like a cardinal!" Then I realized that a cardinal had started singing in my garden. When the recording stopped playing, the cardinal stopped. I believe that the cardinal heard the nightingale through an open window and decided to engage it in contest.

Subject: RE: The Nightingales Sing
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 18 May 06 - 10:22 AM

Now, now. Please keep in mind that

1. English is not Wilfried's native tongue, and he can't be a subtle using it as native speakers can.

2. Statements you read on the computer screen usually sound stronger than they would in life because of the lack of facial expression and spoken nuance.

3. There is no way to peace; peace is the way.

As for myself, I've cared for the song about the soldier and the damsel. In the version, I first encountered, he has a wife (or was it two?), and he sneers at her saying "two wives and the army's too many for me."

There have got to be better songs to spend one's time on.

Subject: RE: The Nightingales Sing
From: greg stephens
Date: 18 May 06 - 04:54 AM

kytrad: I think you are being a little unfair to use words like "sniggerring" and "filth" to describe anyody reading an innuendo into the man getting his fiddle out of the knapsack, and delighting her with the touch of the string etc. Perhaps there is a difference here between an American approach and an English approach to the song. Now, I dont consider myself a filthy sniggerer, but I have to say there has never been any doubt in my mind as what the fiddle refers to in this song, and as I said early I recorded the source singer Aubrey Cantwell performing this song in an English pub. We all sang along, we knew it was a beautiful song about nature and birds and the spring, but we also knew it was about something else as well. Something just as beautiful. Hearing that song in that pub sung by that man has rung in my soul down the forty years since it happened, and it wasnt filthy at all. But it was certainly bawdy.

Subject: RE: The Nightingales Sing
From: greg stephens
Date: 18 May 06 - 04:44 AM

Mr Happy: that's a mondegreen you've got going there. It's the "fond tale of the sweet nightingale", not the fantail. Mind you, give it a hundred years and you may be right, that's the folk process.

Subject: RE: The Nightingales Sing
From: Maryrrf
Date: 17 May 06 - 10:15 PM

In any version of this song that I've heard there has always been the undercurrent of "love and lust". It is certainly a song of seduction but I would describe it as more playful than "sniggering sexuality" or "filth". Yes there are veiled references to sex but after all sex is very much a part of nature and could even be described as a miracle of sorts. Nothing in the song on a par with what one would find on MTV or even VH1. Gwilym Davies (Tradsinger) does a lovely unaccompanied version that he picked up (I think) in Dorset.   It's slow and haunting. (By the way, I enjoyed listening to the sound clips of the real nightingales).

Subject: RE: The Nightingales Sing
From: Mr Happy
Date: 17 May 06 - 08:57 PM

There's another 'nightingale' song.

only remember snatches of chorus, goes;

'you can hear the fantail
of the sweet nightingale
as she sings in the valley below oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh
as she sings in the valley below'


anyone know it?

have rest of words?

Subject: RE: The Nightingales Sing
From: kytrad (Jean Ritchie)
Date: 17 May 06 - 08:01 PM

M.Schaum- I only presented the song as it was always sung in my youth, by all ages, in schools, homes and slong mountain paths. I made no claim as to possible innenuendos in the lyrics- in fact, no one in those days had such thoughts as yours when singing that song. One CAN interject filth into any group of words, if his mind is bent that way. This does not mean that everyone does it, and certainly this song was never sung by us, our neighbors nor children, to express lewdness or lust. We sang it to celebrate the beauty of our world, the birds calling, streams running, wind stirring the trees, flowers blooming- washed by rain. One could describe any and all of these miracles with a sniggering sexual parallel; others choose to treat them as nature's wonders.

Well, looking occasionally at today's TV shows, movies,even theatre, perhaps the world is changing- perhaps some would say that lust, violence, murder, all life's evils, are all we folksingers now sing about, or have ever sung about since time began. If this is where we've got to, what hope is there for any of us?    Jean

Subject: RE: The Nightingales Sing
From: Ebbie
Date: 17 May 06 - 01:57 PM

Thanks for those links, Wilfried. I was going to see if I could find some recordings- and you did it for us. Thank you.

Two things occur to me:

1. The bird has such a varied call. Many warblers make liquid and musical sounds but they tend to have more limited calls.
2. Any bird that sings in the night is already remarkable. I can imagine sitting late into the night with someone special and hearing the song of the nightingale. Lovely.

Nice to hear it in a re-playable form. I have heard it in various movies but never for long.

Subject: RE: The Nightingales Sing
From: greg stephens
Date: 17 May 06 - 10:55 AM

The
"arm in arm along the road
Like sister and brother"
version grew hugely popular in English folk clubs in the 60's. The Clancy's took it over and made it popular in America as well. also in Ireland. There were of course American versions going strong before that, one notably to the tune that Dominic Behan borrowed for "The Patriot Game", and then Bb Dylan used it for "With God on their Side".
   The "sister and brother" version was collected from the Cantwell family in Standlake, Oxfordshire. There were two brothers I believe, and one was called Aubrey Cantwell, and I had the pleasure of recording him sing the song in the Bell in Standlake, c 65. I think it was probably Peter Kennedy who had been there first, and he had passed this song on into the folk revival a while before.
    Surprisingly, Aubrey didnt sing "arm in arm along the road" at all, as we all did. He sang
"They went arming along the road
Like sister and brother".
   Not only did I hear Aubrey sing this classic song, a magic and defining moment of my life, I also saw a nightingale in Stoke a couple of years ago. Or at least I think I did.
    And, to move a little bit to the east, away from the nightingale/rossignol etc. Dont forget Abdul the Bulbul Ameer: Bulbul means nightingale. I also have a fantastically beautiful record also of an Afghan singer called Said singing a song about a bulbul.

Subject: RE: The Nightingales Sing
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 17 May 06 - 09:59 AM

Some comments on the song in kytrad's version:
I don't know the phraseology of the more bawdy traditions in English folk songs, but following German traditions it is clear that here not brother and sister are listening to bird songs.
The bow moving to and fro on the fiddle clearly hints to cohabitation; and to hear the birds sing [in heaven] is a metaphor for the excitement at the end of the act. Here the nightingale is chosen because of the dark hours, and since it is the undisputedly most wonderful singer.
So much for the nightingale's nocturnal song of love and lust.

Subject: RE: The Nightingales Sing
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 17 May 06 - 09:47 AM

Since so many of you regretted that they never heard a nightingale singing, I'll give you here som specimina:
3 songs

song
type nightingale, click at #3

song
look for Nachtigall / Luscinia megarhynchos

song


some informations by Chris Mead; look especially for: Why sing at night?

Subject: RE: The Nightingales Sing
From: kytrad (Jean Ritchie)
Date: 16 May 06 - 07:09 PM

The version with the words, "arm-in-arm down the road like sister and brother" began to be heard only recently. The more commonly sung version (and older I think) goes thus:

As I went out walking one morning in May,
I met a fair couple a-making their way;
And one was a lady so sweet and so fair
And the other was a soldier, a brave volunteer.

Good morning, good morning, good morning to thee,
O where are you going, my pretty lady?
I'm going a-walking on the banks of the sea
To see the waters a-gliding, hear the nightengales sing.

They had not been standing but an hour or two
When out from his knapsack a fiddle he drew,
And the tune that he played made the valleys all ring-
O harken, said the lady, how the nightengales sing!

Pretty lady, pretty lady, it's time to give o'er.
O no, pretty soldier, play just one tune more
For I'd rather hear your fiddle- just the touch of one string,
Than hear the waters a-gliding, hear the nightengale sing.

Pretty soldier, pretty soldier, won't you marry me?
O no, pretty lady, that never can be
For I have a wife in London and children twice three,
Two wives and six children's too many for me!

I'll go back to London and stay for one year
And so often I'll think of you my little dear,
And if ever I return it will be in the spring,
To see the waters a-gliding, hear the nightengale sing.

These are probably the lyrics, or near them, sung by Burl Ives. Also, in the course of my long life, I found a North Carolina version, probably a parody, has humor of the period and is quite charming. I'll give lyrics if they're wanted.    Jean

Subject: RE: The Nightingales Sing
From: Snuffy
Date: 16 May 06 - 09:59 AM

But if you sing it in that order, people try to close you down with a B-I-G ending because they "know" you're on the last verse and must have accidentally missed the "will you marry me" verse out.

Subject: RE: The Nightingales Sing
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 16 May 06 - 02:55 AM

El Greko - why a song of love and lust? It's the mating season, man! You don't talk of constipation to a girl you want to take to your nest!

Freda - with the order of the last two stanzas changed it's in the DT where I took the title of the thread from.

Subject: RE: The Nightingales Sing
From: GUEST,Joe_F
Date: 15 May 06 - 09:58 PM

One of the consequences of liking songs is that one learns useless words in a variety of languages. Nachtigall, rossignol, solovei.

As an American, I have never actually heard one.

--- Joe Fineman    [e-mail]

||: Mother Nature is a bitch. :||

Subject: RE: The Nightingales Sing
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 15 May 06 - 05:26 PM

When I travel far, I get jet lagged very badly. One night I was lying in bed in Prague at 3 am. I was wide awake, and there was no place to go, no one to talk to. The city was utterly silent. I didn't want to read in case the light woke my husband.

Then a blackbird started to sing - a blackbird in a pitch dark treeless city. I felt that it had been sent just to comfort me.
-----------
Wilfried - I have always wanted to hear a nightingale. Thanks for posting.

Confidential to El Greko - cheer up, would ya?

Subject: RE: The Nightingales Sing
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 15 May 06 - 10:11 AM

Hey, Freda, dod you not know it had been updated for the 21st century?

As I was out walking one morning in May,
I spied a young couple so fondly did play,
One was a a soldier, a bold grenadier.
And the other was a sailor, I think they were...

Whoops, sorry. Not allowed to say that.

:D (tG)

Subject: RE: The Nightingales Sing
From: HuwG
Date: 14 May 06 - 10:00 PM

One nightingale song goes back to the middle ages, although mangled by the Folk process...

It describes an incident in the Wars of the Roses, when a heavily armoured man-at-arms molested an Earl's pageboy. Or, as the song put it, "A knight in mail sprang on Berkeley's esquire."

Subject: RE: The Nightingales Sing
From: GUEST, Topsie
Date: 14 May 06 - 02:13 PM

Staying in Oxfordshire at the weekend I was woken at 4.30 by what I thought sounded like a nightingale, but it turned out to be a songthrush.

Subject: RE: BS: The Nightingales Sing
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 14 May 06 - 01:25 PM

Someone needs to take the BS moniker off and move this upstairs.

Bob, thanks for the pleasant reminder! That was always one of his just really beautiful songs.

Maggie

Subject: RE: BS: The Nightingales Sing
From: Deckman
Date: 13 May 06 - 04:10 PM

Hi Maggie,

I still sing this song often, and everytime I do I still see your father's smiling face:

"In the woods and the meadows beneith the bright moon,
Every lad with his lass makes the most of the June,
It's a shame that a handsome, young fellow like me,
should be left, while the nightengale sings in the tree!"

CHEERS for you, Bob(deckman)Nelson

Subject: RE: BS: The Nightingales Sing
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 13 May 06 - 03:30 PM

Agree with all that's been said except for Wilfried's unfortunate attribution of anthropomorphic properties to the nightingale he heard. How did he know it was singing about "love and lust"? It might have been the usual morning grumbles about hunger or constipation, for all we know - just because it sounds pretty it doesn't make its contents so.

In fact, the thought of humans saying sweet nothings to each other as they listen to a bird moan about last night's meal rather appeals to me...

Subject: RE: BS: The Nightingales Sing
From: freda underhill
Date: 13 May 06 - 03:03 PM

The version I know ..

As I was out walking one morning in May,
I spied a young couple so fondly did play,
One was a fair maid and her beauty shone clear,
And the other was a soldier and a bold grenadier.

Ch:

and they kissed so sweet and comforting
as they clung to each other
they went arm in arm along the road like sister and brother
they went arm in arm along the road til they came to a stream
and they both sat down together love to hear the nightingale sing..

then out of his knapsack he took a fine fiddle
and he played her such a merry tune as you ever did hear
and he played her such a merry tune that the valleys did ring
"Hark, hark," cried teh fair maid, "Hear the nightingale sing!"

"Oh, soldier, oh soldier, will you marry me?"
Oh, no, pretty lady, however can that be.
for I've me own wife at home in me own country,
and she is the sweetest little maid that you ever did see!

"Oh,I'm off to India for seven long years
Drinkin wine and strong whisky instead of small beers
And if ever I return it will be in the spring
And we'll both sit down together love to hear the nightingale sing."

freda

Subject: RE: BS: The Nightingales Sing
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 May 06 - 11:30 AM

I think that must be it, the Burl Ives version. I don't remember all of those words but they seem to fit the tune I have in my head. :) Dad had a lot of early Burl Ives albums and song books around.

Thanks, Bill!

Meanwhile, I posted the words to a Puget Sound knockoff by Ivar Haglund of the 12 Days of Christmas over on the Seattle Folklife thread. I stumbled upon it when I was going through his notebook of words to some of the early songs he learned.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: The Nightingales Sing
From: Bill D
Date: 13 May 06 - 10:58 AM

Here's a thread on a NIghtingale song version made famous by Burl Ives http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=3339

Subject: RE: BS: The Nightingales Sing
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 May 06 - 10:46 AM

If I can find my Dad's version of the song then a Joe Clone will have to bump this thread upstairs. I just went looking through a couple of his old binders and found some great stuff, but not the Nightingale. I'll keep looking. It's running through my head now (a la earworm) but I haven't plucked all of the words out of the ether yet.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: The Nightingales Sing
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 May 06 - 10:31 AM

They may not be nightingales, but we have mockingbirds here in Texas and they are the virtuoso variety. There was one bird that would perch next door on top of a ham radio antenna and it took him about 10 minutes to go through his repertoir which included some very beautiful bits. He also did seagulls and owls and a car alarm. He has been gone for a couple of years, but I sit out on the back porch some evenings hoping we'll get another performer like that. He also used to do this "hop" every 20-30 seconds, a quick flutter up into the air and perch again in a new direction (kind of like the rotating tornado siren--who knows, maybe that's where he got the idea!)

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: The Nightingales Sing
From: kytrad (Jean Ritchie)
Date: 12 May 06 - 11:35 PM

This must be in England where the nightingale was singing? We do not have them in the USA- but we have the songs ABOUT them! In Kentucky we have the wood thrush and the mockingbird- both lovely singers, but-granted, the nightingale is the lovliest of them all. I did hear one, once- late at night in 1952, outside my Swiss Cottage flat in London. Many have challenged me about this, but it is true; for such incredible music could not have been made by any other creature...

Subject: RE: BS: The Nightingales Sing
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 May 06 - 01:50 PM

I bet I misspelled it.

I did.

But I still don't see my Nightingale song in there. I'll have to remedy that!

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: The Nightingales Sing
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 May 06 - 01:47 PM

How can we not have The Nightengale Song in the DT? I don't see it there. It's a lovely song, and was one of my father's favorites.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: The Nightingales Sing
From: Emma B
Date: 12 May 06 - 01:19 PM

3.30pm and the sudden storm and heavy rain that abruptly ended the recent hot sunny days has passed. I have been in the garden breathing in the heady scent of the lilac. Two swifts circle the eaves and a wood pigeon lazily flaps into the top of a high cypruss while a startled squirrel scuttles quickly away. The occasional snort of the horse as it rolls in the luxury of the damp cool paddock is all that breaks the sound of nature's choir that swells the air on all sides with bird song.
Yes - I am full of wonder.........

Subject: RE: BS: The Nightingales Sing
From: Paul Burke
Date: 12 May 06 - 08:05 AM

We moored the narrowboat at Cropredy last Wednesday. Thursday morning at 5am, a bloody blackbird started up with "Birmingham? Birmingham? Jaysus!", repeated in at 20 second intervals until breakfast time. One of the few occasions I've wished I was armed.

Subject: RE: BS: The Nightingales Sing
From: gnomad
Date: 12 May 06 - 07:50 AM

Hey, (feathered) cuckoos may irritate some with their call, but I like it, and just watch them fly.

I have never knowingly heard a real nightingale, we run more to seagulls around here, so will just have to make do with the musical ones.

Subject: RE: BS: The Nightingales Sing
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 12 May 06 - 07:07 AM

That's no way to talk about Roger Emma!
G.

Subject: RE: BS: The Nightingales Sing
From: Emma B
Date: 12 May 06 - 06:52 AM

Oh well something has to make up for the sublimly irritating "song" of the cuckoo I suppose!

Subject: RE: BS: The Nightingales Sing
From: AKS
Date: 12 May 06 - 05:26 AM

"Isn't it wonderful to have such birds and such a fine corpus of lovely songs?"

Say no more!! (though the nightingale is not up here yet - this spring I mean)

AKS

Subject: RE: BS: The Nightingales Sing
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 12 May 06 - 04:59 AM

Liquid gold indeed Wilfried.
G.