Lyr Req: Nature Boy (Eden Ahbez)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: the enchanted boy (Nature Boy)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 20 Aug 06 - 07:45 PM

Wikipedia has an interesting article about eden ahbez. (He didn't capitalize his name.)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: the enchanted boy (Nature Boy)
From: GUEST,Frank Hamilton
Date: 18 Aug 06 - 05:21 PM

Not much is known about Eben Ahbez. I met him in the 1970's in Hollywood when I was working at Barney Kessel's Music World as a guitar teacher. He was residing in a tree in Griffith Park. He had the features reminiscent of the characterization of Jesus. I don't know what he real name was. He liked to play a bamboo flute.

He informed me that his song was sold outright or had been lifted from him, (I forget which)
and he received no remuneration from it's sales which went to Cole and the publisher.

It was based on a Hungarian folk melody.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: the enchanted boy (Nature Boy)
From: bill kennedy
Date: 18 Aug 06 - 12:51 PM

and the theme to the interesting film 'The Boy with Green Hair' (1948)starring a young Dean Stockwell. I believe that Nature Boy was recorded by Nat King Cole during the same sessions as his definitive version of Stardust, just before the musicians' strike of January 1, 1948. he hired a room full of strings and other instruments and did a lot of recording not knowing how long the anticipated strike might lasts, and which also gave the musicians a little cushion of income before the strike came.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: the enchanted boy (Nature Boy)
From: GUEST,Bernieandred
Date: 18 Aug 06 - 03:07 AM

I'm surprised no one mentioned that 'Nature Boy" was faetured in a recent movie. Was it "Moulin Rouge"? I think so.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: the enchanted boy (Nature Boy)
From: Mudlark
Date: 17 Aug 06 - 04:19 AM

I grew up in the WLA area in the early 50s. At that time there was a spiritual type person who used to walk Sunset Blvd, from the beach to town and back every day, in flowing white robes. I think he resided at the Paramahansa Yogananda temple (Self Realization Fellowship, I think) near the ocean off Sunset. I was told that this song referred to this guy. Never talked to him myself, but passed him on the road many times, and have always admired the spiece as a sort of art song....like Lagan Love.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: the enchanted boy (Nature Boy)
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 05:28 PM

And then there's Red Ingle's "Serutan Yob" (available on a Bear Family CD titled Tim-Tay-Shun.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: the enchanted boy (Nature Boy)
From: Bill D
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 12:27 PM

I remember the song being popular about 1952-3...it sorta captured the post WWII mind as calming, I guess...

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: the enchanted boy (Nature Boy)
From: GUEST,MTed
Date: 16 Aug 06 - 12:14 PM

The melody meanders in a slow and ethereal fashion. You wouldn't want any more lyrics than that, or, rather than having a timeless quality, it would have an endless quality.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: the enchanted boy (Nature Boy)
From: cptsnapper
Date: 15 Aug 06 - 02:42 AM

Still a great song & there's much to be said for brevity.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: the enchanted boy (Nature Boy)
From: GUEST,Marion
Date: 14 Aug 06 - 02:44 AM

Thanks, Dick and Artful Codger, I'll pass that info on.

"not particularly folky"... I'll say. Until I googled the title, I thought there must be more to the story, and that you had just given me the first and last verse.

Marion

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: the enchanted boy
From: Artful Codger
Date: 13 Aug 06 - 04:21 PM

I associate this song with Nat King Cole. Most of his "best hits" compilations will probably include it.

Subject: Lyr Add: NATURE BOY (Eden Ahbez)
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 13 Aug 06 - 11:34 AM

Nature Boy
Words and Music by Eden Ahbez

There was a boy...
A very strange enchanted boy.
They say he wandered very far, very far
Over land and sea,
A little shy and sad of eye
But very wise was he.

And then one day,
One magic day, he passed my way.
And while we spoke of many things,
Fools and kings,
This he said to me,
"The greatest thing you'll ever learn
Is just to love and be loved in return."

~interlude~

"The greatest thing you'll ever learn
Is just to love and be loved in return."


not particularly folky

Subject: Lyr Req: the enchanted boy
From: Marion
Date: 13 Aug 06 - 11:06 AM

Hi gang. A friend of mine is trying to track down a song she once heard in a folkie context. It started something like "there once was a boy... a most enchanted boy..."

Apparently he travels around magically and learns that the most important thing is love.

Thanks, Marion