Origins: die Mühle

Subject: Origins: die Mühle
From: Roberto
Date: 22 Oct 06 - 10:27 AM

I know this song from a Folkways recording, Early German Ballads, Volume One (1280 to 1619), Wolfgang Roth, Folkways F-3071. Roth puts the song among other from the Peasants' War and dates it about 1530, but I see, from internet sources, it is cited as a poem by Richard Dehmel, that has no references to a revolt ("Es hält die Nacht den Sturm im Schooß, / und morgen geht die Arbeit los" instead of "Es haelt die nacht den Sturm im schoss / und morgen geit das Streiten los"). I'd like to know something about this song, and if there are other recordings available. Thanks. R

The song from Wolfgang Roth's recording:

Es steht ein gold'nes Garbenfeld
das geit bis an den rand der welt

Mahle Mühle mahle

Es stockt der Wind im weiten Land
viel muehlen stehen am Himmelsrand

Mahle Mühle mahle

Es kommt ein dunkles Abendrot
viel arme menschen schreien nach Brot

Mahle Mühle mahle

Es haelt die nacht den Sturm im schoss
und morgen geit das Streiten los

Mahle Mühle mahle

Es fegt der Sturm die felder rein
es wird kein mensch mehr Hunger schrein

Mahle Mühle mahle

The translation from the same source:

There is a field of golden grain
That Stretches to the very edge of the world,

Grind, mill, grind.

The wind dies down across the wide land,
Many mills are standing at beaven's edge,

Grind, mill, grind.

A blood-red sun is setting,
Many poor people are crying for bread,

Grind, mill, grind.

Night holds the storm in its lap,
Tomorrow the fighting will begin.

Grind, mill, grind.

The storm sweeps the fields clean,
No man will cry for hunger any more.

Grind, mill, grind.

Subject: RE: Origins: die Mühle
From: Roberto
Date: 23 Oct 06 - 06:11 AM

One single refresh...

Subject: RE: Origins: die Mühle
From: Wolfgang
Date: 23 Oct 06 - 06:27 AM

Noted. I'll have a look. Though Wilfried probably has a better source for this song. You may see him posting too.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Origins: die Mühle
From: Joe Offer
Date: 24 Oct 06 - 03:48 AM

I haven't been able find this song in any of my German songbooks. I'd like to post a MIDI if one is available - send it by e-maiif you have one.
-Joe-
[e-mail]

Subject: RE: Origins: die Mühle
From: Wolfgang
Date: 24 Oct 06 - 04:30 AM

No luck in my books as well.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Origins: die Mühle
From: Roberto
Date: 24 Oct 06 - 06:53 AM

You can listen to a little bit of the song at Folkways' site: http://www.folkways.si.edu/search/AlbumDetails.aspx?ID=538. The song is: 105 Die Peasant Song, A Muehle. R

Subject: RE: Origins: die Mühle
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 24 Oct 06 - 07:04 AM

Char code Western (ISO-8859-1)

Another case of plagiarism. At first reading I noticed that this "folk song from the peasants' rebellion" never was written in the 16th century because the language is modern. The original is here, with a rough translation:

Richard Dehmel [1863 - 1920]

Erntelied
Harvest song

Es steht ein goldnes Garbenfeld,
there is a field of golden grain
das geht bis an den Rand der Welt.
stretching to the end of the world
Mahle, Mühle, mahle!


Es stockt der Wind im weiten Land,
the wind is slowing down in the wide land
viel Mühlen stehn am Himmelsrand.
many mills are standing at the horizon
Mahle, Mühle, mahle!

Es kommt ein dunkles Abendrot,
a dark sunset is coming
viel arme Leute schrein nach Brot.
many poor people are shouting for bread
Mahle, Mühle, mahle!

Es hält die Nacht den Sturm im Schooß,
the night is holding the storm in her lap
und morgen geht die Arbeit los.
and tomorrow the work will start
Mahle, Mühle, mahle!

Es fegt der Sturm die Felder rein,
the storm shall sweep the fields clean
es wird kein Mensch mehr Hunger schrein.
and no man shall cry: hunger
Mahle, Mühle, mahle!

Freiburger Anthologie

Subject: RE: Origins: die M�hle
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 24 Oct 06 - 07:23 AM

I had a short look at the description of this CD. Early German Ballads : 1280 - 1619 - Ha! Fraud, scam, swindle, and subterfuge! There are a few original songs; some folk songs of later ages are declared older, and most of the so called lansquenet songs are none of them at all; a lot is from the modern German youth movement empathizing with times of old, sometimes generated during WWI, and some are poems of well known authors of the 19/20th century. DON'T BUY!

Subject: RE: Origins: die Mühle
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 24 Oct 06 - 11:05 AM

More about the poet here (in German)

Subject: RE: Origins: die Mühle
From: leeneia
Date: 24 Oct 06 - 12:57 PM

Thank you, Wilfried, for that information.

Now I'm going to find out what a lansquenet song is.

Subject: RE: Origins: die Mühle
From: Padre
Date: 24 Oct 06 - 09:25 PM

The lansquenets (also spelled landsknechts?) were a force of early renaissance mercenaries from Germany, similar to the Swiss pikemen.

Padre

Subject: RE: Origins: die M�hle
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 25 Oct 06 - 03:28 AM

Landsknecht, pl. Landsknechte: German soldiers fighting in the Swiss way with pikes (best weapon against armoured cavalry). Their troupe was founded by Emperor Maximilian I. (1459 - 1519). The Swiss soldiers didn't like this because they lost chances of empoyment in Germany. There are some old folk songs about the heartfelt enmity between both.
We can't speak of mercenaries here; since there were no standing armies in this time the soldiers were hired at the beginning of a war and fired at the end.
Later on the lansquenets partly took up firearms; the pikes grew obsolete in the 30 years war. Grimmelshausen, participant in this war, mocked "the poor guys meandering aimlessly over the battlefield with their heavy pikes".
With the beginning of standing armies in Germany the lansquenets disappeared in history.
First German regiment of a standing army was the Hessian Life Guard Regiment (1621 - 1920) in Darmstadt.

Subject: RE: Origins: die Mühle
From: Roberto
Date: 25 Oct 06 - 11:52 AM

I had all the possible doubts about the authenticity of this song and its age, as for some other songs in Wolfgang Roth's recordings, and that is why I started this thread. Nonetheless, I think the recordings are interesting and many songs good. In my opinion, it is important to listen to them being aware of the fact that not all the songs are as old as they claim and historical, but come "from the modern German youth movement empathizing with times of old, sometimes generated during WWI, and some are poems of well known authors of the 19/20th century", as Wilfried writes, but I wouldn't say: don't buy the record. The rendition of songs like "Wir zogen in das Feld" or "Es soll sich der Mensch" or "Unser liebe Frauen vom kalte Bronnen" is as good as in other good recordings by singers and groups such as Liederjan, Zupfgeigenhansel, Hannes Wader, Fiedel Michel etc, and recorded some decades before. I'd like Wilfried to tell what CDs he recommends of historical and traditional German songs.

Subject: RE: Origins: die M�hle
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 26 Oct 06 - 03:04 AM

Roberto - I can't recommend any CDs of historical and traditional songs because I never was interested in them. I have a not so small collection of songbooks old and new, and I play and sing the songs myself. It is more fun for me doing than listening canned music. When listening I prefer it live, like at a Mudcat Gathering.

Back to Wolfgang Roth. I do not like his style of singing. He sounds emphatic and apodictical - like all the communist or leftist agitators I have heard in my youth, Ernst Busch included.

More about his frauds:

- Song of the Old Landsknecht Wir alten Soeldner: Not old, beginning of 20th century
- Landsknecht's Farewell Innsbruck, ich muss Dich lassen: Never a lansquenet song. A lover's parting song, ascribed to Emperor Maximilian I. (mentioned above in a former post) 1493
- Landsknecht's Lament - Es ist ein Schnee gefallen: Never a lansquenet song; an old love song, several different versions
- Landsknecht's Song from the 16th Century - Der Tod reit' auf einem kohlschwarzen Rappen: Originated 1917 in Flanders, finished by Elsa Laura von Wolzogen
- Lullaby of the Thirty Years War - Horch, Kind, horch wie der Sturmwind weht: Written by Ricarda Huch (1864 - 1947), tune added by the Wandervogel movement
- Peasant Band, Which Lost Its Way - Wilde Gesellen vom Sturmwind zerweht: peasant band is bloody nonsense. The song comes from the youth movement of the 20th century, written by Fritz Sotke (1902 - 1970), and is about wandering gypsies

to name only a few. I'm a scientist, and here I miss the the usual sincerity of my profession.

Subject: RE: Origins: die M�hle
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 26 Oct 06 - 03:10 AM

Addition to Wilde Gesellen: The author was leader in the Nazi youth organization Hitlerjugend (HJ). His line uns geht die Sonne nicht unter he used as title for the official HJ song book.

Peasant band of the 16th century - ha!

Subject: RE: Origins: die Mühle
From: Wolfgang
Date: 26 Oct 06 - 12:51 PM

Addition to Wilde Gesellen. It comes rather from the socialist/anarchist roots of the National Socialists. Written in 1921, it was a favourite among the SAJD (Syndicalistic-Anarchist Youth of Germany). It was born as an anarchist song.
Mind: addition, not correction, what Wilfried writes remains true.

If one looks into the songbook of the Hitler Youth one can see a lot of fine old songs with not at all nationalistic roots. Union songs for instance. The Nazis took what was popular and adapted it to their cause, even if it meant changing the lyrics or lying. "Author unknown" added to the Loreley song is one such lie.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Origins: die Mühle
From: Roberto
Date: 26 Oct 06 - 03:56 PM

And what about the song "Wir sind des Geyers schwarze Haufen"? I read it was a reworking from some ancient sources, but it seems it was popular with the Spartakus Bund. Is that true? R

Subject: RE: Origins: die M�hle
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 27 Oct 06 - 02:47 AM

Written by Heinrich von Reder (1824 - 1909), Major General, poet, and painter. Member of the Munich circle of poets around Geibel and Heyse. Also author of "vom Barette schwankt die Feder". Both poems no reworking of older songs.
The song in question was popular not only with the Spartakusbund.

Subject: RE: Origins: die Mühle
From: Roberto
Date: 27 Oct 06 - 08:34 AM

Thank you very much, Wilfried (but don't be too hard on Wolfgang Roth). Anyway, he had nothing to do with the Hitler Youth, while I'm sure you are right (and he was wrong) about the autenticity of many of the songs.

Here is what he wrote about himself, from the booklet in his first Folkways lp:

As a protest against war and to champion ideas of brotherhood and peace, a group of young idealists and people of vision established themselves under the leadership of poets, artists and educators, in 1913.    I was a member of this German Youth Movement in 1925 to 1929.    Here I learned the old songs of the Germans who had fought against tyranny and injustice.    And I met at this time a wonderful old man (with a long beard), a musical instruments maker, who gave me a lute and taught me how to play it.
The songs we sang around the campf ire or in our "herbergen" were not Lieder.    These "minne" songs, these songs of love and hope and protest had been preserved orally; there were no printed versions - nor were they sugar-coated or sentimentalized, and I wrote them down as I heard them.
I have only changed the verses sung in 'middle-high' German to a somewhat more modern German so that they might be better understood.    These are some of a large number of similar songs from the time of The Peasant-Wars.
In the 19th - l6th Centuries (the Renaissance) the peasants revolted against the oppression of their feudal landlords, the Teutonic Knights.    In the "Landsknechte" songs are references to the Mercenaries (who sold themselves, therefore the Soeldners or Soldknechte) who were forced by their King, or Duke or Knight to fight anywhere or anyone.    Theirs was a lamentable fate and they warn the youth not to fall victim to it.    The peasants sing of their plight and of their struggle, their hunger, their defeats and their fight, their hopes and their belief in God, while opposing the landed and wealthy Clergy, the Pfaffen.
Unfortunately, when I left Germany early in 1933, I lost all of my notebooks where I had written down the words of many of the songs.    For many years I did not sing at all, feeling depressed and hopeless by what happened in Germany in the years following.
Lately, however, I have come back to these songs which seem to me now as worthy as the beautifulAmerican and English folksongs I have been hearing these last 27 years.    I want them to tell the story of a German people who were believers in good and not evil.

Subject: RE: Origins: die M�hle
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 27 Oct 06 - 10:09 AM

Thank you, Roberto, for the information. Oh my, oh my - what a text. He doesn't know much about history, language, and songs.

Those "minnelieder" of the 12th and 13th century e.g. only survived because they were preserved in written form in monasteries (Carmina Burana) or by private collectors (Codex Manesse, now in Heidelberg).
The peasants did not rebel against the Teutonic Knights only, but against their barons and princes in general.
The lansquenets were not forced to fight anywhere. As I wrote above, they volunteered for the duration and got a contract. Part of it was where to go and whom to fight - and naturally the pay.

All in all a bit too romantic be be true. That's what I deplore with those agitating singers: no respect for the tradition of their elders, bending and massacring the songs to their political intentions, and telling lies about their origins. The worst is to take poems of well known authors of modern times and to tell the people they are protest songs of earlier centuries.
No, I can't stand such guys.

Subject: RE: Origins: die Mühle
From: Wolfgang
Date: 28 Oct 06 - 10:46 AM

I did to listen to some tracks of that recording (but then I also can listen to Ernst Busch singing Auf auf zum Kampf; grin)

I partly disagre with Wilfried on Wir sind des Geyer's schwarze Haufen not being a rework. It is a rework at least in the second verse.

Als Adam grub und Eva spann, wo war denn da der Edelmann? is a very old verse know both from Germany and earlier from England which has been used but not written by the more recent author.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Origins: die Mühle
From: Roberto
Date: 28 Oct 06 - 11:44 AM

"but then I also can listen to Ernst Busch singing Auf auf zum Kampf; grin"

Wolfgang, I'd like to get the meaning of your comparison between Wolfgang Roth and Ernst Busch. Do you mean both, the communist and the nazi, are most emphatic? And what kind of song is Auf auf zum Kampf?

R

Subject: RE: Origins: die Mühle
From: Wolfgang
Date: 28 Oct 06 - 12:03 PM

The comparsion is that (I think) Wilfried also would dislike Busch.

1. Auf, auf zum Kampf, zum Kampf!
Zum Kampf sind wir geboren.
Auf, auf zum Kampf, zum Kampf sind wir bereit!
Dem Karl Liebknecht, dem haben wir's geschworen,
Der Rosa Luxemburg reichen wir die Hand. (socialist song which would still be sung by the the party "Die Linke"; that is the version Busch would sing)

But then, there is of course a later fascist version of it:

Auf, auf zum Kampf, zum Kampf!
Zum Kampf sind wir geboren.
Auf, auf zum kampf, zum kampf
Fürs Deutsche Vaterland
|: Dem Adolf Hitler* haben wir's geschworen
Dem Adolf Hitler* reichen wir die Hand.:|

Both version, the socialist and the fascist, are (I guess) variants of an earlier text.

This again shows how (easily) the National Socialists adpated songs sung by the Socialists to their cause.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Origins: die M�hle
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 30 Oct 06 - 03:40 AM

I often listened to Ernst Busch. Contrary to Roth he truly said what he sang: Workers's songs, Spanish revolutionary war, communist agitation. His emphasisi is not so bad as Roth's in my humble opinion. But that is a question of style and gusto.

Original version of the song Wolfgang gave:

Auf, auf zum Kampf, zum Kampf,
On ward to batttle
Zum Kampf sind wir bereit.
for battle we are ready
Dem Kaiser Wilhelm haben wir's geschworen,
we have vowed it to Emperor Wilhelm
Dem Kronprinz Friedrich reichen wir die Hand.
we shake hands with Crown Prince Friedrich

Since most of the Rotfront and SA had served in WWI, we find a lot of soldiers' songs changed to the political views of the conflictive party organizations.

Als Adam grub und Eva spann
When one uses one stanza with six others self made I should not speak of reworking an old song, but of using a small part of it.
When Adam delved and Eve span, pray, who was then the nobleman? stems from the time of the English peasant uprising of Wat Tyler 1381.
I just cannot find the song now, but I first saw it in the German translation of a Chartist song which was sung for a time in Germany, too.
More about des Geyers schwarzer Haufen.

Subject: RE: Origins: die Mühle
From: Wolfgang
Date: 10 Nov 06 - 08:07 AM

Perhaps I should start a new thread just about one particular song, namely Wilde Gesellen, but it has been mentioned first here, so I add some information here:

Wilde Gesellen vom Sturmwind durchweht (German only) gives a different account from Wilfried's above:

(my summary)
- The song was collected from oral tradition, not written, by Sotke.
- The song soon disappeared from Nazi songbooks after the first print.
- It was sung by all kinds of groups in opposition to the Nazi regime.
- It appears in the samisdat songbook of the KZ-Sachsenhausen prisoners.

So how old it is exactly cannot be said, but it is much more a song of opposition to power than of anything else:

A wild bunch of comrades we are
blown about by a heavy storm,
Counts in rags...

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: Origins: die M�hle
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 10 Nov 06 - 08:54 AM

So how old it is exactly cannot be said, but it is much more a song of opposition to power than of anything else
Right, Wolfgang. It is a song about the outcasty - as wrote above: gypsies.
I don't think that it originated in anarchistic circles. It has the true ring of the romantic "Buendische Jugend" - not boy scouts nor Wandervogel, but somewhere in between.

Why were such songs adapted by the Hitlerjugend? Not only because they had no own songs but: when first founded the HJ was in strong competition with other youth organizations, and to attract the youngsters (age 12 - 16 yrs old) they had to give what their competitors gave: camps, campfires and the right songs. The wild bunch of comrades is undoubtedly more attractive than the official Vorwaerts, vorwaerts, schmettern die hellen Fanfaren (= Onward, onward, the clear clarions are blaring, written by B. v. Schirach, Imperial Youth Leader). Only after 1933 all other youth organizations were forbidden (some of them surviving in the underground) and the HJ remained the one and only youth organization.