Songs for each month

06 Jan 98 - 01:34 PM (#18781)
Subject: Songs for each month
From: Moira Cameron

Has anyone ever tried to see if all 12 months are mentioned in traditional songs? What I mean is songs that mention a month by name. The most common month in songs has to be May (In the merry month of May...etc) I know sones that mention January, May, June, September, December, --at least those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

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06 Jan 98 - 03:06 PM (#18786)
Subject: RE: Songs for each month
From: Selene

I can't remember any mentioning April though. Or August.

Selene

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06 Jan 98 - 04:18 PM (#18788)
Subject: RE: Songs for each month
From: Bert

Three Score and Ten mentions "The October Night was such a sight..."

April Showers is pretty old but not traditional yet.
And a search of DT turned up "January Man" which goes through the year.

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06 Jan 98 - 04:30 PM (#18790)
Subject: RE: Songs for each month
From: dick greenhaus

Unless you think it's chesting, you can just search for each month in the database: There are literally dozens for either April or August (including at least one that mentions both).

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06 Jan 98 - 05:20 PM (#18795)
Subject: RE: Songs for each month
From: Dale Rose

. . . and some that mention every month.

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06 Jan 98 - 06:48 PM (#18799)
Subject: RE: Songs for each month
From: chet w

Not exactly trad orthodoxy, but the sultry 60's chanteuse Julie London (big hit: Cry Me a River, which is actually quite beautiful, accompanied only by Barney Kessel on guitar) recorded an album called "Calendar Girl", which I believe has one song for each month of the year. Good quality copies of the LP are quite expensive, but a reasonable one might be dug up for a fair price. Then there's Paul Simon's song "April, Come She Will", which I think was actually a traditional song, and which mentions several months. And of course, "Shine on, shine on harvest moon, up in the sky, I ain't had no lovin' since January, February, June or July..."

Good luck, Chet W.

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06 Jan 98 - 07:44 PM (#18801)
Subject: RE: Songs for each month
From: Bill D

I know a guy who was once trying to find every DAY of the year mentioned in song...i.e.,"The Eighth of January" or "Seventh evening of October, Eighteen Hundred sixty-five" (in The Mirimachi Fire) dont know how far he actually got...

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07 Jan 98 - 03:22 AM (#18808)
Subject: RE: Songs for each month
From: Joe Offer

Now, there's a good question, Chet - I've always wondered about "April, Come She Will." It feels like traditional to me. Any idea where it might come from?
On his "Entering Marion" CD, John Forster has a very interesting song about Paul Simon's originality - or lack thereof.
-Joe Offer-

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07 Jan 98 - 05:44 AM (#18814)
Subject: RE: Songs for each month
From: dwditty

Joe, thanks for reminding me of the John Forster CD. As it turns out, I grew up a few miles from Marion, so the song has particular significance. I laughed out loud when I heard the Paul Simon commentary.

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07 Jan 98 - 09:32 AM (#18818)
Subject: RE: Songs for each month
From: Bert

Bill D,
That's a difficult task but it sounds fun.
the only one that comes immediately to mind is "'twas the twelfth of December a day of renown"
From Master McGrath.

We used to play singing games on long journeys. Every one has to sing a song in turn starting with the letters of the alphabet.

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07 Jan 98 - 10:35 AM (#18823)
Subject: RE: Songs for each month
From: Wolfgang Hell

Is there a song for each day of the year? Most probably not. I made a DT-database search for 4 months of the year as a sample and found:
- 6 out of 30 possible days as the minimum
- 12 out of possible 30 days as the maximum number of individual days mentioned.
There are two further pecularities in the data:
- most noteworthy things happen on the first day of a month.
- there is a decline of memorabilia during the months: very few things happen after the 21. of any month.
What does this show? For a writer or singer of (folk)songs rhyme and prosody come before accuracy.
Wolfgang

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07 Jan 98 - 10:41 AM (#18824)
Subject: RE: Songs for each month
From: Wolfgang

just an addendum, if you want to do your own (re)search: skip "march" and "may"

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07 Jan 98 - 12:30 PM (#18828)
Subject: RE: Songs for each month
From:

hey, when I say I can't remember, it's 'cause I haven't looked. And now I have looked, I've got one in my Scouting book, that is dutch, but coveres all the monts of the year. anybody want to hear it?

Selen

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07 Jan 98 - 03:01 PM (#18836)
Subject: RE: Songs for each month
From: Gene

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07 Jan 98 - 03:03 PM (#18837)
Subject: RE: Songs for each month
From: Gene

A couple of songs that I like are:

JANUARY, APRIL and ME by Dick Curless; a song about a dad and his two daughters.

and IF WE MAKE IT THRU DECEMBER by Merle Haggard

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07 Jan 98 - 03:14 PM (#18838)
Subject: RE: Songs for each month
From: Bob Schwarer

How about "The Bold Princess Royal" .......on the 14th of February we sailed from the land..........etc.

Also "Greenland Whale Fisheries" mentions different months depending on who is doing it.

Bob S

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07 Jan 98 - 07:43 PM (#18848)
Subject: RE: Songs for each month
From: jeff s

The berrymans have the "february march" and "april may". then there's always the wreck of the "edmund fitzgerald".

jeff

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07 Jan 98 - 09:16 PM (#18854)
Subject: RE: Songs for each month
From: Ricky Rackin

What about Les Barker's marvelous spoof on "The January Man" he calls "The January June" where the pouting June Tabor is both the subject and singer !!

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07 Jan 98 - 09:22 PM (#18855)
Subject: RE: Songs for each month
From: Gene

OLEARY's COW - By Johnny Horton

October eighteen seventy one

That's when this great big fire begun

The windy city was a ball of flame

And O'Leary's cow was the one to blame.

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07 Jan 98 - 10:35 PM (#18858)
Subject: RE: Songs for each month
From: Bill D

Wolfgang...the thing is, there are SO many songs that are not in the database...yet!.I had a hunch, and I went to mt bookcase and picked up "Songs of the Wexford Coast", which includesa a lot of shipwreck ballads, and opened it at random...the first thing I saw was, "The Pomona"..which begins "On the twenty-seventh of April, from Liverpool set sail..", so I suspect there are many songs of this sort which are just not in general circulation...

(Oh...the next song I flipped to was "The Pethard Life-boat Crew"...line 4.."On the twentieth of February, at the hour os two o'clock...")

and the next..."The Wreck of the Eliza" beginning "On the twenty-fourth of December in Eighteen-ninety-five.."

I wonder if there is a day in the year that DOESN'T have a shipwreck song.....I think I will look thru the books I have and make a list...will post my findings....

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07 Jan 98 - 11:15 PM (#18860)
Subject: RE: Songs for each month
From: Barry

On the Folk music newsgroup Abbey Sale comes up with a song that pertains to the current date, he's not 100% but he's more often than not. Here's one "it was on July the 7th in the year of 62, we had a sore engagement with Abe Lincoln's crew" The Battle Of Pea Ridge. If you go back & check Abbey's post you'll find days, dates, months, years as well as info & historical notes. Barry

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08 Jan 98 - 07:12 AM (#18869)
Subject: RE: Songs for each month
From: Wolfgang

Bill, you made me rethink my statement. All those who hate statistics and probability please skip my contribution. For all other, here you go:
Assume that chance is the only operating factor (noteworthy events are distibuted evenly across the year; and forget please about the 29th of Feb.), then it boils down to the question: How many songs mentioning dates must exist that the probability that each of 365 days is covered at least once is higher than 50%. This question was too difficult for me and our statistician (we both can in principle write a program to find the solution, but we couldn't think of an easier way). To give an idea, how high that figure is, imagine you had already found songs for 364 days. How many additional songs mentioning dates do you have to find in order to have a 50% chance of covering the last day? It is 253 additional songs you need to have a toss-up chance. My rough guess is that you need to find several thousand songs mentioning dates in order to have a fair chance to have a song for each day of the year.
Now the assumption of chance being the only factor is definitely wrong. Whereas, for instance, pit disasters might be evenly distributed across the year, shipwrecks aren't (for storms aren't). In addition to that, songs covering the same event usually mention the same date (not necessarily true, for there are songs that cover the same event but do not mention the same date, see for instance the thread "Who laid the charge in Dublin City ?????"). And furthermore, the authors of songs will find it more easy to incorporate some dates into a song than others (If I had the intention to write two songs on two disasters that happenend on May, 5th, and on December, 28th, I probably would write "on that fateful fifth of May", but "on that bleak december day").
All these factors will lead to an uneven distribution of dates mentioned in songs across the year. The consequence is that you need to find more songs in order to cover all possible dates. Once more a very rough guess and the bottom line:

If there are more than about 10,000 songs mentioning dates then the probability that there is a song for each day is higher than 50%. Could that be possible? I guess it could.

Sorry, Bill, for using your post for digressing into probabilities. Your main point is well taken. There are so many more songs than the ones already in the database, that it would be fairly easy to find find songs for most days of the year. Perhaps I should have a look in my book "Songs from County Clare" with a lot of sports events songs to contribute some dates that are not covered in your shipwrecks from Wexford.

Wolfgang

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08 Jan 98 - 10:00 AM (#18873)
Subject: RE: Songs for each month
From: Wolfgang

a follow up: Finding somewhat more than 1500 songs mentioning dates would be enough to have a fifty-fifty chance of covering each day of the year under the assumption of equal distribution of noteworthy events and counting only one song per event.
Still the compilation of a no-missing-days "Calendar of (Folk)songs" would be a tremendous task.
Wolfgang

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08 Jan 98 - 11:38 AM (#18877)
Subject: RE: Songs for each month
From: Alice

And then there are different versions of the same song that use different months in the lyrics..... I thought immediately of SKIBBEREEN, in which I have seen versions saying "...that bleak December day" and "...that bleak November day" and another saying "... that bleak October day". My theory is that the months that are easiest to rhyme are used more often, which is why May is common in lyrics. Alice, mt

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08 Jan 98 - 05:02 PM (#18891)
Subject: RE: Songs for each month
From: Selene

Wasn't Calander Girl also done this year by somebody else? Blond girl, I don't really remember. It went something like I am a calender girl don't you see it's only you and me

or something like that

Selene

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08 Jan 98 - 06:39 PM (#18899)
Subject: RE: Songs for each month
From: chet w

I'm pretty sure it was Julie London that did the album "Calendar Girl" in the 60's. The title may have well been used again (sounds like Madonna). Paul Simon did indeed do a lot of "borrowing' from tradtional music, but didn't he do it well?

Chet W.

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08 Jan 98 - 07:21 PM (#18901)
Subject: RE: Songs for each month
From: Bill D

Wolfgang.....while I am sure that statistics can provide an answer to certain probabilities about the number of songs necessary to cover all the days and how many songs one would have to search if there WERE random distribution--based on pure chance--, I also suspect that certain aspects of the actual situation may skew the results. That is, since there are ONLY 365 days about which to write songs..(well, I do know a couple of songs about non-existant days..see below) and there have been so many hundreds of millions of human events which might be commemorated in song, I suspect that most days have at one time been covered! Now...whether these songs have been preserved, and whether there is any efficient way of locating them, remain awkward questions. Statistics may indeed tell me my chances of finding 365 from any particular current total..i.e 143 or 281, but I doubt that it can actually predict ACCURATELY the totals for each date or the total number of dates mentioned if all data were in...(And if all data WERE in, I suspect that a few songwriters would soon take it as a challenge to complete the list!!!)

"Oh we will all remember
That forty-fifth of May
For there were many gallant hearts
All filled with fear that day "

......from "The Cowboy Fireman"

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08 Jan 98 - 08:14 PM (#18905)
Subject: RE: Songs for each month
From: Dale Rose

I am surprised, given the topics flying around, that no one has yet mentioned that today is the Eighth of January! . . . and while it does not mention the date by name, (number?) Jimmie Driftwood's Battle of New Orleans uses that tune and historical setting. OK, now who can take care of tomorrow's date? (There is at least one that I know of)

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09 Jan 98 - 10:03 AM (#18937)
Subject: RE: Songs for each month
From: Jon W.

can we get a desk calendar made up, where you tear of the page for each new day and read the lyrics of the folk song that pertains to that day?

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09 Jan 98 - 10:45 AM (#18938)
Subject: RE: Songs for each month
From: Wolfgang

Jon, I think it could be done, if one would admit a loose definition, as your word "pertains" implies. You would admit
(1) songs explicitely mentioning a date,
(2) songs mentioning an event that has a specific date (a battle, e.g.) even if the songs do not mention the date (if you scan through the database you see that quite often a specific date is given in the notes, and not in the song itself)
(3) songs about an event stretching in time (a war, a strike); the date for this song to be entered into the calendar would then be the beginning of a war, the end of a strike, the start of peace talks or so.

If only songs of type (1) were admitted, my guess is that a couple of days will be missing (I agree, however, with Bill: any possible date has most certainly been covered already, the problem is "only" the locating of the songs; to find up to 2000 songs mnetioning dates is not easy; of course, you could challenge some songwriters; I liked this idea).

There once was a folk music calendar in Germany with a song a day. But they had only about 10% of all songs fitting to the respective day, the other ones were just unrelated additions.

If it is too difficult to compile a calendar with the above three definitions, also admit release dates of records (any song on this record would qualify), birth and death dates of musicians (any song qualifies), dates of concerts ("July 26th, 1989: Christy Moore sings "Nancy Spain" in...").

I'd hate to compile such a calendar, but I'd love to buy it.
Wolfgang

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09 Jan 98 - 05:36 PM (#18948)
Subject: RE: Songs for each month
From: Barry

Entered in 'rec.music.folk' (news group) by Abbey Sale on 12/31/97 under the "happy" tile entry. Sean South & Feargal O'Hanlon both killed in Northern Ireland during a raid 12/31/57. Another martyr for old Ireland Sean South from Garryowen, (Anon). Oh my name is O'Hanlon& I'm just turned sixteen, ( Dom. Behan). As stated above Abbey posts twice a day & most of the time that days date is in song. Barry

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09 Jan 98 - 11:43 PM (#18977)
Subject: RE: Songs for each month
From: chet w

Speaking of the 8th of January, nobody mentioned that it is Elvis Presley's birthday. What he had to do with the War of 1812 is anybody's guess.

Chet W.

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10 Jan 98 - 12:19 AM (#18981)
Subject: RE: Songs for each month
From: Dale Rose

The tune for the 9th of January is . . . 9th Of January. One of my favorite groups, the Ill-Mo Boys from the St. Louis area play this. I can't remember the story exactly, but I think they call it that because it is not quite the same as the 8th of January! Now for the 10th, someone else will have to take over~~I know nothing.

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10 Jan 98 - 01:31 AM (#18982)
Subject: RE: Songs for each month
From: Sir

from the Renaissance Thomas Morely's "April is in my mistress' face, And July in here eyes hath place, Within her busom lies September, But in her heart a cold December"

Also Gene Autry's True Blue Bill "Waded 40 ft. of snow on the 31st of June"

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10 Jan 98 - 01:11 PM (#19001)
Subject: RE: Songs for each month
From: Bill D

Mention is made in one book of "The Ballad of the Ullswater" wrecked at Ballymoney, Jan 10, 1868..no text given...I found 49 different dates in less than an hour in 4 books,,lots of Winter dates, as you might expect for shipwrecks...but some April,July & Aug. etc..dates for battles...also as you might expect

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12 Jan 98 - 04:10 PM (#19109)
Subject: RE: Songs for each month
From: Jerry Friedman

Here's something for Joe Offer's question about "April, Come She Will". In _The Everglades: River of Grass_, Marjory Stoneman Douglas says about the hurricane season, "The old jingle that fisherman recite along these coasts tells the story: 'June--too soon. July--stand by. August--look out you must. September--remember. October--all over.'"

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12 Jan 98 - 04:55 PM (#19114)
Subject: RE: Songs for each month
From: Jerry Friedman, [e-mail]

I realize nobody but Wolfgang cares, but given n songs mentioning dates and given all the assumptions Wolfgang made (which as Bill points out are certainly false), the probability that every day in the year is covered is

[1-(364/365)^n] * [1-(364/365)^(n-1)] * [1-(364/365)^(n-2)] * ... * [1-(364/365)^(n-364)]

where the * represents multiplication and the ^ raising to a power. (To include Feb. 29, make the obvious adjustment.)

The first factor is the probability that the n songs cover Jan. 1, the second factor is the probability that the remaining n-1 songs cover Jan. 2, and so to the end of the year.

If you feel like simplifying that any further than doing the common denominator in each factor, I'd be interested in the answer. This is why God gave us (but not me) algebra software.

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13 Jan 98 - 02:26 PM (#19160)
Subject: RE: Songs for each month
From: Jerry Friedman

Sorry, that formula is wrong. I think I know how to do it right, though. If anyone is interested, please e-mail me.

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14 Jan 98 - 06:11 PM (#19226)
Subject: RE: Songs for each month
From: Denis

"On the 14th of August (which just happens to be my birthday) are regiment was lost. When a bolt from the enemy our lines came across". From Bonnie Woodhall. "When apples still grow in November." From Only our rivers.

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15 Jan 98 - 08:12 AM (#19251)
Subject: RE: Songs for each month
From: Peter Dawson

1950s/60s English comedy duo Flanders and Swan wrote a brief ditty that went:

January brings the snow/makes your feet and fingers glow.

February's ice and sleet/freeze the toes right off your feet.

Welcome March with wintry wind/Would thou wert not so unkind!

April brings the sweet spring showers/Going on for hours and hours

Farmers fear unkindly May/Frost by night and hail by day

June just rais and never stops/Thirty days and spoils the crops!

[July?]

[August?]

[September?]

[?] October's rain and fog/Would not do it to a dog!

Bleak November's [?] and mud/Is enough to chill the blood

Freezing cold December then/Bloody January again!

On the issue of date statistics, has anyone thought about rhymes and scansion? Probably not an issue, but perhaps "On the first day of . . ." just sounds better than "on the seventh day of. . ." (Not all songwriters resort to this convenience: Ewen MacColl's Ballad of Springhill says,

In the town of Springhill, Nova Scotia Late in the year of fift-eight; Day still comes and the sun still shines But it's dark as a grave in the Cumberland Mine.

1958 was, of course the great Springhill Mine Disaster, but the temptation to say "fifty-nine" to make it rhyme must have been intense.

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24 Mar 02 - 08:42 PM (#675622)
Subject: RE: Songs for each month
From: Nigel Parsons

Wolfgang, never mind "Ignore the 29th of February".
presumably this gets a mention in one of the songs from Gilbert & Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance, as Frederick was bound to his apprenticeship as a pirate until his 21st birthday, but, being born on Feb 29, this meant he was apprenticed until he was 94

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25 Mar 02 - 05:11 AM (#675787)
Subject: Lyr Add: A SONG OF THE WEATHER (Flanders & Swann)
From: Nigel Parsons

Complete version of the Flanders & Swann song


A SONG OF THE WEATHER

January brings the snow,
Makes your feet and fingers glow.

February's ice and sleet
Freeze the toes tight off your feet.

Welcome March with wintry wind
Would thou wert not so unkind!

April brings the sweet spring showers,
On and on for hours and hours.

Farmers fear unkindly May
Frost by night and hail by day.

June just rains and never stops
Thirty days and spoils the crops.

In July the sun is hot.
Is it shining? No, it's not.

August, cold and dank and wet,
Brings more rain than any yet.

Bleak September's mist and mud
Is enough to chill the blood.

Then October adds a gale,
Wind and slush and rain and hail.

Dark November brings the fog
Should not do it to a dog.

Freezing wet December, then
Bloody January again!

January brings the snow...

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