New: The Feral Rose of Silvy Vale

[thn...@yahoo.com]

This song is set in Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosiverse (the universe
of the Miles Vorkosigan stories), and specifically the milieu of her
Hugo-winning short story "The Mountains of Mourning"
(http://www.baen.com/library/1011250002/1011250002.htm), some time
after the events of that story. Thanks also to Patricia Mathews for its
proximate inspiration.*

The Feral Rose of Silvy Vale
ttto Yellow Rose of Texas
Mark A. Mandel Copr. 2005

There is a rose in Silvy Vale that I am going to see,
Nobody else could miss her, not half as much as me.
She told me when I left her that if I did not come back,
Though I might cross the galaxy, she'd never lose my track.

CHORUS
She's my sweet Dendarii rosebud, my darling, my ideal.
Her eyes are bright as diamonds, her thorns are tungsten steel.
You may sing of your Kalinka, Clementine, and Chère Amie,
But the feral rose of Silvy Vale's the only girl for me.

I know on starry summer nights she sends a kiss to me
By the stream that flows through Silvy Vale and eastward to the sea,
And by Sultana's river I send a kiss of mine
So out there in the ocean they will meet and intertwine.

CHORUS

No garden plot can hold this rose, she needs to ramble free.
That's why I'm learning commlinks here, and e-lectricity.
And once I've got my papers, we'll ramble up and down
Till there's a commlink for a school in every mountain town.

CHORUS

And once the job is finished, my feral rose and I
Will build a house halfway between the flatlands and the sky
We'll work the land together and make our happy home
And raise a healthy crop of feral roses of our own.

CHORUS

-- Mark A. Mandel, The Filker With No Nickname
http://filk.cracksandshards.com

*Mountains of Mourning
a Dendarii Mountain ballad collected by Patricia Mathews
(words: http://www.dendarii.co.uk/Filk/misc8.html#mourning)
(tune:
http://lists.herald.co.uk/pipermail/lois-bujold/2004-April/009295.html)

[thn...@yahoo.com]

I forgot to mention: Thanks also to Lynn Noel for "Chere Amie", a
French traditional counterpart to American Clementine and Russian
Kalinka.

m a m

[msm...@aol.com]

Is Patricia Mathews' song to an original tune?
That refrain keeps trying to connect (so far unsuccessfully) to
something I've actually heard.

[thn...@yahoo.com]

Yes, it is.

She said on the Bujold list that she didn't know how to write it down.
I offered to record it over the phone and notate it for her, and she
took me up on it. I can send it to you in ABC notation, off-list.

m a m

[Mark Mandel]

Wow, I'd forgotten the changes. For many years now I've been singing it as

(v.1, l.4) Though I might cross the galaxy, she'd __still be on__ my track.

(v.4, l.2) Will __settle down__ halfway between the flatlands and the sky

m a m