Reply from Willie McBride
Mary Creasey
This is forwarded FROM rec.music.filk, where the author posted it.
Mary
Dick Eney wrote:
>
> In article <346125df...@news.gate.net>, deanie <dea...@gate.net> wrote:
> >Hi all.
> >
> >Someone on rec.music.folk posted an inquiry about a song "Reply from
> >Willie McBride".
> >
> >Eric Bogle's "No Man's Land (aka Green Fields of France) tells of a
> >traveller who sits down at Private Willie McBrides' gravesite and
> >talks about the war. He poses 'rhetorical' questions.
> >
> >The post suggested that there is a song of McBride's reply. I don't
> >know if it's serious or a parody, but I love the original and would
> >love to hunt this one down.
> >
> OK, the author obliges:
>
> Well, how d'ye do, Mister Folksinger, sir?
> You're as much of a twit as your forerunners were!
> Sure, this isn't the way that a corpse should behave,
> But your twaddle is making me turn in my grave!
> You say we were fools, duped by leaders who lied
> Yet you're wandering free through this fair countryside --
> If it weren't for the dead that you won't even bless
> You'd be hiding out now from the Waffen-SS!
>
> CH: Did you preen yourself proudly?
> Did you speak your piece loudly?
> Did the slogans roll trippingly off of your tongue?
> Were the words that you sang condescending
> While you swore that your grief was heartrending?
>
> We called it a price that we just couldn't pay
> Defending small countries a long ways away
> It was not till our friends were struck down at our side
> That we stood and we fought and a lot of us died.
> But we gave you a peace half a century long
> Though nobody would know it from hearing your song
> I know your excuses, you've got quite a store --
> I just wish that we hadn't used them before.
>
> (Chorus)
>
> Must I really believe that you're missing the clues
> As you watch CNN for the evening news?
> When you think of the victims that you wouldn't save
> Does it make you feel better to piss on my grave?
> But as for appeasement and why it is wrong
> You'll be learning yourself before too very long
> For you're letting it happen again and again
> And again and again and again and again!
>
> (Chorus)
>
> Well, it _is_ a parody, but I don't think that keeps it from being
> serious.
>
> -- Dick Eney
Gerry Myerson
In article <64vkrf$l...@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net>, Mary Creasey
<cre...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> This is forwarded FROM rec.music.filk, where the author posted it.
Thanks...I think. The author seems to be confusing World Wars I and II.
All his references make sense only in the context of the latter,
whereas Bogle's song is about the former.
And I don't think CNN existed when Bogle wrote the original.
And this isn't the parody/reply I once heard, which I recall as being
in a much lighter mood.
Gerry Myerson (ge...@mpce.mq.edu.au)
Dick Wisan
In article <NoJunkMail-20...@abinitio.mpce.mq.edu.au>,
NoJun...@this.address says...
>
>In article <64vkrf$l...@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net>, Mary Creasey
><cre...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
>> This is forwarded FROM rec.music.filk, where the author posted it.
>
>Thanks...I think. The author seems to be confusing World Wars I and II.
>All his references make sense only in the context of the latter,
>whereas Bogle's song is about the former.
You're quite right, of course. It seems to be a difference between
the two wars --at least towards the attitude towards them on this
side of the English Channel. WWI is the perfect war for anti-war
songs --well it was up to Vietnam. Do you hear many anti-WWII songs?
So, shifting the wars makes a legitimate point for whoever wrote
that "reply".
--
R. N. (Dick) Wisan - Email: wis...@norwich.net
- Snail: 37 Clinton Street, Oneonta NY 13820, U.S.A.
- Just your opinion, please, ma'am: No fax.
Stephen Suffet
Nigel & Nancy Sellars wrote:
>
> Stephen Suffet wrote:
>
> >
> > You might think me crazy, you might think me daft,
> > I could have stayed back in Erin, where there wasn't a draft,
> > But my parents they raised me to tell right from wrong,
> > So today I shall answer what you asked in your song.
> >
>
> >
> > And call it ironic that I was cut down,
> > While in Dublin my kinfolk were fighting the Crown.
> > But in Dublin or Flanders the cause was the same:
> > To resist the oppressor, whatever his name.
> >
>
> Why does everyone assume Willie is Irish? From the fact Eric is Scots
> and the song refers to "The Flowers of the Forest," my guess is Willie
> is lad from Scotland. And as to fighting for freedom, that may be what
> the men believed (although patriotism and excitement were more likely),
> but the history of WW I renders that a great lie, as Eric's song
> recognizes (and so does his "Band Played Waltzing Mathilda" and "All the
> Fine Young Men.) For freedom he may have believed, but Willie ended up
> dangling upon the barbed wire between the trenches as did many another
> lad.
>
> Nigel Sellars
Dear Nigel---
Good points. But this is _my_ Willie, so if I want him to be an
Irishman who enlisted to fight for the cause of freedom, then that's
what he will be. About "The Flowers of the Forest": Willie might have
been from Dublin, be he joined a Scottish regiment. Stranger things
have been known to happen in real life!
Glad to see such a quick response.
Regards,
Steve
"Hey, we're folksingers. We don't need no stinking make-up!"
Stephen Suffet
Greetings----
Enough already! Here's my contribution. If you don't like it, too
bad. :-)
Regards,
Steve
----------------------------------------------------------------------
WILLIE MCBRIDE'S REPLY
Lyrics: Stephen L. Suffet (Copyright 1997)
Tune: "No Man's Land" by Eric Bogle
My dear friend Eric, this is Willie McBride,
Today I speak to you across the divide,
Of years and of distance of life and of death,
Please let me speak freely with my silent breath.
You might think me crazy, you might think me daft,
I could have stayed back in Erin, where there wasn't a draft,
But my parents they raised me to tell right from wrong,
So today I shall answer what you asked in your song.
Yes, they beat the drum slowly, they played the pipes lowly,
And the rifles fired o'er me as they lowered me down,
The band played "The Last Post" in chorus,
And the pipes played "The Flowers of the Forest."
Ask the people of Belgium or Alsace-Lorraine,
If my life was wasted, if I died in vain.
I think they will tell you when all's said and done,
They welcomed this boy with his tin hat and gun.
And call it ironic that I was cut down,
While in Dublin my kinfolk were fighting the Crown.
But in Dublin or Flanders the cause was the same:
To resist the oppressor, whatever his name.
Yes, they beat the drum slowly... etc.
It wasn't for King or for England I died,
It wasn't for glory or the Empire's pride.
The reason I went was both simple and clear:
To stand up for freedom did I volunteer.
It's easy for you to look back sigh,
And pity the youth of those days long gone by,
For us who were there, we knew why we died,
And I'd do it again, says Willie McBride.
Yes, they beat the drum slowly...etc.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Note: The Girls Scouts of America have my permission to sing this song
without consideration and without notification. All others better get
my approval and grease my palm with mucho dinero. Otherwise I'll get
some big nasty hoodlums to break their finger picks. :-)
Joe Bethancourt
In article <652cns$7...@bgtnsc02.worldnet.att.net> Stephen Suffet <Suf...@worldnet.att.net> writes:
>From: Stephen Suffet <Suf...@worldnet.att.net>
>Subject: Re: Reply from Willie McBride
>Date: Thu, 20 Nov 1997 17:18:25 -0500
>Greetings----
>For for us who were there, we knew why we died,
>And I'd do it again, says Willie McBride.
> Yes, they beat the drum slowly...etc.
>
(STANDING OVATION)
Stephen Suffet
Joe Bethancourt wrote:
>
> In article <652cns$7...@bgtnsc02.worldnet.att.net> Stephen Suffet <Suf...@worldnet.att.net> writes:
>
> >It's easy for you to look back and sigh,
> >And pity the youth of those days long gone by,
> >And I'd do it again, says Willie McBride.
>
> > Yes, they beat the drum slowly...etc.
> >
>
> (STANDING OVATION)
Thanks. I thrive on positive reinforcement. :-)
Please note minor corrections in final stanza shown above. Sloppy
proofreading on the original postings.
Regards,
Steve
kevin kelly
Nigel & Nancy Sellars wrote:
>.......................................................... It boiled
> down to a bunch of inbred upper class twits and a few others battle over something ultimately meaningless.
Actually, send kids to do the battling for them. Very well put.
anti-war of any kind
Kevin
William Chops
In such a case, recognising the tune would be much
more of a shock than if it was recognised right from the start.
Yep. "No Such Thing" (Zander Nyrod) is harder to listen to the second
time, cause the zinger is near the end...
BillW
--
(remove spam food from return address)
Nigel & Nancy Sellars
While I respect Stephen's parody, (which indeed is far superior to the
other, rather mean spirited, and also historically ignorant one), I
think it falls into the simplistic trap of oppressor vs. everyone else.
What about a German version? Did they think they were fighting for
their freedom?
World War I is such a perfect source for anti-war songs because the
issues never were so black-and-white, good guy vs. bad guy. It boiled
down to a bunch of inbred upper class twits and a few others battle over
something ultimately meaningless. And while Stephen's Willie McBride
may have died for "freedom", what about the characters in Remarque's
"All Quiet on the Western Front"? Or the Russians forcibly marched off
for God and the Czar?
World War I veterans spoke of adventure, trying to prove their
masculinity, and, of course, fighting for "democracy" (esp. in America
with a reluctant and justifiably suspicious population), and fighting
oppression. Some went off to war as patriots and returned as pacifists,
others as monarchists and came back as Bolsheviks, other as
proto-fascists, etc. Why? Because that war was so utterly futile, so
utterly meaningless, and finally so completely disastrous and
destructive that few could romanticize it. It could have been the war
to end wars, but a generation passed and the twenty year olds of WW II
had little knowledge of the Great War and were faced with a clearer,
more easily defined issue of oppressor and oppressed.
Of course, I admit my biases here. I'm a professional historian by
trade who specializes in Progressivism and the World War I era, and I'm
the grandson of an English coal miner who went to war in 1914 with a
Staffordshire regiment, saw his brother killed by a sniper at his side,
and in turn killed others in the trenches. He rose through the ranks to
become an officer and was highly decorated (nearly winning the Victoria
Cross) Yet my mother said he rarely talked of World War I -- too
painful, too tragic, and too pointless. No heroes there.
Then again, my first wife's uncle was a B-17 pilot in WW II, survived
all his raids, was decorated, and came home a pacifists.
Maybe we who have not experienced its horrors have no right to speak of
war in such "knowing" terms.
Nigel
Doug Berry
On 21 Nov 1997 01:56:57 -0800, William "Chops" Westfield <bi...@ciscoSPMFD.com> wrote:
>It's pretty easy to write sad and moving folk songs about some young person
>dying, because when all is said and done, all such deaths are tragedies.
>It's harder to get past that to the "whys" and "with what results", which
>both the orginal and the "replies" at least attempt. In contrast, something
>like "Cranes Over Hiroshima" is just blatant emotional manipulation (of the
>sort that should be spread widely whenever people get in a "nuke xxx" sort
>of mood, of course.)
Several years ago I heard a young girl sing "Cranes Over Hiroshima". I asked her if she had ever heard of the Bataan Death March. No. In fact, all she had been told of WWII was the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Very sad when you only give one side of the story.
For a long time, I've been tempted to write a song using "CoH" about the March, I'll call it "Boots along the Trailside."
Doug Berry
On Thu, 20 Nov 1997 17:54:11 -0500, Stephen Suffet <Suf...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>Nigel & Nancy Sellars wrote:
>> Why does everyone assume Willie is Irish? From the fact Eric is Scots
>> and the song refers to "The Flowers of the Forest," my guess is Willie
>> is lad from Scotland. And as to fighting for freedom, that may be what
>> the men believed (although patriotism and excitement were more likely),
>> but the history of WW I renders that a great lie, as Eric's song
>> recognizes (and so does his "Band Played Waltzing Mathilda" and "All the
>> Fine Young Men.) For freedom he may have believed, but Willie ended up
>> dangling upon the barbed wire between the trenches as did many another
>> lad.
> Good points. But this is _my_ Willie, so if I want him to be an
>Irishman who enlisted to fight for the cause of freedom, then that's
>what he will be. About "The Flowers of the Forest": Willie might have
>been from Dublin, be he joined a Scottish regiment. Stranger things
>have been known to happen in real life!
There were several Regiments of Irish volunteers in both World Wars. Also, pipes would be appropriate at an Irish soldier;s funeral.
Great song BTW, something I can sing with pride as a former soldier.
Nigel & Nancy Sellars
Why use "CoH" as the tune? Write your own. Otherwise it will always
been seen as a parody and not stand alone.
Nigel
David G. Bell
In article <3475D7...@telepath.com>
Parody doesn't have to be funny.
I very much doubt that I'd even recognise the tune of CoH, since I have
no recollection of ever hearing it, so for me such a song wouldn't be
obviously a parody. But for those who did recognise the tune it could
be quite a shock.
Though it might depend on the basic structure of a song. After all,
people tend to recognise chorus/refrain tunes rather than the verse, for
a lot of old songs. In such a case, recognising the tune would be much
more of a shock than if it was recognised right from the start.
--
David G. Bell -- Farmer, SF Fan, Filker, Furry, and Punslinger..
Eric Berge
In Article<3475D7...@telepath.com>, <nsel...@telepath.com> writes:
> > Several years ago I heard a young girl sing "Cranes Over Hiroshima". I
asked her if she had ever heard of the Bataan Death March. No. In fact, all
she had been told of WWII was the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Very sad
when you only give one side of the story.
> >
> > For a long time, I've been tempted to write a song using "CoH" about the
> > March, I'll call it "Boots along the Trailside."
>
> Why use "CoH" as the tune? Write your own. Otherwise it will always
> been seen as a parody and not stand alone.
There's an odd statement.
By the same logic, "Sam Hall", "Ye Jacobites By Name", and "Mademoiselle
From Armentieres" are parodies of "Captain Kidd", and do not stand alone,
because they reuse the same tune.
Eric Berge
(remove _ for address)
Stephen Suffet
Nigel & Nancy Sellars wrote:
>
Dear Nigel----
I agree with much of your analysis of the Great War. My parody is
an attempt to give voice to one particular "Willie," and is not
necessarily my own voice, at least not 100%.
Yes, there was a German side of the story. And yes, it was an
imperialists' war on _all_ sides (British, French, German, Russian,
Austrian, Ottoman, etc.). But that does not mean that right and wrong
were equally distributed. As my Willie McBride says..."Ask the people
of Belgium or Alsace-Lorraine..." You, as a professional historian,
certainly appreciate the point.
Regards,
Steve
Stephen Suffet
Gary McGath wrote:
>[snip]
> >Note: The Girls Scouts of America have my permission to sing this song
> >without consideration and without notification. All others better get
> >my approval and grease my palm with mucho dinero. Otherwise I'll get
> >some big nasty hoodlums to break their finger picks. :-)
>
> being serious in requesting that no one perform it without asking you
> first? I do try to respect writers' wishes in this regard -- and I may well
> want to sing it at some housefilks. So please consider this a request for
> permission, even if the dinero isn't included.
>
> --
> Gary McGath
Dear Gary et al.---
Just a little folksinger's humor. :-)
Seriously though: I hereby give permission to everyone to sing
any and all of my songs for free in any live performance without
restriction. Please contact me, however, if you intend to _record_ or
_publish_ "Willie McBride's Reply" or any other of my songs ("Been Up
on the Mountain," "The Last Irish Song," "Truckstop Sally and Cowboy
John," "Girls and Boys," etc., etc.).
Regards,
Steve Suffet
Jeri Corlew
>Greetings----
>
> Enough already! Here's my contribution. If you don't like it, too
>bad. :-)
>
> Regards,
> Steve
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>WILLIE MCBRIDE'S REPLY
>
>Lyrics: Stephen L. Suffet (Copyright 1997)
>Tune: "No Man's Land" by Eric Bogle
If I may, here's mine:
Your questioning's fine, but it isn't quite fair,
Find a war that's on now and ask these questions there,
Try asking the living, their replies are more clear,
And people besides you can usually hear.
You smug sons of bitches come sit by my grave,,
And mourn for the ones that it's too late to save
Try using your brain when you next plan a war,
You should really know better, cause it's happened before.
If you make any money by singing, or more likely, NOT singing this, I want
some. Example: "I'll give you five dollars if you don't sing that ever
again." You: "OK".
Jeri
Anti-Spam Alert
Please replace "nonet" with "inet" in my address when replying.
David G. Bell
In article <NEWTNews.880165133.21652.Eric_Berge@tirnanog>
e_db...@ibm.net "Eric Berge" writes:
>
> By the same logic, "Sam Hall", "Ye Jacobites By Name", and "Mademoiselle
> From Armentieres" are parodies of "Captain Kidd", and do not stand alone,
> because they reuse the same tune.
I didn't even know that they were the same tune....
Excuse me while my mind de-boggles.
Joseph C Fineman
Eric Berge <e_db...@ibm.net> writes:
>By the same logic, "Sam Hall", "Ye Jacobites By Name", and
>"Mademoiselle From Armentieres" are parodies of "Captain Kidd", and
>do not stand alone, because they reuse the same tune.
You must know quite another tune to "Madamoiselle from Armentieres"
than I do.
--- Joe Fineman j...@world.std.com
||: An election tells how many of your supporters are alive, and :||
||: a war tells how many are willing to be dead. :||
Joe Bethancourt
In article <880188...@zhochaka.demon.co.uk> db...@zhochaka.demon.co.uk ("David G. Bell") writes:
>From: db...@zhochaka.demon.co.uk ("David G. Bell")
>Subject: Re: Reply from Willie McBride
>In article <NEWTNews.880165133.21652.Eric_Berge@tirnanog>
> e_db...@ibm.net "Eric Berge" writes:
>>
>> By the same logic, "Sam Hall", "Ye Jacobites By Name", and "Mademoiselle
>> From Armentieres" are parodies of "Captain Kidd", and do not stand alone,
>> because they reuse the same tune.
>I didn't even know that they were the same tune....
>Excuse me while my mind de-boggles.
They sure are. And the number of sets of lyrics to "Sweet Betsey From Pike"
(Villikins and his Dinah" to you Brits out there) are Sagan.
(billions and billions and billions...)
Tara Housman
In article <NoJunkMail-20...@abinitio.mpce.mq.edu.au>,
NoJun...@this.address (Gerry Myerson) wrote:
>
> Thanks...I think. The author seems to be confusing World Wars I and II.
> All his references make sense only in the context of the latter,
> whereas Bogle's song is about the former.
>
>
> And this isn't the parody/reply I once heard, which I recall as being
> in a much lighter mood.
>
> Gerry Myerson (ge...@mpce.mq.edu.au)
I only occasionally peruse rec.music.filk, so I apologize for not
responding in a more timely manner.
Your mind isn't playing tricks on you, Gerry. There IS another parody of
Willie McBride, in which Willie dispels the hype and romance surrounding
his demise.
I had a carload of drunk Irishmen and -women in my taxicab at closing
time a few weeks ago (any redundancies and stereotypes in the previous
sentence are strictly those of the reader! ;-> ). There was a LOT of
cross-talk, and several were singing different tunes at the same time. One
of the women in the back started singing this parody of Willie McBride.
Because of the chatter, and having to pay attention to the road, I was
unable to remember any of the lyrics. It didn't help that, at the time, I
had never heard the original Willie McBride. Still, it wasn't tough to grok
that these were answers to rhetorical questions posed in the original tune.
I remember that the narrator/corpse corrected the inquirer regarding the
amount of ceremony with which he was buried (more like getting tossed into
the grave, rather than something approaching a state funeral). He disputed
the tune that they played, and what instruments were used. He further
expressed his relief at getting away from his wife/girlfriend
I wish I could remember specifics, but there were a LOT of things
competing for my attention at the time. I DO remember that the song was
LONG. She started singing it (for those of you familiar with San Francisco)
at around Geary and Masonic Streets, and didn't get done until nearly 37th
Ave. and Clement!
It was a cynical and ironic song, but with a lot of funny stuff, and
nowhere near as heavy as Dick Eney's version.
So, Gerry, continue your quest. There IS funny Willie McBride parody. I
suggest you initiate your search at your nearest Irish watering hole
(preferably on a traditional music night, which tends to be Sundays at many
places in my area), and that you arm yourself with a pint of Guinness to
keep your stamina up!
-&&&
Posted & mailed
Eric Berge
In Article<EK2Ln...@world.std.com>, <j...@world.std.com> writes:
> Eric Berge <e_db...@ibm.net> writes:
>
> >By the same logic, "Sam Hall", "Ye Jacobites By Name", and
> >"Mademoiselle From Armentieres" are parodies of "Captain Kidd", and
> >do not stand alone, because they reuse the same tune.
>
> You must know quite another tune to "Madamoiselle from Armentieres"
> than I do.
Probably not. Same tune family, if you prefer; the similar WWI song,
"Snapoo", is closer to the archetype.
The point I was making is still valid, though - different sets of words
to the same tune can stand on their own just fine without being considered
"just parodies", which is what the fellow I was responding to was claiming.
Witness all the old broadsides with "to the tune of ***" printed on them.
Stephen Suffet
Tara Housman wrote:
[snip]
> It was a cynical and ironic song, but with a lot of funny stuff, and
> nowhere near as heavy as Dick Eney's version.
>
> So, Gerry, continue your quest. There IS funny Willie McBride parody.
[snip bis]
Greetings---
Yes, let a thousand parodies bloom! I'll keep doing my part. :-)
Isn't it wonderful to know those of us in the USA live in a land
where the national anthem is a parody (i.e., new words set to an
existing melody)?
Regards,
Steve
ghost
In article <659cof$3...@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net> Stephen Suffet <Suf...@worldnet.att.net> writes:
> Isn't it wonderful to know those of us in the USA live in a land
>where the national anthem is a parody (i.e., new words set to an
>existing melody)?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Webster's 7th Collegiate Dictionary, Copyright (C) 1963 by Merriam-Webster,
Inc. No part of this information may be copied or reprinted without the
express written consent of the publisher.
<uh oh -jmf>
Cross references:
1. caricature
par.o.dy \'par-*d-e-\ n [L parodia, fr. Gk paro-idia, fr. para- + aidein
to]sing - more at ODE 1: a literary or musical work in which the style of
an author or work is closely imitated for comic effect or in ridicule 2: a
feeble or ridiculous imitation - parody vt
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Neither differing sets of words set to an in-common tune nor
differing sets of words set to differing members of a tune-family nor
differing sets of words set to tunes using the same meter (some of which tunes
may or may not also be members of a tune-family) are parodies of each other.
I believe Eric Berge was the 1st to put forth the misinformation that
sharing a tune, tune-family or meter made one song a parody of some other
song. As usual, Berge is using used kitty-litter for brains.
KC King
Stephen Suffet <Suf...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in article
<659cof$3...@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net>...
>
> Isn't it wonderful to know those of us in the USA live in a land
> where the national anthem is a parody (i.e., new words set to an
> existing melody)?
>
Stephen Suffet
ghost wrote:
>
> In article <659cof$3...@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net> Stephen Suffet <Suf...@worldnet.att.net> writes:
> >where the national anthem is a parody (i.e., new words set to an
> >existing melody)?
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Webster's 7th Collegiate Dictionary, Copyright (C) 1963 by Merriam-Webster,
> Inc. No part of this information may be copied or reprinted without the
> express written consent of the publisher.
>
> <uh oh -jmf>
>
> Cross references:
> 1. caricature
>
> par.o.dy \'par-*d-e-\ n [L parodia, fr. Gk paro-idia, fr. para- + aidein
> to]sing - more at ODE 1: a literary or musical work in which the style of
> an author or work is closely imitated for comic effect or in ridicule 2: a
> feeble or ridiculous imitation - parody vt
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Neither differing sets of words set to an in-common tune nor
> differing sets of words set to differing members of a tune-family nor
> differing sets of words set to tunes using the same meter (some of which tunes
> may or may not also be members of a tune-family) are parodies of each other.
>
> I believe Eric Berge was the 1st to put forth the misinformation that
> sharing a tune, tune-family or meter made one song a parody of some other
> song. As usual, Berge is using used kitty-litter for brains.
Dear sir or madam:
Thank you for correcting my misunderstanding of the term parody.
But I must temper my appreciation in light of your sophomoric ridicule
of Mr. Berge. That last sentence is unworthy of the remainder of your
posting.
Regards,
Steve Suffet
Eric Berge
In Article<659j4t$k...@necco.harvard.edu>, <j...@deas.harvard.edu> writes:
> I believe Eric Berge was the 1st to put forth the misinformation that
> sharing a tune, tune-family or meter made one song a parody of some other
> song. As usual, Berge is using used kitty-litter for brains.
Speak for yourself, you babbling moron; I was making the same point you
just did.
And until that last paragraph, I was contemplating typing in a note to
the effect of, "for once she got it right".
Moron.
Eric Berge
Stephen Suffet
ghost wrote:
>
> In article <659cof$3...@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net> Stephen Suffet <Suf...@worldnet.att.net> writes:
> > Isn't it wonderful to know those of us in the USA live in a land
> >where the national anthem is a parody (i.e., new words set to an
> >existing melody)?
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Webster's 7th Collegiate Dictionary, Copyright (C) 1963 by Merriam-Webster,
> Inc. No part of this information may be copied or reprinted without the
> express written consent of the publisher.
>
> <uh oh -jmf>
>
> Cross references:
> 1. caricature
>
> par.o.dy \'par-*d-e-\ n [L parodia, fr. Gk paro-idia, fr. para- + aidein
> to]sing - more at ODE 1: a literary or musical work in which the style of
> an author or work is closely imitated for comic effect or in ridicule 2: a
> feeble or ridiculous imitation - parody vt
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Neither differing sets of words set to an in-common tune nor
> differing sets of words set to differing members of a tune-family nor
> differing sets of words set to tunes using the same meter (some of which tunes
> may or may not also be members of a tune-family) are parodies of each other.
>
> sharing a tune, tune-family or meter made one song a parody of some other
> song. As usual, Berge is using used kitty-litter for brains.
Greetings----
While trying to discover who the pseudonymous "ghost" is, I
received the following unedited response to a Telnet "finger" inquiry.
What more need be said? :-)
Regards,
Steve Suffet
----------------------------------------------------------------------
$ finger j...@deas.harvard.edu
[deas.harvard.edu]
Login name: jmf In real life: ghost
Directory: /home/usr21/guest/jmf Shell: /bin/csh
Last login Sun Nov 23 10:26 on ttypb from leprosy
New mail received Sun Nov 23 11:09:01 1997;
unread since Sun Nov 23 09:09:29 1997
Plan:
Re: sophomoric net.name
...I know...
$
deanie
>Greetings----
>
> Enough already! Here's my contribution. If you don't like it, too
>bad. :-)
>
> Regards,
> Steve
>----------------------------------------------------------------------
>WILLIE MCBRIDE'S REPLY
>
>Lyrics: Stephen L. Suffet (Copyright 1997)
>Tune: "No Man's Land" by Eric Bogle
>
Steve,
Bravo! A wonderful follow-up! Thanks for sharing it with us. :)
-deanie-
ghost
In article <3475D7...@telepath.com> Nigel & Nancy Sellars <nsel...@telepath.com> writes:
>Doug Berry wrote:
>> Several years ago I heard a young girl sing "Cranes Over Hiroshima". I asked her if she had ever heard of the Bataan Death March. No. In fact, all she had been told of WWII was the nuking of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Very sad when you only give one side of the story.
>> For a long time, I've been tempted to write a song using "CoH" about the March, I'll call it "Boots along the Trailside."
>Why use "CoH" as the tune? Write your own. Otherwise it will always
>been seen as a parody and not stand alone.
What both the projected "CoH" & the published-here "Reply from Willie McBride"
are are answer songs, a long-time-honored tradition. Not parodies.
Using the same tune brings to the listener's mind the original song
(providing they've ever heard it) which is just what you *want* it to do.
"The Wild Side of Life", with its lead off line to the chorus
of "I didn't know G-d made honkey-tonk angels" & its answer song
"It Wasn't G-d Who Made Honkey-tonk Angels" are a good example of song
& answer song.
Sometimes what you find is just sequalitis, not answer-songs.
Sequalitis is part of the human condition (ask Hollywood).
I was looking up some stuff a few years ago (Abby can back me up on this
is he wants as he has a copy) on the microfilm Harvard keeps of Boswell's
chapbook collection & found what seemed to me like a terrific song
I'd never heard, "Auld Robin Gray". It tells the fate of a woman who
cannot refuse (her family is starving) an offer of marriage from a good,
much older man whom she however does not love. Familiar theme,
but well-put words that spoke across a few centuries to me (if not to Abby,
if I read his take on it right). That's what the appeal in all these
old songs has to be, other than the tunes. Words that *don't* seem like
they're from some unknowable alien culture.
Right next to the song in the book was a very sanctimonious set of words
supposed to be from the man in the song, giving his point of view
(I don't think I even xeroxed those; Abby?) Its pretty obvious to me
that both sets of words were not written by the same person, though they
had the same chapbook/broadsheet publisher. A case of answer-song
& a bad case of sequalitis at once.
[I've since heard *a* tune to "Auld Robin Gray", played by Alistair Frasier
at one of Redpath/Frasier Burns Nights. It was just played, not sung,
but Redpath introduced it as a very popular song from the 18th century
(so much for my discovering great unknown songs) & Frasier played very nicely
what was however a very sentimental-sounding tune, not at all the
kind of tune I had imagined this would have.]
Up On The Roof
Under The Boardwalk &
Saturday Night At the Movies
are a rare case (from 60s Motown) of *good* sequalitis, where the theme
(where to go with your honey when the weather was just too uncomfortable
out in the real world) remained the same but the tunes & words were
different. They just ran that theme on til they pretty-well ran it kout.
Eric Berge
In Article<659lt7$a...@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net>, <Suf...@worldnet.att.net>
writes:
> ghost wrote:
> > I believe Eric Berge was the 1st to put forth the misinformation that
> > sharing a tune, tune-family or meter made one song a parody of some other
> > song. As usual, Berge is using used kitty-litter for brains.
As noted (several times by now) previously, she believes wrongly...
> While trying to discover who the pseudonymous "ghost" is, I
> received the following unedited response to a Telnet "finger" inquiry.
> What more need be said? :-)
>
> $ finger j...@deas.harvard.edu
> [deas.harvard.edu]
> Login name: jmf In real life: ghost
> Directory: /home/usr21/guest/jmf Shell: /bin/csh
> Last login Sun Nov 23 10:26 on ttypb from leprosy
> New mail received Sun Nov 23 11:09:01 1997;
> unread since Sun Nov 23 09:09:29 1997
> Plan:
> Re: sophomoric net.name
> ...I know...
> $
If past posts by various other people can be believed, "jmf" stands for
Joan "Mental Case" Frankel, file clerk extraorinaire at Harvard.
A woman whose paranoid hatred for everything and anything not on her neurotic
"approved" list apparently got in the way of actually reading the posts of
mine which she was responding to - in which I was making the exact same point
that she was.
She is a) crazy, and b) illiterate.
Stephen Suffet
deanie wrote:
>
-
> >WILLIE MCBRIDE'S REPLY
> >
> >Lyrics: Stephen L. Suffet (Copyright 1997)
> >Tune: "No Man's Land" by Eric Bogle
> >
> Steve,
>
> Bravo! A wonderful follow-up! Thanks for sharing it with us. :)
>
> -deanie-
Dear Deanie:
You're very welcome. And thank you, too. As I said before, I
thrive on positive reinforcement.
Let me just clear up a few points, and then leave this thread for
others to continue or to abandon as they so choose.
1. I _LOVE_ Eric Bogle's original song, "No Man's Land," and I
mostly endorse its anti-war sentiments. Not 100% mind you, but at
least a good 80%. My response was meant to give a thoughtful and
serious voice to one possible Willy McBride, but it is not intended to
be the only voice that should be heard.
2. Any and all people are hereby granted license to sing the
lyrics of "Willy McBride's Reply" in any live performance for free.
Proper credit would be appreciated. And please remember that the
rights to the melody belong to Mr. Bogle.
3. If anyone wishes to record my lyrics, please contact me and I
am certain we can arrive at a mutually satisfactory accommodation.
Given my quasi-socialist leanings, I'd probably look most kindly on
some independently produced artist turning out 100 CDs to schlep
around to his/her gigs. However, if U-2 really insists on using
"Willie McBride's Reply" as the title track of their next mega-
platinum album, I will not object. :-)
Regards,
Steve Suffet
Barry Gold
In article <gmcgath-ya0240800...@news.ma.ultranet.com>,
Gary McGath <gmc...@ultranet.com> wrote:
>Aside from the fact that it expresses its ideas very well, it's nice to see
>a "No Man's Land" parody that *doesn't* include the line "And again, and
>again, and again, and again."
Well, I've used the tune twice in lyrics that didn't
include that phrase, but then again they weren't parodies
of the original lyrics either.
One was "Green Fields of Scotland" about my three favorite
Scottish ballads; the other was the "CPR song" whose chorus goes:
First you yell, "How ya feelin'?"
Then you check if they're breathin'.
Then you get a good airway and check the neck pulse.
Breath of life four quick times in succession;
Then fifteen chest-pumps of compression.
(And yes, I've been told that there's a new style of
CPR that uses a different frequency of breaths and chest-pumps.
This one was accurate when I wrote it, and checked with
a filker cardiologist.)
--Lee Gold
ghost
In article <gmcgath-ya0240800...@news.ma.ultranet.com> gmc...@ultranet.com (Gary McGath) writes:
>In article <659j4t$k...@necco.harvard.edu>, j...@deas.harvard.edu ( ghost ) wrote:
>>Neither differing sets of words set to an in-common tune nor
>>differing sets of words set to differing members of a tune-family nor
>>differing sets of words set to tunes using the same meter (some of which tunes
>>may or may not also be members of a tune-family) are parodies of each other.
>>I believe Eric Berge was the 1st to put forth the misinformation that
>>sharing a tune, tune-family or meter made one song a parody of some other
>>song. As usual, Berge is using used kitty-litter for brains.
>I don't know who Berge is, but if he's still alive he's not the first. The
>use of "parody" in the broader sense is actually quite old. According to
>the Harvard Brief Dictionary of Music:
> parody (Gr, imitated song). In modern usage, a satirical imitation of a
> serious work, produced, e.g., by the substitution of a comical text or
> by a caricaturing version of the music. In earlier practice the term
> simply means reworking, without any satirical implication. See
> Parody Mass.
This is what you get when you consult music dictionaries. Their definitions
of "harmony" usually have no bearing on reality, either.
Apply the following story to your music-dictionary explanation:
Margaret Bennet, a singer & song-collector raised on the Isle of Lewis
(Scottish Hebrides) gave a series of concerts in the Boston area a year
ago. At one of them she sang a song by Eric Bogle (the orginator the song
Suffet's song is an answer-song to, not a parody of, at least not by
any use of the word "parody" known in modern English, which is what when I
last checked we were speaking here). She prefaced it by saying that there
was one word in the song she didn't agree with, so she'd changed it.
At the end of the song (as you might predict) someone remembered to ask
what the changed word had been; it certainly hadn't been obvious.
The song was a song narrated by an abused wife, & the refrain in Bogle's
original asks who would put up with this, & answers itself;
"who but a silly woman". Bennet had changed "silly" to "weary".
Because this was the concert given in one those extremely ornate,
in an 18th-century lots-of-polished wood fashion, dormitory lounges of Harvard
that I hardly ever have cause or excuse to go into, the audience was
mainly composed of freshman students in the Harvard Gaelic-studies course.
One of these extremely young-looking (this is how I know I'm getting old;
*I* don't look any older, of course) students popped up & gave a long, long
exposition on how in some form of archaic English, "silly" & "weary" have
the same root, so that Bennet could be thought to be saying the same thing
as Bogle. Bennet, who has great timing, waited exactly the right few amount
of seconds after this was all over to say
"I don't think that would go over well in Glasgow".
Does anyone want to tell me that in Bogle's part of Scotland, but not in
Bennet's, they're still using old-English "silly" for "weary"? Its possible,
I guess (I've never heard of that before, but I harldy know everything),
but its going to be a lot harder to defend a position that Bogle
doesn't understand the difference between the 2 words in modern English
(he probably just wanted to underline the woman of the song's undermined
opinion of herself). You'd have a better chance than trying to get me to
believe that anyone who doesn't spend their life getting their definitions
for English words out of music dictionaries thinks of "parody"
in anything other than the satirical sense.
Gerry Myerson
In article <amprsand-ya0240800...@news.sirius.com>,
ampr...@sirius.com (Tara Housman) wrote:
> Your mind isn't playing tricks on you, Gerry. There IS another parody of
> Willie McBride, in which Willie dispels the hype and romance surrounding
> his demise.
Yes, and I found it --- or, at least, a piece of it --- but let's review
the bidding:
Weeks ago, someone posted to rec.music.folk (and perhaps also to
rec.music.filk, but I don't know) asking about a reply-to-or-parody-of
Willie McBride. That someone wasn't me, and I don't know whether he or
she is still tuned in, but, anyway.
Over the weekend I was reminded that I am the proud owner of a copy of
The Shonky Songbook, subtitled 60 Parodies Compiled by Paul Mortimer and
Greg Snook (what reminded me was hearing on the radio that Mortimer has
prepared a second volume). Sure enough, there on page 34 is William
McBride's Reply. The lyrics are attributed to Micky Cassidy, and there
is a note, saying,
Micky Cassidy lives in Dublin somewhere, and has been described by
one Mary Shannon, who knows him, as "a mad lunatic altogether." We
haven't been able to get in contact with him, and it's possible he
has more words to this. If anyone sees him, could you ask him to
give us a call?
Tara's story certainly supports the possibility of there being more words,
as the following is all that appears in The Shonky Songbook:
Hello, Eric Bogle, this is Willie McBride,
I'm glad you came to see me down by my graveside,
And I like your song about me - you made me feel great,
But there's one or two things I would like to set straight.
I was forty, not nineteen like you sang in your song,
You subtracted the years on my gravestone all wrong.
And the way that I died it was slow and obscene,
I choked on a chicken bone in the army canteen.
They didn't play the drums slowly, they didn't play the fife lowly,
They didn't sound the Death March as they lowered me down,
And the coffin was plywood and porous,
And the band was having a picnic in the forest.
The scansion is a bit, well, shonky. Possibly TFP.
Mortimer can be contacted at 25 London St., Enmore, NSW 2042 Australia.
> Posted & mailed
Haven't seen the mailed version, perhaps you used the top address
instead of the bottom one.
Gerry Myerson (ge...@mpce.mq.edu.au)
Mark A Mandel
Eric Berge (e_db...@ibm.net) wrote:
: In Article<659lt7$a...@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net>, <Suf...@worldnet.att.net>
: writes:
: > ghost wrote:
[...]
: > > song. As usual, Berge is using used kitty-litter for brains.
: As noted (several times by now) previously, she believes wrongly...
: > While trying to discover who the pseudonymous "ghost" is, I
: > received the following unedited response to a Telnet "finger" inquiry.
: > What more need be said? :-)
: >
: > $ finger j...@deas.harvard.edu
[...]
: > Re: sophomoric net.name
: > ...I know...
: If past posts by various other people can be believed, "jmf" stands for
: Joan "Mental Case" Frankel, file clerk extraorinaire at Harvard.
: A woman whose paranoid hatred for everything and anything not on her neurotic
: "approved" list apparently got in the way of actually reading the posts of
: mine which she was responding to - in which I was making the exact same point
: that she was.
: She is a) crazy, and b) illiterate.
I think both sides of this flame war have made their points more than
adequately clear. Can you both please drop it now? Or, if you insist on
keeping it up, do so in song so as to stay on-topic. Thank you.
-- Mark A. Mandel
FIJAGH
Now, *filking*, on the other hand...
--
[Remove the spam-stopper from the "From:" line before mailing reply]
Eric Berge
In Article<gmcgath-ya0240800...@news.ma.ultranet.com>,
<gmc...@ultranet.com> writes:
> [Story about "silly" vs. "weary" snipped]
>
> The authors of both books might be mistaken, of course, but you could
> better establish that point with some counter-references regarding
> "parody," and perhaps an explanation of how Berge fits into all this.
She hates me in particular and almost everyone else in general, and couldn't
resist taking a blind swipe at me when she saw my name on the thread - having
apparently failed to read my two-paragraph post carefully enough to determine
that I was making a similar point to her own.
> I really don't see how the relationship of "silly" to "weary" has any
> bearing on this point.
Ghost's paranoid spite is "silly", and nearly everyone on r.m.f is "weary" of
it.
Eric Berge
In Article<gmcgath-ya0240800...@news.ma.ultranet.com>,
<gmc...@ultranet.com> writes:
>
> That's OK. If ghost thinks the Harvard Brief Dictionary of Music relies on
> you for its research, you should feel flattered. I really was assuming,
> before I saw your response, that the name "Eric Berge" referred to some
> highly influential musicologist. Sorry for the misplaced praise. :)
*preen*
Not at all.
Wait 'til my mother finds out; she'll be so proud.
Eric Berge
ghost
>In article <65apc2$s...@necco.harvard.edu>, j...@deas.harvard.edu ( ghost ) wrote:
>>In article <gmcgath-ya0240800...@news.ma.ultranet.com>
>gmc...@ultranet.com (Gary McGath) writes:
>>>In article <659j4t$k...@necco.harvard.edu>, j...@deas.harvard.edu ( ghost )
>wrote:
>>>>I believe Eric Berge was the 1st to put forth the misinformation that
>>>>sharing a tune, tune-family or meter made one song a parody of some other
>>>>song. As usual, Berge is using used kitty-litter for brains.
>>>I don't know who Berge is, but if he's still alive he's not the first. The
>>>use of "parody" in the broader sense is actually quite old. According to
>>>the Harvard Brief Dictionary of Music:
>>> parody (Gr, imitated song). In modern usage, a satirical imitation of a
>>> serious work, produced, e.g., by the substitution of a comical text or
>>> by a caricaturing version of the music. In earlier practice the term
>>> simply means reworking, without any satirical implication. See
>>> Parody Mass.
>>This is what you get when you consult music dictionaries. Their definitions
>>of "harmony" usually have no bearing on reality, either.
>>Apply the following story to your music-dictionary explanation:
>[Story about "silly" vs. "weary" snipped]
>I'm having trouble understanding what your point is. As best I understand
>it, you're trying to establish that the broader use of the word "parody"
>originated with Eric Berge (whom I'm still in the dark about), and that the
>Harvard Brief Dictionary is mistaken in its statement that the earlier use
>of the term had no implications of satire. I don't see how your story
>relates to that point.
You really *are* having trouble (understanding).
I'm trying to establish that the common English usage of "parody" is what
Webster's dictionary says (& equivalent sources say) it is, not what some
music dictionary, full of terms peculiar to European classical music, says
it is. Berge muddied the issue on this group (not back in ancient history;
he was the 1st *on this newsgroup*) by bringing in non-parodic songs
that share a tune-family, that share a meter, & one that neither
shares a tune family *or* a meter with his other examples (he really *must*
know a different version of "Mademoselle From Armentiers (sp?)"), & making
some kind of elusive comment using these examples that he now claims is the
same point as mine.
My story (about "silly" vs "weary") is meant to illustrate that its
possible for terms to share an ancestral meaning without their maintaining
*any* similarity in meaning down into the present day.
"Parody" in common English usage does not mean to readers & speakers of
everyday English, or to singers & appreciators of traditional music from
various traditions what your European-classical-music-dictionary says it means,
it means what dictionaries of English say it means, & moreover what its use
in everday conversation says it means.
>Parody masses are also discussed in *Music in the Western World* by Weiss
>and Taruskin, where the word is explained as "an ingenious compromise
>between the old-fashioned traditions of Mass composition and the newer,
>specifically Renaissance, ideal of homogeneous, imitative texture."
I think if you ran an announcement in your local newspaper (equivalent to the
Boston Globe Calendar section, for instance) advertising a "Parody Mass",
you'd get a generally outraged response from people, Catholics & non-Catholics
alike, who would take it that you were ridiculing the Mass, some response
by people, Catholics & non-Catholics alike, who would like for some reason
to see you ridicule the Catholic Mass, & that there would be a small handful of
people (who might or might not be interested in your actual performance)
conversant with your intended use of the term.
>The authors of both books might be mistaken, of course, but you could
>better establish that point with some counter-references regarding
>"parody," and perhaps an explanation of how Berge fits into all this. I
>really don't see how the relationship of "silly" to "weary" has any bearing
>on this point.
I never said the books were mistaken on historic usage, just that they're
tempting fate to try to make that usage prevail in the present day.
[I find this kind of misunderstanding prevalent whenever anyone who has
their head embedded in European classical music tries to have a
conversation with the rest of us:
Harmony is not thought by them to be harmony
Parodies are not thought by them to be parodies
I talk about harmonic intervals (parallel intervals, i.e. notes sounded at
the same time, used in forming harmony);
they think I'm talking about melodic intervals (sequential intervals;
the intervals between the notes of the melody as it goes by)
etc etc etc]
Tim Shirley
I think I agree, however...
What the $%#@! does sophomoric mean? In English, please...if it relates to
the word sophomore, that is a term not generally used outside the US. It
means some species of University student, I believe?
The word "immature" would probably have been as good.
ghost
>In article <65cfi6$b...@necco.harvard.edu>, j...@deas.harvard.edu ( ghost ) wrote:
>>I'm trying to establish that the common English usage of "parody" is what
>>Webster's dictionary says (& equivalent sources say) it is, not what some
>>music dictionary, full of terms peculiar to European classical music, says
>>it is. Berge muddied the issue on this group (not back in ancient history;
>>he was the 1st *on this newsgroup*) by bringing in non-parodic songs
>>that share a tune-family, that share a meter, & one that neither
>>shares a tune family *or* a meter with his other examples (he really *must*
>>know a different version of "Mademoselle From Armentiers (sp?)"), & making
>>some kind of elusive comment using these examples that he now claims is the
>>same point as mine.
>First falsehood: You were not stating that Berge was the first "on this
>group, not back in ancient history." If this was your intent, you could
>simply have clarified it, and any references outside this newsgroup would
>be irrelevant.
Not "falsehood" at all; I'm not required to state, whenever I refer to
someone who just posted an article to this newsgroup, that I'm referring to
someone who just posted an article to this newsgroup when they in fact
just posted an article to this newsgroup; you should be able to read *that*
(& the article too) for yourself.
(Did you get enough "Berge is a current poster, not a music scholar"
in that one? If you make silly mistakes & misattributions its not my job
to predict what they will be & warn you against them.)
>>I never said the books were mistaken on historic usage, just that they're
>>tempting fate to try to make that usage prevail in the present day.
>Second falsehood: You never said anything like this.
Not falsehood at all. Sure I did.
Why did you bring up specialized terms from European classical music
references at all? An English-language dictionary that traced the
word "parody" more thoroughly than Webster's Collegiate may well have
given you your archaic meaning, & also notated that it *was* archaic.
>>[I find this kind of misunderstanding prevalent whenever anyone who has
>>their head embedded in European classical music tries to have a
>>conversation with the rest of us:
>>Harmony is not thought by them to be harmony
>>Parodies are not thought by them to be parodies
>And the fallacy of the ad hominem argument: You attempt to support your
>conclusion by ridiculing the authors of the source books I mentioned.
Gosh, I don't even have the names of the authors of the source books you
mentioned (I trust they're somewhere in your article).
Anyone who writes the kind of tripe that the authors of that
European classical music dictionary write deserves to be called on it.
Their ridiculousness is a result of their own lack of learning &
obtuse clinging to inaccurate descriptions of music.
And "ad hominem" attack would be if I said something like
"The authors of that dictionary you quoted are ugly & smell bad";
the accuracy or inaccuracy of that sort of statement is irrelevant to
the points I'm making. In contrast, raising the point that these authors of
European classical music dictionaries are using commonly-used terms in ways
that are contrary to the definitions the rest of the world gives these terms
is not "an ad homimem attack", its a discussion of the issues already
raised. You point out that they have a definition of parody that
perhaps predates, but certainly contradicts common English usage.
I point out that they define other terms inaccurately too.
Scot Witt
Tim:
A Freshman is a first year High School (Grade 9- usually 14-15 years old) or
a first year year college student (Grade 13 usually 18-19 years old. A
sophomore is the next grade up for both.
'Sophomoric' usually connotes silliness combined with immaturity.
--
==========================================
scot...@interaccess.com
http://homepage.interaccess.com/~scotwitt/
==========================================
Tim Shirley wrote in message
<01bcf925$27bf83e0$c877...@pl09508.parl.net>...
B.Swetman
I'm interested in the use of the term parody for non-humorous imitations
because it really bothered me several years ago, when I saw it used that
way in a book from 1933. At the time, and again now, I checked the
Oxford English Dictionary to see if there was an older usage of the term
parody. I'm not going to quote the whole thing here, but the pertinent
part is: "an imitation of a work more or less closely modelled on the
original, but turned so as to produce a ridiculous effect". It says
nothing about and non-satirical usage. The Greek lexicon I checked said
burlesque.
Gary McGath wrote:
>The use of "parody" in the broader sense is actually quite old. According to
>the Harvard Brief Dictionary of Music:
>
> parody (Gr, imitated song). In modern usage, a satirical imitation of a
> serious work, produced, e.g., by the substitution of a comical text or
> by a caricaturing version of the music. In earlier practice the term
> simply means reworking, without any satirical implication. See
> Parody Mass.
For the fun of it, I have spent the whole evening lookin at 3eds of The
(New) Harvard Dictionary of Music, 3 eds. of Groves and various other
music dictionaries. Parody seems to be something of a moving target.
My conclusion is that the Parody Mass you refer to is dealing with reuse
of the music only, the Mass text was fixed. It was apparently used in
the 16th century in a few titles. Its use as a technical musical term is
from the late 19th or earlier 20th century (See most recent Groves) and
The New Harvard Dictionary of Music, 1986 that says of Parody Mass:
The term was popularized by August Wihelm Ambros and Peter Wagner, who
mistakenly thought it was common in the 16th century; in fact, what they
called a parody Mass was originally designated Missa super or Missa ad
imitationem.
So far as changing texts is concerned, I found some circular
definitions. Harvard, 1944 gives me:
Contrafactum: a vocal composition in which the original text is replaced
by a new one, particularly, a secular text by a sacred one, and vice
versa... Other terms designating a 'change of text' are parody and
paraphrase ... Parody usually implies caricaturing.
Parody: In present-day usage parody means satirical imitation ... In
connection with earlier practice the term denote: replacement of text in
general, with or without the implication of caricature. [Do you think
different people might have written these?]
Harvard 1986 adds the interesting example of Bach reusing his own music
for new texts as a parody. I bet Bach thought he was just reusing. The
only other conclusion I could reach is that since both Harvard and
Groves seem to think this non-humurous parody/contrafactum/whatever
ended by the 19th century, they are not dealing with folk or popular
music. Newer editions are backpedaling on Parody Mass.
Dictionaries today are descriptive of usage rather than proscriptive. No
general dictionaries have acknowledged this non-humorous usage of the
term. Since it does appear as such in specialized dictionaries of music,
I'd consider it a technical term at best. It sounds like it might have
developed this modern meaning based on misreading older materials. Art
music usually does use set words and music together. In musicological
circles when refering to art music it is probably understood. In folk
music, popular music and hymnody new texts to existing music is pretty
common. I personally find parody for this practice confusing so I'm not
going to advocate it.
Back to my 1933 book, G.P. Jackson "White Spirituals of the Southern
Uplands" where the words for the Family Bible are called a parody of the
Old Oaken Bucket. [see below] It looks to me like an example of a
secular text adapted for sacred use. Instead of ridicule, the object
seems the reverse, to elevate the nostagic thoughts from the mundane
world symbolized by the bucket to the moral and religious symbolized by
the Bible. What should we call this? When I'm trying to impress my
friends I might try contrafactum :-) otherwise I'd suggest another good
English word: Imitation. (a literary work designed to reproduce the
style of another author)
From Digital Traditions:
OLD OAKEN BUCKET
(Samuel Woodworth and George Kialmark)
How dear to my heart are the scenes of my childhood
When fond recollections presents them to view
the orchard, the meadow, the deep tangled wildwood,
And ev'ry loved spot which my infancy knew
The wide spreading pond, and the mill that stood by it,
The bridge and the rock where the cataract fell;
The cot of my father, the dairy house nigh it,
And e'en the rude bucket that hung in the well.
And The Family Bible (6 verses only v. 1 provided)
Lyrics: Young's Christian Companion, 1826
http://ccel.wheaton.edu/s/southern_harmony/sharm/sharm/hymn/t=The+Family+Bible.html
1. How painfully pleasing the fond recollection
Of youthful connexion and innocent joy,
While blest with parental advice and affection,
Surrounded by mercy and peace from on high;
I still view the chairs of my father and mother,
The seats of their offspring arranged on each hand,
And the richest of books, which excels every other,
The family Bible that lay on the stand.
B.
Librarian at large who makes a habit of landing in the middle.
n.b. The Family Bible and another tune with the same words, The Old
Fashioned Bible are also in The Sacred Harp (1844-1991). The url above
has more verses.
Barry Gold
In article <880188...@zhochaka.demon.co.uk>,
David G. Bell <db...@zhochaka.demon.co.uk: wrote:
:In article <NEWTNews.880165133.21652.Eric_Berge@tirnanog:
: e_db...@ibm.net "Eric Berge" writes:
:
::
:: By the same logic, "Sam Hall", "Ye Jacobites By Name", and "Mademoiselle
:: From Armentieres" are parodies of "Captain Kidd", and do not stand alone,
:: because they reuse the same tune.
:I didn't even know that they were the same tune....
"Sam Hall" and "Mademoisella from Aremtnieres" aren't
the same tune -- at least not the versions of them I
sing & hear sung.
--Lee Gold
Stephen R. Savitzky
[ObFilk: see .sig]
NoJun...@this.address (Gerry Myerson) writes:
> -> Tim Shirley (Tim.S...@aph.gov.au) wrote:
> ->
> -> : What the $%#@! does sophomoric mean?
>
> You may have noticed the .au at the end of Tim Shirley's email address.
> That stands for Australia. If TS has The Macquarie Dictionary (very
> popular Down Here) he will find "sophomore" defined as a US term for a
> second-year student at university, and he will find the word "sophomoric"
> mentioned but not defined.
OTOH if he has access to the compact edition of the OED (which I _used_ to be
able to read without a magnifier (sigh)), he will find "sophomore" tagged with
(now U.S.) and "sophomoric" with _chiefly_ U.S (my emphasis), and defined as
``...characteristic of a sophomore; hence, pretentious, bombastic, inflated in
style or manner; immature, crude, superficial.''
> His dictionary may not define "sophomoric;" yours may not define "drongo."
..which the OED defines as ``a name originally belonging to a Madagascar
bird...'' However, my Random House Unabridged (New York, 1987) gives a second
definition: ``Australian slang: a stupid or slow-witted person; simpleton''
and goes on to offer two different possible derivations.
> No reason either way to insult people.
As you say, but no reason not to give complete information, either.
> Gerry Myerson (ge...@mpce.mq.edu.au)
..Careful--he has a dictionary, and he knows how to use it!
--
/ Steve Savitzky \ 1997 Pegasus Award winner: best science song ...... /__
/ h:st...@starport.com \ http://www.starport.com/people/steve/ /___
\ w:st...@rsv.ricoh.com/ http://www.crc.ricoh.com/~steve/ \___
\____ Kids' page: ___/__ http://www.crc.ricoh.com/~steve/kids.html ________\__
Mark A Mandel
Tim Shirley (Tim.S...@aph.gov.au) wrote:
: I think I agree, however...
: What the $%#@! does sophomoric mean? In English, please...if it relates to
: the word sophomore, that is a term not generally used outside the US. It
: means some species of University student, I believe?
It looks as if the temperature of this thread is affecting you.
: The word "immature" would probably have been as good.
:
: > But I must temper my appreciation in light of your sophomoric ridicule
: > of Mr. Berge.
"sophomoric: adj. ... 2. Exhibiting great immaturity or lack of
judgement." -- American Heritage Dictionary
This is not a highly learned, recondite, or erudite word. (Use your
dictionary if you need to. You do have a dictionary, don't you?)
Oh, my. It looks as if I'm feeling the heat, too. I had better killfile
this entire thread, which has gotten way off-topic.
-- Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoepist, and
Philological Busybody
aka Mark A. Mandel
Gerry Myerson
No folk content below, usual apologies apply.
In article <EK6HC...@world.std.com>, mam-DIE-S...@world.std.com
(Mark A Mandel) wrote:
-> Tim Shirley (Tim.S...@aph.gov.au) wrote:
->
-> : What the $%#@! does sophomoric mean?
->
-> This is not a highly learned, recondite, or erudite word. (Use your
-> dictionary if you need to. You do have a dictionary, don't you?)
You may have noticed the .au at the end of Tim Shirley's email address.
That stands for Australia. If TS has The Macquarie Dictionary (very
popular Down Here) he will find "sophomore" defined as a US term for a
second-year student at university, and he will find the word "sophomoric"
mentioned but not defined.
His dictionary may not define "sophomoric;" yours may not define "drongo."
No reason either way to insult people.
Gerry Myerson (ge...@mpce.mq.edu.au)
ghost
In article <347A3E...@hamilton.edu> "B.Swetman" <bswe...@hamilton.edu> writes:
->Back to my 1933 book, G.P. Jackson "White Spirituals of the Southern
->Uplands" where the words for the Family Bible are called a parody of the
->Old Oaken Bucket. [see below] It looks to me like an example of a
->secular text adapted for sacred use. Instead of ridicule, the object
->seems the reverse, to elevate the nostagic thoughts from the mundane
->world symbolized by the bucket to the moral and religious symbolized by
->the Bible. What should we call this? When I'm trying to impress my
->friends I might try contrafactum :-)
Yes, I'm sure that would impress your friends.
->otherwise I'd suggest another good
->English word: Imitation. (a literary work designed to reproduce the
->style of another author)
->From Digital Traditions:
->OLD OAKEN BUCKET
->(Samuel Woodworth and George Kialmark)
->How dear to my heart are the scenes of my childhood
->When fond recollections presents them to view
->the orchard, the meadow, the deep tangled wildwood,
->And ev'ry loved spot which my infancy knew
->The wide spreading pond, and the mill that stood by it,
->The bridge and the rock where the cataract fell;
->The cot of my father, the dairy house nigh it,
->And e'en the rude bucket that hung in the well.
->And The Family Bible (6 verses only v. 1 provided)
->Lyrics: Young's Christian Companion, 1826
->http://ccel.wheaton.edu/s/southern_harmony/sharm/sharm/hymn/t=The+Family+Bible.html
-> 1. How painfully pleasing the fond recollection
-> Of youthful connexion and innocent joy,
-> While blest with parental advice and affection,
-> Surrounded by mercy and peace from on high;
-> I still view the chairs of my father and mother,
-> The seats of their offspring arranged on each hand,
-> And the richest of books, which excels every other,
-> The family Bible that lay on the stand.
You keep (when mentioning this song) forgetting the set of verses
that most people on this list are likely to know:
A health to the crayture, the best thing in nature
for (something) your (something) & (something) your joys
(OK, I didn't say *I* knew it; Christy Moore sings it, though.
Or is it Andy Stewart. Or both, but not together.)
etc etc
potteen, me boys.
That's "strong drink". Not advocated in the url above, I don't think.
pdraper
> Tim Shirley wrote in message
> <01bcf925$27bf83e0$c877...@pl09508.parl.net>...
> >I think I agree, however...
> >
> >What the $%#@! does sophomoric mean? In English, please...if it relates
to
> >the word sophomore, that is a term not generally used outside the US.
It
> >means some species of University student, I believe?
> >
> >The word "immature" would probably have been as good.
> >
The term sophomore is used in the UK for a second year Bachelor's degree
student. At Queen Mary College, at least, the first years were "freshers".
--
Paul Draper
pdr...@baig.co.uk
0171 369 2754
pdraper
ghost <j...@deas.harvard.edu> wrote in article
<65d3pb$i...@necco.harvard.edu>...
> Not "falsehood" at all; I'm not required to state, whenever I refer to
> someone who just posted an article to this newsgroup, that I'm referring
to
> someone who just posted an article to this newsgroup when they in fact
> just posted an article to this newsgroup; you should be able to read
*that*
> (& the article too) for yourself.
>
Please remember that not everyone's newsreader displays posts in thread
sequence and neither is everyone adept at using (or even aware of the
existence of) Dejanews.
>And "ad hominem" attack would be if I said something like
>"The authors of that dictionary you quoted are ugly & smell bad";
But you did accuse Eric Berge of using used kitty-litter for brains.
I find most of your posts interesting but it seems that you descend too
easily into invective and insult. No-one else on the folk music related
news groups I read seems to do this. It heats up the discussions
unnecessarily and they turn into boring arguments full of insult about who
posted what. Or are you just trolling?
Joe Kesselman, yclept Keshlam
In <880188...@zhochaka.demon.co.uk>, db...@zhochaka.demon.co.uk ("David G. Bell") writes:
>> By the same logic, "Sam Hall", "Ye Jacobites By Name", and "Mademoiselle
>> From Armentieres" are parodies of "Captain Kidd", and do not stand alone,
>> because they reuse the same tune.
I'm reminded of Walt Kelly's observation that "There are lots of words, and
you can use some of 'em over again." Applies to tunes too. A song _can_
reuse a tune -- either deliberately or accidentally -- and still "stand alone",
even if it includes a reference to the original song.
ghost
In article <01bcf9a2$f1d445d0$7d07a8c2@rover> "pdraper" <pdr...@baig.co.uk> writes:
> ghost <j...@deas.harvard.edu> wrote in article
><65d3pb$i...@necco.harvard.edu>...
>> Not "falsehood" at all; I'm not required to state, whenever I refer to
>> someone who just posted an article to this newsgroup, that I'm referring
>to
>> someone who just posted an article to this newsgroup when they in fact
>> just posted an article to this newsgroup; you should be able to read
>*that*
>> (& the article too) for yourself.
>Please remember that not everyone's newsreader displays posts in thread
>sequence and neither is everyone adept at using (or even aware of the
>existence of) Dejanews.
>>And "ad hominem" attack would be if I said something like
>>"The authors of that dictionary you quoted are ugly & smell bad";
>But you did accuse Eric Berge of using used kitty-litter for brains.
Yeah.
He keeps calling me all kinds of names that I'm sure fill some kind
of deep need for him, in between making "me too" posts & telling people
how he looked something up in a database. Hey, we all could just spend
our days looking stuff up in the databases. Instant experts.
Anyway, I didn't say he smelled bad, I said his input to the topic in
question showed shoddy reasoning (I said it in a slightly more colorful way,
agreed).
>I find most of your posts interesting but it seems that you descend too
>easily into invective and insult. No-one else on the folk music related
>news groups I read seems to do this.
You must not be reading Berge's, Hawes' & Wilton's posts then.
This either reflects good taste or a slow news-server.
And they've all showed up in just the past 6-8 months.
You can't have been reading the folk music related newsgroups for very
long, since you seem to have missed a whole bunch of arguements that
I wasn't any part of.
>It heats up the discussions
>unnecessarily and they turn into boring arguments full of insult about who
>posted what.
You don't need arguements about "who posted what" when you can just look it up
in your saved files or via DejaNews.
That's why I find these mistatements, by Berge, Wilton, Hawes etc of what
other people (such as I) said very perplexing.
>Or are you just trolling?
*You* may be.
Joe Kesselman, yclept Keshlam
In <65apc2$s...@necco.harvard.edu>, j...@deas.harvard.edu ( ghost ) writes:
>This is what you get when you consult music dictionaries.
Misquoting from memory, but it seems appropriate.
'When I use a word,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'it means what I mean it to;
not more, not less.'
As long as we all understand each other, I don't _care_ which formal definition
one likes or doesn't like.
ghost
We *don't* all understand each other, though, & I'm not happy living in
a world in which people get to define their words in uniquely individual
ways, then get all bent out of shape when the rest of the world doesn't
seem to be conforming to the use of *their* new definitions
(which we haven't even been given, in many cases, but are expected to
know). If you're in the psychobabble-book-peddling market, for instance,
you can make up 7 new pieces of jargon per book & hope one or two of them
flies; it makes for lots of book-selling exposure time on the talk-shows
where you define your new word, or worse yet, redefine some helpless old word
in your new terms. Which, when the trendy among us pick it up, will
completely confuse those of us who *thought* we were speaking English
(if I hear one more person use "enable" as though it were a bad thing
instead of a verb meaning "to make able"...).
European-classical music terminology is a similar case.
I bet if you did a survey of the people on the trad & pop music lists who
have no formal training in European classical music, but who do go to
concert of the type of music they like (including European classical),
sing & play, you'd get the Webster's Collegiate type of definitions for all but
the most specialized of music terms. Pick up a "music dictionary",
which is really a European classical music dictionary, & you get a much more
specialized, constricted, restricted use of most of the commonly-known terms
for referring to music (along with a ton of highly-specialized terms not
in common parlance).
Barry Gold
In article <659cof$3...@bgtnsc03.worldnet.att.net>,
Stephen Suffet <Suf...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> Isn't it wonderful to know those of us in the USA live in a land
>where the national anthem is a parody (i.e., new words set to an
>existing melody)?
The English national anthem is also set to an old tune.
to quote H. Allen Smith's PEOPLE NAMED SMITH: "Musicologists
have traced the air back to an old St. Cyr melody and have
found that at one time or another, it was in use in nine different
countries with nine different sets of words. The German
commposer Handel is said to have copied it from the St. Cyr meldoy and
made it into the Prussian national hymn "Heil dir im Siegerkranz."
It was in that incarnation that the British themselves appropriated
it."
Rev. Samuel Francis Smith, a Boston clergyman, was a writer of
hymns and "one day in 1832, while prowling through a stack of old
German music books, he came upon the Prussian song. One authority
says he was not aware that it was the tune of the British anthem."
He wrote "America ('My Country, 'Tis of Thee') to the melody.
"Some years later,...he said, 'If I had anticipated the future of
it, doubtless, I would have taken more pains with it.'"
Nitpick: A Parody has reference to the original lyrics
rather than merely using the same tune.
--Lee Gold
Mark A Mandel
Barry (no, Lee!) Gold (bg...@platinum.com) wrote:
: "Sam Hall" and "Mademoisella from Aremtnieres" aren't
: the same tune -- at least not the versions of them I
: sing & hear sung.
: --Lee Gold
The versions I know are actually pretty much the same, at least in the
first two lines, once you allow for the change in beat. Yeah, I'll buy
that.
-- Mark A. Mandel
FIJAGH
Now, *filking*, on the other hand...
--
Mark A Mandel
B.Swetman (bswe...@hamilton.edu) wrote:
[...]
: Back to my 1933 book, G.P. Jackson "White Spirituals of the Southern
: Uplands" where the words for the Family Bible are called a parody of the
: Old Oaken Bucket. [see below] It looks to me like an example of a
: secular text adapted for sacred use. Instead of ridicule, the object
: seems the reverse, to elevate the nostagic thoughts from the mundane
: world symbolized by the bucket to the moral and religious symbolized by
: the Bible.
: From Digital Traditions:
: OLD OAKEN BUCKET
: (Samuel Woodworth and George Kialmark)
: How dear to my heart are the scenes of my childhood
: When fond recollections presents them to view
: the orchard, the meadow, the deep tangled wildwood,
: And ev'ry loved spot which my infancy knew
[...]
: And The Family Bible (6 verses only v. 1 provided)
: Lyrics: Young's Christian Companion, 1826
: http://ccel.wheaton.edu/s/southern_harmony/sharm/sharm/hymn/t=The+Family+Bible.html
: 1. How painfully pleasing the fond recollection
: Of youthful connexion and innocent joy,
: While blest with parental advice and affection,
: Surrounded by mercy and peace from on high;
[...]
Hanging in my auto mechanic's office is a side-splitting (and
stomach-turning) parody, in the familiar sense, of "The Old Oaken Bucket".
It looks to be about 100 years old and is written from the point of view
of a "sanitarian", or sanitation specialist. If I can ever ask him to
unhook it long enough for me to make a copy I will.
Mark A Mandel
ghost (j...@deas.harvard.edu) wrote:
: In article <01bcf9a2$f1d445d0$7d07a8c2@rover> "pdraper"
<pdr...@baig.co.uk> writes:
[much flameage deleted]
: You don't need arguements about "who posted what" when you can just look
: it up in your saved files or via DejaNews.
: That's why I find these mistatements, by Berge, Wilton, Hawes etc of
what
: other people (such as I) said very perplexing.
: >Or are you just trolling?
: *You* may be.
This argument and these names have showed up on rec.music.filk only quite
recently, presumably with the cross-posting of the "Willie McBride"
thread. Most of us on rec.music.filk are, I think, unfamiliar with both,
and I for one do not care if I never hear any more of either.
(Followup set to rec.music.folk only. If the people there want to argue
there, it's none of my concern.)
Mark A Mandel
Gerry Myerson (NoJun...@this.address) wrote:
: No folk content below, usual apologies apply.
: In article <EK6HC...@world.std.com>, mam-DIE-S...@world.std.com
: (Mark A Mandel) wrote:
: -> Tim Shirley (Tim.S...@aph.gov.au) wrote:
: ->
: -> : What the $%#@! does sophomoric mean?
: ->
: -> This is not a highly learned, recondite, or erudite word. (Use your
: -> dictionary if you need to. You do have a dictionary, don't you?)
: You may have noticed the .au at the end of Tim Shirley's email address.
: That stands for Australia. If TS has The Macquarie Dictionary (very
: popular Down Here) he will find "sophomore" defined as a US term for a
: second-year student at university, and he will find the word "sophomoric"
: mentioned but not defined.
: His dictionary may not define "sophomoric;" yours may not define "drongo."
: No reason either way to insult people.
: Gerry Myerson (ge...@mpce.mq.edu.au)
I apologize to Tim and to anyone else I may have unintentionally offended
by that post. Living in the USA and not having had occasion to consult
Australian dictionaries (although it's not an unlikelihood in my line of
work), I did not realize that there were popular dictionaries that didn't
contain that definition.
-- Mark A. Mandel
Stephen Suffet
Mark A Mandel wrote:
>
> Barry (no, Lee!) Gold (bg...@platinum.com) wrote:
>
> : "Sam Hall" and "Mademoisella from Aremtnieres" aren't
> : the same tune -- at least not the versions of them I
> : sing & hear sung.
>
> : --Lee Gold
>
> The versions I know are actually pretty much the same, at least in the
> first two lines, once you allow for the change in beat. Yeah, I'll buy
> that.
>
> -- Mark A. Mandel
Dear Mark----
Hey, you're right! Try singing the following lines to both songs
and then figure out which you like better. :-)
Are you tired of this thread? So am I.
Are you tired of this thread? So am I.
I think I'll go with "Mademoiselle," but the choice ain't easy.
:-)
Regards,
Steve
Roger Gawley
On 25 Nov 1997, pdraper wrote:
> The term sophomore is used in the UK for a second year Bachelor's degree
> student. At Queen Mary College, at least, the first years were "freshers".
In most English universities, I think, hence the song and revue title
"Feel a little fresher".
Abby Sale
On Tue, 25 Nov 1997 01:26:54 GMT, mam-DIE-S...@world.std.com (Mark
A Mandel) wrote:
>Tim Shirley (Tim.S...@aph.gov.au) wrote:
>: I think I agree, however...
>
>: What the $%#@! does sophomoric mean? In English, please...if it relates to
>: the word sophomore, that is a term not generally used outside the US. It
>: means some species of University student, I believe?
>
>It looks as if the temperature of this thread is affecting you.
>
>"sophomoric: adj. ... 2. Exhibiting great immaturity or lack of
>judgement." -- American Heritage Dictionary
>
>This is not a highly learned, recondite, or erudite word. (Use your
>dictionary if you need to. You do have a dictionary, don't you?)
>
That's the only part of all this I agree with. Actually it's an excellent
word one can get lots of miles out of. It also occurs in my Chambers
English dictionary. It, and "sophomore" were once common in the UK, it
seems. Lose two points for unsophisticated word use. South Country or
not.
Anyway, look... Stop the flames, guys. All these people are knowledgable
and are losing a great deal of insight by petty-picking instead of reading
with wisdom and compassion. Flaming opinions is bad enough - delving into
off-topic personal life is simply reprehensible. Just stop.
I _never_ flame anyone, myself, and am invariably kind.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- ---
I am Abby Sale - abby...@orlinter.com (That's in Orlando)
Mark A Mandel
Roger Gawley (Roger....@durham.ac.uk) wrote:
"Fresher" almost certainly derives from "freshman", by the standard
English university slang procedure of taking the first syllable and adding
"-er(s)".
rugby -> rugger
breakfast -> brekker(s?)
Tolkien -> Tollers
[This last one took me a while to figure out. I don't remember whether it
was in a biography of him or of his friend and fellow-Inkling C.S.Lewis,
but the line referred to Lewis, in conversational debate, often prefacing
his disagreement with some point Tolkien had made, by saying, "Distinguo,
Tollers, distinguo!" ("Distinguo" being Latin for "I draw a distinction",
and I think its use here comes from formal debate.)]
-- Dr. Whom, Consulting Linguist, Grammarian, Orthoepist, and
Philological Busybody
a.k.a. Mark A. Mandel
Eddie L.
>>The use of "parody" in the broader sense is actually quite old. According to
>>the Harvard Brief Dictionary of Music:
>>
>> parody (Gr, imitated song). In modern usage, a satirical imitation of a
>> serious work, produced, e.g., by the substitution of a comical text or
>> by a caricaturing version of the music. In earlier practice the term
>> simply means reworking, without any satirical implication. See
>> Parody Mass.
On 24 Nov 1997 02:38:58 GMT, j...@deas.harvard.edu ( ghost ) wrote:
>This is what you get when you consult music dictionaries. Their definitions
>of "harmony" usually have no bearing on reality, either.
Then let us consult a non-musical dictionary.
Pa'rody n.s. [parodie, Fr. ,<some greek letters. pi alpha rho omega
delta iota alpha>] A kind of writing, in which the words of an author
or his thoughts are taken, and by a slight change adapted to some new
purpose.
The imitations of the ancients are added together with some of the
parodies and allusions to the most excellent of the moderns. Pope's
Dunciad.
To Pa'rody. v.a. [parodier, Fr. From parody.] To copy by way of
parody.
I have translated, or rather parodied, a poem of Horace, in which I
introduce you advising me. Pope.
A related definition:
Paro'nymous. Adj. [<some greek letters, pi alpha rho omega nu upsilon
mu omicron eta >] Resembling another word.
Shew your critical learning in the etymology of terms, the
synonimous and the paronymous or kindred names. Watts
Oh by the way who wrote this? Samuel Johnson
Source: "A Dictionary of the English Language", Samuel Johnson.
Mr. Johnson wrote this a mere three score decades prior to Key writing
his "parody". So he might have thought of it as a "parody" without
being humorous.
Using a late twentieth century dictionary to define the meaning of a
word used two centuries ago is like <um> using an equal tempered scale
for all folk music. :)
Now if someone can look up the use of "parody" as defined by Noah
Webster in his first dictionary (not a namesake ripoff) which I
believe was published in the very early 1800's, this is the closest
(in time) source I have.
Also, if a music dictionary is not to be believed for defining words
as used in music, then why believe anything written about music. Or
(assuming that the Harvard Brief Dictionary of Music was prepared by
Harvard or by someone associated with Harvard) if the Harvard Brief
Dictionary of Music is to be casually dismissed because a non-musical
dictionary disagrees with the musical definition, then anything
written at Harvard could also be just as easily dismissed.
Not withstanding the above, a Webster's New Twentieth Century
Dictionary (2nd ed, Simon and Schuster) adds something to the modern
definition not previously mentioned:
Par'o dy, n.; pl. par'o dies, [Fr parodie; Gr. Parodia; para and ode,
ode.]
1. Literary or musical composition imitating the characteristic
style of some other work or of a writer or composer, but treating a
seerious subject in a nonsensical manner in a attempt at humor or
ridicule.
2. A poor or weak imitation.
The second definition is certainly implies a critical review of a
"derived" work.
I can not wonder if most "parodies" as defined by Johnson were not
intended to be humorous, therefore, "parody" now implies humor or
satire. The English language also evolves as it passes by word of
mouth (akin to the Folk Tradition).
Anyone care to start a thread comparing how the printing of the
written language slowed down the rate of change of the English
language to what may happen to the rate of Folk music changes now that
is can be "written" in a recording?
The basis of this is that Shakespeare is easy to read, but the
Canterbury Tales, only 200 years early still, is relatively difficult
to read today without some notes (approximately a hundred years prior
to printing).
E. Lyons
Always store beer in a dark place.
Eddie L.
On 24 Nov 1997 02:38:58 GMT, j...@deas.harvard.edu ( ghost ) wrote:
< <text snipped>
<
<Margaret Bennet, a singer & song-collector raised on the Isle of
Lewis
<(Scottish Hebrides) gave a series of concerts in the Boston area a
year
<ago. At one of them she sang a song by Eric Bogle (the orginator the
song
<Suffet's song is an answer-song to, not a parody of, at least not by
<any use of the word "parody" known in modern English, which is what
when I
<last checked we were speaking here). She prefaced it by saying that
there
<was one word in the song she didn't agree with, so she'd changed it.
<
<At the end of the song (as you might predict) someone remembered to
ask
<what the changed word had been; it certainly hadn't been obvious.
<The song was a song narrated by an abused wife, & the refrain in
Bogle's
<original asks who would put up with this, & answers itself;
<"who but a silly woman". Bennet had changed "silly" to "weary".
<
< <text snipped> One of these <text snipped> students popped up & gave
a long, <long exposition on how in some form of archaic English,
"silly" & "weary" have <the same root, so that Bennet could be thought
to be saying the same thing as <Bogle. <text snipped>
<
Re: Origins of Silly and Weary
Again referring to Samuel Johnson:
Si'lly. Adj. [selig, German. Skinner.]
1. Harmless; innocent; inoffensive; plain; artless
2. Weak; helpless.
After long storms,
In dread of death and dangerous dismay,
With which my silly bark was tossed sore,
I do at length descry the happy shore. Spenser.
3. Foolish; witless.
Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep,
Was that did their silly thoughts so busy keep. Milton.
The meanest subjects censure the actions of the greatest prince;
the silliest servants, of the wisest master. Temple.
I have no discontent at living here; besides what arises from a
silly
spirit of liberty, which I resolve to throw off. Swift.
Such parts of writings as are stupid or silly, false or
mistaken, should
become subjects of occasional criticism. Watts.
So it has not been that long since "silly" included "Weary" as a
meaning.
Now a real question is: Do you change the words match the current
meanings? That is, ignore what you knew it was, and replace it with
what you think it should be. Or should you leave it as it was, and
explain to (educate or inform) the audience of the older definition.
I suppose it depends on whether you are trying to recreate an
historical display (performance) or are trying to just entertain. But
if you are learning a song and then singing your own version to
someone else who will do the same thing again, would this not be an
example of the "Oral Tradition" in progress?
Now Weary is included for completeness, read at your own risk:
Weary. Adj. [peniy <guessed at roman equivalent>, Saxon; wearen, to be
tired, Dutch]
1. Subdued by fatigue; tired with labour.
Fair Phoebus 'gan decline, in haste,
His weary waggon to the western vale. Spenser.
Gentle Warwick,
Let me embrace thee in my weary arms,
I, that did never weep, now melt with woe. Shakespeare.
I am weary, yea, my memory is tir'd:
Have we no wine here? Shakespeare.
An old man broken with the storms of state,
Is come to lay his weary bones among ye:
Give him a little earth for charity. Shakespeare.
Let us not be weary in well-doing. Gal. vi. 9.
Our swords so wholly did the fates employ,
That they at length grew weary to destroy;
Refus'd the work we brought, and out of breath,
Made sorrow and despair attend for death. Dryden.
2. Impatient of the continuance of any thing painful or irksome.
The king was as weary of Scotland, as he had been impa-
tient to go thither, finding all things proposed to him without
consideration of his honour or interest. Clarendon.
My hopes all flat, nature within me seems,
In all her functions, weary of herself.
3. Desirous to discontinue.
See the revolution of the times,
Make mountains level, and the continent
Weary of solid firmness, melt itself
Into the seas. Shakespeare's Henry IV.
4. Causing weariness; tiresome.
Their gates to all were open evermore
That by the weary way wee travelling,
And one fat waiting ever them before
To call in comers by that needy were and poor. Fa. Queen.
The weariest and most lothed life
That age, ach, penury, imprisonment,
Can lay on nature, is a paradise
To what we fear of death. Shakespeare.
Put on what weary negligence you please,
You and your fellows; I'd have it come to question. Shak.
Definitions from "A dictionary of the English Language", Samuel
Johnson.
Before someone asks why I frequently refer to Samuel Johnson's
definitions, well here it is:
Samuel Johnson was considered an author with few peers, and had
excellent grasp of the English language. Also, his definitions
include examples from the 1580's to 1660, providing examples of the
usage of the English language back 400 years. Often understanding
what a word has meant, provides insight into word usage today.
Besides, when reading (or listening to) folksongs from the past you
will encounter archaic usage of words.
Barry Gold
In article <EK8C8...@world.std.com:,
Mark A Mandel <mam-DIE-S...@world.std.com: wrote:
:Barry (no, Lee!) Gold (bg...@platinum.com) wrote:
:
:: "Sam Hall" and "Mademoisella from Aremtnieres" aren't
:: the same tune -- at least not the versions of them I
:: sing & hear sung.
:
:: --Lee Gold
:
:The versions I know are actually pretty much the same, at least in the
:first two lines, once you allow for the change in beat. Yeah, I'll buy
:that.
Oh, my name is Mademoiselle, Mademoiselle.
Oh, my name is Mademoiselle, Mademoiselle.
Oh, my name is Mademoiselle,
And you all can go to Hell.
Hinky-dinkey, parlez-vous.
??? !!! ???
--Lee Gold
M. Garvey
I am so glad we could provide you with nice songs.
mg
On 20 Nov 1997, Dick Wisan wrote:
> side of the English Channel. WWI is the perfect war for anti-war
> songs --well it was up to Vietnam. Do you hear many anti-WWII songs?
>
Peter Wilton
"Eddie L." <ell...@worldNOSPAMnet.dot.att.dot.net> writes
> 1. Literary or musical composition imitating the characteristic
>style of some other work or of a writer or composer, but treating a
>seerious subject in a nonsensical manner in a attempt at humor or
>ridicule.
Though dictionaries don't seem to include this, in musiic history, the term
"parody mass" is used to mean a series of mass ordinary movements
(Kyrie Gloria Creed Sanctus Agnus) which imitate the music of a
different kind of piece. Thus "Missa Doulce Memoire" is a series of
movement imitating the music of the chanson of that name. The term
here is *neutral*, merely descriptive of a compositional technique, and
does not imply humour, or making fun of the original piece.
--
Peter Wilton
The Gregorian Association Web Page:
http://www.beaufort.demon.co.uk/chant.htm
Peter Wilton
Mark A Mandel <mam-DIE-S...@world.std.com> writes
>This argument and these names have showed up on rec.music.filk only quite
>recently, presumably with the cross-posting of the "Willie McBride"
>thread. Most of us on rec.music.filk are, I think, unfamiliar with both,
>and I for one do not care if I never hear any more of either.
This argument has, however, nothing to do with the names attributed to it,
since I have certainly not participated in it, and George Hawes has
become so fed up with Ghost's misrepresentations that he has neither
posted nor read anything here for several months. To associate us with
this discussion is therefore in itself a "perplexing" misrepresentation.
Eddie L.
>"Eddie L." <ell...@worldNOSPAMnet.dot.att.dot.net> writes
>> 1. Literary or musical composition imitating the characteristic
>>style of some other work or of a writer or composer, but treating a
>>seerious subject in a nonsensical manner in a attempt at humor or
>>ridicule.
>
>Though dictionaries don't seem to include this, in musiic history, the term
>"parody mass" is used to mean a series of mass ordinary movements
>(Kyrie Gloria Creed Sanctus Agnus) which imitate the music of a
>different kind of piece. Thus "Missa Doulce Memoire" is a series of
>movement imitating the music of the chanson of that name. The term
>here is *neutral*, merely descriptive of a compositional technique, and
>does not imply humour, or making fun of the original piece.
>--
>Peter Wilton
>The Gregorian Association Web Page:
>http://www.beaufort.demon.co.uk/chant.htm
I was just trying to provide an historical basis that a parody (in the
musical sense as defined in the "Harvard Brief Dictionary of Music")
would have included any work that was an adaptation of an existing
work whether satirical or not. The definition provided by Johnson
does not require a parody to be satirical. Therefore it is believable
(or reasonable) that the musical definition of a parody today would
not have to be a satire. That would seem to agree with your point
about the parody mass.
The definition you referred was a modern definition of the general
usage today. That dictionary would not consider the specialized use
in music.
Peter Wilton
"Eddie L." <ell...@worldNOSPAMnet.dot.att.dot.net> writes
>The definition you referred was a modern definition of the general
>usage today. That dictionary would not consider the specialized use
>in music.
I have the complete Oxford English Dictionary, and am actually quite
surprised to find that it doesn't include this meaning, since it tries to be
wholly and comprehensively descriptive of all uses. The New Grove has
quite a long article on the history of a "neutral", rather than pejorative, use
of the term in music.
Tim Shirley
> >: What the $%#@! does sophomoric mean? In English, please...if it
relates to
> >: the word sophomore, that is a term not generally used outside the US.
It
> >: means some species of University student, I believe?
> >
> >It looks as if the temperature of this thread is affecting you.
It was a joke!...seriously, it was....(I can't spell "humour", either...)
tim
:)
Joe Kesselman, yclept Keshlam
This thread seems to have drifted far enough off topic for rec.music.filk
that I'd recommend taking that group out of your followups. Thanks...