Help: Origin of "Girl from the North Country"
Justin R. Bendich
by anyone in particular, or if it's just another folk song from ages ago?
"The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan" claims that Dylan wrote the song, but P. Townshend
recorded it later (on "Empty Glass"?) using a different tune and changing the
last line. That album claims the song is "Trad.", maybe arranged by Pete...
It's one of my favorite songs, in both the incarnations i've heard. Any other
recordings i should know about?
Post if you like, but PLEASE send me e-mail, as the volume in these groups is
too much for me!
--
+--------+
| Justin | Member SEFOMB (Society to Eliminate Fans Of Michael Bolton)
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Jack Lynch
JRB: Does anyone out there know whether "Girl from the North
Country" was written by anyone in particular, or if it's just
another folk song from ages ago?
Somewhere in between, I think. It's largely based on
"Scarborough Fair," a folk song, but Dylan's particular version
of it was inspired -- let's see whether I remember the details
(Craig?) -- by Suze Ritolo.
JRB: "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan" claims that Dylan wrote
the song, but P. Townshend recorded it later (on "Empty
Glass"?) using a different tune and changing the last line.
That album claims the song is "Trad.", maybe arranged by
Pete...
Townshend's "North Country Girl" (from _All the Best Cowboys Have
Chinese Eyes_, the album that followed _Empty Glass_) is an
adaptation of Dylan's song in the same way Dylan's song is an
adaptation of the folk song. The words are similar but not
exactly the same; the melody is very different. It's more than
"changing the last line" -- in fact the first line, "If you're
traveling in the green hills of Ayr," is different. The last
verse is very different: "That way up there near the Roman Wall
[a reference, probably, to Hadrian's Wall in Yorkshire] / She
didn't suffer when the fallout sprayed."
JRB: It's one of my favorite songs, in both the incarnations
i've heard. Any other recordings i should know about?
Simon & Garfunkel's "Scarborough Fair" is the obvious one.
-- Jack Lynch; jly...@english.upenn.edu
Mark Filteau
>"The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan" claims that Dylan wrote the song, but P. Townshend
>recorded it later (on "Empty Glass"?) using a different tune and changing the
>last line. That album claims the song is "Trad.", maybe arranged by Pete...
it was "north country girl" on his _all the best cowboys have chinese eyes_
album.
>+--------+
>| Justin | Member SEFOMB (Society to Eliminate Fans Of Michael Bolton)
>+--------+
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All rights reserved, without prejudice, UCC 1-207
Mark L. Filteau <mfil...@netcom.com>
Gary Martin
JRB: It's one of my favorite songs, in both the incarnations
i've heard. Any other recordings i should know about?
Simon & Garfunkel's "Scarborough Fair" is the obvious one.
Which is apparently an uncredited ripoff of Martin Carthy's arrangement.
It's on his eponymous 1965 Topic album, recently reissued on CD.
And Nancy Kerr does a "Northumbrianised" version that she got from
her mother, under the title "Whittingham Fair", on her album with Carthy's
daughter Eliza. She says that it can be found in _Folk Songs of the
North Countrie_ by Frank Kidson and Alfred Moffat under the "Scarborough
Fair" title.
--
Gary A. Martin, Assistant Professor of Mathematics, UMass Dartmouth
Mar...@cis.umassd.edu
Majjick
mar...@corona.cis.umassd.edu (Gary Martin) writes:
> Simon & Garfunkel's "Scarborough Fair"... is apparently an uncredited
> ripoff of Martin Carthy's arrangement
Yes indeed. Simon was in England at the time this song was in Carthy's
repertoire.
Bob Dylan at least had the grace to acknowledge Carthy's contribution
(on "Freewheelin")...
Michael Ross
From Paul Williams' "Performing Artist": "The girl from the north
country has been widely assumed to be Echo Helstrom, Dylan's high school
girlfriend, but <Robert> Shelton <in "No Direction Home"> believes Dylan
was thinkinh about Bonny Hean Beecher, whom he'd known in Minneapolis."
--
m...@teleport.COM Public Access User --- Not affiliated with Teleport
Public Access UNIX and Internet at (503) 220-1016 (2400-14400, N81)
Carl D. Neiburger
>Does anyone out there know whether "Girl from the North Country" was written
>by anyone in particular, or if it's just another folk song from ages ago?
While the words that Dylan created for the song are recent, the general
form is quite old -- Child ballad No. 2, "The Elfin Knight," commonly
known as "Scarborough Fair."
In the original, a wise virgin successfully defeats a diabolical would-be
seducer: She agrees to be his lover if he will first complete some
impossible tasks. The words are complete with some salacious jests
and double-entendres. More recent versions of the song have lost the
original plot and the jokes and consist only of an introductory verse and
an enumeration of impossible tasks. The introduction typically goes:
And be ye going to Scarborough Fair?
Savory, sage, rosemary and thyme.
Remember me to one who lives there.
He was once a true love of mine.
Dylan and/or his collaborators seem to have turned "Scarborough Fair"
into "North Country Fair" and gone on from there.
-- Carl Neiburger ( ca...@netcom.com )
Freedom Spirit Rising
Isn't that "parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme"? They are all
herbs...don't think Savory is an herb...
Peace-
Freedom
--
"...a kaleidoscope of colors, you can toss her around and 'round,
you can keep her in your vision, but you'll never keep her down.
She's a lover, she's a mother, she's a friend and she's a wife...
and she's a sparrow when she's broken, but she's an Eagle when she flies."
David Wald
In article <carlnCu...@netcom.com> ca...@netcom.com (Carl D.
Neiburger) writes:
>While the words that Dylan created for the song are recent, the general
>form is quite old -- Child ballad No. 2, "The Elfin Knight," commonly
>known as "Scarborough Fair."
>The introduction typically goes:
>
> And be ye going to Scarborough Fair?
> Savory, sage, rosemary and thyme.
> Remember me to one who lives there.
> He was once a true love of mine.
In article <3276nu$g...@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu> fre...@prairienet.org
(Freedom Spirit Rising) writes:
>
>Isn't that "parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme"? They are all
>herbs...don't think Savory is an herb...
Don't get too hung up on the exact words; this is a folk song in the
purest sense, and a wide-spread one at that. Just picking through the
versions of the Elphin Knight that Bronson listed (and I assume Child
listed even more) I find:
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
Savory, sage, rosemary and thyme
Savoury sage, rosemary and thyme
Rue, parsley, rosemary and thyme
Sether wood, sale, rosemary and thyme
Save rosemary and thyme
Rosemary and thyme
Rozz-marrow and time
Rose Mary in time
Rose de Marian Time
So sav'ry was said come marry in time
Every rose grows merry in time
Every rose grows bonny in time
Every rose grows merry and fine
Every leaf grows many a time
May ev'ry rose bloom merry in time
Let ev'ry rose grow merry in time
Every globe goes merry in time
As every plant grows merry in time
Sing Ivy Leaf, Sweet William and Thyme
O yes she said Sweet William and time
Whilst every grove rings with a merry antine
Green grows the merry antine
And those are just the ones that rhyme. There are also such wonders
as:
The broom grows bonnie, the broom grows fair
Sing Hey sing Ho sing ivy
Sing ivy, sing ivy
Sing ovy, sing ivy
There goes this ivery
Ba-ba-ba leelie ba
Blow, blow, blow, ye winds, blow
Fum-a-lum-a-link, sup-a-loo-my-nee
Hickalack, tickalack, farmalack-a-day
Keedle up, a keedle up a-turp, turp tay
and
Fellow ma la cus lomely
-David
--
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David Wald http://theory.lcs.mit.edu/~wald/ wa...@theory.lcs.mit.edu
"Blessed are the peacocks, for they shall be called sonship of God"
-- Matt 5:9, from a faulty QuickVerse 2.0
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Gary Martin
Eureka! I think you just found the original Mondegreen File!
I propose a new refrain for today's smart shopper:
Safeway! Save! Tommorrow at nine!
S. J. Bale
: exactly the same; the melody is very different. It's more than
: "changing the last line" -- in fact the first line, "If you're
: traveling in the green hills of Ayr," is different. The last
: verse is very different: "That way up there near the Roman Wall
: [a reference, probably, to Hadrian's Wall in Yorkshire] / She
: didn't suffer when the fallout sprayed."
Actually, for the purposes of accuracy, it's not in Yorkshire, but crosses
the country largely in Northumbria and Cumbria.
Simon
Carl D. Neiburger
>Isn't that "parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme"? They are all
>herbs...don't think Savory is an herb...
According to Webster's New World Dictionary:
"Savory: any of a genus of aromatic mints, esp. summer savory and
winter savory, both native to Europe and used in cooking."
By the way, the reason for the litany of herbs is that each is supposed
to represent a trait, vice or virtue. For example, rosemary, as
Shakespeare tells us in "Hamlet," is for remembrance. Sage is wisdom and
thyme is virginity. So "sage, rosemary and thyme" can be decoded as, "be
wise, remember your virginity," an appropriate moral for the song.
I'm not sure what savory represents, but perhaps someone who knows more
about herbal lore can fill us in.
Freedom Spirit Rising
In a previous article, ca...@netcom.com (Carl D. Neiburger) says:
OKAY! I GIVE UP!!! I was just tired, it was late, I was bored, and
thought I'd try to help! Sorry! (I have never heard any other version,
than Simon and Garfunkle's...there!) :).
A.J. DAVIS
>Isn't that "parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme"? They are all
>herbs...don't think Savory is an herb...
Sure it is - there are two forms Winter savory and Summer savory - grow
them in the garden and use them all the time :-)
but why should they be all herbs ? any ideas ?