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| Wildwood Flower - Folk Song Histories - General - ezFolk Forums | |||||||||||||||
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banjo brad Super Moderator 
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I am attaching a posting that came from the Banjo-L newsgroup about the song Wildwood Flower. It apparently had a different name when it was first published. Not a lot of history, but interesting background about the song. The lyrics are also included in the posting, for your perusal.  keep on pickin'brad Attachment: wildwood flwr.txt (Downloaded 72 times) Last edited on Tue May 18th, 2004 06:34 pm by banjo brad ____________________ ezFolk Help Brad Prickly Pear Music Banjo Brad's ezFolk page TOTMC |
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Richard Hefner Administrator 
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Brad... I'm posting the attachment so it'll be easier for people to see it. Hope that's okay. Here it is... Because Wildwood Flower is such a popular tune among bluegrassers, and so much misinformation exists about the tune and the original lyrics, I decided to pull the lyrics off the original sheet music. A friend of mine, John Baker, got a copy of it from the Library of Congress. The 1860 edition is missing from their catlog; however, the 1888 edition, which was submitted by J.P. Webster's widow is simply the 1860 edition with an overprint on it stating "copyright 1888 by Mrs. J.P. Webster." This was not an uncommon practice. The overprint is done with a different typeface from the rest of the sheet music. I am reasonably confident that this is the same as the 1860 edition for a number of reasons, which would take too much space to go into right here. The original name of the piece was I'll Twine 'Mid the Ringlets I'LL TWINE 'MID THE RINGLETS I'll twine 'mid the ringlets Of my raven black hair, The lilies so pale And the roses so fair, The myrtle so bright With an emerald hue, And the pale aronatus With eyes of bright blue. I'll sing, and I'll dance, My laugh shall be gay, I'll cease this wild weeping Drive sorrow away, Tho' my heart is now breaking, He never shall know, That his name made me tremble And my pale cheek to glow. I'll think of him never I'll be wildly gay, I'll charm ev'ry heart And the crowd I will sway, I'll live yet to see him Regret the dark hour When he won, then neglected, The frail wildwood flower. He told me he loved me And promis'd to love, Through ill and misfortune, All others above, Another has won him, Ah! misery to tell, He left me in silence No word of farewell. He taught me to love him, He call'd me his flower, That blossom'd for him All the brighter each hour; But I woke from my dreaming, My idol was clay; My visions of love Have all faded away. Maud Irving and J.P. Webster, © 1860. The odd capitalizations in the middle of the lines is the way the text appears on the original sheet music. The italics also appear there. The last two lines of each stanza are repeated. However, there is one other text that is earlier. This is the manuscript that Maud wrote for J. P. Irving. There are minor differences in this text. The manuscript version has "black raven hair" rather than "raven black hair," which scans better. Also the original manuscript is in 4/4 time, and the published version in 2/4 time.
____________________ Richard Hefner Webmaster, ezFolk.com MP3 Page: http://www.ezfolk.com/audio/richardhefner Running Blog: http://old-runner.com |
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Richard Hefner Administrator
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Thanks for sharing that Brad. I didn't know Wildwood Flower could be tracked that far back. I thought it was one of those songs that was just handed down over the years without a known author. Of course it's one of the most recognized tunes anywhere, and it's also a nice song to learn since it's easy to play as well. You hardly ever hear anybody sing the original lyrics. Woody Guthrie based "The Sinking of the Reuben James" on Wildwood Flower and that's what I had in mind when I wrote "Star Spangled Flower." It was just a couple of days after the World Trade Center attack and like thousands of other people who know 3 guitar chords I figured I might as well write a song about it. As I was trying to decide on a melody I noticed that some of the words of the "Star Spangled Banner" would fit the tune of Wildwood Flower, so my wife and I took the original verses of the Star Spangled Banner, which in many ways reminded us of the WTC attack, and rearranged some things and added others and came up with "Star Spangled Flower." If anybody wants to hear it here's a link: Lo-Fi (phone modems)... http://www.soundclick.com/util/streamM3U.m3u?ID=805709&q=Lo Hi-Fi (Cable or DSL)... http://www.soundclick.com/util/streamM3U.m3u?ID=805709&q=Hi There are also tablatures for most of the ezFolk instruments that can be found on the main pages in ezFolk or in the Master Song List. Here are the lyrics... Star Spangled Flower (c) 2001 -- Richard & Linda Hefner Oh say, can you see, by the dawn's early light, What so proudly we hailed, at the gleaming twilight, The rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night, that our flag was still there. And where is that band, who so vauntingly swore, 'Mid the battle's confusion and havoc of war, But conquer we must, for our cause it is just, And this be our motto, "In God is our trust!" No refuge could save, from the terror of flight, The foe's evil plan, turned the day into night. Midst the rubble arose, our great symbol of pride, Flying higher than ever, with God on our side. Oh say, does that Star Spangled Banner yet wave, With the cost of our freedom, the lives that they gave. You can hear 5000 voices, all shouting from the grave, It's still the land of the free and the home of the brave.
____________________ Richard Hefner Webmaster, ezFolk.com MP3 Page: http://www.ezfolk.com/audio/richardhefner Running Blog: http://old-runner.com |
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| ezFolk Forums > General > Folk Song Histories > Wildwood Flower | |
