two songs
Walter Felscher (walter.felscher@UNI-TUEBINGEN.DE)
Fri, 2 Oct 1998 19:14:36 +0200
In the following essay I report about things in memory, and some of
them do have a connection with WW2 . Please, throw it away if it is
to literary for your interest.
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Two Songs
Some weeks ago, whistling to myself, it suddenly occurred
to me that two different tunes contained a similar musical
phrase. When I recalled the lyrics of the songs to which the
tunes belonged,
Wildgaense rauschen durch die Nacht
and
Ghost riders in the Sky ,
my surprise grew because also the texts talked about quite
similar phenomena. This is what I want to report about in the
present article.
1.
To speak about the musical phrases first, they are
4 8 8 4 4 4 4 4 | length of note values
q q |
| relative hights
q q q q |
|
q q |
Wildgaense rauschen durch die Nacht |
and
4+ 8 8 4+ 4+ 2+ | length of note values
q. q. |
q. | relative heights
q. q q |
ghost riders in the sky |
So in the first tune, we have
tah - ta -ta tuh - tuh teh - teh - tah
and in the second
tuh - tu - tu teh - teh - tah ,
meaning that both tunes begin with a long-short-short phrase on
the same tone, and that in both the phrase is followed by an
exclamatory, held out phrase "teh - teh - tah"; the difference
being that in the first tune there is the intermediate
"tuh-tuh" belonging to the syllables of "rauschen".
Of course, this formal description may not convey much, and it
will useful to hear the tunes by playing them. Should you have
no piano at hand, you may fetch them as midi-files, the first
as http://ingeb.org/Lieder/wildgans.mid , the second e.g. as
http:/cybergreet.net/midi/Ghostriders.mid .
And these similarities of musical motifs can only be seen as
accidental. We are NOT comparing phrases invented by the same
man Wagner.
So much about the music.
2.
Man's lore is full of tales which view appearances in the skies
as carrying meanings beyond the obvious, and as enlivened by
beings which have come to be called supernatural. There are the
tales told around the warm stove, about the 'wild hunter'
traversing the skies in the nights of the aequinoctial storms
[and in the version I recall them, the evil force remained
amorphous, not made concrete by references to some 'devil'].
And from the times when history still was told in stories, some
accounts of the battle on the Catalaunic fields (between the
forces of Aetius and Attila: Chalons-sur-Marne, September 20, 451 )
ended with the report: so fierce was the fight that, when the
night broke, the corpses rose from the ground again, mounted
their horses, rode up into the skies and continued the battle
in the clouds.
Most grownups in our culture will have pictures such as these
available from images nourished during their childhood. Having
spent some years of my youth under the NS regime, I recall with
particular shudder some lines of an HJ-song "Ein junges Volk
steht auf" :
Vor uns marschieren mit aufgereckten Fahnen
die Toten, die Helden der jungen Nation.
Und ueber uns die Heldenahnen:
Deutschland, Vaterland, wir kommen schon.
The cult of death, and the heroic forefathers marching along
above in the skies.
3.
I remember the "Wildgaense" as a marching song, contained in
the school's songbook before 1945 , and at that time often
heard sung by soldiers or the HJ . The text,
Wildgaense rauschen durch die Nacht
mit wildem Schrei nach Norden.
Unstete Fahrt, habt acht, habt acht,
die Welt ist voller Morden.
Fahrt durch die nachtdurchwogte Welt,
graureisige Geschwader.
Fahlhelle zuckt und Schlachtruf gellt,
weit hallt und wogt der Hader !
Rausch zu, fahr zu, du graues Heer !
Rauscht zu, fahrt zu, nach Norden.
Fahrt ihr nach Sueden uebers Meer,
was ist aus uns geworden ?
Wir sind wie ihr ein graues Heer
und fahrn in Kaisers Namen
und fahrn wir ohne Wiederkehr
rauscht uns im Herbst ein Amen.
was written by Walter Flex, the tune by some Robert Goetz.
Flex lived from 1887 to 1917 when he fell on the German-Russian
front in Estland (Estonia). He was a schoolteacher and wrote
poetry and prose, published in the year of his death under the
title "Der Wanderer zwischen zwei Welten". He expressed his
patriotic convictions in the fashion of his day, in a manner
which today's reader is likely to call chauvinist (but he paid
with his life, while great poets, such as Hofmannsthal and
Rilke, hid away in the propaganda office of the war department).
This partly explains that during the 1920ies the poems of Flex
became objects of cultivation, by recital and performance, of
the various, florishing German right-wing associations - from the
Stahlhelm to the NS party, which latter continued the cult of
the fallen hero until 1945 .
Verses One and Two appear to be plain lyrics of nature, and it
is probably mainly due to the vigorous mood of the tune that
the first two lines of verse One have remained in common
memory. Verse Two appears to be particularly weak, achieving to
keep its rhythm only with help of artificial neologisms
(nachtdurchwogt, graureisig, Fahlhelle) - though we should
be aware that the formation of such forcibly contracted words
is characteristic also for the expressionist poets before 1914 :
Heym, Trakl, Stramm, Becher ...
Verses Three and Four set into connection the "grey army" of
geese with the grey army of soldiers. The bird's flight takes
place in spring, and so they are adreesed directly: what may
have become of us when you return in fall ? And should it be
that we now remain without return then, when you return, say an
'Amen' for us.
4.
The "Ghost riders" I remember as a popular song on the radio
during the later 1950ies and early 1960ies. Reception was not
always good, and the rather rapidly sung English words were hard
to capture; so what stayed in mind mainly was the haunting
refrain of "ghost riders in the sky" (as quoted above in 1.),
where, when it comes to the end of the last verse, the note for
"sky" was sung transposed one octave higher. Recorded with
hallback effects, the singers' voices slightly tremolating, it
still IS haunting my memories; hardly understanding the main
text, and knowing the military's brand of jocularity when it
talked about 'little boy' and 'fat man', one could even conceive
it as a chorus of pilots, under the direction of Sterling
Hayden as General Curtis D.Ripper. (Of that kind, at least, were
the pictures coming to mind when, walking the hallways of
Campbell Hall on October 27 , 1962, we looked at those
yellow-black signs above the arrows giving the direction to
the air-raid shelters.)
The "Ghost riders" may be characterized as a country ballad on
a text containing not too-impressive supernatural references:
A lone cowpoke went riding out
one dark and windy day,
Upon a ridge he rested
as he went along his way,
When all at once a mighty herd
of red eyed cows he saw,
A-plowin' through the ragged skies
and up a cloudy draw.
Yippee-yi-yo, yippee-yi, ghost herd in the sky.
Their brands were still on fire
and their hooves were made of steel,
Their horns were black and shiny
and their hot breaths he could feel,
A bolt of fear shot through him
as he looked up in the sky,
for he saw the riders comin' hard
and he heard their mournful cry.
Yippee-yi-yo, yippee-yi, ghost riders in the sky.
Their faces were gaunt, their eyes were blurred,
their shirts all soaked with sweat,
They're riding hard to catch that herd,
but they ain't caught 'em yet,
They're riding hard forever
on that range up in the sky,
for they've got to catch the devil's herd
as they ride up hill and cry.
Yippee-yi-yo, yippee-yi, ghost riders in the sky.
The cowpokes rode on past him
and he heard one call his name,
If you want to save your soul from hell
a-riding on a range,
Then cowboy change your ways today,
or with us you will ride,
A-trying to catch the devil's herd
across these endless skies.
Yippee-yi-yo, yippee-yi, ghost riders in the sky.
[ I am told that the "yippee-yi-yo, yippee-yi", familiar in this
type of cowboy song, refers to the howling of wolves and
coyotes, driving forward a herd of cattle they wish to attack.]
The song seems to have appeared first in 1949 ; there is a
record of a concert in NYC on may 28 of that year at which it
was sung by Sinatra. An acquaintance keeping an archive wrote
me that there it is listed as "by Stan Jones, 1949", but it is
not clear whether Jones wrote the text or set the musical
arrangement. He cannot be the composer: the tune goes back at
least to 1863 when it was sung to the text "When Johnny comes
marching home again". A recording by a group The Ramrods is
said to have achieved, in 1961, the place 30 on the charts of
popularity; it may be this performance which then went over the
airwaves also here in Europe.
In former times, when literacy was still an aim of public
education, ballads alone could acquire popularity: the Old
Mariner, the Charge of the Light Brigade, the numerous poems by
Kipling. It is quite unlikely that, in the America of the
1960ies, the text of the "Ghost riders" alone would have
acquired the immense popularity it achieved (it still can be
measured today by looking at the large number of variants and
parodies of the song: from "ghost chickens" to "ghost writers").
Rather, it was the conjunction of a highly singable tune
with the text, and particularly so in the refrain, which made
the song stick in memory. It remains, of course, a matter only
of conjecture to which extent this was effected also by the
haunted, apocalyptic mood evoked in the musical setting of the
refrain (and a mood which the parodies tried to escape from).
5.
The tune of the "ghost riders" appears to have been invented
1863 by Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore, upon a text said to be
written by some Louis Lambert:
When Johnny comes marching home again,
Hurrah! Hurrah!
We'll give him a hearty welcome then,
Hurrah! Hurrah!
The men will cheer, the boys will shout,
The ladies they will all turn out,
And we'll all feel gay
When Johnny comes marching home.
The old church bells will peal with joy,
Hurrah! Hurrah!
To welcome home our darling boy,
Hurrah! Hurrah!
The village lads and lassies say
With roses they will strew the way,
And we'll all feel gay
When Johnny comes marching home.
Get ready for the Jubilee,
Hurrah! Hurrah!
We'll give the hero three times three,
Hurrah! Hurrah!
The laurel wreath is ready now
To place upon his loyal brow,
And we'll all feel gay
When Johnny comes marching home.
Let love and friendship on that day,
Hurrah! Hurrah!
Their choicest treasures then display,
Hurrah! Hurrah!
And let each one perform some part
To fill with joy the warriors heart,
And we'll all feel gay
When Johnny comes marching home.
Gilmore is said to have been a bandmaster in the union army.
Still, it seems not quite clear to me whether "When Johnny
comes" started out with the union or with the confederate
forces; at the end of the war, apparently, it was sung on both
sides.
6.
There is an Irish song from about the same time of the 1860ies
whose first four lines seem to have been sung to the same tune
as "When Johnny comes" :
While goin' the road to sweet Athy, hurroo, hurroo
While goin' the road to sweet Athy, hurroo, hurroo
While goin' the road to sweet Athy
A stick in me hand and a drop in me eye
A doleful damsel I heard cry,
Johnny I hardly knew ye.
With your drums and guns and drums and guns, hurroo, hurroo
With your drums and guns and drums and guns, hurroo, hurroo
With your drums and guns and drums and guns
The enemy nearly slew ye
Oh my darling dear, Ye look so queer
Johnny I hardly knew ye.
Where are your eyes that were so mild, hurroo, hurroo
Where are your eyes that were so mild, hurroo, hurroo
Where are your eyes that were so mild
When my heart you so beguiled
Why did ye run from me and the child
Oh Johnny, I hardly knew ye.
Where are your legs that used to run, hurroo, hurroo
Where are your legs that used to run, hurroo, hurroo
Where are your legs that used to run
When you went for to carry a gun
Indeed your dancing days are done
Oh Johnny, I hardly knew ye.
I'm happy for to see ye home, hurroo, hurroo
I'm happy for to see ye home, hurroo, hurroo
I'm happy for to see ye home
All from the island of Sulloon
So low in flesh, so high in bone
Oh Johnny I hardly knew ye.
Ye haven't an arm, ye haven't a leg, hurroo, hurroo
Ye haven't an arm, ye haven't a leg, hurroo, hurroo
Ye haven't an arm, ye haven't a leg
Ye're an armless, boneless, chickenless egg
Ye'll have to put with a bowl out to beg
Oh Johnny I hardly knew ye.
They're rolling out the guns again, hurroo, hurroo
They're rolling out the guns again, hurroo, hurroo
They're rolling out the guns again
But they never will take our sons again
No they never will take our sons again
Johnny I'm swearing to ye.
It paints a stark picture of war's gruesome consequences, not
just the peaceful small-town mood, rejoicing in the survivor's
return.
7.
The circle closes back to our days, to leaders being demoted
for inappropriate affairs, and to liberation movements fighting
with guns and dynamiting gel. Charles Parnell (1846-1891) was
leader of the Irish National Party in Westminster parliament;
in December 1890, under the pressure of Gladstone, his party
voted him out of office for having been named in another man's
divorce suit. After a party split, John Redmont (1856-1918)
became his successor, first for the Parnellite faction and then
of re-united party. Shortly before WW1 , Redmont finally
succeeded to see a Home Rule Bill passed, and he then supported
the government's call for Irish volunteers. The following
parody, "Johnnie I hardly knew you" attacks Johnnie Redmont:
When goin' the road to Wexford town, Horoe, horoe,
When goin' the road to Wexford town, Horoe, horoe,
I met a man of great reknown
He was clad in a suit of khaki brown,
He loved me once but now did frown,
Johnnie I hardly knew ye.
With drums and guns etc.,
The English lords did woo you,
Oh darling dear you look so queer,
Oh Johnnie I hardly knew you!
Where is the Bill that looked so fair etc.
Where is the promised Bill so fair,
In which my dead sons were to share,
You drove them forth and did not care,
Since you their anguish would not share,
Oh Johnnie I hardly knew you!
You drove them forth to slay the Hun,
Yes every single mother's son,
Though a million English slackers run,
And all for this precious Bill you've won,
Och Johnnie I hardly knew you!
You're worse than famine in the land,
You're worse than famine in the land,
With lords and ladies so fine and grand,
To finish the Gaels you well have planned,
And leave for the Saxon your native land,
Och Johnnie I hardly knew you!
W.F.