Rounds

I thought I would start posting lists occasionally, breaking down the big list of camp songs into smaller groupings. This could be useful if someone's looking for a specific type of song. Let's get right to it with our first list: rounds.

A round is a song that can overlap with itself and create interesting rhythms and harmony.

Chairs to Mend

Donkeys are in Love with Carrots

Hi Ho (Nobody Home)

Kookaburra

Little Tommy Tinker

Make New Friends

Music Alone

Oh How Lovely is the Evening

One Dark Night

Our Paddles

Rose

To Stop the Train

Wha' Saw the 42nd

When You Hear a Cannon

Did I forget any? Are there any that you like that are not part of the Camp Ajawah list on the home page?

Edelweiss - Song # 32

No doubt most people are familiar with "Edelweiss" from the classic musical, "The Sound of Music." Richard Rodgers composed a brilliantly simple melody for Oscar Hammerstein II's lovely lyrics. If you didn't know better, you might believe it to be a old Austrian folk song. And thus it works very well as a summer camp song - more for the evening campfire than for the rowdier post-meal sing-a-longs in the mess hall.

It was the last song Rodgers and Hammerstein composed together. It appears twice in the film; near the end when the Von Trapp family sings it at the festival as a patriotic hymn, rousing the audience to join them. Good as that scene is, I prefer the first time it appears - when the children learn that their father knows how to play the guitar. He simply strums a few chords and tenderly sings to the children.

So - how about a few other versions of the song? Here is one by a popular Iranian singer who performs it as a protest against the current regime, just as Georg sang it to protest the Nazis:

And here is a link to a young girl who sang it on Britain's Got Talent and broke down in the middle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2SxoBTkfNQ

She did get a second chance - thanks to none other than Simon Cowell himself...

More sloop

The Sloop John B has had a fine run in pop music, as evidenced by my previous post. But it's a traditional song - and from the Caribbean, which is less common for songs we sang at Camp Ajawah. Nassau town refers to the Bahamas, of course. My main question - was there a real Sheriff John Stone?

The song worked at camp for a number of reasons. The melody is catchy and the lyrics easy to learn. "I want to go home" resonates with the homesickness most campers feel from time to time. The captain's trunk is mentioned, and most campers brought their clothes to camp in a trunk. And who can't help but think of the camp's cook while singing "The poor cook he had fits, ate up all of my grits, then he took and he at up all of my corn." Never had grits at camp, but we did have plenty of corn.

I did find this parody online:

SLOOP JOHN A

We looked for the Sloop John A; We looked for it all day;
Round Nassau Town we did roam,
A man on the pier, Said it wasn't here;
We didn't find it, And then we went home.

Where can the John A be? Maybe the A's at sea;
We had a good look round, Then we went home.
Then we went home, We had to go home.
We didn't find it And then we went home.

The first mate was not there, Maybe he was elsewhere;
Maybe he was on board the Sloop John A;
Wherever he was, We didn't meet him because
We didn't find it, And then we went home.

Where can the John A be? Maybe the A's at sea;
We had a good look round, Then we went home,
Then we went home, We had to go home.
We didn't find it, And then we went home.

The day was a non-event, It seemed the A had went;
Then they told us that there's another called B.
B was OK; I had my heart set on A;
We didn't find it, And then we went home.

Where can the John A be? Maybe the A's at sea;
We had a good look round, Then we went home
Then we went home, We had to go home. I wanna go home.
We didn't find it, And then we went home.

Lyrics: Les Barker, published in 'Sitting With My Dog On Display'.
Recorded by David Knutsen on Tubular Dogs (catalogue no: Dog013)"

Back to the actual song, Carl Sandberg wrote that he was told the "weathered ribs of the historic craft lie imbedded in the sand at Governor's Harbor" in Nassau. Already by 1927 "Time and usage have given this song almost the dignity of a national anthem around Nassau."

Another interesting tidbit: "I've heard from one knowledgeable source that the bad things that happen on that sloop are all the result of naming the boat "John B." In Afro-Caribbean culture, nobody with a surname beginning with "B" (supposedly) will name a son "John," because the result ("John B." sounds too much like "jumby" -- a west African (Wolof/Bambera) term referring to this undead thing we've anglicized to "zombie" -- apparently it won't do to mention these creatures; "speak of the devil," and all that."

The lyrics in versions in the first part of the 20th Century are fairly close to the Beach Boys' version, with slight variations here and there. The Weavers had a hit with the song in the early 1950s. Some versions say "Mr. Johnstone" rather than "Sheriff Johnstone," so it seems unlikely there was really a lawman of that name.

Bob Marley's "I Shot The Sheriff" seems distantly related - both songs are from the Caribbean, feature someone's travails, and have a sheriff. Loose thread, I know...

Sloop John B - Song #31

From trains (last posts) to boats. Here are four pop versions, all of them good, demonstrating the Sloop John B's enduring allure:

Can't you hear the captain shouting?

Maybe you can't hear the captain shouting, but here you can hear three very different versions of "I've Been Working on the Railroad."

I've Been Working on the Railroad - Song #30

IBWOTR is one of those songs that everyone, even if they have never gone to summer camp or been a member of a youth group, etc. seems to know at least in part. Maybe they learned it in elementary school or heard it in old cartoons. But it's a song everyone seems to sing exactly the same, unlike many songs I've blogged about.

Train songs have a rich tradition and we sang a number of them at Camp Ajawah - at least the boys did.

I've been working on the railroad
All the livelong day
I've been working on the railroad
Just to pass the time away

Can't you hear the whistle blowing
Rise up so early in the morn
Can't you hear the captain shouting
Dinah, blow your horn

Dinah, won't you blow
Dinah, won't you blow
Dinah, won't you blow your horn
Dinah, won't you blow
Dinah, won't you blow
Dinah, won't you blow your horn

Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah
Someone's in the kitchen I know
Someone's in the kitchen with Dinah
Strumming on the old banjo, and singing

Fie, fi, fiddly i o
Fie, fi, fiddly i o
Fie, fi, fiddly i o
Strumming on the old banjo

I have two questions: who is Dinah? And is this song indeed from the 1800s? Did rail workers sing it? Is it of African American origins? Or was it a commercial composition?

Yes, that's more than two questions, but the last three are variations on the second questions. I just want to find the origins.

Dinah - there is speculation that it's "diner" with a southern accent. Dinah blowing her horn = dining car calling workers to lunch. Or maybe Dinah was the cook. Or "dinner." Maybe blowing her horn was a variation of Gabriel blowing his horn (from The Eyes of Texas are Upon You, which has the same melody as the first part of IBWOTR).

Gargoyle at mudcat.org writes:

"Dinah - short for dynamite.

Kitchen - the engineer's cab of a steam locomotive

Banjo - short handled shovel"

Origins - First appeared in print in 1894 at Princeton, but otherwise the roots are somewhat murky, which is not unusual for folk music. It is likely two or three songs combined - a variation of "I've Been Working on the Levee" and "Dinah."

Strumming on the old banjo may mean stirring food in the frying pan.

Doodle Doo Doo - Song #29

Another girls camp song I had not remembered until recently, Doodle Doo Doo is one that seemed not to be a folk song, as it had more of a 1920s love song air, at least to me. The way we sung it, there were hand motions... something like clapping both hands twice on one's thighs, followed by two hand claps, a couple of finger snaps interspersed with claps, and then some twirling of the hands around each other. Not the most masculine thing to do - nor is the song in the vein of murder, train crashes, and marching to war - so maybe that's why it never crossed over to boys camp. But it's a nice enough melody.

At Camp Ajawah, it was pronounced "Doodle-ee Doo," but a little research turned up the correct title, as indeed my hunch that it's not a traditional song was right.

From 1924 (we only sang the chorus):

Writers: Art Kassel & Mel Stitzel

I've just heard a melody
That is always haunting me
Funny little strain
Running thru my brain
It's as sweet as can be
It has such a pleading way
Tho' it's with me night an day
When I hear someone playing
I walk right up an say

CHORUS
Please play for me
That sweet melody
Called doo-dle doo-doo
doo-dle doo-doo
I like the rest
But what I like best
Is doo-dle doo-doo doo-dle doo-doo
Simplest thing
There's nothing much to it
Don't have to sing it
Just doo-dle doo-doo it
I love it so
Wherever I go
I doo-dle doo
doo-dle doo doo doo

I've heard all the melodies
From the blues to rhapsodies
They all come and go
But there's one I know
That'll linger and tease
I've found all the blues a pest
Rhapsodies to me a jest
So if you want to please me
Just take this one request