We all know that just about any Emily Dickenson poem can be sung to the tune of “Yellow Rose of Texas,” but did you know that Robert Service’s “Cremation of Sam McGee” can be sung to the tune of “Star of the County Down.”
Try it with some representative verses –
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
When I cremated Sam McGee.
. . . .
Some planks I tore from the cabin floor, and I lit the boiler fire;
Some coal I found that was lying around, and I heaped the fuel higher;
The flames just soared, and the furnace roared—such a blaze you seldom see;
And I burrowed a hole in the glowing coal, and I stuffed in Sam McGee.
. . . .
Then I made a hike, for I didn’t like to hear him sizzle so;
And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow.
It was icy cold, but the hot sweat rolled down my cheeks, and I don’t know why;
And the greasy smoke in an inky cloak went streaking down the sky.
. . . .
And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;
And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said: “Please close that door.
It’s fine in here, but I greatly fear you’ll let in the cold and storm—
Since I left Plumtree, down in Tennessee, it’s the first time I’ve been warm.”
Granted, this is nowhere near as interesting as Hilary’s campaign finances or Shrub flim-flamming the American public about Iraq or even as interesting as a dead bird, but it is has kept me amused all day.
While it may fit from the standpoint of meter, that tune is completely unsuited to the creepy, but ultimately bizarrely rewarding “Cremation.”
(I spent my early childhood trying to escape my grandfather’s attempts to read me that poem–I know it well.)
I’ll try to think of another tune.
Of course, it is. That’s what makes it fun. Try singing it out loud in 4/4 A mixolydian. It has a certain modal charm. Sing the sizzle part with real feeling; it’s the most beautiful part of the whole piece.
You can try, but you’re running the risk of taking this way too seriously.
I did. It was nowhere near as much fun. Raglan Road is in a major key – too upbeat.
Those who are having trouble getting into it might warm up with a couple of stanzas of Emily D/Yellow Rose.
This is my letter to the world,
That never wrote to me,—
The simple news that Nature told,
With tender majesty.
Her message is committed
To hands I cannot see;
For love of her, sweet countrymen,
Judge tenderly of me!
Ooops, my mistake. I miscounted the whistle holes, and I’m not doing it in A, I’m doing it in some flavor of B. Some modal flavor of B, so let’s run through the modal chart . . . Ionian, Dorian, Cambrian, Silurian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, Devonian . . . That’s it – B Aeolian.
My apologies for any confusion this may have caused.
No doubt you also then know the version of Spenser’s The Faerie Queene set to “She’s Coming 'Round the Mountain,” repeating the last line, of course. Few settings do as well to capture the agrarian essense of the Spenserian stanza, with the lines representing ploughed furrows. Ah, brings back the days when I used to sing it to my kids. They especially liked Book VI (Canto 10). How we’d giggle!
There you go. Set it a little bit north of adagio, maybe 1/4 note = 84.
And now I must go work on my current project – setting The Wasteland to the tune of Rocky Road to Dublin, which works pretty well if you don’t mind tossing in the occassional la-di-da-di to smooth everything out. Eliot was, I am sure, a fine fellow, but he had no concept of rhythm.
April’s the cruelest month
La-di_da-di-da-di
Mixing the la-di lilacs
La-di-da-di dead land.
Good Lord. I just tried “Whan that Aprille with his Shoures Sote” rapwise. Swych an Hippe-hoppe delyveraunce was nefer afore given triall in my thoucht.
I have been working on a Sean nos Opera based on Paradise Lost.
The main problem I have is in trying to dumb it down enough for Broadway promoters. I sent a demo disc to La Scala but not one of them Italians,for all their culture, can speak a word of Gaelic.
I might have to look into an alternative musical setting..
Yodelling springs to mind..
Ach!!! Essence, I mean! I got a little carried away, I guess, with being too careful not to put the c in Spenser!
retires in shame from principal’s position in online Proofreading Academy for Phishers
Carol
PS Dub, don’t be discouraged. Sometimes an idea is just so brilliant that it blinds the eyes of those used to seeing only the obvious. And btw–gonzo, this is for you too, though of course Dub is the Yeats guy–what would you think of a new movie, along the lines of Barber Shop and Barber Shop 2 (and now I guess there’s even Beauty Shop), but, you know, popularizing it a bit, maybe calling it “Foul Rag and Bone Shop”? Think there’d be an audience? I’ve kinda scratched out the screen play but I just don’t know…
