Email from Pete
The "campsite" (clever, eh?) continues to grow and look better and better. Of course, so does the pile beside your computer of great photos and interesting tales from a variety of former Clarkites, I suppose, as the word spreads. Great work, Wayne! Be looking for some photos and material from Clayt Farnham, if you have not already received stuff from him as yet. He and I and Joe Larson have been bouncing around camp songs and lyrics lately.
Clayt, Joe and I continue to try to recall songs that rang through the mess hall rafters in days gone by. The results to date are included in the attached "Singalong" file.
Maybe you'd like to invite all your visitors to share songs that they recall and enjoyed that aren't on the list. (For example, I know that we left "Bill Grogan's GoaT" out - which has a favorite of the ganbg from the Middlebush, NJ area. I simply don't remember the words.
On a side note(!) - for the benefit of new campers, former Camp Director Paul Favor (1940s) would always get up after the first Sunday evening meal of each period and announce, "Welcome to Camp Clark. You should know that Camp Clark is a singing camp and is one of the best singing camps anywhere!" Then he'd get everyone singing some of his personal favorites - like "Oh, How Lovely is the Evening" and "Down by the Station."
Anyway, keep on doing your good thing - it's great fun to hear from fellow campers and staff after all the passing decades.
Pete
Pete Mandell
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To:
Pete, Joe and Clayt
Here are a couple I remember. I will work at adding the words
1. There is a hole in the bottom of the sea
2. There is a hole in the bucket.
Now for Bill Grogan's Goat
Bill Grogan's Goat.... here is what I remember right off the top of my head.
Bill Grogan's Goat
Was feeling fine
Ate three red shirts right off the line
..... (here is where I choke)
da da da da dah dah dah
Not much help but the tune is in my head ...... Thank you very much!
Wayne
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From Pete, Joe and Clayt -- Great work gentlemen !!
CAMP CLARK SONGS
Oh, How Lovely Is the Evening, is the evening
When the bells are softly ringing, softly ringing
Ding… dong… ding… dong…ding… dong.
[Sung as a round – like “Row, row, row your boat…” three times]
Traditional German Round
John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt -
That’s my name, too.
Whenever I go out,
The people start to shout:
There goes John Jacob
John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt
Da,da, da ,da, da, da,da, da!
[Sung three times through, each time softer than the one before, BUT the final “Da,da..etc.” is very loud]
Show me the Scotsman who doesn’t love the thistle,
Show me the Englishman who doesn’t love the rose.
Show me the loyal son of Camp Clark who doesn’t love the spot…
[stomp, stomp, stomp] Where the Lawrence waters flow.
Words adapted for school songs by Springfield College and Utah State University
Three Jolly Fishermen
There were three jolly fishermen
There were three jolly fishermen
Fisher, fishermen, men, men
Fisher, fishermen, men, men
There were three jolly fishermen
The first one's name was Abraham
The first one's name was Abraham
Abra, Abra, ham, ham, ham
Abra, Abra, ham, ham, ham
The first one's name was Abraham
The second one's name was Isaac
The second one's name was Isaac
I, I, zak, zak, zak
I, I, zak, zak, zak
The second one's name was Isaac
The third one's name was Jacob
The third one's name was Jacob
Ja, Ja, cub, cub, cub
Ja, ja, cub, cub, cub
The third one's name was Jacob
They all sailed up to Jericho
They all sailed up to Jericho
Jeri, Jeri, co, co, co
Jeri, Jeri, co, co, co
They all sailed up to Jericho
They should have gone to Amsterdam
They should have gone to Amsterdam
Amster, Amster, sh, sh, sh
Amster, Amster, sh, sh, sh
They should have gone to Amsterdam
Oh, the noble Duke of York, he had ten thousand men.
He marched them up the hill and marched them down again. [stand up and sit down, with lyrics]
And when you’re up, you’re up, and when you’re down, you’re down, [up and down, with the lyrics]
And when you’re only half way up, you’re neither up or down! [again, match the lyrics]
Down By the Old Mill Stream
[First time through, sing song slowly WITHOUT the words in parentheses, but with action visuals:]
“Down” [point thumb down] “by” [wave bye-bye] “the old” [stroke beard] “mill” [rotate hand like mill wheel] “stream” [hand flutters like waves in stream]; “Where I” [point to your eye]….etc.
[Second time through, sing much faster, add the material in parentheses and use actions:]
Down by the old (not the new but the old)
Mill stream (not the river but the stream),
Where I first (not the last but the first)
Met you. (Not me but you.)
With your eyes (not your ears, but your eyes)
Of blue (not green, but blue).
Dressed in ging- (not silk but ging-) -ham too. (Not one but two.)
And it was there (not here, but there),
I knew (not old, but new)
That you loved (not hated, but loved)
Me too. (Not one but two.)
You were sixteen (not seventeen, but sixteen)
My village queen! (Not the king, but the queen).
Down by the old (not the new, but the old),
Mill stream (not the river, but the stream). [sing the final phrase “not the river but the stream” very slowly and with lots of harmony]
Written by Tell Taylor 1910. Lyrics and music on many web sites
I come to the garden alone
While the dew is still on the roses
And the voice I hear falling on my ear
The Son of God discloses.
(Refrain)
And He walks with me, and He talks with me,
And He tells me I am His own;
And the joy we share as we tarry there,
None other has ever known.
[There are two more verses, which we never used at Clark – see:
The Itsy Bitsy Spider . [a.k.a. ”The Gol-Darned Spider”]
The itsy bitsy spider went up the water spout
Down came the raining, and washed the spider out.
Out came the sunshine, and dried up all the rain
And itsy bitsy spider went up the spout again.
Do your ears hang low? Do they wobble to and fro?
Can you tie 'em in a knot? Can you tie 'em in a bow?
Can you throw 'em over your shoulder, Like a Continental soldier?
Do your ears hang low?
Music and lyrics at: www.scoutsongs.com/lyrics/earshanglow.html
“Push the Damper In.” (Larson’s imitation of Hannum leading this song is a classic, not to be missed)
Oh, you push the damper in - And you pull the damper out
And the smoke goes up the chimney just the same
Just the same, just the same
And the smoke goes up the chimney just the same
“Down By The Station”
Down by the station, early in the morning
See the little pufferbellies all in a row.
See the engineer-driver push the little valve down.
Choo choo, woo woo, off they go!
“Brightly Beams Our Father’s Mercy” Lower Lights. 8,7,8,7
Brightly beams our Father’s mercy from His lighthouse evermore,
But to us He gives the keeping of the lights along the shore.
Refrain:
Let the lower lights be burning! Send a gleam across the wave!
Some poor fainting struggling sea-man, You may rescue, you may save.
Dark the night of sin has settled, Loud the angry billows roar;
Eager eyes are watching, longing, For the lights along the shore.
Refrain
Trim your feeble lamp, my brother; Some poor sailor, tempest-toss’d,
Trying now to make the harbor, In the darkness may be loast.
Refrain
Music and words by Philip P. Bliss, 1877, Pilgrim Hymnal
Words adapted by Amherst College (under the title, “Paige’s Horse”) to tell the story of two students who rented a horse and sleigh to go to see the girls at Smith College in Northampton and on their return upset the horse and sleigh in a snow bank and were guided back to college by the beam from their roommate’s study lamp. Music and words at: https://www.amherst.edu/users/L/salangford63/Songs#paige's horse
“Follow the Gleam”
To the knights in the days of old, keeping watch on the mountain height,
Came a vision of Holy Grail and a voice to the waiting knights:
“Follow, follow, follow the Gleam, banners unfurled, o’er all the world;
Follow, follow, follow the Gleam of the chalice that is the Grail.
[2nd and 3rd stanzas not used at Clark:
And we who would serve the King, And loyally Him obey,
In the consecrate silence know, That the challenge still holds today:
“Follow, follow, follow the Gleam, Standards of worth o’er all the earth,
Follow, follow, follow the Gleam, Of the Light that shall bring the dawn.”]
(Here’s an interesting story on the song’s origin, by a blogger from upstate NY named Kihn Winship.)
In 1920, Sallie Hume Douglas, a widowed, 53-year-old teacher from Honolulu, and Helen Hill, a student from Bryn Mawr College (Class of ’21), met at the Silver Bay Association on Lake George, in New York. The occasion was a YWCA conference; one of the many activities that summer was a song competition.
Sallie Hume Douglas was something of a hobbyist in song writing. She had published her “Garden of Paradise: Hawaiian Love Song” in 1915, and “Her Pink Mumu” in 1916.
Having heard of the song contest, Douglas was probably on the prowl for a lyricist with whom she could collaborate and perhaps even win. She found Helen Hill. As it turned out, both women were interested in the Arthurian legends, and familiar with Tennyson’s 1889 poem, “Merlin and the Gleam,” about the quest for the Holy Grail.
Their song was the contest winner, and more. It became an anthem that closed every YWCA gathering, sung at the end of vespers, sung by soloists, sung by the assembled masses, sung at girl’s camps all over the country, even today.
Before she died in 1944, Sallie Hume Douglas said that “Follow the Gleam” was the high point of her life. However, Helen Hill Miller once offered to pay the YWCA if they would remove her name from the piece. From what I gather, it haunted her. She found it overly sentimental, did not share in the sentiment, and wanted it to go away.
“Hans and Yaaker” [spell?]
Me mudder she had twins, they was me and me brudder’
We looked so much alike, we looked like each udder.
We looked so much alike, we looked just the same –
And Hans and Yaaker, those are our names.
[The remainder of the song has become lost in the mists of the 57 intervening years. Somewhere along the way, one of the twins died, but we couldn’t tell which one it was. Any help out there?]
Another pseudo-German song was brought to camp by Hap Greenhalgh: {“John Schmoker, ish klein spieler… blah blah blah… la trombona. Boom., boom, boom, das ist trombona… toot. Toot, toot, das ist trumpeta…ding, ding, ding, das ist triangle, etc.} The song seemed to be an earlier cousin of the popular Julius LaRosa hit of about 1953 called “Eh Compari.” Can anyone appoximate the lyrics? I sure can’t
“Down in the Valley”
Down in the valley, valley so low
Hang your head over, hear the wind blow
Hear the wind blow, dear, hear the wind blow;
Hang your head over, hear the wind blow.
Roses love sunshine, violets love dew,
Angels in Heaven know I love you,
Know I love you, dear, know I love you,
Angels in Heaven know I love you.
Build me a castle, forty feet high;
So I can see her as she rides by,
As she rides by, dear, as she rides by,
So I can see her as she rides by.
(Verse not used at Camp Clark)
"If you don't love me, love whom you please,"
"Throw your arms round me, give my heart ease,"
"Give my heart ease, dear, give my heart ease,"
"Throw your arms round me, give my heart ease,"
Write me a letter, send it by mail;
Send it in care of the Birmingham jail,
Birmingham jail, dear, Birmingham jail,
Send it in care of the Birmingham jail.
Roses love sunshine, violets love dew,
Angels in Heaven know I love you,
Know I love you, dear, know I love you,
Angels in Heaven know I love you.
One Finger One Thumb
One finger, one thumb, keep moving. (Move the body parts as you sing)
One finger, one thumb, keep moving.
One finger, one thumb, keep moving.
And we'll all be happy today.
One finger, one thumb, one hand, keep moving.
One finger, one thumb, one hand, keep moving.
One finger, one thumb, one hand, keep moving.
And we'll all be happy today.
One finger, one thumb, one hand, one arm, keep moving.
One finger, one thumb, one hand, one arm, keep moving.
One finger, one thumb, one hand, one arm, keep moving.
And we'll all be happy today.
One finger, one thumb, one hand, one arm, one leg, keep moving.
One finger, one thumb, one hand, one arm, one leg, keep moving.
One finger, one thumb, one hand, one arm, one leg, keep moving.
And we'll all be happy today.
One finger, one thumb, one hand, one arm, one leg, stand up, sit down, keep moving.
One finger, one thumb, one hand, one arm, one leg, stand up, sit down, keep moving.
One finger, one thumb, one hand, one arm, one leg, stand up, sit down, keep moving.
And we'll all be happy today.
There are several versions. One close to that used at camp is at:
http://www.nursery-rhymes-collection.com/lyrics_one_finger_one_thumb.html
