Category Archives: Musical

German Folksong: Over de Stillen Straten / Over the Quiet Streets

Nationality: German
Age: 65
Occupation: Professor of literature, then a mom
Residence: Santa Barbara, California
Performance Date: March 17, 2012
Primary Language: German
Language: English

Link to audio recording of song: Over de Stillen Straten

Background on German Folksongs:

Q. Do you know how old these songs are?

A. No, and I think that’s part of folklore—you don’t really know where it comes from, it wasn’t written by anyone in particular. My mother must have taught me some, and at school, I imagine I learned some.

Q. When would people sing folksongs?

A. While we were walking places in a group, we would sing. And singing while walking, you know, is kind of fun. You can walk to the beat, and it gives you something to do. And I remember that they were calling on me because I used to know all the words. And I was the littlest one on the group, I was only five years old, but I used to know all the words, so whenever they didn’t remember the words, the older kids would call me, “Eva, what are the words again?” so I would come running and tell them the words, and it made me feel good, it made me feel important because here are these older kids, and I have to tell them the words. Those are some of my earliest memories.

Songs were often sung while working. If you had some menial work to do, and you’d get bored doing that, you would sing. For example, when spinning—women used to do a lot of spinning—they would sing, just to amuse themselves. Or when they were ironing; my mother used to tell me, “this is an ironing song,” because they had to do a lot of ironing, and it’s boring work. And my mother and I would sing when we did the dishes because that, too, was boring, menial work. She would do the dishes, and I would dry them, and we would sing together. And we would harmonize. You sing when you work or you walk, and you don’t use any machines, because machines make noise and then there’s no room for singing…so it’s kind of part of the preindustrial age.

Q. People don’t sing as much as they used to?

A. We sing in certain contexts, like at school in choir, but just while doing stuff, not very much anymore. It’s really sad—it’s kind of a dying tradition.

Q. Do you know if German folksongs are very different from other folksongs?

A. Well, you will see that most German songs are in the major key, which sets them apart from eastern European folk music, which is usually minor.

Over de Stillen Straten / Over the Quiet Streets:

This song is a lullaby…There are many lullabies. This song is also in dialect. Originally, all folk songs are in the dialects of the regions where they came from. Then, many of them were cleaned up and translated into High German, but this one was not, so this one, I know in the original dialect form, which is the dialect from the region I came from, a region in the north of Germany.

So, I think they took several steps. The songs came from a certain region, and then they were collected by some of the collectors in the nineteenth century, and then they were compiled into collections of songs, and then they became sort of universally known, in that form—not quite as original as they were.

Q. What is High German?

A. High German isn’t really any dialect, it’s something that people just agreed on as the language that everybody would know. For very long, there were only dialects, and not any form of High German. It didn’t really have a capital, the way England and France did. What really killed the dialects is television. Now, in everyone’s living room, you have High German, and you hardly ever speak dialect anymore. There are some regions where they hold onto it, like Bavaria.

Q. In Germany, do people have a sense of having a regional identity, as opposed to a German identity?

A. Yes. There was not really a German identity until 1870, with Bismarck. There were little states, and those gave people identity. Bismarck united Germany as the first Reich. But people still have very local culture.

Analysis: This song has a melancholy, plaintive melody, and is very lyrical. It stands out against the other songs that my informant sang to me because it is the only one in a minor key; according to my informant, almost all German songs are in major keys. It seems reasonable that a lullaby would be less upbeat, however, since it is meant to quiet children down before they fall asleep. Since this particular folksong has not been translated into High German, it remains much closer to its original form than many other German folksongs today.

German lyrics can be found online on numerous websites, including these ones:

http://www.recmusic.org/lieder/get_text.html?TextId=36693

http://www.textlog.de/gedicht-nacht.html

Song about Catholic Schools

Nationality: Latino
Age: 86
Occupation: Retired marriage and family therapist
Residence: Santa Barbara, California
Performance Date: March 14, 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

“The dearest spot in Phoenix,

Here in the Golden West,

Is our old dear St. Mary’s.

The school we love the best.

Hurrah for St. Mary’s,

The school we love the best,

(repeat these two lines.)

 

We are proud of our schools

And our unbroken rules,

Obedience to God and our country.

Since this nation took birth

Catholic schools have proved their worth,

Always first in American teaching.”

My informant reports that this song was customarily sung in his school when he grew up. Somewhat cynical about his Catholic upbringing, he postulates that Catholic schools invented songs such as this one in order “to justify their existence.”

This song seems intended to foster school spirit and strengthen the Catholic Church. Meanwhile, however, the song also intertwines Catholic and American identities to fashion a new, Catholic-American identity; it teaches children that they should be proud both to be Catholic and to be American. In this way, the song is both religious and patriotic. Children are taught to be obedient both “to God and our country,” although it should be noted that the song places obedience to God before obedience to the United States.

Children’s Jingle Bells

Nationality: American
Age: 57
Occupation: Finance (Retired)
Residence: Orange, CA
Performance Date: 4/15/12
Primary Language: English

To the tune of “Jingle Bells”

Jingle bells

Jingle bells

We will hear no more.

We have captured Butterballs

and nailed him to the floor.

 

Took his boots

and his loot

only left his socks.

We gave him a beach party

and dumped him off the docks

 

Splishy, splash

Splishy, splash

We will hear forever more

Now the Fat Man’s hauling toys

Across the ocean floor.

 

My informant learned this version of jingle bells from a friend of his in elementary school. He and the other “no talent brothers” sang a number of these songs throughout elementary school. This song is sung primarily at christmas time, especially in the car after a version of jingle bells is aired on the radio. The song originally demonstrated the children’s rebellion against parental influences as many children’s songs do. However, my father only introduced this song to my brother and I after we had entered high school, past the point that we would sing it ourselves, so now it reflects more his desire to show that he is still a child at heart.

“It’s a Hard Knock Bootcamp…..”

Nationality: American
Age: 25
Occupation: National Guard
Residence: Savannah, Georgia
Performance Date: March 13, 2012
Primary Language: English
Language: spanish

My cousin in Military bootcamp for the National Guard in Fort Leonardwood, MO wrote me a letter, and in it she wrote the lyrics to a song that they had made-up in the camp, including her little annotations in parentheses:

(“It’s a Hard Knock Life” melody)

 

Hot guys we never see

Ice cream we don’t get to eat

Mountain climbers, 30x a day (an exercise that sucks)

Then it’s back to scrubbing this bay…

-It’s a hard knock life-

Have to hold our cups to our chests

Always told we look a mess

Holy crap private, front leaning rest (down to pushup position)

You’ll never pass your PT test..

-It’s a hard knock life-

Army Greens and MRE’s (“meal ready to eat”-packaged food you take camping)

5 minute showers and 2 second pees

Trail mix is always gone

Our bunks are always wrong…

-It’s a hard knock life-

We used to play beer pong

Now we march all day long

We always avoid going to the pit (where you get “smoked” with PT)

In formation we aren’t allowed to spit…

-It’s a hard knock life-

I used to do my hair

Now I don’t even care

We used to shave our legs

Gunna throw-up if we have to eat more eggs..

-It’s a hard knock life-

Stand in the freezing rain

Get frostbite, feel the pain

Fingers are broken and I wanna cry

‘cuz I gotta write a 5,000 word RBI (paper you have to write when in trouble)

-It’s a hard knock life-

I really hate to pack

My entire life in that small rucksack (nothing ever fits)

For breakfast we eat lots of cake (drill sgts call pancakes, waffles, and biscuits “cake”)

After a 20 minute run, it clearly was a mistake…

-It’s a hard knock life-

Ask a male to hold my gun

Then we had to drop as one (pushups- “can’t” talk to boys)

I tried to plead my case

But all I got was a “half right face” (position you move to before getting smoked)

-It’s a hard knock life-

People eating candy

Playing pool and watching tv

Boy I can’t wait until that’s me

Living life at AIT! (2nd part-advanced individual training)

-It’s a hard knock life-

 

The informant enjoys singing this song because it helps pass the time and it lightens the mood of bootcamp and brings everyone closer.

Popular Japanese Song, “China Night”

Nationality: American (German and Irish Descent)
Age: 79
Occupation: Retired (served in the National Guard and the Korean War)
Residence: Westminster, CA
Performance Date: April 21, 2012
Primary Language: English

“What got me is when I went back in ’85 with the division headquarters and we were participating in a, uh, division exercise with the Japanese self-defense force. And, uh, the 25th division of the Japanese Imperial Army, they and the 40th infantry division opposed each other in the Philippines during World War II, so whenever we’d display the flag we’d manage to put the Philippine battle streamers on the back of the flag just to be polite. I, uh, run into a young captain who was a traditional music buff. The all time song of Japan in the Japanese army was ‘China Night’. And it’s about a young man looking for his girlfriend, or thinking fond memories of his girlfriend back home, Shidanai. I said something about it, and this guy grabs me by the hand and gotta go up and sing it. I only remember, uh, the first line. And fortunately he remembered the rest of them and so I just mouthed the rest of the words after Shidanai. And I went through the rest of the song like that. ‘Huh, well Mac I didn’t know you could sing that.’ Haha.”

A few summers a go, I visited Japan with friends, and I was able to witness firsthand the joy of karaoke that is ever-popular there. It’s interesting to see the mix of old tradition new, modern customs. Song, obviously, is a very old tradition in every culture, but is made distinctly modern in live performance. Though today it may be more for the purpose of pure entertainment, the song that my Grandpa relayed shows how art and culture can connect people both within their own nation and to various others.