Tag Archives: song

The Parting Glass

Nationality: American
Age: 53
Occupation: Pediatrician
Residence: Edina, MN
Performance Date: April 30th, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Sign Language, Russian, French

“Oh, all the money, that ‘ere I have spent
I have spent it in good company
And all the harm, that ‘ere I’ve done,
Alas, it was to none, but me

And all that I have done
For lack of wit
To memory now
I can’t recall
So, fill to me The Parting Glass
Goodnight and Joy be with you all!

Oh, all the comrades, that ‘ere I have had
Are sorry for my going away
And, all the sweethearts, that ‘ere I have had
Would wish me one more day, to stay

But since it falls, unto my lot
That I shall rise, and you shall not
I will gently rise, and as softly call
Goodnight and Joy be with you all!”

 

The informant learned this song from her childhood family friends, the McNeils. The McNeils would travel across the country in a giant bus, singing folksongs and teaching people about history through these folksongs. It is entitled, “The Parting Glass”, from either Ireland or Scotland, the informant couldn’t remember. The informant says this is one of her favorite songs, because of the melody and the memories it brings back. When the informant was in her twenties, she sang this song with her new friends in Finland, where there is a great tradition of singing at and after meals. It helped her bond with these Finnish friends, despite their ethnic diversity. And twenty years later, when her children were younger, she used to sing them this song as a bedtime lullaby. The song brings back memories of her childhood with the McNeils, her adventures in Finland, and spending time with her children. Thus, it means a lot to the informant.

The song is about a person saying farewell to some friends. It says, “I will gently rise, and as softly call/Goodnight and Joy be with you all”. The singer is saying goodnight to his friends after an evening of fun. The song is happy because the singer wishes Joy on all his friends. In the first stanza of the song, the singer is taking responsibility for his actions. He is very humble and wise. This might be reflective of Irish or Scottish culture, where they place an emphasis on solving your own problems, not bragging, and being responsible for yourself. I think the song has a very nice message.

I grew up listening to this song and others recorded by the McNeils. The song has a very pretty memory, similar to other Scottish and Irish slow melodies. I never looked into the lyrics until now, but I’m glad to find that the message is pleasant. It brings me back to my childhood as well.

Gloomy Sunday

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 11, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese

Interview Extract:

Informant: “Do you know about ‘Gloomy Sunday?’”

Me: “No, what is it?”

Informant: “It’s a song, I think by a Hungarian or a European composer. Yeah, Hungarian, because they also call it the Hungarian Suicide Song. And the composer, there’s a story about him, that after writing it, he killed himself and it goes that if you listen to the song for too long, you’ll commit suicide too because it’s like so sad.

Billie Holiday did like a jazzier version of it; it’s not so depressing, and no one obviously is scared of killing themselves from that one.”

Me: “Where’d you hear about it?”

Informant: “I heard about it in high school. Someone just like, played that song for us and a bunch of people freaked out But there’s been a lot of reports about people dying when they hear that song, or they’ll die like holding the sheet music or something like that. And I think the composer himself did jump or a building, I think because um, he had never achieved any greatness after that one hit he had with ‘Gloomy Sunday.’”

Me: “Were you ever scared of the song’s legend?”

Informant: “Not really. Like, I believed that people would maybe commit suicide after listening to it, but I think they felt like that before and they just sort of got pushed over the edge after listening to this sad song over and over again on repeat.”

Analysis:

The fact that song with Hungarian origins managed to travel all the way to a Chinese school playground proves that children love to scare each other. There is something tantalizing about hearing a legend such as this one, and it naturally creates a environment in which students would dare each other to listen to the song. Competitions could arise perhaps, to see who can withstand listening to the sad song for the longest period of time, or as was the case with my informant, students would just play “Gloomy Sunday” to others in order to frighten them.

If the background of the song was only that the composer had committed suicide, then perhaps its folklore would not be so scary. But as it spread around the world, “Gloomy Sunday” naturally accumulated urban legends that either existed before and became tied to it, or were invented along with the song. Once a person hears that many people have committed suicide directly because one eerie song, then it’s certainly terrifying. When my informant was telling me about it, she herself seemed to mystify the song, almost revering its power in a way. She may have been putting on a show to scare me, in which case it certainly worked, or she herself had some lingering fears from when she first heard about it. Either way, I became too nervous to play the song even though I had originally wanted to hear what exactly made it so depressing.

This Hungarian song isn’t the only song or object that has been claimed to have the power to make people suicidal. There have been pictures that supposedly have a influence on people similar to “Gloomy Sunday,” and even a whole forest, the Aokigahara forest inJapan, has that sort of sway. The forest is one of the most popular places for suicides, and this leads to many urban and ghost stories about the place. Yet one must wonder, does the forest, or the picture, or song actually force people to kill themselves, or are suicidal people drawn to these objects regardless? Most likely, as “Gloomy Sunday” and the Aokigahara forest draw more attention, they will be credited for more deaths, and the cycle will continue.

The way to break this seemingly endless sequence is indeed by lightening the mood. Either the song can be used as a playground game or it can be rewritten into a more cheery melody, the way my informant says Billie Holiday did. No one will link Billie Holiday’s adaptation to mysterious deaths, and that will limit the legends, and potentially, if they really are true, the suicides themselves.

Barney Theme Song Parody

Nationality: Filipino-American
Age: 9
Occupation: Student
Residence: Moorpark, California
Performance Date: Dec 2007
Primary Language: English

 “I hate you, you hate me, let’s get together and kill Barney, with a bazooka, and a big ol’ machine gun, boom, boom, boom and Barney’s dead.”

This is a song sung in the same tune as the song from the Barney television show that used to go, “I love you, you love me, we are happy family, with a great big hug and a kiss from me to you, won’t you say you love me too?”  In a way it is a play on it and mocks the cherished children’s show, which is as classic as Sesame Street and Big Bird.  However, this version is sung by slightly older children, such as the informant from Moorpark, CA, who are aware of more violent objects such as machine guns and bazookas.  The informant learned of this version of the Barney song from her older brother who was in sixth grade and had learned it from his friends at school.  She repeats it because she is at the age where she repeats everything her older brother does, no matter what it is, in order to impress the “grown ups” of how much she knows.  She likes it because she is a very lyrical person and likes to sings rhymes and tunes in the car whenever the family travels.

This is a saying often restricted to children, generally those who have grown up in the 90’s when Barney was still quite popular, who have grown older and are capable of creating such a creative and mocking rhyme.  I think that the kids retell it as a method of proving to other people and kids that they have grown up, almost a hierarchy among children.  Since the older kids know the new and different rhyme, they can distinguish themselves from the “kiddies” and “babies” who still watch Barney, the friendly purple dinosaur.  I think it is a sense of status that causes the children to spread this chant and they enjoy that feeling that they can be different from other students.

 

There are many versions of this mock barney song which can be found at http://www.amiright.com/parody/90s/barney0.shtml For example,

“I hate you, you hate me
Let’s get together and kill Barney
With tanks of water and acid he will drown
Barney escapes but he falls down”

Miss Suzie’s Steamboat

Nationality: Asian-American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: San Marino, California
Performance Date: April 2007
Primary Language: English
Language: Mandarin

Miss Suzie had a steamboat
The steamboat had a bell (toot toot) 
Miss Suzie went to heaven 
The steamboat went to 
Hello operator, please give me number 9
If you disconnect me, I’ll chop off your 
Behind the refrigerator laid a piece of glass 
Miss Suzie sat upon it and broke her little
Ask me no more questions, please give me no more lies 
The boys are in bathroom pulling down their 
Flies are in the meadow, the bees are in the park 
Miss Suzie and her boyfriend are kissing in the DARK DARK DARK! 
Is like a movie, a movie’s like a show, a show is on TV 
And that’s all I know know know!

This is one of the many chants that is recited with a certain clapping pattern that I learned in elementary school.  Back then, many girls would say these chants during recess as a way of spending their free time.  I remember learning it from my best friend, who had learned it from other girls in her class.  Once we both knew it, we would frequently play this clapping game, whether we were at school or at each other’s houses.  It was a way of passing time when we were bored.
Looking back at my elementary school days, chanting this rhyme was extremely enjoyable.  Not only did it help ease my boredom, but it also provided me with fun.  Chanting the words with my friends made me laugh because of the words in the chant.  It implies inappropriate words without actually being inappropriate.
Remembering the chant reminds me of how much fun I had as a kid.  When I hear other kids recite these chants and play clapping games, I remember more specific memories that I had as a child.  This chant gives me a connection to my past.  I don’t think I’ll ever forget this chant because it has been implanted in my brain from reciting it so much.

Hearse Song

Nationality: White
Age: 22
Occupation: Screenwriter
Residence: Los Angeles (from Glendale, CA)
Performance Date: April 24, 2012
Primary Language: English

Hearse Song

Did you ever think when a hearse goes by, that some day you are gonna die?

They’ll wrap you up in a big white sheet and throw you down about 500 feet.

The worms crawl in, the worms crawl out, the worms play peaknuckle on your snout.

And after a while, the snot comes out, and you spread it on bread, cuz that’s what you eat, when you’re dead!

 

My informant remembered this song, which she described as “a classic, grim piece of oral tradition,” and said that it brought back a lot of memories from her childhood. When she was little, the informant’s mother would sing this song whenever they passed a hearse, and the informant said it was always a very visceral for her, and that ‘the part about the snot coming out and eating it really disgusted me’. She learned it from her mom, and she thinks her grandfather used to sing it, because her mother said that it reminded her of her dad whenever a hearse drove by.

 

As my informant stated, this song is a ‘classic, grim piece of oral tradition,’ but also a particularly interesting one. Not only is it a song sung in America that openly addresses mortality and the fact that death is inevitable, but the intended audience is children. America is one of the countries that shuns, fears, and stigmatizes death the most—possibly why horror movies are one of the topmost grossing genres of film in the US—so it’s interesting that this song is a non-romanticized and very explicit recounting of what happens when you die (no heaven or angels here). Further, the lyrics and the major key of the song makes light of death altogether, making jovial and silly what Americans consider one of the most sorrowful and somber occasions ever. What else is interesting about this song, which coincides with the lyrics and the major key, is that the song is targeted for children. The song, which sounds very much like a camp song children would sing to laugh and gross each other out about a particularly macabre subject, could have been used as a fun and entertaining way to let children participate in something seemingly transgressive while also familiarizing them with the concept of death.