Greensleeves
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"Greensleeves" is a traditional English folk song and tune, a ground either of the form called a romanesca or of its slight variant, the passamezzo antico.
A broadside ballad by this name was registered at the London Stationer's Company in September 1580,[1] by Richard Jones, as "A Newe Northen Dittye of ye Ladye Greene Sleves".[2] Six more ballads followed in less than a year, one on the same day, 3 September 1580 ("Ye Ladie Greene Sleeves answere to Donkyn hir frende" by Edward White), then on 15 and 18 September (by Henry Carr and again by White), 14 December (Richard Jones again), 13 February 1581 (Wiliam Elderton), and August 1581 (White's third contribution, "Greene Sleeves is worne awaie, Yellow Sleeves Comme to decaie, Blacke Sleeves I holde in despite, But White Sleeves is my delighte".[3] It then appears in the surviving A Handful of Pleasant Delights (1584) as A New Courtly Sonnet of the Lady Green Sleeves. To the new tune of Green Sleeves.
The tune is found in several late-16th-century and early 17th-century sources, such as Ballet's MS Lute Book and Het Luitboek van Thysius, as well as various manuscripts preserved in the Cambridge University libraries.
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[edit] Henry VIII
There is a persistent belief that Greensleeves was composed by Henry VIII for his lover and future queen consort Anne Boleyn. Boleyn allegedly rejected King Henry's attempts to seduce her and this rejection may be referred to in the song when the writer's love "cast me off discourteously". However, Henry did not compose "Greensleeves", which is probably Elizabethan in origin and is based on an Italian style of composition that did not reach England until after his death.[4].
[edit] Lyrical interpretation
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Wikisource has lyrics for the song:: |
One possible interpretation of the lyrics is that Lady Green Sleeves was a promiscuous young woman and perhaps a prostitute.[5] At the time, the word "green" had sexual connotations, most notably in the phrase "a green gown", a reference to the way that grass stains might be seen on a woman's dress if she had engaged in sexual intercourse out-of-doors.[6]
An alternative explanation is that Lady Green Sleeves was, through her costume, incorrectly assumed to be immoral. Her "discourteous" rejection of the singer's advances supports the contention that she is not.[6]
In Nevill Coghill's translation of The Canterbury Tales,[7] he explains that "green [for Chaucer’s age] was the colour of lightness in love. This is echoed in 'Greensleeves is my delight' and elsewhere."
[edit] Alternative lyrics
Christmas and New Year texts were associated with the tune from as early as 1686, and by the 19th century almost every printed collection of Christmas carols included some version of words and music together, most of them ending with the refrain "On Christmas Day in the morning".[8] One of the most popular of these is "What Child Is This?", written in 1865 by William Chatterton Dix.
A variation was used extensively in the 1962 film How the West Was Won as the song "Home in the Meadow", lyrics by Sammy Cahn, performed by Debbie Reynolds.[9]
"Stay Away" is the theme of the 1968 film Stay Away, Joe performed by Elvis Presley set to the "Greensleeves" tune.
[edit] Early literary references
In Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor, written around 1602, the character Mistress Ford refers twice without any explanation to the tune of "Greensleeves" and Falstaff later exclaims:
- Let the sky rain potatoes! Let it thunder to the tune of 'Greensleeves'!
These allusions indicate that the song was already well known at that time.
[edit] Media
The earliest known source of the tune (Trinity College, Dublin ms. D. I. 21, c. 1580 - known as "William Ballet's lute book") gives the tune in the melodic minor scale. "Greensleeves" is also often played in a natural minor scale and sometimes in the Dorian mode. Although the above printed example is printed with E naturals, the recording features E-flats, thus making it a hybrid of natural minor and harmonic minor.
[edit] Other uses
- Act 2 Scene 1 of Ferruccio Busoni's opera Turandot opens with the tune.
- Gustav Holst's Second Suite in F for Military Band incorporates the tune in its final movement; he used the same music, slightly re-scored, in the final movement of his St Paul's Suite.
- Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958) composed an orchestral piece in 1934 entitled Fantasia on "Greensleeves", in which the tune of Greensleeves alternates with that of Lovely Joan.
- Jacques Brel's well-known song "Amsterdam" is a modified version of the tune.[10]
- On Jazz singer Beverly Kenney's 1956 LP Beverly Kenney Sings For Johnny Smith, I'll Know My Love is based on the song's tune.
- Alfred Reed arranged the tune for orchestra in 1962. Then, in 1986, he revised his previous arrangement, and arranged the piece for concert band, and then again in 1993. Alfred Reed's 1993 piece 'Greensleeves' is played by many concert bands worldwide, as well as many school bands.
- For several seasons the opening and ending theme of the television series Lassie[vague] was an arrangement by Nathan Scott of the traditional folk tune.
- Steve Lukather covered the song in his Santamental album.
- Leonard Cohen's song Leaving Greensleeves (1974)[11] is another modified version of the tune.
- Vanessa Carlton covered the song for Christmas time.
- Loreena McKennitt also covered the song for her album The Visit (1991).
- Saxophonist John Coltrane recorded a jazz arrangement of Greensleeves by McCoy Tyner and Eric Dolphy on his album Africa/Brass.
- Organist and composer David Briggs wrote Variations on Greensleeves for organ in 2005.
[edit] References
- ^ Frank Kidson, English Folk-Song and Dance. READ BOOKS, 2008, p.26. ISBN 1443772895
- ^ John M. Ward, "'And Who But Ladie Greensleeues?'", in The Well Enchanting Skill: Music, Poetry, and Drama in the Culture of the Renaissance: Essays in Honour of F. W. Sternfeld, edited by John Caldwell, Edward Olleson, and Susan Wollenberg, 181–211 (Oxford:Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 1990): 181. ISBN 0-19-316124-9.
- ^ Hyder Edward Rollins, An Analytical Index to the Ballad-Entries (1557–1709 in the Registers of the Company of Stationers of London (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1924): nos, 1892, 1390, 1051, 1049, 1742, 2276, 1050. Cited in John M. Ward, "'And Who But Ladie Greensleeues?'", in The Well Enchanting Skill: Music, Poetry, and Drama in the Culture of the Renaissance: Essays in Honour of F. W. Sternfeld, edited by John Caldwell, Edward Olleson, and Susan Wollenberg, 181–211 (Oxford:Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 1990): 181–82. ISBN 0-19-316124-9.
- ^ Weir, Alison. Henry VIII: The King and His Court, page 131, Ballantine Books, 2002, ISBN 0-34543-708-X
- ^ Brown, Meg Lota & Kari Boyd McBride. Women's Roles in the Renaissance, page 101, Greenwood Press, 2005, ISBN 0-31332-210-4
- ^ a b Vance Randolph "Unprintable" Ozark Folksongs and Folklore, Volume I, Folksongs and Music, page 47, University of Arkansas Press, 1992, ISBN 1-55728-231-5
- ^ Chaucer, Geoffrey (2003-02-04) (in Middle English). The Canterbury Tales. trans. Nevill Coghill. The Penguin Classics Library Complete Collection. ISBN 0-140-42438-5.
- ^ John M. Ward, "'And Who But Ladie Greensleeues?'", in The Well Enchanting Skill: Music, Poetry, and Drama in the Culture of the Renaissance: Essays in Honour of F. W. Sternfeld, edited by John Caldwell, Edward Olleson, and Susan Wollenberg, 181–211 (Oxford:Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 1990): 193. ISBN 0-19-316124-9.
- ^ Soundtrack listing for How the West Was Won at the Internet Movie Database
- ^ whosampled.com
- ^ leonardcohensite.com
[edit] External links
- Free sheet music of Greensleeves from Cantorion.org
- Transcription of the lyrics from A Handful of Pleasant Delights (1584)
- Transcription of the sheet music from the version inWilliam Ballet's Lute Book (c. 1580)
- Andrew Kuntz, The Fiddler's Companion: see under Greensleeves [2]
- Greensleeves on TradTune.com
