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My Dear Americans,
consider, if you will, the following comment upon the inadequacies of Amtrak:
You leave the Pennsylvania station
'Bout a quarter to four,
You read War and Peace
And then you're in Baltimore. Dinner in the diner,
Nothing could be finer,
Than to have your next four meals in Carolina.
When you hear the whistle blowin' eight to the bar
Then you know the goods ahead has derailed a car.
Perhaps if they shovelled coal in
They could get the bloody thin' rollin'.
Boo! Hoo! I think we're staying right where we are..." 1
Now, I don't know if you have noticed, but there is an interesting tendency in the human mind to say "What if: what would it be like were things different?" Now this (in spite of the varied claims of laughter, bi-pedalism without feathers, and all those other things that recent animal studies show that we merely do too!) this may well turn out to be the one defining characteristic of humanity.
It happens especially in the area of communication (where we again definitely perform along with, and not necessarily better than, some other species).
And it seems to happen even especially-er when it comes to familiar songs and the like.
We do it inadvertently, as in the eponymous Mondegreen, named for a line from an old song about the murder of the Bonnie Earl o' Murray when the perps, having perpetrated, promptly "laid him on the green" which was misconstrued as "Lady Mondegreen" thus simultaneously creating and destroying the poor lady.
And then again we do it quite advertently in what's known among the cognoscenti as contrafacta as in my opening number.
And people have been doing this sort of thing possibly since the beginning of time, certainly for a very long while, indeed one of the oldest surviving songs in English, the famous paean to spring "" has a religious contrafactum, or else the almost unknown "" has a secular one. At least they are found in the same manuscript set to the same music one above the other (and, for what it's worth, the secular one is above the religious one, but the religious one's written in red)2.
Then again during the C16 there were loads of so-called (and indeed inaccurately called) Parody Masses where a secular tune was pinched for a polyphonic mass. for example "" a song about the advisability of wearing armour, of which at least 40 mass settings are known
L'homme, l'homme, l'homme armé, l'homme armé, l'homme armé doibt on doubter, doibt on doubter,
which, if it seems a bit too militaristic, at least isn't as suggestive as "" which luckily only made it into three settings (that I know of) but that contains the lines.
Cryst yf my love were in my Armys
And I yn my bed Agayne,
which seems to be tending far too raunchy .
And so we do it either on purpose or by accident, in fact to end with a confession even I have found myself inadvertently guilty of being a bit mondegreenish about the gills. David Bowie’s "Rebel, Rebel" contains the line
Rebel, Rebel you’ve torn your dress
which, until I started research for this essay, I firmly believed was
Rebel, Rebel put on your dress
and you know my version makes a lot more sense than the official one, since earlier in that song it is claimed that she, the rebel, has her mother in a whirl not sure if she’s a boy or a girl, and if at that moment she’s actually wearing her dress then someone in that family has more problems to deal with than mere teenage rebellion.
Kindest regards,
Richard Howland-Bolton
and, of course,
Cheerio for now
from me!
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Notes:
1 This contrafactum was confected many years ago after a particularly wearisome rail journey from Rochester, NY to somewhere forgettable in New Joisey.
2 Sumer Canon
The Sumer Canon also has a modern (at least by it's own standards) winterized version done by Ezra Pound.
I thought it would be fun to put the contrafacta together! I've lined up the syllables for easy substitution.
They are:
1 The Middle English,
2 The Latin (note that I use u as in the ms for both 1 and 2)
3 A modernization of the ME
4 A translation of the Latin
5 Ezra Pound's winterized version.
1 Su- mer is i - cu - men in-, *Lhu -de sing cuc- cu.
2 Per-spi-ce Xri - sti - co- la-, *que di- gna- ci - o
3 Sum-mer is a - com - ing in-, *loud-ly sing cuck-oo
4 Pay at- tention Christ-i - a - n-, *what hon-our it is
5 Win-ter is i - cu - men in-, *Lhu- de sing God- damm
*subsequent voices enter
1 Grow- eth sed and blow - eth med and sprignth the w - de nu.
2 Cae - li- cus ag- ri - co- la pro ui - tis ui- ci - o.
3 Grows the seed and blooms the mead and sprouts the green wood now.
4 The Hus-band-man of Hea-ven for a blem - ish in the vine
5 Rain- eth drop and stain- eth slop. And how the wind doth ramm!
1 Sing cuc- cu.
2 Fi - li - o
3 Sing cuck-oo
4 Hi - s Son
5 Sing God- damm!
1 Aw- e ble - teth af - ter lomb, lhouth af - ter cal- ue cu
2 Non par- cens ex - po - su - it, mor - tis ex- i - ci- o
3 Ewe she bleat-eth for her lamb, lows for her calf the cow
4 Did not spare but did ex - pose to death's des-truc-ti- on
5 Skid-deth bus and slop-peth us, An a - gue hath my ham
1 Bul - luc stert-eth buc- ke uer- teth, mu - rie sing cuc- cu
2 Qui cap- ti - uos se - mi- ui - uos a sup- pli- ci - o
3 Young bull start-eth buck he fart- eth pret-t'ly sing cuck-oo
4 Who the half liv-ing cap-tives did from tor- ment of Hell
5 Free- zeth ri - ver turn-eth li - ver Damn you, sing God- damm!
1 Cuc - cu! Cuc -cu! Wel sing-est thu Cuc - cu!
2 Vi - tae do - nat Et se - cum co - ro - nat
3 Cuck - oo! Cuck-oo! Well do you sing Cuck- oo!
4 Restore to li - fe! And with Him-self crowns them
5 God - damm! God- damm! 'Tis why I am, God - damm!
1 Ne swik thu na- uer nu.
2 In cae - li so- li - o.
3 Nor stop you ne- ver now.
4 On the throne of hea- ven.
5 So 'gainst the win-ters balm.
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Various Pedes:
1 Sing cuc - cu nu sing cuc - cu
I seem to remember that someone (Dobson?) thought the Lat. pes was
2 Resur-rexit Domi-nus! Dominus Resur-rexit! but I can't remember why.
3 Sing cuck- oo now sing cuck- oo
4 Risen has the Lord! Lord has risen
5 Sing God- damm damm sing God - damm
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