Two further versions of this alternative tune, collected in the 1950s, were published Brown and White (1977). It was published twice; first in the preliminary volume of folk songs prepared by Sharp and Karpeles after their first summer of fieldwork (Sharp and Karpeles 1917), then in 1932 after Sharp's death, in the much larger compendium of Appalachian folk songs that Karpeles edited from the full notes of their three summers' fieldwork. [26] It reached No. The version that Sharp and Karpeles collected from Memory Shelton can be read online (see Sharp and Karpeles (1917), in References below), and the version by Pete Seeger that greatly popularized the song in modern times (see below) is also online.[19]. Lyrics to 'On Top Of Old Smoky' by Hank Williams. Print and download On Top of Old Smoky sheet music composed by Traditional. This golden oldie is easy to learn, use On Top of Old Smokey lyrics and chords to help you get started. 1961), Dobie, Zelda and Maynard use the tune and change the lyrics to "The Name's Dobie Gillis" to use as Dobie's campaign song for his student council election bid. Possibilities include Clingmans Dome, named "Smoky Dome" by local Scots-Irish inhabitants, but exactly which mountain it is may be lost to antiquity. Download On Top Of Old Smokey song on Gaana.com and listen Reader's Digest Music: Folk & Country Classics On Top Of Old Smokey song offline. The first to make a commercial recording of "On Top of Old Smoky" was George Reneau, "The Blind Musician of the Smoky Mountains," who worked as a busker in Knoxville, Tennessee, just west of the Appalachians. The Mexican trio in the Goofy short For Whom the Bulls Toil made in 1953, attempted to sing "On Top of Old Popocatépetl". On top of old Smoky, all covered with snow I lost my true lover from courting too slow Though courting's a pleasure and parting is grief A false-hearted lover is worse than a thief For a thief will just rob you and take what you have But a false-hearted lover will lead you to … > Folk Music > Songs > On Top of Old Smokey. "On Top of Old Smoky" (often spelled "Smokey") is a traditional folk song of the United States. Reneau made the trip to New York City to record the song, and others, for Vocalion (Vo 15366) in 1925. Perrow is not clear on where he got the text from; his label says: "From North Carolina; mountain whites; MS. written for E. N. Caldwell; 1913". Sharp and Karpeles (1932), vol. Why is this if it's a pentatonic tune? The Weavers, a folksong singing group that Seeger had co-founded, recorded a very popular version of the song using Seeger's arrangement on 21 February 1951. SKU: MN0075613 In Germany, the tune of the song was used as the chorus to singer Manuela's hit single "Ich geh' noch zur Schule" in 1963. trust. A lonesome love song, it has frequently been sung high in the Appalachian Mountains for courting. In 1978, "On Top of Old Smokey" was released by Swedish pop group ABBA (with lead vocals by Frida) as part of a medley that also included "Pick a Bale of Cotton" and "Midnight Special". Stream ad-free or purchase CD's and MP3s now on Amazon.com. on top of old smokey all covered with snow i lost my true lover for courting too slow for courting's a pleasure and parting's a grief and a false hearted lover is worse than a thief for a thief will just rob you and take all you save but a false hearted lover will lead you to the grave His music—some of it drawn from scholarly sources like Sharp[23]—was popular and was disseminated widely in commercial recordings. “On Top of Old Smoky” was notably recorded by The Weavers in 1951, using an arrangement by Pete Seeger; it reached the pop music charts, and sold over a million copies. It is catalogued as Roud Folk Song Index No. A (tuneless) text for "On Top of Old Smoky", similar to what Memory Shelton sang, was published by E. C. Perrow in 1915, slightly before Sharp's fieldwork. For a thief he will rob you, And take what you have, But a false-hearted lover Will put you in your grave. Pete Seeger (1961:60-61) offered two versions of the song, one with prolonged notes, the other not. A hit song from in 1963, "On Top of Spaghetti" by Tom Glazer, begins with the quatrain. I … As recorded by The Weavers, the song reached the pop music charts in 1951. on top of old smokey. 4 4 5 6 7 -6 -6 -5 6 -6 6 On top of old Smo – key, all cov – ered with snow. On top of spaghetti In one version the first verse is the following; The version of "On Top of Old Smoky" that Sharp and Karpeles collected was sung to them on 29 July 1916 by Miss Memory Shelton in Alleghany, Madison County, North Carolina. When somebody sneezed. Archives of Clare College, Cambridge; posted online by the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library: Extensive discussion at the site "Joop's musical flowers": This page was last edited on 16 December 2020, at 14:22. [13][14], The tune of "On Top of Old Smoky" familiar to most people today was also paired with a completely different set of words in a folk song called "The Little Mohee", about a frontiersman who falls in love with an Indian maiden (or, in some versions, a sailor who falls in love with a South Seas maiden). One of the earliest versions of "On Top of Old Smoky" to be recorded in fieldwork was written down by the English folklorist Cecil Sharp, who during the First World War made three summer field trips to the Appalachian Mountains seeking folk songs, accompanied and assisted by Maud Karpeles. Publisher: Hal Leonard Howdy! [18], Because the versions gathered in fieldwork vary so much, there is no particular version of "On Top of Old Smoky" that can lay claim to being the "authentic" or "original" version. I lost my poor meatball C C/G C 3. 2, song 64A. Harry Belafonte recorded a version on his 1962 album The Midnight Special. Sheet music arranged for Piano/Vocal/Chords in Eb Major (transposable). Dave Van Ronk included the song on his album The Mayor of McDougal Street: Rarities 1957–1969. 10 on the Billboard chart in 1951. Seeger was himself a fieldworker as well as performer; see Thomas A. Adler (2011), Seeger's view is not implausible, since many American and English folk songs have common ancestry (see above), and the words for some English ballads are indeed preserved (as, Schticks Of One And Half A Dozen Of The Other, "DECCA (USA) numerical listing discography: 27500 - 27999", "El Platáno Blanco's Guide to Live Music", http://soundbeat.org/episode/on-top-of-old-smokey/, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=On_Top_of_Old_Smoky&oldid=994588048, Articles with unsourced statements from April 2010, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, Brown, Frank, and Newman Ivey White (1977). Lyrics for 'On Top of Old Smoky' On top of old Smoky, All covered with snow, I lost my true lover, For courtin' so slow. They were published only when a curious person took the trouble to visit singers and document their songs, an activity that in America began only around the turn of the 20th century. Seven versions collected in North Carolina are given by Brown and White (1977:170-173). All covered with cheese, On the 1978 Sesame Street album, Bert & Ernie Sing-Along, Grover sings a version of the song, but changes the lyrics to something about him losing his clothes, lunch, various other belongings, and his way home, but eventually finding his way home and finding his mother with all the stuff he sang about losing. preserving and celebrating music from America's diverse cultural history. The medley featured as the B-side to the group's single "Summer Night City". BCI Music (Brentwood Communication) / BCI-Eclipse Distribution. Check out On Top of Old Smokey by Music for Children on Amazon Music. Its branches include many other folk songs with similar lyrical stanzas and tunes. [15] This tune was collected by the American fieldworkers Loraine Wyman and Howard Brockway in Pine Mountain, Kentucky[16] from a singer named Mary Ann Bagley,[17] and published by them in 1916, hence a year before the Sharp/Karpeles version mentioned above. Listen to On Top of Old Smokey from Burl Ives's Tellin' Stories for free, and see the artwork, lyrics and similar artists. On Top Of Old Smokey. [2] They were also intrigued to find that many of the songs the people sang to them were versions of songs Sharp had earlier collected from people in rural England, suggesting that the ancestors of the Appalachian residents had brought them over from the old country. [6] Memory Shelton's version differs in notes, rhythm, and wording from the version most people know today, but only modestly so; for instance the words of the first verse are as follows: where sparking is a now-rare word that means courting. He commented on the difference, hinting that the prolonged-note version was his own: "The first version given here [prolonged notes] shows how some songs can be adapted slightly for group singing. In 1951, Swedish revue group Flickery Flies with Brita Borg recorded a Swedish version. Simply watch the colored bars and you'll be playing your piano or keyboard instantly! 1 on the Cash Box chart, and sold over a million copies. On Top of Old Smokey, easy piano tutorial. There aren’t many evidences about the origin of this song and its author is unknown. E. C. Perrow (1915) Songs and Rhymes from the South. On top of Old SmokeyAll covered with snowI lost my true loverBy a-courtin’ too slow, Well a-courting’s a pleasureAnd parting is griefBut a false-hearted loverIs worse than a thief, A thief he will rob youAnd take all you haveBut a false-hearted loverWill send you to your grave, And the grave will decay youAnd turn you to dustNot one girl in a hundredA poor boy can trust, They’ll hug you and kiss youAnd tell you more liesThan the crossties on the railroadOr the stars in the skies, They’ll tell you they love youJust to give your heart easeBut the minute your back’s turnedThey’ll court whom they please, I’ll go up on SmokeyOn the mountain so highWhere the wild birds and the turtle dovesCan hear my sad cry, As sure as the dewdropsFall on the green cornLast night she was with meTonight she is gone. On Top of Old Smokey false boy place µ hear in your - ted a af - lo hun fec. The enormous popularity of these recordings (and others following in their wake; see below) led to the curious situation of the song re-attaining folk status; it is one of the few songs that most Americans know from childhood, and many are unaware of the mid-century recordings that promulgated it so widely.[27]. The recording, though, had nothing to do with the traditional heritage of the original song: "Ich geh' noch zur Schule" (meaning "I Still Go to School") tells the story of a teenage girl denying the tempting offers of a talent scout, claiming she wants to finish school first, but she might agree to a recording contract the following year after her final exams. Bruce Springsteen performed the song in Portland, Oregon a few months after the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens as a tribute during The River Tour. 414. In the extreme case, the same basic set of words could be sung to more than one tune, or the same tune could adopt a completely different set of words. Bing Crosby included the song in a medley on his album 101 Gang Songs (1961). His recording is posted at the "Joop's Musical Flowers" site, cited below. Sharp and Karpeles version published in Sharp and Karpeles (1932), vol. [9], American field workers were also active in the Appalachians. See Sharp and Karpeles (1916), and for full life dates (1892-1992) see. [1] For this reason it is unlikely that an originator of "On Top of Old Smoky" could ever be identified. Sharp and Karpeles found to their delight that the Appalachians, then geographically isolated, were a strong preserve of traditional music and that many of the people they met were naturally-gifted singers who knew a great number of songs. Seeger modified a version of "On Top of Old Smoky" that he had learned in the Appalachians,[24] writing new words and banjo music. Cecil Sharp collected Appalachian folksong just before the time when this music came to be "discovered" by the outside world and sold as a commercial product by the nascent recording industry[20] (this development would ultimately create the modern genre of country music). Listen to On Top of Old Smokey from Rex Allen's Cowboy Essentials for free, and see the artwork, lyrics and similar artists. "On Top of Old Smoky" (often spelled "Smokey") is a traditional US folk song first written down by English folklorist Cecil Sharp, who, during the First World War, made three summer field trips to the Appalachian Mountains seeking folk songs, accompanied and assisted by Maud Karpeles. “On Top of Old Smokey” or “On Top of Old Smoky” is a traditional nursery rhyme and folksong, sharing the same tune with On Top Of Spaghetti. 2, p. 127. The following list is ordered chronologically. At the bottom is the tune as it sounds better sung in the old solo way." On Top of Old Smoky, while paying tribute to traditional mountain music, offers state-of-the-art sound and showcases fresh approaches to performing older folk music. [4] Miss Shelton was 23 years old,[5] and was part of a family several of whose members sang for Sharp. On Top of Old Smokey [ Roud 414; Henry BSoF740 ; trad.] [32][33] This was during a time of collaboration with showbiz impresario and songwriter Povel Ramel[34] who in a revue paraphrased it as Högt uppe på berget, jag har till en vän, förlorat en femma, jag lär nog aldrig se den utigen (High up on the mountain, I have to a friend, lost a 5 kronor bill, I doubt I'll see it again)[citation needed]. Little Eva, singer of "The Loco-Motion", recorded a version called "Old Smokey Locomotion" (1963), with lyrics describing how the residents of Old Smokey caught on to The Locomotion. This version, too, seems to have entered modern folklore and is widely known to children; one source writes of the original "On Top of Old Smoky", "if you can listen to it and not think about spaghetti, sneezing and meatballs, more power to you. See Sharp's Preface to Sharps and Karpeles (1932). The now-standard tune of "On Top of Old Smoky" competed with a completely different tune, which Sharp and Karpeles encountered when they returned to the Appalachians for further fieldwork in 1917, and versions of this tune were also found by later fieldworkers. Fans of the English football side Notts County FC have sung the song during games, to the words 'I had a wheelbarrow, the wheel fell off' since 1990. [10] In the following decades, still further variants of "On Top of Old Smoky" were recorded by fieldworkers in North Carolina[11] and Tennessee. 2 on the Billboard chart and No. The same record label that released this album issued two acclaimed albums compiling those field recordings (Old-Time Smoky Mountain Music and Old-Time Bluegrass from the Great Smoky Mountains). Alternative country band The Gourds gangstered the lyrics to "On Top of Old Smoky" in the song "I'm troubled" on their 1998 release Gogitchyershinebox.[37][38]. 269 song search results for On Top of Old Smokey . Following its reintroduction to America by the Weavers, the song became a standard item of popular music, sung by luminaries such as Bing Crosby,[28] Perry Como,[29] Percy Faith, Gene Autry,[30] as well as (in a brief excerpt) Elvis Presley. This version sounds much more Celtic in nature, with more vocal ornamentation and a looser rhythmic structure. 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