1960s Musical Medley

Scarborough Fair (Canticle) by Simon & Garfunkel

The first song in this medley I’m sharing with you today is a folk rock classic. It’s based off of an old English ballad.

Scarborough Fair” is a traditional English ballad about the Yorkshire town of Scarborough. The song relates the tale of a young man who instructs the listener to tell his former love to perform for him a series of impossible tasks, such as making him a shirt without a seam and then washing it in a dry well, adding that if she completes these tasks he will take her back. Often the song is sung as a duet, with the woman then giving her lover a series of equally impossible tasks, promising to give him his seamless shirt once he has finished As the versions of the ballad known under the title “Scarborough Fair” are usually limited to the exchange of these impossible tasks, many suggestions concerning the plot have been proposed, including the hypothesis that it is about the Great Plague of the late Middle Ages. Paul Simon learned the song in London in 1965 from Martin Carthy, who had picked up the tune from the songbook by Ewan MacColl and Peggy Seeger and included it on his eponymous 1965 album. Simon & Garfunkel set it in counterpoint with “Canticle”—a reworking of the lyrics from Simon’s 1963 anti-war song, “The Side of a Hill”, set to a new melody composed mainly by Art Garfunkel.

This song came out in 1968, Mommy was 17 then, and she raced to the record store to purchase this album. She told me she played it many times. Mommy bought their album Sound of Silence 2 years earlier and she became a huge fan.

The counterpoint and harmonizing in this song are just great. I feel the song has a haunting quality. The serene images of the traditional ballad are interspersed with ghastly images of war and death. It works as an anti-war song.

By the way, this song is super relaxing! While laying in bed listening, my heart rate fell from a resting rate of 75 bpm down to 61 bpm!

Lyrics

Are you going to Scarborough Fair:
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme.
Remember me to one who lives there.
She once was a true love of mine.

On the side of a hill in the deep forest green.
Tracing of sparrow on snow-crested brown.
Blankets and bedclothes the child of the mountain
Sleeps unaware of the clarion call.

Tell her to make me a cambric shirt:
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme;
Without no seams nor needle work,
Then she’ll be a true love of mine.

On the side of a hill in the sprinkling of leaves.
Washes the grave with silvery tears.
A soldier cleans and polishes a gun.
Sleeps unaware of the clarion call.

Tell her to find me an acre of land:
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme;
Between the salt water and the sea strands,
Then she’ll be a true love of mine.

War bellows blazing in scarlet battalions.
Generals order their soldiers to kill.
And to fight for a cause they have long ago forgotten.

Tell her to reap it with a sickle of leather:
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme;
And gather it all in a bunch of heather,
Then she’ll be a true love of mine.

Are you going to Scarborough Fair:
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme.
Remember me to one who lives there.
She once was a true love of mine.

House of the Rising Son by the Animals

This second song is very interesting. It’s a blues song, based on a traditional folk song, yet I read that when it was released in 1964 it caused quite a stir. This song shot to number one on the charts in the UK, US, and France.

The song is of anonymous authorship. “House of the Rising Sun” is a tale of sin, sexual ruin and a tortured soul in New Orleans. The song has been recorded by various artists including Bob Dylan and Dolly Parton. Many debate the true meaning of the title, arguing that it could be a euphemism for a whorehouse, a jail, a slave plantation or a specific establishment in the French Quarter. The most famous version of the song was by the British-Invasion-era band The Animals, who maintained it was an old English folk song emigrants brought to America (originally it was a Soho brothel instead of a New Orleans one). Thanks to Eric Burdon’s chilling howls, the Animals’ adaptation would become a classic in its own right and would make Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All-Time, at #122.

• Eric Burdon – vocals
• Alan Price – keyboards
• Hilton Valentine – guitar
• Chas Chandler – bass
• John Steel – drums

Lyrics

There is a house in New Orleans
They call the Rising Sun
And it’s been the ruin of many a poor boy
And God, I know I’m one

My mother was a tailor
She sewed my new blue jeans
My father was a gamblin’ man
Down in New Orleans

Now the only thing a gambler needs
Is a suitcase and a trunk
And the only time he’s satisfied
Is when he’s all drunk

[Organ Solo]

Oh mother, tell your children
Not to do what I have done
Spend your lives in sin and misery
In the House of the Rising Sun

Well, I got one foot on the platform
The other foot on the train
I’m goin’ back to New Orleans
To wear that ball and chain

Well, there is a house in New Orleans
They call the Rising Sun
And it’s been the ruin of many a poor boy
And God, I know I’m one

Strawberry Fields Forever by the Beatles

The third song, by the Beatles, is the most famous of the 3 songs I featured. It was released in 1967. Many believe it is a song about drugs, and to be fair the song does have a psychedelic and hallucinogenic vibe, however when interviewed John Lennon insisted the song was not about drugs. It was a very personal song to him about his childhood. There was a strawberry field near his childhood home in Liverpool. His mother’s premature death strongly affected Lennon, and I can hear a longing in the song. As Daddy informed me John Lennon was going through an identity crisis when this song was composed and released. So the lyrics are extremely interesting. I really like this song. It’s a weird song by any metric, yet it is a very Beatles song and was revolutionary in several respects.

I was different all my life. The second verse goes, “No one I think is in my tree.” Well, I was too shy and self-doubting. Nobody seems to be as hip as me is what I was saying. Therefore, I must be crazy or a genius – “I mean it must be high or low”

John Lennon, 1980

Lyrics

Let me take you down, ’cause I’m going to Strawberry Fields
Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about
Strawberry Fields forever

Living is easy with eyes closed
Misunderstanding all you see
It’s getting hard to be someone but it all works out
It doesn’t matter much to me
Let me take you down, cause I’m going to Strawberry Fields
Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about
Strawberry Fields forever

No one I think is in my tree
I mean it must be high or low
That is you can’t you know tune in but it’s all right
That is I think it’s not too bad
Let me take you down, cause I’m going to Strawberry Fields
Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about
Strawberry Fields forever

Always know, sometimes think it’s me
But you know, I know when it’s a dream
I think a “No,” I mean a “Yes”
But it’s all wrong
That is, I think I disagree

Let me take you down, cause I’m going to Strawberry Fields
Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about
Strawberry Fields forever
Strawberry Fields forever
Strawberry Fields forever