This week's song is our 200th Song of the Week, which isn't bad. How many weekly features, especially on the Internet, wind up running for 200 editions? I started it mainly because non-stop jihad was beginning to make my head explode, and I needed a bit of a palate cleanser from 24/7 civilizational collapse. But I'm happy to say it's become one of our most popular features. I'm always delighted when I'm giving a speech somewhere or other and someone comes up with an appreciative word about our weekly warble: John Roskam mentioned it when he introduced me at the Institute of Public Affairs gala down in Melbourne, and at the Hudson Institute in New York Brian Gaffney, Fox News' documentary supremo, said it was his favorite stop at SteynOnline.
Not everyone's so disposed, and we occasionally get grumbling notes about the selected songs. So just for the record here's the chronological spread of the 199 numbers covered thus far:
19th century 9
0ughts 8
Teens 13
Twenties 14
Thirties 42
Forties 36
Fifties 28
Sixties 35
Seventies 10
Eighties 6
Nineties 1
21st century 1
And here's where they originated:
Pop 64
Broadway 44
Hollywood 30
Christmas 12
United Kingdom 11
Country & Western 9
Europop 8
Canada 4
Patriotic 3
Australia 3
Off-Broadway and cabaret 3
Latin America 3
European opera 2
Television 2
Israel 1
Africa 1
European operetta 1
France 1
Jamaica 1
It doesn't add up precisely to 199 because we've had the odd medley over the years. What was our first Song of the Week? "San Francisco", from Jeanette MacDonald's protean disaster flick of the same name. What was the most popular? "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas", oddly enough. That's not collected in A Song For The Season, my handsome hardcover anthology of seasonal song essays from "Auld Lang Syne" to "White Christmas", but you can always buy Jessica Martin's and my recording of the number – and, if I do say so myself, it's the merriest "Have Yourself A Merry" you'll ever hear.
For our 200th Song of the Week, I thought it would be fun to choose a number that's 200 years old. The pickings are kinda slim, to be honest: 1811 wasn't a great year for enduring popular songs, although it did produce Beethoven's Archduke Trio and Weber's opera Abu Hassan. But, admirable as they are, two centuries on, the most recognizable music to emerge from that year is undoubtedly:
Frère Jacques
Frère Jacques
Dormez-vous?
Dormez-vous?
Sonnez les matines!
Sonnez les matines!
Din-dan-don!
Din-dan don!
"Frère Jacques" is the nearest thing to a lasting song to emerge from that year, and to be honest even then the whole 1811 thing's a wee bit dodgy. According to James J Fuld in the relatively scholarly Book Of World Famous Music, that's the year the tune was first published. On the other hand, there's a manuscript in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris marked "Recueil de Timbres de Vaudevilles" with what appears to be the first formally notated record of the melody, and it's labeled "Frère Blaise". The library estimates the manuscript dates from around 1780. And there are certainly similarities with Frescobaldi's Toccate d'intavolatura No 14, not least in the title: "Capriccio Fra Jacopino" – Fra Jacopino being a passable Italianization of Frère Jacques. And Frescobaldi's composition was published around 1615. I believe I'm correct in saying it was the first published score printed with the then new notation for minim and crotchet that we use to this day.
But the truth is the world isn't going to wait till 1811 to get around to a tune as simple as "Frère Jacques". Like "Three Blind Mice", it's the kind of simple round that could have originated in any European culture where folks gather to sing communally, and it's sufficiently catchy to jump from country to country with ease. But for the purposes of our discussion here today we'll regard it as a French nursery song celebrating the bicentennial of its official publication. All together now:
Frère Jacques
Frère Jacques…
Or, rather, not altogether now. It's a round. Which means that you start singing and when you get to the beginning of the second line, the guy next to you starts singing the first, and when you get to the beginning of the third and the guy next to you the beginning of the second, the guy next to him starts singing the first. And on and on down the line, and when you get to the end of the thing you start immediately back at the beginning, and the fun goes on all night.
Granted that in-built catchiness, you still need a memorable hook. The "frère" of "Frère Jacques" is a "brother" in the religious sense – a monk, or friar, to use the English word derived from "frère". This friar is in no hurry to greet the day. "Dormez-vous?" Are you sleeping? Why, yes, he is. "Sonnez les matines!" Ring those morning bells! In their book Refrains d'enfants: L'histoire de 60 chansons populaires, Martine David and A Marie Delrieu argue that the song might have been cooked up to mock Benedictine monks – ie, the Jacobin order – who were noted for their general sloth.
Then again, it's been claimed that the song originated in a Russian seminary and was originally about "Father Theofil". In Germany, he's usually "Bruder Jakob", but there's another Teutonic version called "Bruder Martin", which is said by some (I don't think there's a lot of evidence) to refer to Martin Luther. But Mahler knew the tune as "Bruder Martin" when he quoted it – in spooky minor-key mode – in his First Symphony.
In English it's usually "Brother John". In sung French, monosyllabic words at the end of a line invariably get two notes: "La vie en ro-zuh", etc. "Frère Jacques" is a two-fer: "Frè-ruh Jac-kuh." But it doesn't play so well en anglais, so the English version inverts the lyric:
Are you sleeping?
Are you sleeping?
Brother John
Brother John…
For some reason, it doesn't work so well that way round. Nevertheless, as darkly memorable as Mahler's minor-key "Bruder Martin" is, my favorite instrumental version, released under the title "Brother John", is Nelson Riddle's with a real ring-a-ding-ding-dong-ding when it comes to sonner les matines. Riddle arranged Sinatra's goofy swingin' version of "Old MacDonald", and you can't help but wish they'd gone on to do an entire album of nursery classics, with "Frère Jacques" as a cat the chicks really dig.
If Frank never got to it, the Beatles did: If you listen carefully to "Paperback Writer", you can hear George and John singing "Frère Jacques". Among other British rockers of the era, Manfred Mann worked up a very cool instrumental version. It must have seemed the height of sophistication after "The Mighty Quinn". Likewise, Sly and the Family Stone top and tail "Underdog" with "Frère Jacques". And Brian Wilson's "Surf's Up", in the midst of a Van Dyke Parks text at its most obscurantist, tips its hat to the friendly friar:
Hung velvet overtaken me
Dim chandelier awaken me
To a song dissolved in the dawn
The music hall a costly bow
The music all is lost for now
To a muted trumpeter swanColumnated ruins domino
Canvas the town and brush the backdrop
Are you sleeping, Brother John?
Oh, I'd bet on it. One couplet from Van Dyke Parks and he's out like a light. If "Brother John" doesn't quite work for you as an anglicization of "Frère Jacques", how about this? Before "Hello, Muddah, Hello, Faddah", this was Allan Sherman's first hit:
Sarah Jackman
Sarah Jackman
How's by you?
How's by you?
How's by you the fam'ly?
How's your sister Em'ly?
She's nice, too
She's nice, too…
I like the way Sherman builds on the sheer monotony of canon form with this grand accumulation of social pleasantries:
How's your brother Bernie?
(He's a big attorney)
How's your sister Doris?
(Still with William Morris)
How's your cousin Shirley?
(She got married early)
How's her daughter Esther?
(Skipped a whole semester)
How's your brother Bentley?
(Feeling better ment'ly)
How's your cousin Ida?
(She's a freedom rider)
What's with Uncle Sidney?
(They took out a kidney)
How's your sister Norma?
(She's a non-conformer)
How's your cousin Lena?
(Moved to Pasadena)
How's your Uncle Nathan?
(Him I got no faith in)
I ain't heard from Sonja
(I'll get her to phone ya)
How's her daughter Rita?
(A regular Lolita)
How's your cousin Manny?
(Signed up with Vic Tanny)
How's your nephew Seymour?
(Seymour joined the Peace Corps)
He's nice, too
He's nice, too…
Not so nice is the version said to be sung by the home team at British military academies to visiting French cadets:
Agincourt
Agincourt
Crecy, too
Crecy, too
Nile and Trafalgar
Nile and Trafalgar
Waterloo
Waterloo.
On the subject of great battle cries, let us not forget the Maoist anthem "The Revolution Of The Citizens", written by officers of the Whampoa Military Academy to the tune of "Frère Jacques" in 1926. The literal translation runs:
Overthrow the foreign powers
Overthrow the foreign powers
Eliminate the warlords
Eliminate the warlords
The citizens strive hard for the Revolution
The citizens strive hard for the Revolution
Joint affair to fight
Joint affair to fight.
Hmm. Maybe it sings better than it reads. If you're one of those readers who thinks we focus a bit too much on the standard repertoire in our Song of the Week, I hope you appreciate our 200th edition diversion into Maoist revolutionary nursery rhymes. Just think, right now in the Kingdom of Heaven, if Gustav Mahler, Nelson Riddle, John Lennon, George Harrison, Allan Sherman and Chairman Mao get together for a Monday night jam session, "Frère Jacques" may be the only tune they all know. I'm not sure what lyric they'd use, though:
Frère Jacques
Frère Jacques
How's by you?
How's by you?
Eliminate the warlords
Eliminate the warlords
Waterloo
Waterloo.
That's our 200th Song of the Week 200 years after alleged first publication. Join us next week as our glorious sons and daughters of the Revolution march on to the next 200 Songs of the Week.
Oh, I almost forgot:
Columnated ruins domino.
