Thursday, December 8, 2011

What Song is This?

Today I decorate the blog with Guava with Leaves, another gorgeous painting by Jonathan Koch.

In the close-up at his website, the brown leaves look like a pair of brown lips puckered for a kiss. That kiss and the guava's green leaves put me in mind of "Greensleeves," the famous, probably Elizabethan love song, perhaps about a promiscuous woman, maybe just a flirtatious one, that has new Christmassy lyrics in "What Child is This?" that we are hearing on the radio (and in stores, if we are the shopping type) this time of year.

Here are the lyrics to "Greensleeves."

And here are the lyrics to "What Child is This?"

I loved learning from Wikipedia that some people thought the song was written by Henry VIII to woo Anne Boleyn, which seems unlikely, historically, but sounds good as legend. My daughter is writing a research paper on Anne Boleyn for her Honors English class, so she's been immersed in that story and, at some point, I'd love to borrow Anne of The Thousand Days from the library and watch it with her. Anne is Genevieve Bujold! Oooh, it's also time to see Choose Me again, with Bujold as Dr. Nancy Love!

Oh, dear, it's a total Random Coinciday in the blog. And yet, somehow it all connects. For instance, speaking of Anne Boleyn, who was beheaded by her husband Henry, not such a nice guy in the long run, puts me in mind of yesterday's Split Pomegranate, for various reasons.

And now I have decorated the blog for Christmas, in red and green.

1 comment:

Collagemama said...

I first learned this tune as "Home in the Meadow", sung by Debbie Reynolds in the '62 movie, "How the West Was Won".

Away, Away
Come away with me
Where the grass grows wild, where the winds blow free
Away, Away
Come away with me
And I'll build you a home in the meadow

Come, Come
There's a wondrous land
For the hopeful heart, for the willing hand
Come, Come
There's a wondrous land
Where I'll build you a home in the meadow

The stars, the stars
Oh how bright they'll shine
On a world that the Lord must have helped design
The stars, the stars
Oh how bright they'll shine
On that home we will build in the meadow

Come, Come
There's a wondrous land
For the hopeful heart, for the willing hand
Come. Come
There's a wondrous land
Where I'll build you a home in the meadow