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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:

  1. 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

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