 | This article relies largely or entirely on a single source .(July 2024) |
| "Aura Lea" | |
|---|---|
 Cover of Confederate version (1864) | |
| Song | |
| Language | English |
| Published | 1861 by John Church Company |
| Genre | sentimental ballad |
| Composer(s) | George R. Poulton |
| Lyricist(s) | W. W. Fosdick |
"Aura Lea" (sometimes spelled "Aura Lee") is an American Civil War song about a maiden. It was written by W. W. Fosdick (lyrics) and George R. Poulton (music). The melody was used in Elvis Presley's 1956 hit song "Love Me Tender".
Aura Lea was published by Poulton, an Englishman who had come to the USA with his family as a boy in 1838, and Fosdick in 1861. It was a sentimental ballad at a time when upbeat and cheerful songs were more popular in the music halls. [1] It became popular as a minstrel song, and the tune was also taken up by the U.S. Military Academy as a graduating class song, called "Army Blue"; new lyrics by L. W. Becklaw were sung to the original melody. [1]
The Civil War began shortly after the song's release; "Aura Lea" was adopted by soldiers on both sides, and was often sung around campfires. [1]
The tune is familiar to modern audiences from the 1956 Elvis Presley #1 hit "Love Me Tender" with new lyrics by Ken Darby, a derivative adaptation of the original. A later Presley recording for the film The Trouble with Girls entitled "Violet (Flower of N.Y.U.)" also used the melody of "Aura Lea".
The lyrics as written by Fosdick:
When the blackbird in the Spring,
Neath the willow tree,
Sat and rock'd, I heard him sing,
Sing of Aura Lea.
Aura Lea, Aura Lea,
Maid of golden hair;
Sunshine came along with thee,
And swallows in the air.
Chorus:
Aura Lea, Aura Lea,
Maid of golden hair;
Sunshine came along with thee,
And swallows in the air.
In thy blush the rose was born,
Music, when you spake,
Through thine azure eye the morn,
Sparkling seemed to break.
Aura Lea, Aura Lea,
Birds of crimson wing,
Never song have sung to me,
As in that sweet spring.
(Chorus)
Aura Lea! the bird may flee,
The willow's golden hair
Swing through winter fitfully,
On the stormy air.
Yet if thy blue eyes I see,
Gloom will soon depart;
For to me, sweet Aura Lea
Is sunshine through the heart.
(Chorus)
When the mistletoe was green,
Midst the winter's snows,
Sunshine in thy face was seen,
Kissing lips of rose.
Aura Lea, Aura Lea,
Take my golden ring;
Love and light return with thee,
And swallows with the spring.
(Chorus)
"Aura Lee" was sung by Frances Farmer and a male chorus in the 1936 film Come and Get It , based on Edna Ferber's novel. [1]
Bing Crosby included the song in a medley on his album Join Bing and Sing Along (1959)
Diana Muldaur sings the song to David Carradine in the episode "The Elixir" of Kung Fu .
Jerry Lanning performed the song in "Big Star", a 1962 episode of The Donna Reed Show .
The television cavalry comedy F Troop used a variation of the song to welcome saloon singer Laura Lee in the episode "She's Only a Build in a Girdled Cage" (cf. "She's only a bird in a gilded cage").
The television western The Young Riders used the song in its series finale, which took place in 1861 and showed how the American Civil War was affecting its characters' lives.
It is the running theme music in the background of the 1954 John Ford film The Long Gray Line . [1]
Allan Sherman topicalized the song in his "Shticks of One and a Half Dozen of the Other" (on the album My Son, The Celebrity, 1963 Warner Records Inc) with this polio-based version:
Every time you take vaccine, take it orally [a pun on "Aura Lea"]
As you know the other way is more painfully![ citation needed ]
An episode of The Rockford Files is called "Aura Lee Farewell". However the few lyrics that are recited are actually from the poem "Annabel Lee" by Edgar Allan Poe.
On the show Beverly Hills 90210 on the episode The Real McCoy (05/10/95), Dylan McKay (Luke Perry) was led into a past life in the wild wild west through hypnotic regression with his hypnotherapist. During his hypnosis session, he imagined that he walked into a saloon, where a hurdy gurdy girl was singing "Aura Lea."
The tune is used by the Cartoon Planet Band in the song "I Love Almost Everybody", which was also found on the associated album, Space Ghost's Musical Bar-B-Que .
Caitlín R. Kiernan's 2007 novel Daughter of Hounds has a character singing the winter verse of "Aura Lee" during a snowstorm.
Oona Laurence sings the song in the Sofia Coppola film The Beguiled (2017).
The melody is also used in the Welsh hymn "Os Wyt Eisiau Bod yn Llon"
In 2023 Czech writer and poet Rudolph Richard Talacko, inspired by the melody of the original song and the lyrics of Elvis Presley's song "Love Me Tender", wrote his own original lyrics to this song dedicated to the eternal love between him and his most beloved woman Rosey from San Diego.
The 1983 film Trading Places includes Ivy League stockbrokers at their racquet club singing a sexualized parody of this song about their college days and their fraternity's conquest of various women on locations at campus, with the refrain changed to "Constance Frye." The television show How I Met Your Mother 2009 episode "Robots Versus Wrestlers" (season 5, episode 22) features Ted Mosby at an upper-class party singing the Trading Places "Constance Frye" version along with film director Peter Bogdanovich and The New York Times crossword editor Will Shortz.
In Revenge of the Nerds , Betty Childs and the other girls from her sorority sing a parody (though not the exact tune) to the Tri-Lambs.
In Thomas Pynchon's 1966 novel The Crying of Lot 49 , employees of Yoyodyne sing a parodic version of "Aura Lee", entitled "Glee", with lyrics about the company's position in the defense industry.
Appears in the song “The Work Song” written by Kate McGarrigle on the 1982 album “Love Over and Over” by Kate & Anna McGarrigle. First recorded by Maria Muldaur on her 1973 album “Maria Muldaur”. Also covered by Margaret RoadKnight and Justin Vivian Bond.
"My Country, 'Tis of Thee", also known as simply "America", is an American patriotic song, the lyrics of which were written by Samuel Francis Smith. The song served as one of the de facto national anthems of the United States before the adoption of "The Star-Spangled Banner" as the official U.S. national anthem in 1931. The melody used is adapted from the national anthem of the United Kingdom, "God Save the King".
The Finlandia hymn refers to a serene hymn-like section of the patriotic symphonic poem Finlandia, written in 1899 and 1900 by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius. It was later re-worked by the composer into a stand-alone piece. With words written in 1940 by Veikko Antero Koskenniemi, it is one of the most important national songs of Finland. Although not the official national anthem of Finland, it has been continuously proposed as such.
The "Londonderry Air" is an Irish air that originated in County Londonderry, first recorded in the nineteenth century. The tune is played as the victory sporting anthem of Northern Ireland at the Commonwealth Games. The song "Danny Boy" written by English lawyer Fred Weatherly uses the tune, with a set of lyrics written in the early 20th century.
"Danny Boy" is a song with lyrics written by English lawyer Frederic Weatherly in 1910, and set to the traditional Irish melody of "Londonderry Air" in 1913.
"Alouette" is a popular Quebecois children's song, commonly thought to be about plucking the feathers from a lark. Although it is in French, it is well known among speakers of other languages; in this respect, it is similar to "Frère Jacques". Many US Marines and other Allied soldiers learnt the song while serving in France during World War I and took it home with them, passing it on to their children and grandchildren.
Love Me Tender may refer to:
"Love Me Tender" is a 1956 ballad song recorded by Elvis Presley and published by "Elvis Presley Music" from the 20th Century Fox film of the same name. Lyrics are credited to "Vera Matson". The melody is identical to the sentimental Civil War ballad "Aura Lea" and therefore credited to Aura Lea's composer, the Englishman George R. Poulton. The RCA Victor recording by Elvis Presley was No. 1 on both the Billboard and Cashbox charts in 1956.
"Pretty Baby" is a song written by Tony Jackson during the Ragtime era. The song was remembered as being prominent in Jackson's repertory before he left New Orleans in 1912, but was not published until 1916.
"Aloha ʻOe" is a Hawaiian folk song written c. 1878 by Liliʻuokalani, who was then Princess of the Hawaiian Kingdom. It is her most famous song and is a common cultural symbol for Hawaii.
"Early One Morning" is an English folk song with lyrics first found in publications as far back as 1787. A broadside ballad sheet in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, dated between 1828 and 1829 has the title "The Lamenting Maid" and refers to the lover leaving to become a sailor.
"Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes" is a popular old song, the lyrics of which are the poem "To Celia" by the English playwright Ben Jonson (1572–1637), first published in 1616.
"Dear Lord and Father of Mankind" is a hymn with words taken from a longer poem, "The Brewing of Soma" by American Quaker poet John Greenleaf Whittier. The adaptation was made by Garrett Horder in his 1884 Congregational Hymns.
"Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing" is a Christian hymn written by the pastor and hymnodist Robert Robinson, who penned the words in the year 1758 at the age of 22.
Welcome Home Elvis is a 1960 television special on the ABC Television Network starring Frank Sinatra and featuring Elvis Presley in his first televised appearance following his military service in West Germany. The special, commonly known as Welcome Home Elvis, was officially titled It's Nice to Go Traveling, a reference to the Sinatra song "It's Nice to Go Trav'ling". This was Presley's first TV appearance in three years. This was also Frank Sinatra's fourth and final Timex sponsored outing for the 1959–60 television season.
"Just a Closer Walk with Thee" is a traditional gospel song and jazz standard that has been performed and recorded by many artists. Performed as either an instrumental or vocal, "A Closer Walk" is perhaps the most frequently played number in the hymn and dirge section of traditional New Orleans jazz funerals. The title and lyrics of the song allude to the Biblical passage from 2 Corinthians 5:7 which states, "We walk by faith, not by sight" and James 4:8, "Come near to God and He will come near to you."
"The Hymn of Joy" is a poem written by Henry van Dyke in 1907 in being a Vocal Version of the famous "Ode to Joy" melody of the final movement of Ludwig van Beethoven's final symphony, Symphony No. 9.
The U.S. state of Arizona has two official state songs, although neither is named as such. The official state anthem is "The Arizona March Song" and the alternate state anthem titled "Arizona".
George Rodway Poulton was an English-born American musician and composer.
"Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms" is a popular song written by the Irish poet Thomas Moore, setting new lyrics to a traditional Irish air that can be traced back into the 18th century. He published it in 1808, naming the air as "My Lodging is on the Cold Ground" from lyrics of British origin with which it was widely associated at the time. The new lyrics were presented in an album of selected Irish melodies arranged by John Andrew Stevenson with “characteristic words” provided by Moore.
Love Me Tender is an EP by Elvis Presley, containing the four songs from the motion picture of the same name. It was released by RCA Victor in November 1956. The EP peaked at No. 9 on Top Pop Albums chart with sales of over 600,000, as well as making it to No. 35 on the singles chart. It was simultaneously certified Gold and Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America on March 27, 1992.
