"Beautiful Dreamer" | |
---|---|
Song | |
Written | possibly 1862 |
Published | March 1864 |
Songwriter(s) | Stephen Foster |
"Beautiful Dreamer" is a parlor song by American songwriter Stephen Foster. It was published posthumously in March 1864, by Wm. A. Pond & Co. of New York. The first edition states on its title page that it is "the last song ever written by Stephen C. Foster, composed but a few days prior to his death." [1] However, Carol Kimball, the author of Song, points out that the first edition's copyright is dated 1862, which suggests, she writes, that the song was composed and readied for publication two years before Foster's death. There are at least 20 songs, she observes, that claim to be Foster's last, and it is unknown which is indeed his last. The song is set in 9
8 time with a broken chord accompaniment. [2] [3]
The song tells of a lover serenading a "Beautiful Dreamer" who is oblivious to worldly cares and may actually be dead. Foster's works feature many dead young women, including his sister Charlotte [3] and "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair". [2] Helen Lightner writes, "This sentimental ballad is folk-like in character with its repetitious but lovely melody and its basic harmonic accompaniment ... The quiet and calm of this mood is portrayed by the monotony of the arpeggiated accompaniment, by the repetitiveness of the melodic pattern, and by the strophic form itself." [4]
1.
Beautiful dreamer, wake unto me,
Starlight and dewdrops are waiting for thee;
Sounds of the rude world, heard in the day,
Lull'd by the moonlight have all passed away!
Beautiful dreamer, queen of my song,
List while I woo thee with soft melody;
Gone are the cares of life's busy throng,
Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me!
Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me!
2.
Beautiful dreamer, out on the sea,
Mermaids are chanting the wild lorelei;
Over the streamlet vapors are borne,
Waiting to fade at the bright coming morn.
Beautiful dreamer, beam on my heart,
E'en as the morn on the streamlet and sea;
Then will all clouds of sorrow depart,
Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me!
Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me!
The song has been recorded by Bing Crosby with John Scott Trotter & his Orchestra (March 22, 1940); [5] The Nutmegs; Steve Conway [6] with Jack Byfield & His Orchestra; Thomas Hampson with Jay Ungar (mandolin), David Alpher (piano), and Molly Mason (guitar); John Leyton (with revised lyrics by Ken Lewis and John Carter); Jerry Lee Lewis; [7] Slim Whitman; and Roy Orbison on the album In Dreams (a top ten Australian single in 1964).
According to the 1991 DVD, 'Gentleman Jim Reeves - The Story of a Legend', the US singer recorded the song while on tour in South Africa in 1962, sung in Afrikaans under the title "Bolandse Nooientjie". (A brief translation is fraught; "lass of the hinterland" is one possibility.) Although Reeves could not speak Afrikaans, this was remedied by South African composer and songwriter Gilbert Gibson, who stood behind Reeves and whispered the words of the song to him, who would then sing the same words into the microphone. The song appeared on the 33 rpm LP 'The Jim Reeves Way' a 1965 UK 'red spot' label 12-track 'Dynagroove' Mono LP, co-produced by Chet Atkins & including two tracks sung in Afrikaans; one of which was Bolandse Nooientjie.
Gerry Goffin and Jack Keller wrote a doo-wop version for Tony Orlando [8] which took considerable liberties with the original; the opening quatrain, for instance is "Beautiful Dreamer/Wake unto me/Can't you see me, baby/I'm on my bended knee." Orlando released this version as a single in 1962 [9] and it quickly became a regular part of the Beatles' set list, from 1962 through the Beatles Winter 1963 Helen Shapiro Tour in early 1963. [10] A recording of a 1963 Beatles performance of the song on the BBC was released in 2013 on their album On Air – Live at the BBC Volume 2 . Rory Storm and The Hurricanes also featured the song in their live performances. [11] This version has been recorded by Billy J. Kramer with The Dakotas.
Udo Jürgens recorded a German language version as Beautiful Dreamgirl in 1964. [12] Wolfgang Roloff aka "Ronny" (1930-2011) another one in 1975: "Träumendes Mädchen" ("Dreaming Girl").
Bobby Darin recorded a bluesy version of the song with all-new lyrics, but the song was unreleased until 1999 (on the album Bobby Darin: The Unreleased Capitol Sides). No attribution is given for the new lyrics; one possibility is that Darin might have written these himself. These lyrics tell about a lonely woman who dreams of a love of her own, and a lonely man who dreams of love too. The reference to a queen is retained in Darin's version, asking if the woman is a "queen without a throne".
The song is also featured on Marty Robbins' posthumous album Long, Long Ago (1984) and on Ray Price's posthumous farewell album Beauty Is... Ray Price, the Final Sessions (2014).
The documentary Beautiful Dreamer: Brian Wilson and the Story of Smile is named after the song, and in the documentary Brian Wilson quips that the first letters of the words "Beautiful Dreamer, Wake" compare with his own initials, Brian Douglas Wilson.
Bette Davis hums the song in her Academy Award-winning performance, Best Actress, of 1938, Jezebel .[ citation needed ]
The song is central to the plot of the 1949 film Mighty Joe Young , as it is used throughout the film to calm the title character, a large gorilla. [13]
The tune is a motif in the 1947 film The Secret Life of Walter Mitty , where Rosalind van Hoorn (Virginia Mayo) plays it at key points.
In the 1952 biopic of Stephen Foster entitled I Dream of Jeanie , there is a scene where Stephen Foster, played by Bill Shirley, sings this song as a serenade to one of his two love interests in the film. [14]
The song is touched on repeatedly relating to the subliminal stimuli throughout the 2018 film Distorted .
The song is used as a recurring theme in Winchester (2018) with Helen Mirren.[ citation needed ]
The song is used as a theme song in the 2020 Netflix movie Lost Girls.[ citation needed ]
In Young Frankenstein (1974), the song is referenced, when the ghoulish Igor (Marty Feldman), hears a shrill and anguished female wail from a remote dungeon, he smiles and (almost) sings "beautiful screamer...". In Lorelei (2021), the song is featured in several scenes and gives the film its title.
A cover version of the song with lyrics written by Rafael Jaime and titled Brave Angel is prominently featured in the final scene of the 2024 live-action Mexican independent short film Mi Hermano Lobo (My Brother Wolf). [15] [16] [17] It is used as a hopeful and uplifting lullaby and performed by Mowgli (Héctor Mateo García Díaz Infante) to comfort his young protégé Rafael (Jorge Luis Jiménez Avilés). [18] [19] [20]
The song is pivotal to E. B. White's 1970 novel The Trumpet of the Swan . Louis the trumpeter swan learns the tune during his long journey to find his voice via a stolen trumpet and a chalk slate. In a climactic scene, he belts out its poetry on his trumpet at dawn, declaring his love in the Philadelphia Zoo to the beautiful swan Serena, the object of his long unrequited love. White also includes the public domain sheet music in the novel, perhaps to encourage similarly dramatic loving gestures. The song was also used in The Diviners book 2, Lair of Dreams by Libba Bray.
Mowgli is a fictional character and the protagonist of the Mowgli stories featured among Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book stories. He is a feral boy from the Pench area in Seoni, Madhya Pradesh, India, who originally appeared in Kipling's short story "In the Rukh" and then became the most prominent character in the collections The Jungle Book and The Second Jungle Book (1894–1895), which also featured stories about other characters.
"Strawberry Fields Forever" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles, written by John Lennon and credited to Lennon–McCartney. It was released on 13 February 1967 as a double A-side single with "Penny Lane". It represented a departure from the group's previous singles and a novel listening experience for the contemporary pop audience. While the song initially divided and confused music critics and the group's fans, it proved highly influential on the emerging psychedelic genre. Its accompanying promotional film is similarly recognised as a pioneering work in the medium of music video.
Los Lobos is a Mexican-American rock band from East Los Angeles, California. Their music is influenced by rock and roll, Tex-Mex, country, zydeco, folk, R&B, blues, brown-eyed soul, and traditional music such as cumbia, boleros and norteños. The band rose to international stardom in 1987, when their version of "La Bamba" peaked at the top of the Billboard Hot 100, and also topped the charts in the United Kingdom, and several other countries. Songs by Los Lobos have been recorded by Elvis Costello, Waylon Jennings, Frankie Yankovic, and Robert Plant. In 2015, they were nominated for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2018, they were inducted into the Austin City Limits Hall of Fame. They are also known for performing the theme song for Handy Manny. As of 2024, they have been nominated for twelve Grammy Awards and have won four.
Stephen Collins Foster, known as "the father of American music", was an American composer known primarily for his parlour and minstrel music during the Romantic period. He wrote more than 200 songs, including "Oh! Susanna", "Hard Times Come Again No More", "Camptown Races", "Old Folks at Home", "My Old Kentucky Home", "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair", "Old Black Joe", and "Beautiful Dreamer". Many of his compositions remain popular today.
"Mack the Knife" or "The Ballad of Mack the Knife" is a song composed by Kurt Weill with lyrics by Bertolt Brecht for their 1928 music drama The Threepenny Opera. The song tells of a knife-wielding criminal of the London underworld from the musical named Macheath, the "Mack the Knife" of the title.
Suite bergamasque is a piano suite by Claude Debussy. He began composing it around 1890, at the age of 28, but significantly revised it just before its 1905 publication. The popularity of the third movement, Clair de lune, has made it one of the composer's most famous works for piano, as well as one of the most famous musical pieces of all time.
Cindy Walker was an American songwriter, as well as a country music singer and dancer. She wrote many popular and enduring songs recorded by many artists.
"La Bamba" is a Mexican folk song, originally from the state of Veracruz, also known as "La Bomba". The song is best known from a 1958 adaptation by Ritchie Valens, a Top 40 hit on the U.S. charts. Valens's version is ranked number 345 on Rolling Stone magazine′s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, and is the only song on the list not written or sung in English.
"In Dreams" is a song composed and sung by singer Roy Orbison. An operatic rock ballad of lost love, it was released as a single on Monument Records in February 1963. It became the title track of the album In Dreams, released in July of the same year. The song has a unique through-composed structure in seven movements in which Orbison sings through two octaves, beyond the range of most rock singers.
"A Taste of Honey" is a pop standard written by Bobby Scott and Ric Marlow. It was originally an instrumental track written for the 1960 Broadway version of the 1958 British play A Taste of Honey which was also made into the film of the same name in 1961. The original and a later recording by Herb Alpert in 1965 earned the song four Grammy Awards.
"You'll Never Know", sometimes referred to as "You'll Never Know (Just How Much I Love You)" in later years, is a popular song with music written by Harry Warren and the lyrics by Mack Gordon. The song is based on a poem written by a young Oklahoma war bride named Dorothy Fern Norris.
"Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair" is a parlor song by Stephen Foster (1826–1864), published by Firth, Pond & Co. of New York in 1854. Foster wrote the song with his estranged wife Jane McDowell in mind. The lyrics allude to a permanent separation.
"Splish Splash" is a 1958 novelty rock song performed and co-written by Bobby Darin.
"You Made Me Love You (I Didn't Want to Do It)" is a popular song from 1913 composed by James V. Monaco with lyrics by Joseph McCarthy. It was introduced by Al Jolson in the Broadway revue The Honeymoon Express (1913), and used in the 1973 revival of the musical Irene.
"Golden Slumbers" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1969 album Abbey Road. Written by Paul McCartney and credited to Lennon–McCartney, it is the sixth song of the album's climactic B-side medley. The song is followed by "Carry That Weight" and begins the progression that leads to the end of the album. The two songs were recorded together as a single piece, and both contain strings and brass arranged and scored by producer George Martin.
"Grow Old with Me" is one of the final songs written by John Lennon. It was first recorded by Lennon as a demo while in Bermuda. A handwritten lyric sheet for the song is dated July 5, 1980 Fairyland Bermuda. The song was first released on the posthumous album Milk and Honey in 1984. It was also rumoured to be among the songs planned as a possible reunion single by his former bandmates during the making of The Beatles Anthology.
"Memories" is a popular song with music by Egbert Van Alstyne and lyrics by Gus Kahn, published in 1915.
"Call Me Back Again" is a song credited to Paul and Linda McCartney and performed by Wings. It was originally released on the album Venus and Mars. It was performed throughout their world tours in Australia and America and a live version was included on the album Wings Over America. It was also included on the compilation album Wingspan: Hits and History. The song was also included on the theatrical version of the film Rockshow, documenting the Wings 1976 tour, but was excluded from the laserdisc version of the film.
"It's the Dreamer in Me" is a 1938 song composed by Jimmy Dorsey and Jimmy Van Heusen, which was first recorded by Jimmy Dorsey and His Orchestra with Bob Eberly on vocals. Jimmy Dorsey composed the music. The lyrics were written by Jimmy Van Heusen. The song is a jazz and pop standard.
Theodore Walter Jandrell was a South African teacher, principal of the Volksrust Primary School, educationist, schools inspector, and prolific Afrikaans poet and folksong writer.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: url-status (link)