Believe Me, if All Those Endearing Young Charms

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"Believe Me, if All Those Endearing Young Charms" is a popular song written in 1808 by Irish poet Thomas Moore using a traditional Irish air. Moore's young[ citation needed ] wife had been stricken and worried that she would lose her looks. He wrote the words to reassure her.

Thomas Moore 18th-century Irish poet, singer, and songwriter

Thomas Moore was an Irish poet, singer, songwriter, and entertainer, now best remembered for the lyrics of "The Minstrel Boy" and "The Last Rose of Summer". As Lord Byron's named literary executor, along with John Murray, Moore was responsible for burning Lord Byron's memoirs after his death. In his lifetime he was often referred to as Anacreon Moore.

Contents

Origins of the melody

The tune to which Moore set his words is a traditional Irish air, first printed in a London songbook in 1775. [1] It is occasionally wrongly credited to Sir William Davenant, whose older collection of tunes may have been the source for later publishers, including a collection titled General Collection of Ancient Irish Music, compiled by Edward Bunting in 1796. Sir John Andrew Stevenson has been credited as responsible for the music for Moore's setting. [2]

Edward Bunting Irish musician and music collector

Edward Bunting (1773–1843) was an Irish musician and folk music collector.

It is thought that after Moore's wife, Elizabeth, was badly scarred by smallpox, she refused to leave her room, believing herself ugly and unlovable. To convince her his love was unwavering, Moore composed the ‘Endearing’ poem which he set to an old Irish melody and sang outside her bedroom door. He later wrote that this restored her confidence and re-kindled their love.[ citation needed ]

Lyrics

The lyrics, as originally published in 1808 in A Selection of Irish Melodies, are as follows: [3]

I.
BELIEVE me, if all those endearing young charms,
Which I gaze on so fondly to-day,
Were to change by to-morrow, and flee from my arms
Like fairy-gifts, fading away!
Thou wouldst still be ador'd as this moment thou art,
Let thy loveliness fade as it will;
And, around the dear ruin, each wish of my heart
Would entwine itself verdantly still!
II.
It is not while beauty and youth are thine own,
And thy cheeks unprofan'd by a tear,
That the fervour and faith of a love can be known,
To which time will but make thee more dear!
No! the heart that has truly lov'd, never forgets,
But as truly loves on to the close;
As the sun-flower turns on her god, when he sets,
The same look which she turn'd when he rose!

Other uses of the melody

Other than "Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms", the tune is perhaps best known as the melody to "Fair Harvard", the alma mater of Harvard University. A seventeenth-century folk song, Matthew Locke's "My Lodging is in the Cold, Cold Ground", was set to this tune some time after its original setting to a different, also traditional, air. [4] Simone Mantia, a pioneer of American euphonium music, composed a theme and variations on the melody, which remains a staple of the solo euphonium literature.

"Fair Harvard" is the alma mater of Harvard University. Written by the Reverend Samuel Gilman of the class of 1811 for the university's 200th anniversary in 1836, it bids the school an affectionate farewell. Of its four verses, the first and fourth are traditionally sung and the second and third omitted. Its first line was revised to read "...we join in thy jubilee throng" between 1997 and 1998. As a side effect of the change, the word throng, a verb in the original lyrics, became a noun.

Alma mater school or university that a person has attended

Alma mater is an allegorical Latin phrase for a university, school, or college that one formerly attended. In US usage, it can also mean the school from which one graduated. The phrase is variously translated as "nourishing mother", "nursing mother", or "fostering mother", suggesting that a school provides intellectual nourishment to its students. Fine arts will often depict educational institutions using a robed woman.

Harvard University Private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States

Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with about 6,700 undergraduate students and about 13,100 postgraduate students. Established in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, clergyman John Harvard, Harvard is the United States' oldest institution of higher learning. Its history, influence, wealth, and academic reputation have made it one of the most prestigious universities in the world. It is cited as the world's top university by many publishers.

The first verse, as originally written, was sung by the character Alfalfa in a 1936 episode of MGM's The Little Rascals entitled Bored of Education . The tune, with the Endearing Young Charms title, also became a staple of Warner Brothers cartoons, appearing first in the 1944 Private Snafu short "Booby Traps". Subsequent uses included the 1951 Merrie Melodies animated cartoon Ballot Box Bunny , 1957 Looney Tunes short Show Biz Bugs (which reappeared in the 1981 package film), 1965 and 1994 Road Runner cartoons Rushing Roulette and Chariots of Fur respectively, and finally in a new twist on the gag, with Slappy Squirrel's 1993 introductory episode, "Slappy Goes Walnuts", from Animaniacs . Variations were also done in the 1963 Andy Griffith Show episode "Rafe Hollister Sings", and the 2010 South Park episode "Crippled Summer". [5] In its cartoon appearances, the song is often the cue for a classic "bomb gag" wherein the playing of the first line of the song sets off a rigged explosion on the final note. However, the target often misses, forcing the perpetrator to play it himself and fall for his own trap. The gag is so well known that it is often called "The Xylophone Gag". [6]

Carl Switzer American actor

Carl Dean Switzer was an American singer, child actor, dog breeder and guide. He was best known for his role as Alfalfa in the short subjects series Our Gang.

<i>Our Gang</i> Film series

Our Gang is an American series of comedy short films chronicling a group of poor neighborhood children and their adventures. Created by comedy producer and studio executive Hal Roach, the series was produced in various forms from 1922 to 1944 and is noted for showing children behaving in a relatively natural way. Roach and original director Robert F. McGowan worked to film the unaffected, raw nuances apparent in regular children rather than have them imitate adult acting styles. The series broke new ground by portraying white and black children interacting as equals.

<i>Bored of Education</i> 1936 film by Gordon Douglas

Bored of Education is a 1936 Our Gang short comedy film directed by Gordon Douglas. Produced by Hal Roach and released to theaters by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, it was the 146th entry in the Our Gang series to be released.

Little Virgie (Shirley Temple) sings the song to her father (John Boles) in the 1935 film The Littlest Rebel .

The first line appears in some versions of Dexys Midnight Runners' "Come On Eileen" as an introduction played by a solo fiddle. A short version of the tune also appears at the end of some versions of the song.

Roger Quilter's setting of the song was included in the Arnold Book of Old Songs , published in 1950.

Debbie Reynolds and Barbara Ruick sing the first stanza in the 1953 film The Affairs of Dobie Gillis .

Walter Huston plays the melody on harmonica in the film The Treasure of the Sierra Madre .

Bing Crosby included the song in a medley on his album 101 Gang Songs (1961).

The song is performed at a Christmas party of the Adams Family at the beginning of "Chapter VIII: John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State" of The Adams Chronicles (1976).

An instrumental version of the song plays around the midpoint of the 1963 Twilight Zone episode "Passage on the Lady Anne".

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The Last Rose of Summer poem

"The Last Rose of Summer" is a poem by the Irish poet Thomas Moore. He wrote it in 1805, while staying at Jenkinstown Park in County Kilkenny, Ireland, where he was said to have been inspired by a specimen of Rosa 'Old Blush'. The poem is set to a traditional tune called "Aislean an Oigfear", or "The Young Man's Dream", which was transcribed by Edward Bunting in 1792, based on a performance by harper Denis Hempson at the Belfast Harp Festival. The poem and the tune together were published in December 1813 in volume 5 of Thomas Moore's A Selection of Irish Melodies. The original piano accompaniment was written by John Andrew Stevenson, several other arrangements followed in the 19th and 20th centuries.

The Minstrel Boy Irish patriotic song written by Thomas Moore

"The Minstrel Boy" is an Irish patriotic song written by Thomas Moore (1779–1852) who set it to the melody of The Moreen, an old Irish air. It is widely believed that Moore composed the song in remembrance of a number of his friends, whom he met while studying at Trinity College, Dublin and who had participated in the Irish Rebellion of 1798. However this has never been definitively proven and the tune is also played by the British Army and Orange Order flute bands The song gained widespread popularity and became a favourite of many Irishmen who fought during the American Civil War and gained even more popularity after World War I. The song is notably associated with organisations that historically had a heavy representation of Irish-Americans, in particular the police and fire departments of New York, Boston and Chicago and those of various other major US metropolitan areas, even after those organisations have ceased to have a substantial over-representation of personnel of Irish ancestry. The melody is frequently played, typically on bagpipes, at funerals of members and/or officers of such organisations who have died or been killed in service. Unsurprisingly, given its lyrics, it is also associated with the Irish Army and with traditionally Irish regiments in the armies of the United Kingdom and the United States as well as other armies of the world.

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References

  1. ↑ Songs of Yale. New Haven: Yale Glee Club, 2006. p. 150. The website http://www.contemplator.com/, used in a later reference in this article, claims its first printing was in 1737.
  2. ↑ William Davenant, 1606-1668. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2010-06-16. Retrieved 2010-02-03.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link), accessed Feb. 3rd, 2010.
  3. ↑ Moore, Thomas (1808). A Selection of Irish Melodies: Second Number. Dublin: W. Powers. pp. 98–102. Retrieved 7 August 2015.
  4. ↑ My Lodging It Is On the Cold Ground. http://www.contemplator.com/england/lodging.html, accessed Feb. 3rd, 2010.
  5. ↑ http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/307810/ukulele-solo
  6. ↑ "Xylophone Gag". TV Tropes. Retrieved 13 April 2017.
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