Greensleeves
Composer:
Traditional English folk song
Genre: World / Folk
Decade: before 1923
Submitted by: Russell Ambrose
Description:
From Wikipedia:There is a persistent belief that Greensleeves was composed by Henry VIII for his lover and future queen consort Anne Boleyn. Boleyn allegedly rejected King Henry`s attempts to seduce her and this rejection may be referred to in the song when the writer`s love "cast me off discourteously". However, Henry did not compose "Greensleeves", which is probably Elizabethan in origin and is based on an Italian style of composition that did not reach England until after his death.[2]Lyrical interpretation:One possible interpretation of the lyrics is that Lady Green Sleeves was a promiscuous young woman and perhaps a prostitute.[3] At the time, the word "green" had sexual connotations, most notably in the phrase "a green gown", a reference to the way that grass stains might be seen on a woman`s dress if she had engaged in sexual intercourse out-of-doors.[4]An alternative explanation is that Lady Green Sleeves was, through her costume, incorrectly assumed to be immoral. Her "discourteous" rejection of the singer`s advances supports the contention that she is not.[4]In Nevill Coghill`s translation of The Canterbury Tales,[5] he explains that "green [for Chaucer’s age] was the colour of lightness in love. This is echoed in `Greensleeves is my delight` and elsewhere."[edit]Alternative lyrics"What Child Is This?" is a popular Christmas carol written in 1865 by William Chatterton Dix, set to the "Greensleeves" tune.A variation was used extensively in the 1962 film How the West Was Won as the song "Home in the Meadow", lyrics by Sammy Cahn, performed by Debbie Reynolds.[6][edit]Early literary referencesIn Shakespeare`s The Merry Wives of Windsor, written around 1602, the character Mistress Ford refers twice without any explanation to the tune of "Greensleeves" and Falstaff later exclaims:Let the sky rain potatoes! Let it thunder to the tune of `Greensleeves`!These allusions indicate that the song was already well known at that time.
by: Russell Ambrose