Re: la rosa and Richard Farina

[music <music...>]

   hi, Lucy mentioned that contrafact of "Los Bilbilicos" (La rosa
   enflorece) by Richard Farina, known as The Swallow Song. I learned it
   in fact long before learning the Sephardic original . But I've always
   wondered where he GOT the tune to begin with; when he wrote the words
   to The Swallow SOng it was longbefore the Judeo-Spanish song revival.
   ANy ideas? thought maybe during his time in France? Judith


Robert Rothstein's explanation may well be correct--I had never made the
connection.  (And, btw, Carolyn Hester was Richard Farina's first wife--
before Mimi-which makes it even more likely that he'd have learned songs
from her.)

I don't know if dating Carolyn Hester's recording session and Farina's
composition of "A Swallow Song" (which is I believe its exact title) would
help clarify matters--or maybe someday I can ask Carolyn Hester.

As it happens, I *did* ask Mimi Farina this very question--where did he get
this melody?  And fwiw, this is what she wrote me back:

"I don't believe Dick was particularly conscious of the melody's origin,
but I feel certain thyat he felt he'd picked it up when he was in Spain.
He travelled through Spain during the summer of 1963--seeking the ghost of
Hemingway, I'm sure."

Richard Farina was--like Dylan and Woody Guthrie (but Woody was open [and
unembarrassed] about it, unlike maybe the others--shameless about borrowing
(or, Woody would say, "stealing") melodies for his songs.  In reference to
his swiping an Irish melody for a different song, Mimi once wrote (not to
me), "Dick had a way of plagiarizing that was not only bold but also
endearingly forgivable."

I've always found that pricelessly funny--even if it rather begs the
question of whose forgiveness would, in fact, be required.

Now I have to find Carolyn Hester (who did a coffeehouse concert in
Cambridge a couple of years ago).

--Robert Cohen





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