{"id":9138,"date":"2021-02-01T05:02:55","date_gmt":"2021-02-01T09:02:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/jimmy\/folkden-wp\/?p=9138"},"modified":"2021-02-01T05:02:56","modified_gmt":"2021-02-01T09:02:56","slug":"origin-of-kisses-sweeter-than-wine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/jimmy\/folkden-wp\/?p=9138","title":{"rendered":"Origin of &#8220;Kisses Sweeter Than Wine&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/jimmy\/folkden\/php\/images\/Kisses.jpg\" width=\"500\/\"\/><\/p>\n<div class=\"audio\">\n<div class=\"alignright caption\"><a href=\"?page_id=6069\">How do I download this Mp3?<\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"audio_link\">Mp3: <a href=\"http:\/\/ibiblio.org\/jimmy\/folkden\/php\/music\/Kisses.mp3\"><br \/>\nOrigin of &#8220;Kisses Sweeter Than Wine&#8221; &#8211; Click To Play <\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"about\">\n<p>This is the strange history of an obscure Irish ballad that became a popular song. I only played the public domain melody on my Rickenbacker 12-string with some 5-string banjo and bass thrown in. I left out the copyrighted lyrics. The original song is about a dead cow. It was adapted from the traditional &#8220;Drimindown \/ Drumion Dubh.&#8221; Lead Belly heard folk singer Sam Kennedy perform it in Greenwich Village and had it translated to English. It was not an easy translation. Pete Seeger and Lee Hays loved the melody but they felt they needed to rewrite the lyrics. The love song &#8220;Kisses Sweeter Than Wine&#8221; was the result of their collaboration. Once you read the lyrics, you will understand why Pete and Lee changed the words.<\/p>\n<p>We hope your Valentine kisses are sweeter than ever!<\/p>\n<div class=\"lyrics-header\">\nThese are the original Lyrics almost translated from Gaelic:<\/p>\n<p>Ooohhhh, oohhhh, switches beated him down<\/p>\n<p>And that everyone but Dicky I would change you right\u2005now<br \/>\nBut\u2005this old man\u2005he had but one cow<br \/>\nHe would\u2005send her to the field to be fed<br \/>\nAnd the way they beat old Jemma dropped dead<br \/>\nOoohhhh, oohhhh, switches beated him down<\/p>\n<p>When the old man heard that his cow she was dead<br \/>\nOver hedges and ditches and fields he had fled<br \/>\nOver hedges and ditches and fields that were ploughed<br \/>\n&#8212;&#8211; visit to the wife til they came to his cow<br \/>\nOoohhhh, oohhhh, switches beated him down<\/p>\n<p>When he first saw Jemma she was in the green grass<br \/>\nNo &#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212; Jemma so fast<br \/>\nShe gave her milk freely without any bill<br \/>\nBut the blood of her life spilled out of her pail<br \/>\nOoohhhh, oohhhh, switches beated him down<\/p>\n<p>So now I sit down and eat my dry meal<br \/>\nBut I have no butter to put in my tea<br \/>\nI have no milk to sup with my bread<br \/>\n&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8211;<br \/>\nOoohhhh, oohhhh, switches beated him down<\/p>\n<p>If it wasn&#8217;t for Dicky I would change you right now<br \/>\nBut this old man he had but one cow<br \/>\nHe would send her to the field to be fed<br \/>\nAnd the way they beat old Jemma dropped dead<br \/>\nOoohhhh, oohhhh, switches beated him down<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How do I download this Mp3? Mp3: Origin of &#8220;Kisses Sweeter Than Wine&#8221; &#8211; Click To Play This is the strange history of an obscure Irish ballad that became a popular song. I only played the public domain melody on my Rickenbacker 12-string with some 5-string banjo and bass thrown in. I left out the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/jimmy\/folkden-wp\/?p=9138\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Origin of &#8220;Kisses Sweeter Than Wine&#8221;&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-irishbritish","category-love"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/jimmy\/folkden-wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/jimmy\/folkden-wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/jimmy\/folkden-wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/jimmy\/folkden-wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/jimmy\/folkden-wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9138"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/jimmy\/folkden-wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9138\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9164,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/jimmy\/folkden-wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9138\/revisions\/9164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/jimmy\/folkden-wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/jimmy\/folkden-wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/jimmy\/folkden-wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}