It Was a Lover and His Lass by William Shakespeare

[kellyrfineman]

From Act V, sc. 3 of As You Like It, one of the plays I discussed last June as part of "Brush Up Your Shakespeare Month", comes a delightful (and secretly bawdy) song, "It Was a Lover and His Lass". This particular scene consists of Touchstone, the clown, and his intended bride, Audrey (who is on record as saying "I am not a slut, though I thank

Comments

[kellyrfineman]

Yep. It's also probably a sexual pun where "take" means what you think it might.

[p_sunshine]

Hee! We sang that song last year! Not one of my favorites - the words are pretty, but the "Spring" in Springtime goes up really high and it took a ton of warming up to make sure it wasn't screechy. Though I do love the last verse. :)

[kellyrfineman]

I confess to liking the recording I linked to so much that I downloaded it (it said you could download it to listen to it, so it's on my iTunes now). The tune isn't quite as frolicksome as the song lyrics and set-up somehow, but perhaps that's merely a performance issue - people do tend to get very earnest when singing 17th century art songs, even when they might not have been intended as earnest when written.

[p_sunshine]

Just listened to that recording - very strange to hear it that slow and with instruments, but it's pretty much the same melody. I think when it's faster, the whole thing is brighter, especially the hey dinga dinga dings. :)

[angeladegroot]

Shakespeare's hey ding a ding got me thinking of another bawdy ballad - My ding-a-ling. Do you know it? Don't make me sing it for you.