Abroadside ballad by this name was registered at theLondon Stationer's Company in September 1580,[1] by Richard Jones, as "A Newe Northen Dittye of ye Ladye Greene Sleves".[2] Six more ballads followed in less than a year, one on the same day, 3 September 1580 ("Ye Ladie Greene Sleeves answere to Donkyn hir frende" by Edward White), then on 15 and 18 September (by Henry Carr and again by White), 14 December (Richard Jones again), 13 February 1581 (Wiliam Elderton), and August 1581 (White's third contribution, "Greene Sleeves is worne awaie, Yellow Sleeves Comme to decaie, Blacke Sleeves I holde in despite, But White Sleeves is my delighte").[3] It then appears in the survivingA Handful of Pleasant Delights (1584) asA New Courtly Sonnet of the Lady Green Sleeves. To the new tune of Green Sleeves.
It is a common myth that Greensleeves was written byKing Henry VIII. However, Henry could not have written Greensleeves,[4][5][6] as the piece is based on an Italian style of composition that did not reach England until after his death.
A popular interpretation of the lyrics is that Lady Green Sleeves was a promiscuous young woman, perhaps even aprostitute.[7] Historically, the word "green" had sexual connotations, most notably in the phrase "a green gown", a reference to the grass stains on a woman's dress from engaging in sexual intercourse outdoors.[8] However, earliest examples of associating green with fecundity date back only to 1675 (Shepherd’s Ingenuity: OR, The Praise of the Green Gown), and there are surviving Renaissance paintings of saints and noblewomen in green, casting doubt on prostitute interpretation.[6]
An alternative explanation is that Lady Green Sleeves was, through her costume, incorrectly assumed to be sexually promiscuous. Her "discourteous" rejection of the singer's advances supports the contention that she is not.[8]
InNevill Coghill's translation ofThe Canterbury Tales,[9] 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."
Christmas and New Year texts were associated with the tune from as early as 1686, and by the 19th century almost every printed collection ofChristmas carols included some version of words and music together, most of them ending with the refrain "On Christmas Day in the morning".[10] One of the most popular of these is "What Child Is This?", written in 1865 byWilliam Chatterton Dix.[11]
InShakespeare'sThe Merry Wives of Windsor (written c. 1597; first published in 1602), the character Mistress Ford refers twice to "the tune of 'Greensleeves'", andFalstaff later exclaims:
Let the sky rain potatoes! Let it thunder to the tune of 'Greensleeves'!
"Greensleeves" can have aground either of the form called aromanesca; or its slight variant, thepassamezzo antico; or thepassamezzo antico in its verses and theromanesca in its reprise; or of theAndalusian progression in its verses and theromanesca orpassamezzo antico in its reprise. The romanesca originated in Spain[12] and is composed of a sequence of fourchords with a simple, repeatingbass, which provide the groundwork forvariations andimprovisation.
The tune was used (as "My Lady Greensleeves") as the slow march of the LondonTrained Bands in the 16th and 17th centuries. Later the7th (City of London) Battalion London Regiment, which claimed descent from the Yellow Regiment of London Trained Bands, adopted the tune as its quick march duringWorld War I, replacing "Austria" (to the same tune as theImperial Austria Anthem), which had been used until then.[13]
The 17th century English ballad,Old England Grown New is a version of "Greensleeves", also sometimes known as 'The Blacksmith' after another broadside ballad of the time.[15]
Ralph Vaughan Williams incorporatedGreensleeves as the songAlas, My Love, You Do Me Wrong for Mistress Ford in Act III of his 1928 operaSir John in Love. Its contrasting middle section is founded on another folk tune:Lovely Joan. In 1934 the song was arranged for strings and harp, with Vaughan Williams's blessing, by Ralph Greaves (1889–1966); this is the familiarFantasia on Greensleeves.[16][17][18][19]
The tune was the basis for "Home in the Meadow", a recurring song throughout the 1962 epic filmHow the West Was Won.[22]
The song is traditionally played byice cream vans in the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand.[23][24][25][26] It is also played by ice cream trucks in the United States, albeit rarely.[27][28]
Instrumental versions of "Greensleeves" were used in the long-running originalLassie television series, both in a seven-part 1966 story[30] and as the show's theme song for its last three seasons (1970–1973).[31]
Canadian singer-songwriterLeonard Cohen includes an adaptation of the song, titled "Leaving Green Sleeves" in his 1974 albumNew Skin for the Old Ceremony, in which the chord progression and lyrical content of the first two verses are retained.[32]
The melody of "Greensleeves" is used repeatedly as a motif inSIX, a musical about thewives of Henry VIII.[33]
^abFrank Kidson,English Folk-Song and Dance. READ BOOKS, 2008, p.26.ISBN1-4437-7289-5
^abJohn M. Ward, "'And Who But Ladie Greensleeues?'", inThe Well Enchanting Skill: Music, Poetry, and Drama in the Culture of the Renaissance: Essays in Honour of F. W. Sternfeld, edited by John Caldwell, Edward Olleson, and Susan Wollenberg, 181–211 (Oxford:Clarendon Press; New York:Oxford University Press, 1990): 181.ISBN0-19-316124-9.
^Meg Lota Brown and Kari Boyd McBride,Women's Roles in the Renaissance (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2005), 101.ISBN0-313-32210-4
^abVance Randolph"Unprintable" Ozark Folksongs and Folklore, Volume I, Folksongs and Music, page 47, University of Arkansas Press, 1992,ISBN1-55728-231-5
^John M. Ward, "'And Who But Ladie Greensleeues?'", inThe Well Enchanting Skill: Music, Poetry, and Drama in the Culture of the Renaissance: Essays in Honour of F. W. Sternfeld, edited by John Caldwell, Edward Olleson, and Susan Wollenberg, 181–211 (Oxford:Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 1990): 193.ISBN0-19-316124-9.
^C. Digby Planck,The Shiny Seventh: History of the 7th (City of London) Battalion London Regiment, London: Old Comrades' Association, 1946/Uckfield: Naval & Military Press, 2002,ISBN1-84342-366-9, pp. 219–20.
^Ralph Vaughan Williams,Fantasia on Greensleeves, arranged from the operaSir John in Love for string orchestra and harp (or pianoforte) with one or two optional flutes by Ralph Greaves, Oxford Orchestral Series no. 102 (London: Oxford University Press, 1934).
^Hugh Ottaway and Alain Frogley, "Vaughan Williams, Ralph",The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited byStanley Sadie andJohn Tyrrell (London: Macmillan Publishers, 2001).
^Michael Kennedy, "Fantasia on 'Greensleeves'",The Oxford Dictionary of Music, second edition, revised; associate editor, Joyce Bourne (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2006)ISBN978-0-19-861459-3.
.jpg)
You may hearRalph Vaughan Williams' '"Fantasia on Greensleeves" performed byLeopold Stokowski and theNew York Philharmonic in 1949Hear on Archive.org
