Description
This is based on a piece written by my late friend Chris Benson – who died in 2007. He and I had recorded it back in 1975 but there was no score found among his possessions so I obtained permission to transcribe it from the old recording (with some necessary alterations) and to publish it.
The recording here is from a later performance by the cellist and guitarist of Daniel Shaw’s Composer’s Choir.
This choir also performed my “In the summer time” for choir, cello and guitar, which is also based on the original rag.
I wrote the following lyrics for that choral version:
In the summertime when the work was done
we’d take our ease and have our fun
we’d been always looking forward
to the warm dry days of sun
In the summertime we would run and sing
enjoy all that the days could bring
we would laugh and wintertime
would seem a very distant thing
but it couldn’t last
and the autumn came too quickly
with its wind and rain
Time’s rolled on and joy is past
how could we think it would last?
Summertime’s a distant memory
pale and overcast.
But the summertime will always stay
in memory’s eternal day
let us keep the fondest recollection
of the far off summertime!
we never thought of that in the sunshine days
there’d be time enough to feel regret
just recall the heat of summer
far off days when we first met
My! so many many years ago now!
So many years ago it seems when
we were young and carefree
and laughed until the rafters rang.
Oh so many years ago days of joy and sun.
But our world had to change
winter blew its breath on future life
In the summertime when the work was done
we’d take our ease and have our fun
we’d been always looking forward
to the warm dry days of sun
Time’s rolled on and joy is past
how could we think it would last?
Summertime’s a distant memory
pale and overcast.
But the summertime will always stay
in memory’s eternal day
let us keep the fondest recollection
of the far off summer
far off summer
far off summertime!