“The Carnival Is Over” – The Seekers

 

Say goodbye my own true lover
As we sing a lovers song
How it breaks my heart to leave you
Now the carnival is gone

 

High above the dawn is waiting
And my tears are falling rain
For the carnival is over
We may never meet again

 

Like a drum, my heart was beating
And your kiss was sweet as wine
But the joys of love are fleeting
For Pierrot and Columbine

 

Now the harbour light is calling
This will be our last goodbye
Though the carnival is over
I will love you till I die

 

Like a drum, my heart was beating
And your kiss was sweet as wine
But the joys of love are fleeting
For Pierrot and Columbine

 

Now the harbour light is calling
This will be our last goodbye
Though the carnival is over
I will love you till I die
Though the carnival is over
I will love you till I die

 

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The Carnival Is Over

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

 

“The Carnival Is Over” is a Russian folk song (1883) with lyrics written by Tom Springfield in 1965 for the Australian group The Seekers, who customarily close their concerts with it. At its peak, the song was selling 93,000 copies per day and is No 30 in the chart of the biggest selling singles of all time in the United Kingdom, and has sold 1.41 million copies in the UK alone. The track spent three weeks at No. 1 in the UK Singles Chart in November and December 1965.

 

The music

 

The main tune is taken from a Russian folk song about Stenka Razin known as “Iz-za ostrova na strezhen” or “Volga, Volga mat’ rodnaya”. The song became popular in Russia as early as 1890s. It was performed by the Osipov State Russian Folk Orchestra (balalaikas and

domras) during their 1967 tour of Australia. The tune is also used in a Dutch hymn “Vol Verwachting Blijf Ik Uitzien”, and a Dutch nursery rhyme “Aan de Oever van de Rotte”.

 

 

Tom Springfield adapted the melody from the Russian folk song, and also wrote the remaining music used in the song, as well as writing the lyrics, after a trip to Brazil, where he witnessed the Carnaval in Rio.

Use in popular culture

 

The playing of “The Carnival Is Over”, sung by The Seekers, has been sometimes used at the close of special events in Australia. It was performed at the Expo ’88 closing ceremony, with Julie Anthony taking the place of Judith Durham, along with the other members of The Seekers, Athol Guy, Keith Potger and Bruce Woodley.

 

The Seekers were supposed to have performed the song at the end of the closing ceremony for the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney but the performance was cancelled after Judith Durham broke her hip. The Seekers did, however, sing the song at the conclusion of the 2000 Summer Paralympics, with Judith Durham seated in a wheelchair.

 

The tradition of the song being sung at conclusion of special celebrations in Australia is so well entrenched that the cast of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation comedy series The Games, which was about the forthcoming Sydney 2000 Olympics, imitated the group singing “The Carnival Is Over” at the closing ceremony of their fictitious version of the Sydney Olympic Games.

 

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The Seekers

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

The Seekers are an Australian folk-influenced pop quartet, originally formed in Melbourne in 1962. They were the first Australian pop music group to achieve major chart and sales success in the United Kingdom and the United States. They were popular during the 1960s with their best-known configuration as: Judith Durham on vocals, piano and tambourine; Athol Guy on double bass and vocals;Keith Potger on twelve-string guitar, banjo and vocals; and Bruce Woodley on guitar, mandolin, banjo and vocals.

 

The group had Top 10 hits in the 1960s with “I’ll Never Find Another You“, “A World of Our Own“, “Morningtown Ride“, “Someday, One Day” (written by Paul Simon), “Georgy Girl” (the title song of the film of the same name), and “The Carnival is Over” by Tom Springfield, the last a rendition of a Russian folk song. The Seekers have sung it at various closing ceremonies in Australia, including World Expo 88 and the Paralympics. It is still one of the top 50 best-selling singles in the UK. Australian music historian Ian McFarlane described their style as “concentrated on a bright, up-tempo sound, although they were too pop to be considered strictly folk and too folk to be rock.”

 

In 1968, they were named as joint “Australians of the Year” – the only group thus honoured. In July of that year, Durham left to pursue a solo career and the group disbanded. The band has reformed periodically, and in 1995 they were inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame. “I’ll Never Find Another You” was added to the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia’s Sounds of Australia registry in 2011. Woodley’s and Dobe Newton’s song “I Am Australian“, which was recorded by the Seekers, and by Durham with Russell Hitchcock and Mandawuy Yunupingu, has become an unofficial Australian anthem. With “I’ll Never Find Another You” and “Georgy Girl”, the band also achieved success in the United States, but not nearly at the same level as in the rest of the world. As of 2004, the Seekers have sold over fifty million records worldwide.

 

The Seekers were individually honoured, in the Queen’s Birthday Honours, as Officers of the Order of Australia recipients, in June, 2014.

 

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Harlequinade

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Harlequinade is a British comic theatrical genre, defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as “that part of a pantomime in which the harlequin and clown play the principal parts”. It developed in England between the 17th and mid-19th centuries. It was originally a slapstick adaptation or variant of the Commedia dell’arte, which originated in Italy and reached its apogee there in the 16th and 17th centuries. The story of the Harlequinade revolves around a comic incident in the lives of its five main characters: Harlequin, who loves Columbine; Columbine’s greedy father Pantaloon, who tries to separate the lovers in league with the mischievous Clown; and the servant, Pierrot, usually involving chaotic chase scenes with a policeman.

 

Originally a mime (silent) act with music and stylized dance, the harlequinade later employed some dialogue, but it remained primarily a visual spectacle. Early in its development, it achieved great popularity as the comic closing part of a longer evening of entertainment, following a more serious presentation with operatic and balletic elements. An often elaborate magical “transformation scene”, presided over by a fairy, connected the unrelated stories, changing the first part of the pantomime, and its characters, into the harlequinade. In the late 18th and 19th centuries, the harlequinade became the larger part of the entertainment, and the transformation scene was presented with increasingly spectacular stage effects. The harlequinade lost popularity towards the end of the 19th century and disappeared altogether in the 1930s, although Christmas pantomimes continue to be presented in Britain without the harlequinade.

 

Characters

 

The harlequinade characters consisted of the following five kinds of clowns, in addition to more minor characters like a policeman:

Harlequin

 

Harlequin is the comedian and romantic male lead. He is a servant and the love interest of Columbine. His everlasting high spirits and cleverness work to save him from several difficult situations into which his amoral behaviour leads during the course of the harlequinade. In some versions of the original Commedia dell’arte, Harlequin is able to perform magic feats. He never holds a grudge or seeks revenge.

 

John Rich brought the British pantomime and harlequinade to great popularity in the early 18th century and became the most famous early Harlequin in England.^[5] He developed the character of Harlequin into a mischievous magician. He used his magic batte or “slapstick” to transform the scene from the pantomime into the harlequinade and to magically change the settings to various locations during the chase scene.^[3][5]

 

A century later, Fred Payne and Harry Payne, known as the Payne Brothers, were the most famous Harlequin and Clown, respectively, of their day.

 

Columbine

 

Columbine is a lovely woman, who has caught the eye of Harlequin. In the original Commedia dell’arte she was variously portrayed as a Pantaloon’s daughter or servant. In the English harlequinade she is always Pantaloon’s daughter or ward. Her role usually centres on her romantic interest in Harlequin, and her costume often includes the cap and apron of a serving girl, though (unlike the other players) not a mask.

Clown

 

Originally a foil for Harlequin’s slyness and adroit nature, Clown was a buffoon or fool who resembles less a jester than a comical idiot. However, in the 19th century harlequinade, Clown became more important, embodying its anarchic fun. The great clown Joseph Grimaldi was responsible for building the character up from the country bumpkin fool of the Commedia dell’arte into the central figure of the harlequinade. He developed jokes, catch-phrases and songs that were used by subsequent Clowns for decades after his retirement in 1828, and Clowns were generically called “Joey” for four generations after him.^[

 

Clown became central to the transformation scene, crying “Here we are again!” and so opening the harlequinade. He then became the villain of the piece, playing elaborate, cartoonish practical jokes on policemen, soldiers, tradesmen and passers-by, tripping people with butter slides and crushing babies, with the assistance of his elderly accomplice, Pantaloon. The American George Fox, popularly known as G. L. Fox, became interested in pantomime and made Clown a popular character in the Humpty Dumpty story, with which he toured North America during the middle 19th century.

Pantaloon

 

Originally, Pantaloon (or Pantalone) was a devious, greedy merchant of Venice – a typical character of the Commedia dell’arte. He is taken in readily by the various tricks and schemes of Harlequin. Pantaloon’s costume usually includes red tight-fitting vest and breeches, slippers, a skullcap, an over-sized hooked nose, and a grubby grey goatee. Pantaloon was familiar enough to London audiences for Shakespeare to refer to him at the turn of the 17th century as the exemplar of an elderly man, “the lean and slippered Pantaloon”.

 

In the English harlequinade, Pantaloon emerged as the greedy, elderly father of Columbine who tries to keep the lovers separated and assists Clown in his tricks.

Pierrot

 

Pierrot, or ‘Pedroline’ was a comic servant character, often Pantaloon’s servant. His face was whitened with flour. During the 17th century, the character was increasingly portrayed as stupid and awkward, a country bumpkin with oversized clothes. During the 19th century, the Pierrot character became less comic, and more sentimental and romantic. Also in the 19th century, Pierrot troupes arose, with all the performers in whiteface and baggy white costumes.

Harlequinade costume

 

The costumes consisted of the following:

• Originally, a black mask, which allowed the actor to lift it and reveal himself sometimes. Other times it is lowered to keep the actor from the audience’s view. It has tiny eyeholes and quizzically arched eyebrows. Later, some characters wore whiteface, and the British pantomime characters originally wore masks that they then removed for the transformation to the harlequinade.
• Traditional diamond chequered trousers (usually alternating blue, green, and red diamonds)
• Peasant’s shirt
• Batte, or slapstick (carried by Harlequin)

Adaptations

 

Although the original Commedia dell’arte characters inspired many stage works, novels and short stories, there are few works that draw on the characters of the English genre. They include Harlequin and the Fairy’s Dilemma (1904), by W. S. Gilbert.

 

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Traveling carnival

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

A traveling carnival (US English), usually simply called a carnival, is an amusement show that may be made up of amusement rides, food vendors, merchandise vendors, games of chance and skill, thrill acts, animal acts. A traveling carnival is not set up at a permanent location, like an amusement park, but is moved from place to place. Its roots are similar to the 19th century circus with both being set up in open fields near or in town and moving to a new location after a period of time. Unlike traditional carnival celebrations, the North American traveling carnival is not usually tied to a religious observance.

 

In 1893 the Chicago’s World’s Columbian Exposition (also called the Chicago World’s Fair) was the catalyst for the development of the traveling carnival. The Chicago World’s Fair had an area that included rides, games of chance, freak shows and burlesque. After the Chicago World’s Fair, traveling carnival companies began touring the United States. Due to the type of acts featured along with sometimes using dishonest business practices, the traveling carnivals were often looked down upon.

 

Modern traveling carnivals play both state and county fairs along with smaller venues such as church bazaars, volunteer fire department fund raisers and civic celebrations. Traditionally, on the evening of the last day of the events, the sponsoring organization will often pay for a fireworks display that signals the end of the day’s festivities.

 

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The reason that makes “The Seekers” such a popular folk – pop music band is their soulful and meaningful lyrics; the lead singer belts out these beautiful lyrics in a mellow – yet slightly high-pitched, articulate voice, giving these words a new wealth of meaning.

 

“The Carnival is over” is a typical example of a lover’s lament. In the literal sense, it is likely that the protagonist of the song met her lover who was working within the confines of a Traveling Carnival or Traveling Circus– now that the “fun and games” of this traveling fun-fair are finished, the carnival makes preparations to pack up and be on their way to yet another town or city where they will perform, leaving footprints in the sand, before pushing off to still another destination, some distance away from the last one. The hallmark of a Traveling Carnival is that it plants no permanent roots; their job is to keep moving from place to place, after each performance ends.

 

In another context, the “carnival” makes reference to anything that was very good while it lasted; now that it has ended, one is forced to make new beginnings. However, such is the Law of Nature – all things must end before a brand-new start can be made. To make a brand-new beginning, one must initially be prepared to make a brand-new ending. Most people resist making an ending of any sort – it is the innate fear of the unknown that causes this immediate resistance. One cannot predict what changes these new beginnings and what the Future itself will bring in its wake. This causes intense insecurity, anxiety and trepidation in itself – yet new beginnings can never be forged unless old and redundant doors are closed. It is only then that brand-new doors can be opened to a new and wondrous future.

 

Our lives are like a thick log-book, full of blank pages – as each day passes by, the pages are filled with the stories of the various events from our lives and it includes a detailed description of our reaction to each of these events and occurrences. This life-book consists of innumerable chapters – each composed of many pages. Each chapter signifies different phases in our lives. The length of each chapter signifies the amount of time spent in that particular phase. For the story in the book to progress, it is imperative that each chapter ends, before a new one begins.

 

Personal relationships are like a hedge-row of flowers in a beautiful garden; each flower needs to be pruned, nurtured and nourished; each of them needs regular maintenance and daily care is necessary for them to bloom, blossom and flourish. If this garden is not tended to, on a regular basis, the flowers in the hedge-row will soon wilt, wither and die. Similarly, personal relationships that have served their purpose and have become redundant need to die a natural death, before a new relationship can begin.

 

When God closes a door, somewhere He opens a window. RING OUT THE OLD; RING IN THE NEW!

 

One must make a brand-new ending, before going on to make a brand-new beginning – such is the Law of Nature and it shall forever be so.