"Green, Green" is a hit single released by American folk music group

The New Christy Minstrels The New Christy Minstrels are an American large-ensemble folk music group founded by Randy Sparks in 1961. The group has recorded more than 20 albums and scored several hits, including " Green, Green", "Saturday Night", "Today", "Denver", and " ...

on June 4, 1963. It was composed and written by group members

Barry McGuire Barry McGuire (born October 15, 1935) is an American singer-songwriter primarily known for his 1965 hit " Eve of Destruction". Later he would pioneer as a singer and songwriter of Contemporary Christian music. Early life McGuire was born in O ...

and

Randy Sparks Randy Sparks (born July 29, 1933, Leavenworth, Kansas) is an American musician, singer-songwriter and founder of The New Christy Minstrels and The Back Porch Majority. Biography Sparks grew up in Oakland, California, and attended the Universit ...

and became the group's first hit. Since then, it has been covered by many singers and artists from all over the world.

Charts

"Green, Green" sold over one million copies in 1963, and was awarded a

gold disc Music recording certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped, sold, or streamed a certain number of units. The threshold quantity varies by type (such as album, single, music video) and by nation or territory (see ...

. It was nominated in

1964 Events January * January 1 – The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland is dissolved. * January 5 - In the first meeting between leaders of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches since the fifteenth century, Pope Paul VI and Patriarch ...

for the Grammy Award for Best Folk Recording and Best Performance By A Chorus.

Variants, covers and sampling

The New Christy Minstrels also recorded the song in German, named Grün, grün ist Tennessee. Green, Green has been covered by many artists from all over the world including: *

Eddy Arnold Richard Edward Arnold (May 15, 1918 – May 8, 2008) was an American country music singer who performed for six decades. He was a Nashville sound (country/popular music) innovator of the late 1950s, and scored 147 songs on the ''Billboard'' cou ...

and the Needmore Creek Singers - Green Green *

Brian Hyland Brian Hyland (born November 12, 1943) is an American pop singer and instrumentalist who was particularly successful during the early 1960s. He continued recording into the 1970s. AllMusic journalist Jason Ankeny says "Hyland's puppy-love pop vir ...

- Green Green * Mrs. Green Apple - グリーングリーン *

Glen Campbell Glen Travis Campbell (April 22, 1936 – August 8, 2017) was an American guitarist, singer, songwriter, actor and television host. He was best known for a series of hit songs in the 1960s and 1970s, and for hosting ''The Glen Campbell Goodt ...

- Green Green *

Drafi Deutscher Drafi Franz Richard Deutscher (9 May 1946 – 9 June 2006) was a German singer and songwriter of Sinti origin. Biography Early life and career Deutscher was born in Charlottenburg, in the western zone of Berlin, Germany. Between 1964 and 1966 ...

- Grün, grün ist Tennessee *

Cliff Richard Sir Cliff Richard (born Harry Rodger Webb; 14 October 1940) is an Indian-born British musican, singer, producer, entrepreneur and philanthropist who holds both British and Barbadian citizenship. He has total sales of over 21.5 million s ...

- Du, Du Gefällst Mir So * Dalinda - Ding Ding *

Ann-Louise Hanson Ann-Louise Hanson (born in Kristianstad in 1944) is a Swedish singer who has been involved in the music industry since 1956. In 1960, she had her first hit, "Är du ensam i kväll?", a Swedish version of Elvis Presley's ''Are you lonesome tonig ...

- Ding Ding * Rangers - Vim Vim * Georg Dolivo - Maantie * Bruce Low - Grün, Drün *

Bjørn Tidmand Bjørn Tidmand (born 24 January 1940 in Copenhagen) is a Danish singer, best known for his participation in the 1964 Eurovision Song Contest. After being a member of the Copenhagen Boys Choir as a child, Tidmand began performing in local nightc ...

- Blå, Blå *

Johnny Rivers Johnny Rivers (born John Henry Ramistella; November 7, 1942) is an American musician. His repertoire includes pop, folk, blues, and old-time rock 'n' roll. Rivers charted during the 1960s and 1970s but remains best known for a string of hit sing ...

- Green Green The song also served as a possible inspiration for the

Super Mario World ''Super Mario World,'' known in Japan as is a platform game, platform video game developed and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). It was released in Japan in 1990, North America in 1991 and Europe and A ...

soundtrack by the Japanese composer

Koji Kondo is a Japanese music composer, pianist, and music director who works for the video game company Nintendo. He is best known for his numerous contributions to the '' Super Mario'' and ''The Legend of Zelda'' series of video games, among others pr ...

Japanese version

Poet and children's literature author Hikaru Kataoka took notice of the song in the 1960s. At this time he was working for the Japanese public broadcaster

NHK , also known as NHK, is a Japanese public broadcaster. NHK, which has always been known by this romanized initialism in Japanese, is a statutory corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television license fee. NHK operates two terrestr ...

, where he was in charge of production, song writing and translation. He wrote new Japanese lyrics for "Green, Green", and in May 1967, it was broadcast on NHK during the children's programme

Minna no Uta , literally ''Everyone's Songs'' (English title: ''Songs for Everyone''), is a five-minute NHK TV and radio program which is broadcast several times daily. The program started on April 3, 1961. It is one of NHK's long-running programs. The pr ...

(Songs for Everyone) sung by Suginami Junior Chorus and arranged by Akihiro Komori. Since then the lyrics have become very popular in Japan. The lyrics have been published in several Japanese music textbooks.

References

External links

* * * 1963 singles 1963 songs Minna no Uta Trini Lopez songs American folk songs {{Folk-song-stub