"The Music Man" (
Roud
The Roud Folk Song Index is a database of around 250,000 references to nearly 25,000 songs collected from oral tradition in the English language from all over the world. It is compiled by Steve Roud (born 1949), a former librarian in the London ...
17774) is a popular
cumulative folksong
Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has b ...
among children, rugby players, and
Hash House Harriers
The Hash House Harriers (HHH or H3) is an international group of non-competitive running social clubs. An event organized by a club is known as a Hash or Run, or a Hash Run. A common denominal verb for this activity is Hashing, with participan ...
.
History
Peter Kennedy published a song called "
The German Musicianer" in "
Folk Songs of Britain and Northern Ireland" (1975). It has some similarities with this song. Even earlier, "
The Wonderful Musician
"The Wonderful Musician" or "The Strange Musician" or "The Marvellous Musician" (german: Der wunderliche Spielmann) is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm as tale number 8 in their ''Grimm's Fairy Tales''. It is Aarne-Thompson ...
", written by
Walter Greenaway, was published in 1871. The chorus begins: "A big drum, a kettle drum, the fiddle, flute, and piccolo, piano, harp, harmonium and many more beside". The song is also known in
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
as "
Ich bin ein Musikante" and adapted in the US to "
I Am a Fine Musician".
For each verse the participants act out different
instruments with specific actions. Some of the actions for the adult version can be rude or crude. They may also attempt to imitate the sound of each instrument. It is sometimes performed in cabaret with the audience challenging the artistes to ever more extravagant - and difficult - renditions of, for example, the
flugelhorn
The flugelhorn (), also spelled fluegelhorn, flugel horn, or flügelhorn, is a brass instrument that resembles the trumpet and cornet but has a wider, more conical bore. Like trumpets and cornets, most flugelhorns are pitched in B, though some ...
.
Commercial recordings
The song was recorded by
Black Lace
Black Lace are a British pop band, best known for novelty party records, including their biggest hit, " Agadoo". The band first came to the public eye after being selected to represent the UK in the 1979 Eurovision Song Contest, in which they ...
, a British pop group from
Ossett
Ossett is a market town in the City of Wakefield metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, it is situated between Dewsbury, Horbury and Wakefield. At the 2011 Census, the population was ...
in
West Yorkshire
West Yorkshire is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. It is an inland and upland county having eastward-draining valleys while taking in the moors of the Pennines. West Yorkshire came into exi ...
, in 1989 and reached #52 in the UK singles charts.
Song structure and lyrics
Each verse begins with the following chorus lines, divided between the lead singer ("The Music Man") and the audience. There are variations which follow roughly the same tune:
::The Music Man: "I am the music man, And I come from down your way
and I can play!"
::Audience: "What can you play?"
Each verse features a specific instrument with accompanying actions. After each verse, singers sing the previous verses in reverse order before singing the main chorus lines again.
See also
*
Vi äro musikanter
References
External links
The German Musicianer
{{DEFAULTSORT:Music Man (song), The
Black Lace (band) songs
Cumulative songs
Drinking songs
Year of song unknown
Songwriter unknown