MovieChat Forums > Georgy Girl (1966) Discussion > Help with Song Title

Help with Song Title

posted 19 years ago by tomtac
6 replies | jump to latest

At one point, a character is talking to Georgie while she sits at a piano. He tells her some terribly sad things, and she suddenly starts playing a sad song to go with his story.

[It is when her father brings the dress for her to wear to the birthday party. As he starts in the when-I-was-your-age speech "I never had a fancy education", she picks out the first phrases of this song on her piano. Actually, she does this twice, after he slams the piano cover down the first time.]

I know that song, I can hear it in my head. It was used so often as background for sad stuff that it became rather a joke, just like in this movie. When someone was burning your ear off with a 'woe-is-me' kind of thing, you could make them laugh by pretending you were playing a violin while you hummed this tune.

What is driving me batty is I don't know the name or origin of it.

I have done lots of google-ing on it. There are web sites that identify tunes if you type them in, and I've tried those. Nothing so far. (Okay, last week, one of those sites hinted that it might be either "Romeo Alone" or "Sadness" from Hector Berlioz's opera of Romeo and Juliet, but I spent the time since getting a copy, and just listened to that right now, and it doesn't match.)

Any suggestions, please?

o Does anyone know what song that is?

o Does anyone know how I might get information?

TIA.

[–] JacquesDemy 19 years ago

I just remembered the melody when I took bath. I am pretty sure it is Sarasate's Zigeunerweisen Op.20, which is originally performed by violin. It is also called as "Gypsy Airs" or "Song of the Tramps". Remebmer what the old man said to Georgy? "You are just like a tramp!" Georgy is so cute, her music is just for that. :-)

[–] tomtac 19 years ago

Thank you so much for the pointer ... I just listened to the first movement of that piece, and I can see why you would think the tune may be in there. (I got a midi file off the net.)

I will hurry and get a CD of the whole opus, to see if the piece is one of the movements.

tomtac

[–] duckyducky 19 years ago

I know the Berlioz quite well (by the way, it's not an opera, but a "dramatic symphony," with parts for solo voices and choruses; he did strange things like that!), and that ain't it.

While there is a resemblance to a melody in the slow introduction of Sarasate's "Zigeunerweisen," what she's actually playing is a song called "Hearts and Flowers." I should know; when I was a kid, my brother used to taunt me with it when I was sad.

[–] tomtac 19 years ago

Thank you to _everyone_ that responded!

Especially to duckyducky, who has pinpointed it for me. (Especially the bit about "my brother used to taunt me with it" ... exactly what we children, and everyone else, used it for.)

There is a midi file of "Hearts and Flowers" available. (One I like, that is.)

http://www.wtv-zone.com/dirtyknees/FloralMidi-1.html

If you go to parlorsongs.com "Enduring American Song Hits" (http://parlorsongs.com/issues/2002-1/thismonth/featurea.asp),
about halfway down, there is a great write-up on the song, mentioning that its notoriety has nothing to do with lyrics or such. Instead, it describes how it was used in silent movies a lot, and other stuff ...

"That melody has often been used in cartoons
and as a sarcastic symbol of sympathy for
those who openly seek it when it seems
undeserved."

... just like in the movie when Georgy's father is going on about "in MY day, I never had a fancy education..." As the refernced link says, Hearts and Flowers was originally a piano piece. (There is also another MIDI file there at parlorsongs.com, but I like the wtv-zone.com one better.)

(In the case of both Berlioz and the Sarasate piece, I did hear a subtle allusion to something like the Hearts and Flower theme, and thought it might be foreshadowing a real performance later in the piece. I am glad for the comments on both of those pieces, I liked them both very much.)

Thanks again! Thanks again, especially to duckyducky.

tomtac

[–] JacquesDemy 19 years ago

You are welcome, tomtac. The song you guys found is interesting, and it is similar to the melody Georgy played, but not exactly the same, I believe. As I have said, the melody comes from the most famous melody in Sarasate's "Song of the Tramps". You can find it in the beginning of its 3rd part, which is very slow and beautiful. Here is a video link of a chinese violinist's performance(Realplayer needed) :
http://news.xinhuanet.com/audio/2003-08/12/content_1021898.htm
Jump to 04:58, where the melody is played by piano first, then repeated by violin.

I checked the movie again, which I recorded in DVR a month ago. I am confirmed that tramp is definately one subject of this scenario, the old man said twice about slum:
"I will catch you, before she goes back to the SLUM!"
"Oh, please yourself...it is up to you, go back to your SLUM instead of here"
and he also yelled: "You look like a bloody TRAMP!"
So the music used here is reasonable.

And about music, do you guys know the music Georgy played during the old man went upstair? Not the Wedding Mach or the William Tell Overture played when he left. It is just familiar to me, but I forget the title.

BTW: Do you guys found the goof about Georgy's glasses? :-)
If you still haven't got it, check here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060453/goofs

[–] tomtac 19 years ago

You may both be right, I'd say.

There is no question, in the recording of Georgy Girl that I saw, that what little she plays matches the first five notes of both themes. Both Tobani's "Hearts and Flowers" and Pablo's "Ziegeunerwiesen" have a theme that starts "low-HIGH-hi, (pause) down-down...". She could be playing either ... in that recording.

Please note, also, that we might not be listening to the same recording. I know the sad fact that the film companies feel free to introduce edits whenever they come out with a new copy. (I saw a musical by myself one week on vhs, and the next week my wife and I watched the same movie together on dvd, and I noticed important differences in some music numbers.) So what Georgy plays -might- depend on which copy one is using.

Anyway, I like both jokes as proposed. Her father calls her a tramp and she plays the "Song of the Tramps". Or he is railing about his un-priviledged past and she plays the "sob story" song.

Who knows? Maybe they cut the song short so it could be both?

Again, my thanks to both of you.

* * * * *

(And as for the glasses goof, that kind of thing is always funny. Not everything has to make sense, which is a good thing, because the film makers don't always get it right. My favorite is one sequence in which she's been crying and sad for hours, all day really, puffy eyes and all that, and then because the next scene calls for her to look great, she looks like she hasn't been crying at all.)