Donald Swann's lovely father was one of our doctors as I was growing up in the fifties. A truly delightful man, who often visited our next-door neighbour who was also Russian, we could hear them through the wall or in the garden, obviously enjoying conversing in Russian together. During my childhood and teens I frequently listened to my grandmother's records, and loved singing the 'Gnu', 'Hippopotamus' and 'Honeysuckle and Bindweed' songs, among others. She and my parents went to see 'At the Drop of A Hat' and 'At the Drop of Another Hat', and I can still remember feeling very cheated that I was not able to be in the audiences too! A number of years later I met Donald Swann (for the first time), when he was opening an Oxfam garden fete in Balham, he was also playing the piano. He later came over to me and asked me where we had met before, and I replied that 'though we had never actually met previously, I had known his father. They were a very interesting family!
In 1960, I was ten years old. I saw Flanders and Swann at O'Keefe Centre in Toronto. I sat in the front row and Flanders wheeled over to me and smiled down at me. My brush with greatness! Of course, I was too young to fully appreciate the delicious humour and inventive qualities of this duo but came to appreciate their droll observations as an adult. My favorite is The Slow Train for its bittersweet reflections.
My Chemistry teacher (Louisville, Kentucky) saw them in America (I'm not sure, but they actually might have played in Louisville on their 1971 American tour) and by grace of said Chemistry teacher, via Long Playing Record with sharpened fiber needle, I learnt my [well I'm from Kentucky, it's not going to be all RP, is it] First and Second Law of Thermodynamics from Flanders and Swann, instead of a stuffy and probably under-written (sub-judice?) high-school Chemistry textbook. Speaking as a native of Kentucky who might otherwise -- let's face the unpolished facts -- be forever less even than what in less enlightened but more Classical times be termed a plebe, Flanders and Swann not only enhanced my Chemistry, but led me to what, in Kentucky, amounted to great new heights as an Anglophile. The phonograph recording set spinning by my Chemistry teacher was mine to learn before I learnt of Monty Python, though I quickly did so afterwards. Since then, I've learned much more of the physical sciences, and, speaking from Kentucky, home state of such country music luminati as Loretta Lynn.... well, I can play one or two songs by that country music legend, but I can sit down at the piano and guitar, indifferently, and play thirty Flanders and Swann songs, from memory. Thank you Britain, you did rather send us the best you bred. (Sorry about the reference, but that's how you lost Cypress.) Love from Kentucky. Flanders and Swann were and remain an important formative element of my being, such as it is. Thank you, Great Britain (or England, depending on whether you're winning or not). I have since moved on from high school, as difficult to imagine as that might be. Although I've pursued my career as a scientist, I still am sought after as someone who can perform onstage, and sing, in British dialect, aping Peter Jones and Stephen Moore's voices in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and, when set against my will at the piano in front of people, I do I mean "Slow Train" and "Hippopotamus Song". Thank you, thank you, Great Britain or however you would like to be called.
So happy to find this. As a young teenager I found a copy of the _Hat_ LP at the local library, and then the _Another Hat_ LP, and I swear I must've worn the tracks of both of them. After some time-keep in mind this was _decades_ before the internet-I found Mr Swann's address in _Who's Who_ and sent him a letter asking for sheet music. His secretary replied. A book had been published. I ordered it (at the local bookstore-Amazon was still just a river,) and spent many hours with it. As many times as I listened to the albums and played the songbook, I should have had the whole thing committed to memory. Alas, the talents fell otherwise, and I'm left with the dry sense of humor. So good to see what they looked like. The caricatures nailed Swann. Flanders looks like he could've been quite the lady's man.
Splendid entertainment! Like good wine, it gets better with age. There are even a couple of songs here that are not on either of the LPs I have and so I had not heard before. Thank you very much!
I've always thought of Flanders and Swann as a very British niche of comedy that wouldn't translate to other countries, it's fascinating to see their brand of humour went down well in this performance in America!
@donkmeister Americans, after all, are largely of English decent, and therefore, where the heritage has been preserved, share a great deal of the culture and sense of humor! This is of course less and less true as time goes on. But the performance here was 1967. Yes - the brotherhood is palpable! To me that does not bring surprise. It brings a familiar smile and fond memories. The next generation will scarcely know what it has lost until it is gone for good. Then the remorse will be brought into stark relief by time capsules like this, which put the former glory of the fraternity of two great peoples on full display!
My grandma loved these two gentlemen and she saw them live. I saw Gordon Peters and a pianist called David with her when I was 14 years old. They were doing their songs. In the afterlife I am going to go with her to their concerts.
thrilled to see this, with songs I'd never heard! we had both At the Drop of a Hat, and At the Drop of Another Hat as records when I was a child and knew them by heart. What a joy to encounter a live performance and different songs!
I have a 3-CD set, Hat, Another Hat, and Bestiary, which contains their animal songs. And also "20 tons of TNT", which is still relevant, if you scale up the numbers.
I can't get over how, in Madeira M'Dear, they use one thing to stand for three others - "She lowered her standards by raising her glass - her courage - her eyes - and his hopes". I'm sure there's a technical name for it but no idea what, or even how to look for it; what search words would one use?
Glenn Johnson Never knew this existed.What a delight to watch these two in action.Growing up in the 50`s and 60`s their music was always on the radio here in the UK.
They had considerable skill, and considerable style, both of which seem to be lacking these days ... They made social and political points, sometimes quite powerful points, but they did it with charm and grace. And they didn't need to resort to foul language or vulgar innuendo; i can't imagine **anyone** being offended by them.
I recorded this on reel-to-reel tape (audio only, obvs) when the BBC broadcast it in nineteen-sixty-(mumble) and had since lost the tape. How wonderful to be able to see the whole thing again - thank you!
I could have been at that performance; that's about the time my mother took me to see them. They were wonderful, and I bought their "Bestiary" album at the theatre.
Thank you so much for this. I read somewhere that Flanders was against TV, believing that it ate up material at a rate of knots, which of course it does, so there are very few visual recordings of them. PS: we had Flanders and Swann, and the US had Tom Lehrer, Both brilliant in their way, but oh what different ways! PPS: Kit and the Widow did a similar act in later decades; I can't find any dates for them, but from what I remember, they also did songs with commentaries on current social norms.
Have loved these two since i was introduced to them by my parents via their animal songs at the age 7 and 60 years on they never get old… i recently found my fathers secret stash of the cds, and just love long distance driving, 5 hours passes by very quickly.
struggling to get at the drop of a hat online.. found it on Spotify the other day, but now it will only let me listen to a couple of songs from the album.. So Frustrating! ..so funny.. thankyou for sharing this 🙂
My husband and I have just watched this from Melbourne Australia. We are in another covid lockdown!! This has been such fun !!! Thank you so much for posting this we absolutely adored it, such talent and wit !!! I remember all of their animal songs form my childhood - but had never seen a performance for adults !!!💕. Loved it!! Thanks again for posting
Absolutely brilliant! I was 13 and English when that was recorded, (I still happen to be one of those things), and it all has relevance today. We've now abandoned Europe, never quite having espoused the metric system, or bothered to learn any of their baffling languages, and the country has, quite frankly gone to the dogs. (I refer, of course, to England. Scotland, Ireland and Wales never got around to leaving the dogs in the first place)... All good, clean ironic and politically astute stuff.
They are so much more alive with a live audience to react to them and interact than they seem on the recordings. They are marvelous, and I've only just discovered them. British lyricists have a great advantage over Americans I see from Flanders' rhymes. In England you see, the word "horn" rhymes with "gone" and "adores" with "pause". In American, those words never rhyme! I know, I've tried. The Lost Horn Concerto, or as they call it, Ill Wind - I have mastered their crazy tempo and can actually sing along with Flanders & Swan. I bravely recorded my performance on Zoom for an exclusive coterie of close friends, fans, and foes. But this on stage performance is so much more alive than the disc recording. So glad to have seen the two of them in action! Too bad our lifetimes do not coincide.... I know, I've tried.
It's recorded that Swann suffered wrist problems after they put it into the act; they played the original concerto on Flander's gramophone, which ran slightly fast, so the song is a bit faster than the original.
In English (it is difficult to type while laughing) 'gone' rhymes with 'John' or nearly. Pronouncing gone as 'gorn', to rhyme with forlorn, is one of Flanders' many little word plays. Me, I am English, I began learning to play the French horn when I was ten years old, or nearly, and first heard Ill Wind when I was about fourteen... one of the gems which floats through my mind occasionally is their physics lesson, The First and Second Law of Thermodynamics.
I discovered F&S listening to a wonderfully wierd radio show in Cleveland in the mid 60s. I love this album as well as their songs inspired by Tolkein and The Hobbit on their The Road Goes Ever On, sung in English and Elvish. Great writers and performers.
Wonderful! I am a great fan of the work these two men produced and it still astounds to see how entrancing two men singing and talking can be. "I Sit Beside the Fire" is not included on any F&S compilations, but it is on "The Road Goes Ever On", the Donald Swann Song Cycle based on the Lord of the Rings, but NOT sung by Swann, so this may be the only version with his vocal.
yes, I was thrilled to see him sing this. I've known it for years and I have, somewhere, got him singing it on a record of the song cycle The Road Goes Ever On, but I wasn't aware he'd been filmed singing it.
@@allegracarlton4411 I was lucky enough to see them live in NY-- it was somewhere in the mid-60's-- and was very surprised to hear Swann sing "The Road Goes Ever On..." -- a song based on the wonderful books which, it seemed at the time, only my family and a few scattered friends knew about (this was LONG before LOTR mania really hit, before even that dreadful Ace Books edition came out). So surprised that I somehow wheedled my way backstage and spoke with Swann, who was very charming and informed me that the entire cycle was soon to be published. I bought one of the first copies when they came out and I THINK I still have it to this day.
As a teenager I recorded this programme on my old reel to reel tape recorder when it was broadcast by the BBC sometime in the sixties. The song that stood out was "I Sit Beside the Fire" and the Elvish section was my introduction to The Lord of The Rings. I love that song and am amazed that there is no published recording of it sung by Swann himself. I find recordings by other singers fall short of Swann's performance. Thank you so much for posting this.
I thought I had the whole canon. But but no! Had the vinyl albums then the many CD releases,then the 8 CD box set. But this is new to me, Such joy. They were brilliant. Thanks so much for this!
Listened to my Dad's copy of 'At the Drop of a Hat' in the late 60s when I was 8 - it was years before I realised what Flanders meant by the line 'He had slyly inveigled her up to his flat, to view his collection of stamps - "All unperforated! Ha ha ha!"' in the song 'Madeira M'Dear?'
Happy to have found this footage! Great comedians, but I was waiting for "Madiera, M'Dear" which starts at 38:15, for others who love this ditty!! Thank you! Now I'll go look for vintage film of "Lydia, The Tatooed Lady!" Another fave!
Since my best friend's husband John Hichliffe sent me this....it's beeng going through my head ever since....ARRGGHH! Thank you John for the Hippopatumus song, the Gnou, and exsecially the Horn Concerto!
First comment, second like. I heard a brief snippet of this when I was about ten years old; my Father had encouraged me to make time to watch, but I had been to visit my grandparents with my mother, and arrived home only in time to catch the last ten minutes or so. I hoped to catch it on a rerun, but it never happened. I heard Tony Randall sing "Madeira, M'Dear" on Carson once, and was lucky enough to find "At the Drop of a Hat" at a used record store in the early seventies, but finally to see this is beyond words!
Yeah I've had this video on my ebay saved search list for over 5 years, this is the only one that's ever come up for sale! Was only £8 (and £38 shipping from the USA). I'm so pleased to be able to share it, there's material on here that isn't on any other record or CD.
I started with Rubinstein playing spanish music then got to 'The maiden and the nightingale' then got to Myra Hess playing the same then got to an interview of her with John Amis and then from John Amis to his programme on Flanders and Swann and never before knew such wit, humour and fun music. Perhaps more than Gilbert and Sullivan and to think even the americans understood the subtleties
Isn't it a shame that nobody would dare produce a song like Patriotic Prejudice now. It's offensive to just about everyone BUT - it's intensely clever, witty, musically brilliant, brimming over with Englishness and just plain funny. It doesn't sit as being outrageous, it doesn't feel misplaced or misjudged. But... I'm English.... It's very much of it's time (political correctness-wise) but hasn't aged one bit. Like many commenters, I heard Hat and Another Hat as a kid in the 70s. Now I have them on CD and still find them brilliant. Tom Lehrer and Jake Thackray both produced equally brilliant and equally "offensive" songs, which if not taken seriously, work just as well.
It was always intended to be ironic, I'm sure it would play just as well these days, especially compared to the unironic racism that was everywhere back then
Programme: 1) There's A Hole In My Budget 2) All Gaulle 3) The Armadillo 4) Ill Wind 5) Food For Thought 6) New Built-Up Area (a monologue) 7) Twice Shy 8) I Sit Beside The Fire (from The Road Goes Ever On, by Donald Swann and J.R.R. Tolkien) 9) Madeira, M'Dear 10) Commonwealth Fair 11) A Song Of Patriotic Prejudice 12) Hippo Encore
I sure miss when we as a society dressed up and kept up appearances. Look at that audience! Pretty much over by the 2000s. Something no one seems to bother with today. Then again we were a thinner lot then and looked better in clothes.
Oh, and you can actually HEAR their music. This new way of the audience screaming through a concert in a way I thought was only appropriate for a high school ball game isn't my idea of fun.
They have so captured the year 1967 as I vividly remember it! What girl of 15 did not buy one of those little diet (and exercise) guides piled in plenty at every checkout counter? F&S really knew America. I can attest to it.
Fantastic--thanks! I'd previously only seen the bits featured on the VHS with the John Amis documentary. I wonder if the complete black & white UK performance from that VHS is available somewhere...
The Madeira song is very subtle with amazingly clever lyrics. Modern "comedy" reminds me of ten year old boys with their fascination with body functions and cuss words.
I wonder, before this video disappears, can anyone shed any light on the precise reasoning behind the excision of all the references(even the really subtle and incidental ones) to the Profumo Affair, compared to the 1963 London audio recording? "There's a Hole in My Budget" seems to indicate that it wasn't because all material specific to the UK was deemed too irrelevant for an American audience, and of course it wasn't current news any more, but there don't seem to be any vestigial traces at all; other than the entirely instrumental rendition of "Friendly Duet".
I think it probably WAS because they thought it likely that few in their American audience would know much about the Profumo affair, even though it was, of course a huge news story in England. Note that before they performed "There's a Hold in My Budget" they carefully and humorously explained who Harold Wilson and James Callaghan were, together with the role of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Americans would, of course, know the original tune.
Better, I'd say. Not only could Flanders achieve that lightness of comic verse without Gilbert's notorious twisting of syntax and deliberate mis-stressing, his lyrics could also be genuinely witty and genuinely funny at the same time - a rare combination in lyric writing.
@@joshuakohlmann9731 I know what you mean. I attended a performance of the rarely staged The Grand Duke and I thought some of the lyrics were pretty contorted (though not as much as the plot...)
Possibly an NTSC US standard recording transfered to PAL. HTSC used to be known as "Never The Same Colour " because it was an unstable system and colours could change after switch off. Episode of Columbo has a housekeeper annoyed after power cuts by the murderer and then Columbo.
Leon, are you in a position to make it available to the public? Perhaps via your F&S Facebook page? I know there are many who would deeply appreciate it.
I quite understand your position, Mr Berger, but I am certain many F&S enthusiasts would appreciate temporary access to this wonderful gem until it can finally be released on DVD.
Make it available or leave it up. Who makes money off this? Is this video monitized under RU-vid? It would be a shame to remove it without speaking first to the person who uploaded this.
