> Sandy Denny > Songs > Like an Old Fashioned Waltz

Like an Old Fashioned Waltz

Like an Old Fashioned Waltz / ?
Sandy Denny

Island WIP 6195 (single, p/s, UK, 1974 - cancelled)

[Sandy Denny]

“Being a romantic at heart, I tried to capture the magic of an old Hollywood movie. Two dancers alone in an enormous deserted ballroom. But where does the orchestra hide? Notice when the strings come in!”

Again, there are quite a lot of versions of the eponymous title song Like an Old Fashioned Waltz of Sandy’s third post-Fairport solo album. It is very 30’s influenced (as are several of the songs on the album). Naturally the song is in 3/4 time and the orchestral violins begin to play on the line “And violins play from behind garden walls”. The tune features a modulation for the instrumental break, then reverts to its original key when Sandy resumes singing.

The studio version was of course released n 1974 as the title track of Sandy’s album Like an Old Fashioned Waltz. It was later included in the Sandy Denny anthologies No More Sad Refrains and A Boxful of Treasures.
An alternative take without the added string section can be found on the cassette Together Again - The Attic Tracks Vol. 4.
A solo live studio recording from 11 September 1973 for the BBC Radio 1 show “Sounds of the Seventies”, hosted by John Peel, was broadcast on 25 September 1973. It was first published in 1997 on The BBC Sessions 1971-73 and later in 2007 on the 3CD+DVD set Live at the BBC.
After Sandy rejoined Fairport Convention in 1974, a live recording was made at the LA Troubadour and released on the semi-bootleg From Past Archives and in 2005 as bonus track of the CD reissue of Like an Old Fashioned Waltz.
Another Fairport live recording from May 1974 at Ebbets Field, Denver, Colorado was released in 2002 on the bonus CD of Before the Moon.
The DVD Sandy Denny: Under Review has a short video footage of Like an Old Fashioned Waltz from a Fairport Convention gig at Birmingham University in 1974. This is very murky, both in sound and vision. Another performance from the same gig, of Solo, shown on the Fairport Convention video It All Comes ’Round Again, was for a long time the only known video of Sandy Denny.

Cover Versions

Louis Neefs with his Belgian translation Ik kan nooit zonder jou on his album Nooit zonder jou (1980)
Emmylou Harris on her album White Shoes (1983)
Vikki Clayton on her album It Suits Me Well (reissue 1998)
Lynni Treekrem with her Norwegian translation Rosan e rød on Tusenfryd (1994)
Turid Pedersen with her Norwegian translation God Gammeldags Vals on Ensomhet i lag (2000)
Lisa O’Kane on her album Am I Too Blue (2001)
Spindel with their Norwegian translation Vare Gamle Vals on their album Aminje (2005)
Daria Kulesh on her EP Summer Delights (2018). She noted:
A Sandy Denny classic weaving a spellbinding, nostalgic dreamscape of “long summer days by cool waterfalls”. With the recent passing of my Grandfather—the widower of my magical Grandmother Fatima—the song has acquired a new, deeply personal meaning. The “heroine” no longer “waits for her beau to return”. They are, at last, reunited. “As they dance round the floor and there’s no-one else there, and the world is no more, and there’s never a care…”

Lyrics

Sandy Denny sings Like an Old Fashioned Waltz

Roses are red, and violets are blue,
Primroses pale on a velvet green hue,
Warm summer days by cool waterfalls,
Like the music we hear,
Those things we’ll always hold dear,
Like an old fashioned waltz.

When the moonlight shines down
on the Hollywood world,
And the heroine waits for her beau to return,
And violins play from behind garden walls,
How I’d love to remain with the silver refrain
of an old fashioned waltz.

As they dance round the floor,
and there’s no-one else there,
and the world is no more and there’s never a care,
by the perfect lagoon where the nightingale calls,
with only the moon and the nostalgic tune
of an old fashioned waltz.

Roses are red and violets are blue,
Primroses pale on a velvet green hue,
Warm summer days by cool waterfalls,
Like the music we hear,
Those things we’ll always hold dear,
Like an old fashioned waltz,
Like an old fashioned waltz,
An old fashioned waltz.

Louis Neefs’ Belgian translation Ik kan nooit zonder jou

Rozen zijn rood
En viooltjes vaak blauw
Maar vertel me waarom ik zoveel van je hou
De gloed van de zon
Die verjaagt alle kou
Maar vertel me waarom ik zoveel van je hou
Ik kan nooit, ik kan nooit zonder jou

Ieder blad aan een boom
Elke vogel die fluit
Is jouw adem, jouw lach en jouw naam op een ruit
En de klank van muziek
Uit een raam in een straat
Is de wals van jouw hart die me nooit meer verlaat
Ik kan nooit zonder jou

Ik ben vaak onderweg
Voor een dag, voor een week
Maar ik zie je dan steeds hoe je was, hoe je keek
En de meeuw aan het strand
En de duif op het plein
Die vertellen me dan hoe het straks weer zal zijn
Ik kan nooit zonder jou

Lynni Treekrem’s Norwegian version Rosan e rød

Rosan e rød og fiolan e blå
Ei fløyelsgrønn eng med kvitsymre på
Mitsommartid ein bækk sildre førbi
Ei førførisk tid på ein låve
Så spælles ein fin melodi
Ein kjent sankthansvals.

Nån e barføtt og svett nån e full av begjær
Hostår der å vente på han ho har kjær
Ein fossekall søng over purpurrød løng
Mens det spelles ein sang
Du har hørt’n før mang ein gang
Ein kjent sankthansvals.

Og når sola går ned kjæm ei huldertaus fram
Ho har sett dansen før men det veit ikkje dæm
Eit par liste sæ vækk dæm e her dæm e no
Heile verden e god og på låven
Så spelles ein fin melodi
Ein kjent sankthansvals.

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