Avro and the Song, The

DESCRIPTION: "I shot an Avro into the air, It fell to earth I know not where." The singer could not follow its flight. The singer had a "tight and strong" parachute. Eventually the singer finds the plane by an oak
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1924 (Ward-Jackson/Lucas-AirmansSongBook)
KEYWORDS: pilot crash derivative
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Ward-Jackson/Lucas-AirmansSongBook, pp. 107-108, "The Avro and the Song" (1 text, 1 tune)
NOTES [180 words]: This is about as close a parody as one can find. The original Longfellow poem, "The Arrow and the Song," begins,
I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.
Thus the only change in the first verse is to substitute "Avro" (a plane manufacturer) for "arrow."
The second and third verses also start with parallel texts -- I've listed Longfellows words, with the changes in brackets:
2. I breathed a song [prayer] into the air,
It fell [And shot] to earth, I knew not where....
3. Long, long afterward, in [by] an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke,[I found that Avro badly broke]
And the song [prayer], from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend. [On my trial was the pilot's friend].
The poem appears to have been set to music at least three times. The most popular setting may be that by Christopher Matthews. Another version says that the tune is "O Waly, Waly." None of the printed tunes looked to me to be the same as the one in Ward-Jackson/Lucas-AirmansSongBook. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.8
File: WJL107

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