By David Bennett
2 October 2018
If you’ve ever played with the Athens Dulcimers you know that one of the many tunes we like to play is “The Bells of St. Mary’s.”
Even before I joined the group, some ten years ago, I was somewhat familiar with the tune as I’d heard it every Christmas watching the 1945 Bing Crosby movie by the same name.
Feeding my appetite to learn the history of yet another tune I did some snooping. One of the things I found out about the song is the original tune predates the Bing Crosby movie and although the song is sometimes associated with Christmas because of the movie, it is not a “Christmas song” per se as you’ll see by the lyrics below. The lyrics in the 1945 Bing Crosby movie were written by a nun specifically for the movie (and even those lyrics are not about Christmas). We certainly play it year-round in Athens, Alabama.
The original song was popular when it was first published in 1917. The music was composed by A. Emmett Adams (1889-1938) and the lyrics were written by Douglas Furber (1885-1961) following a visit in 1914 to St. Mary’s Church, Southampton, England, where they heard the recently installed bells. The song also became a major hit in the United States despite having been originally rejected by the publishers.
The first structure of St. Mary’s Church is nearly 1,400 years old, dating back to the first Saxon settlements of the 7th century, and was later a major collegiate church during the Middle Ages. As you can imagine the church has gone through many changes and rebuilds through the centuries.
Regarding the bells, a ring of eight bells was first installed in 1914 having been brought to St. Mary’s from the Southampton Docks railway station in a horse-drawn procession. In 1934 two more bells were added.
In World War II, during a blitz in November 1940, incendiary bombs destroyed the church and damaged the tower and bells. The damaged bells were taken away for safe-keeping. After the war the bells were recast in 1945 from the metal of the originals and restoration was completed in June 1948. The rebuilding of the rest of the church was begun in 1954 and completed a little more than two years later 1956.
Here is a 1920 Edison recording by Lewis James published in 1921 I found on the Smithsonian website. The lyrics are a little different than what I have below, but the tune is the same. It’s still interesting to me to hear a recording that is nearly a century old. https://memory.loc.gov/natlib/ihas/service/edrs/50722l.mp3
Here’s a more modern version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rv9eMRaYR0c
The following are what I believe to be the original lyrics:
The Bells of St. Mary’s
The bells of St. Mary’s at sweet eventide,
Shall call me, beloved, to come by your side;
And out in the valley, in sound of the sea,
I know you’ll be waiting, yes waiting for me.
REFRAIN:
The Bells of St. Mary’s, ah! hear, they are calling
The young loves, the true loves, who come from the sea;
And so my beloved, when red leaves are falling,
The love-bells shall ring out, ring out, for you and me.
At the porch of St. Mary’s I’ll wait there with/for you,
In your/my soft wedding dress with its ribbons of blue;
In the church of St. Mary’s, sweet voices shall sing,
For you and me, dearest, the wedding bells ring.
REFRAIN:
The Bells of St. Mary’s, ah! hear, they are calling
The young loves, the true loves, who come from the sea;
And so my beloved, when red leaves are falling,
The love-bells shall ring out, ring out, for you and me.
Bells Of St. Mary’s Tabs:
(0) 000000 11 222222 44 555555
6+6+ 777777 55 444444 22 333333
4 3 222222 00 111111
(0)(0) 000000 11 222222 44 555555
6+6+ 777777
44 77 6+6+ 55 44
77 6+6+ 55 44
7777 8888 75420
Video (slow): Bells of St. Mary’s by Allatooners Dulcimer Ensemble https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9V3FdBlI48
Video (faster): The Bells of St Mary at the 2016 Cumberland Gap Dulcimer Gathering (closer to how we play it in Athens, Alabama) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grM5qETsjXI
