Talk:Malbrough s'en va-t-en guerre

A fact from Malbrough s'en va-t-en guerre appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 15 May 2007. The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that the lyrics of one of the most popular French folk songs, Marlbrough s'en va-t-en guerre, which has the same melody as the English song For He's a Jolly Good Fellow, were written on a false rumour?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2007/May.

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Tune[edit]

Marlborough Has Left for the War / Mort et convoi de l'invincible Malbrough The Danish source for the song Een nye Viise om General Malbrochs Krigsbedrifter og Død / "A new song on General Malbrochs war deeds and death": Schiørrings "Blandinger for Sang og Claveer - Som et Anhæng til det første Bind" / "Mixtures for singing and piano - As an addition to the first volume", Copenhagen 1787 is photographed in Henning Urups dissertation Dans i Danmark / Dance in Denmark, 2007, pp. 104.Urup mentions the song "le Marlboroug" or Le Malbroch (count. Danse) as a dance tune to a contra dance in 2/4 rhythm and not in the later 6/8 beat. I'm not good at reading sheet music, but the melody looks right. It may be the famous song's oldest sheet music The Mixtures for singing and piano comes from Soro Academy Library, and is probably at the Royal Library in Copenhagen. The Dance and music are also in Elizabeth Burchenal's Folk dances of Denmark: Containing seventy-three dances (1915).

- http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924019899586

I do not know enough about folk dancing to assess whether Urup and Burchenal's tunes and dance descriptions are similar. I need more information on this. Can you help? Holger Terp, editor, the Danish Peace Academy — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.107.189.138 (talk) 22:56, 6 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

English lyrics[edit]

These english lyrics are really bad! They arn't a direct translation of the french, and they even get Marlbrough's name wrong! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 204.69.190.75 (talk) 18:58, 15 May 2007 (UTC).[reply]

Blame Longfellow --- "The English version shown below was written by the American poet, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in the 19th Century." Canuckle 20:22, 15 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The pronunciation is the same as in French, though. I personally never knew this song was about a Marlbrough; I had always assumed the name of the gentleman in the song was "Malbrouc". 24.201.253.66 (talk) 18:56, 22 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Impressive...[edit]

I've never been much of a fan of Wikipedia's category system, but hey!, this article made me add another item to my bucket list: I sincerely would like to meet the person who plucked up the courage to create a category like "1709 songs", containing nothing but this song (for obvious reasons). Let me add that I also deem it fairly naïve to assume that Marlbrough actually dates from that precise year. --Rainer Lewalter (talk) 13:51, 18 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

MARL or MAL?[edit]

The title is MARL-brough, but the French lyrics start with MAL-brough. -- JackofOz (talk) 09:19, 18 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Danish[edit]

There is an Old Danish translation of the song:

"Een nye Viise om General Malbrochs Krigsbedrifter og Død”: in: Schiørring´s "Blandinger for Sang og Claveer - Som et Anhang til det første Bind", Kiøbenhavn 1787

Malbroch i Leding farer, Miro ton ton ton, miro tene; Malbroch i Leding farer, Hans Hu til Orlog stod. :,: :,: :,:

Han kommer hjem til Paaske, Til St. Hansdag forvist.

St. Hansdag var forgangen, Malbroch kom ei igien.

Hans unge Frue ganger, Paa høie Loft at staae.

Hun seer den unge Svend kommer, I Sort saa var klæd.

Hvad Nyt, hvad Nyt fra Krigen? Hvor gaaer det min Gemahl?

Din Rosens Kind vil blegne, Naar du mit Budskab hør.

Afføre din Skarlagen, Og al din Prydelse.

Malbroch er død i Krigen, Og lagt i sorte Jord.

Han blev til Graven baaren, Af fire Høvedsmænd.

Den første bar hans Sabel, Den anden bar hans Skiold.

Den tredie bar hans Harnisk, Den fierde ingen Ting.

Der han til Graven var baaren, Gik vi alle hiem igien.

Mænd gik med deres Qvinder, Jeg eene gik igien.

Also there are two printed songsters in Danishfrom the same period. Holger Terp, editor, the Danish Peace Academy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.88.116.24 (talk) 09:16, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

German Text[edit]

It is interesting to note that the German text is not a translation of the English or French lyrics respectively but rather a poetic account of the Battle of Blenheim fought in 1704, the line "Sie mustern ihre Truppen / Bei Höchstädt auf dem Plan" (which roughly translates as "At Höchstädt they [that is Marlborough and Prince Eugene of Savoy] discuss their Order of Battle") being a clear reference. Furthermore, the German text is not coeval but appears to be a a 19th century work written around 1872 by Emanuel Geibel as claimed by some sites on the net. This work was published entitled "Höchstädt" in Geibel's 1877 edition of poems called "Spätherbstblätter": Höchstädt at zeno.org
--Ngweiss (talk) 09:56, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not the same tune as "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow"[edit]

>> it is the same tune used by two other songs, "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" and "The Bear Went Over the Mountain."

Really? I think they are quite different. I have no idea if they are somehow related in their evolution but they are most definitely not the same tune. Not even close I would say. GS3 (talk) 02:57, 30 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

For a different perspective, I think they're obviously the same tune, unless you are talking about a variant musical setting?

Malbrough: http://www.folktunefinder.com/tune/88425/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEHJLd8QRz8

Good Fellow: http://www.folktunefinder.com/tune/158946/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ieCUL0OFDw

A source:

http://www.mamalisa.com/?t=es&p=2415&c=23

http://www.mamalisa.com/?t=es&p=186&c=22

Knightofairplanes (talk) 21:01, 4 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I will also point out that there's an infobox at the top of this page that says this article was featured in 2007, explicitly mentioning that the tunes are the same. I'm going to remove the 'dubious' marker.Knightofairplanes (talk) 21:08, 4 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

While I don't understand what compels a person to say "not even close" – they are obviously very similar – it is also clear from those clips that the tunes are not identical, either. "Malbrough" doesn't feature "Fellow"'s trademark pitch rise and fermata at the end of the third line. The first two are identical, as far as I can tell, and the fourth is at least very close, but the ending of the third line is so striking that it might well be mentioned along with any claim that they are "the same tune". 85.226.205.208 (talk) 10:40, 19 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Other language titles[edit]

I think it would be useful to insert titles of the song or corresponding music besides English and French, e.g. Malbrook, Mambrú and Major Brack JayBirdtyper (talk) 01:41, 21 July 2022 (UTC)[reply]