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Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms

from Songs our grandparents would have known by Ken Baake

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This is a famous English or Irish tune from the late 1700s that the Irish poet Thomas Moore used in 1810 to compose "Believe Me, If All These Endearing Young Charms." Later the same melody was reused for Harvard's school song, "Fair Harvard."

As "Believe Me" it offers a common theme of songs from this period--that of a lover remaining true and enraptured even as his mate grows old. "When You and I Were Young, Maggie," is a similar theme.

Warner Brothers made several cartoons starting in 1944s with this song and the exploding piano. The first one is of a soldier, and contains a lovely bit with a little Hitler in a glockenspiel.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1rXcm2mbKI

lyrics

BELIEVE me, if all those endearing young charms,
Which I gaze on so fondly to-day,
Were to change by to-morrow, and fleet in my arms,
Like fairy-gifts, fading away!
Thou wouldst still be ador'd as this moment thou art,
Let thy loveliness fade as it will;
And, around the dear ruin, each wish of my heart
Would entwine itself verdantly still!
II.
It is not while beauty and youth are thine own,
And thy cheeks unprofan'd by a tear,
That the fervour and faith of a soul can be known,
To which time will but make thee more dear!
Oh! the heart, that has truly lov'd, never forgets,
But as truly loves on to the close;
As the sun-flower turns on her god, when he sets,
The same look which she turn'd when he rose!

credits

from Songs our grandparents would have known, released June 4, 2015
Ken, guitar and vocal.
Amy Devoge, engineer/producer, Crossroads Recording Studio, Texas Tech.

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Ken Baake Lubbock, Texas

Ken was born in Baltimore in 1955. He grew up hearing everyone from Johnny Mercer and Ray Charles to the Beatles on the family hi-fi, with a usual Saturday encore of Wagner's operas. Ken has degrees in English and economics and a background in journalism. He is currently an associate professor of English at Texas Tech, teaching classes in rhetoric. ... more

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