The Happy Wanderer

My previous post reminds me of that famous song "the happy wanderer" I know of the regular readers of this blog is howling about now... but wait there is more...

Here's the post from Wikipedia

The song The Happy Wanderer ("Der fröhliche Wanderer" or "Mein Vater war ein Wandersmann") is often mistaken for a German folk song, but it is actually an original song by Friedrich-Wilhelm Möller, written shortly after WW2. His sister Edith Möller conducted a small amateur children's choir in Schaumburg County, Northern Germany, named Schaumburger Märchensänger.

In 1953, BBC Radio aired the choir's winning performance at Llangollen International Eisteddfod, a festival in North Wales. The broadcast turned the cheerful encore into an instant hit. On January 22, 1954, the song took the #2 spot of the UK single charts, where it remained for 23 weeks in a row, then spent 3 more weeks on #8. With BBC Radio's strong international influence, "The Happy Wanderer" suddenly turned up everwhere, e.g. as the winning song of the 1955 calypso road march season of the Trinidad Carnival (prompting protest that from now on, only calypsoes should be chosen over foreign music).

The amateur choir, many of whose original members were war orphans, turned into an unlikely international phenomenon in the following years. The group performed on countless international tours under the name Obernkirchen Children's Choir, with performances on tv shows such as The Ed Sullivan Show (November 29, 1964, and December 11, 1966). The choir was also featured in a 1955 German musical movie named after the song.

The song's original German lyrics have been translated to several languages and has since become a choir classic, the English lyrics were written by Antonia Ridge. Milton DeLugg wrote a famous arrangement and is sometimes falsely credited as the composer of the song.

Interestingly, this song's contagious melody is the background music for the popular video game Bubble Bobble.

For you culturally deprived readers who not have a clue what I'm talking about, here are the words...

I love to go a-wandering
Along the mountain track
And as I go, I love to sing
My knapsack on my back

Chorus:

Val-der-ri, val-der-ra
Val-der-ri, val-der-ra ra ra ra ra ra
Val-der-ri, val-der-ra
(sing the last line of the verse)

I love to wander by the stream
That dances in the sun
So joyously it calls to me
Come join my happy song

I wave my hat to all I meet
And they wave back at me
And blackbirds call so loud and clear
From every greenwood tree

Oh, may I go a-wandering
Until the day I die
And may I always laugh and sing
Beneath God's clear blue sky