Marais and Miranda

Wed Jul 8 02:10:09 UTC 2009

The records of theirs that we own (late sixties antiques) are all 'Marais and Miranda'.  According to their website (they are both long gone, of course), her name was originally Rosa de Miranda, and she was Dutch.  It is claimed in various places that he composed the 'Zulu Warrior' song, which, incidentally, was a Toronto-area summer camp song in the 1959-62 period.  But then so were many early folk revival songs (Wasn't that a time, Follow the Drinking Gourd...)

Geoff

Geoffrey S. Nathan
Faculty Liaison, C&IT
and Associate Professor, Linguistics Program
+1 (313) 577-1259 (C&IT)
+1 (313) 577-8621 (English/Linguistics)

----- "Wilson Gray" <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:

> From: "Wilson Gray" <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Sent: Tuesday, July 7, 2009 9:35:36 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
> Subject: Re: Marais and Miranda
>
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: Marais and Miranda
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> A friend sent me a kind of teach-yourself-kiSwati grammar from
> Swaziland in 1976. I still have the book, but the only word that I
> can
> recall is _sipune_ [si'pune] "spoon." Who knew that the British Army
> had borrowed a word from an an obscure south-african people? ;-)
>
> I wonder when they stopped being *Joseph* Marais and Miranda and
> became simply "Marais & Miranda"? When I saw them last, on TV in the
> *very* early 'Fifties - Texaco Star Theater? Your Show of Shows? -
> they were still *Joseph* ..., as they were on radio, and he became
> simply "Marais"?.
>
> -Wilson
>
> On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 8:32 PM, Joel S. Berson<Berson at att.net> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> > Sender: �  �  �  American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster: �  �  �  "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> > Subject: �  �  � Re: Marais and Miranda
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > At 7/7/2009 02:28 PM, Mark Mandel wrote:
> >>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
> >>
> >>On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 2:19 PM, Jonathan Lighter
> >><wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:
> >>
> >> > Zulu pidgin for "I'm a little teapot...."
> >> >
> >>
> >>Dammit, you got me a-searchin'! Mudcat Cafe, of course. This is the
> song I
> >>learned from Marais & Miranda recordings.
> >
> > I had the pleasure of hearing it sung by Marais and Miranda. � (In
> > NYC, although I no longer remember what venue.)
> >
> > Joel
> > ditto folkie.
> >
> >
> >>http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=2769#1949082
> >>==========
> >>*Subject:* Lyr Add: ZULU WARRIOR (from Marais and Miranda)
> >>*From: <http://www.mudcat.org/help.cfm?helpitem=from>*
> >>Q<http://www.mudcat.org/usersearch.cfm?who=Q>
> >>*Date:* 26 Jan 07 - 05:08 PM
> >>
> >>Gee, this whole long thread and no Marais & Miranda lyrics.
> >>-----
> >>*THE ZULU WARRIOR*
> >>Marais and Miranda
> >>
> >>March tempo
> >>I-kama zimba zimba zayo
> >>I-kama zimba zimba zee,
> >>I-kama zimba zimba zayo,
> >>I-kama zimba, zimba,
> >>See him there, the Zulu warrior,
> >>See him there, the Zulu chief, chief, chief
> >>See him there, the Zulu warrior,
> >>See him there, the Zulu chief, chief, chief, chief
> >>I-kama zimba, I-kama zimba
> >>Zikama zimba layo zee,...
> >>Wah! chief, chief, chief, chief!
> >>Wah!
> >>
> >>Optional second voice:
> >>I-kamazimba zimba zayo
> >>I-kama zimba zimba zee
> >>I-kama zimba zimba zayo
> >>I-kama zimba zimba zee,
> >>and etc.
> >>With score. Marais and Miranda, Folk Song Jamboree, pp. 62-64,
> Ballantine
> >>Books pb.
> >>
> >>Note- "AFRIKAANS ORIGIN. During the so-called Kafir War, the
> British
> >>soldiers sang "Hold him down the Swazi warrior." I substituted Zulu
> as being
> >>a more familiar name, and brighter "nonsense" words than I used to
> hear as a
> >>child. This is NOT a native chant, but rather an imitation of the
> type of
> >>chanting heard by the settlers. I would call it a pickniekliedjie, a
> picnic
> >>song. During World War II, American GI's sang it in conjunction with
> South
> >>African troops in North Africa." Marais.
> >>-----
> >>
> >>Bert, way up above, seems to have some of the older words Marais is
> talking
> >>about.
> >>
> >>Words and music by Josef Marais, copyright 1946 and 1952 by
> Dartmouth Music,
> >>Inc.
> >>
> >>==========
> >>
> >>m a m
> >>50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and 00s folkie (and 90s and 00s filker)
> >>
> >>------------------------------------------------------------
> >>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
>
>
> --
> -Wilson
> –––
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint
> to
> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -----
> -Mark Twain
>
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> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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