About 1983, I recorded accompaniments to a couple Spanish hymns, and became fond of one of them. I hadn't copied it out of the hymnal when I returned it, and in the decades since, I've looked for it. I found it last year. "Yo solo espero ese dia." It's as nice as I remembered.

I found a YouTube of a congregation singing and playing it with accordions, guitars, and more intricate rhythms than the score suggests. It was an ear-opener, though I may still play it as before, with sweet intent.


The weird thing, though, is that while I was watching that, I suddenly clicked on the beat-for-beat similarity between this hymn and a French song "The River Seine," which I first heard happily murdered by Jonathan and Darlene Edwards (Jo Stafford and Paul Weston).

So sorry I can't give you Darlene ("video not available"--I got that close), but here's an instrumental version on a sweeeet 1950s-looking portable wind-up phonograph (similar to the one I first heard "Carmen Boogie" by The Crew-Cuts on):

Copyright? The version of the hymn I found has an earliest (c) of 1954 on it, but that's for an arrangement. No telling how old the anonymous melody there is. The song was first recorded in 1948, in French. I can't tell who swiped from who, but SOMEBODY SWIPED FROM SOMEBODY.

That's all. No resolution from me at this time, but if I ever find out, you can just bet I'll tell you about it.

 

originally a series of tweets. still is.

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