Book 3. Honeycomb: Playlist of Music Mentioned in the Book

Music plays less of a role in Honeycomb. Many of the musical references are just snatches of lyrics rather than the experience of listening and performing. In addition, some of the songs mentioned are so obscure that there is no performance to be found online, whether on YouTube or elsewhere. For those reasons, this playlist is a bit shorter than the first two.

To help follow along, the relevant text from Honeycomb is provided with each number.

You can listen to the playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEuwqhzbsAgtIXA92sIsFAJSAcEIMDTfn

• “Stiboo, Stibee” is a duet sung in Act 2 of A Gaiety Girl, a musical by Sidney Jones, Harry Greenbank, and Owen Hall. The refrain to the song is, “Stiboo, stibee, sti-kitty-ky-en, sti-yie, kitty-am stiboo.” You can read the lyrics here and more about A Gaiety Girl on Wikipedia. There is no performance of this online.
• “greenery-yellery” comes from “When I go out of door” from Act II of Patience by W. S. Gilbert.
• “Ich grolle nicht, und wenn das Herz auch bricht” is song No. 7 from Schumann’s Dichterliebe (Opus 48)
• “Scorn such a foe . . . though I could fell thee at a blow” is from the aria “Honour and arms scorn such a foe” from Samson by Handel.
• “True, true till death; bear it, oh wind, on thy lightning breath.” From “True, Till Death” by Alfred Scott-Gatty, with lyrics by L. L. B. [?]. There is no performance of this song online.
• “C’est si bon . . . de con-fon-dre en un, deu-eux bai-sers” and “Aime-moi . . . car ton charme-est étrange . . . et-je t’ai-me” are lines from the song “Aime moi,” music by Herman Bemberg and lyrics by Armand Ocampo. You can hear a recording of this song from 1927 on the Internet Archive.
• “Ho-o-zan-na-in-the-Hi . . . i . . . est” is from “Hosanna to the Living Lord!”, No. 241 in Hymns Ancient and Modern, which would have been common in Anglican churches at the time. The words were written by Reginald Heber and the music by J. W. Elliott.
• “So ear—ly in the mor—ning, / My beloved—my beloved” is from “One Morning, oh, so early,” a song by Alfred Scott-Gatty with lyrics from a poem by Jean Ingelow in Mopsa the Fairy.
• “Und wenn i dann mal wie-ie-d-er komm” is Miriam’s version of the line “Wenn i wiedrum komm, wiedrum komm. . . .” from the German folk song “Muss i denn, muss i denn” (which is also a popular military march).
• “Freue dich des Lebens” is another German folk song. Music by Hans Georg Nägeli, lyrics by Johann Martin Usteri.
• Schubert’s Ave Maria needs no introduction.
• “The overture to The Harbour Bar” is likely a reference to then-popular English folk song “Three Fishers,” which is a musical setting of a poem by Charles Kingsley whose stanzas end with the line, “Though the harbour bar be moaning.” However, George Thomson suggests the song may be one of two with that title: the earliest written by Charlotte Helen Dolby (later Sainton), and lyrics by Edward Oxenford, London; the later by Charles J. Stiles with words by W. H . Stroud.