Missy - Supplemental Music

William Shakespeare1564 - 1616

Full Fathom Five (1623)

Full fathom five thy father lies;

Of his bones are coral made;

Those are pearls that were his eyes:

Nothing of him that doth fade,

But doth suffer a sea-change

Into something rich and strange:

Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell.

Ding-dong!

Hark! now I hear them,

Ding-dong, bell!

But then

Song Full Fathom Five, Ben Whishaw
Artist Elliot Goldenthal
Album The Tempest (Music from the Motion Picture)

Come unto these yellow sands And then take hands Curtsied when you have, and kiss'd The wild waves whist Foot it featly here and thereAnd, sweet sprites, the burthen bearHark, hark! The watch-dogs bark

Full fathom five thy father lies Of his bones are coral made Those are pearls that were his eyes Nothing of him that doth fade But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange, rich and strange Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell Hark, now I hear them... 

All of which is to say there is a lot of variety with Shakespearean music, even for the music for which we have good records. 

I went to a concert yesterday. It was a lovely concert and free.

There is a church in Frederick (Calvaryu United Methodist) that holds free concerts for the public.

A friend told me they were doing lute music and I was excited and blocked in my calendar with great anticipation. 

Not exceptionally surprisingly there was some Shakespearean music performed. 

They did The Willow Song from Othello and Full Fathom Five (the song at the top here) from The Tempest.  

They talked about how they were using the Robert Johnson music because he was a Shakespeare contemporary so they knew what the songs sounded like for lute. 

I had no idea this was the case. I thought all Shakespeare music was speculative. 

Robert Johnson was a court composer in the court of James I and later of his son Charles I. 

He worked with the Kings Men (The name of Shakespeares company at that time) and is closely associated with Shakespeare. He set songs from The Tempest and Cymbeline and The Winters Tale to music. 

It is not recorded that his music was  played during the plays, to his tunes and accompaniment, but there is a fair shot. 

It’s not actually recorded what any of the music in the plays sounded like and lots of people have tried lots of things to make feasible examples. Lots more people have just taken the lyrics and themes and treated Shakespeare as a librettists of sorts. 

I only recorded small snippets of the concert to keep in fair use but here is what I heard. 

Full Fathom Five

The Willow Song

Here is a very pretty and complete version of that song. 

The Willow song is a little different in history because it’s not really a Shakespeare song, in that he didn’t write it. It was a well known sad song about a man who was betrayed by his love and then lost all appetite for life. It’s reworked beautifully by Shakespeare in Othello where both Desdémona and Emilia sing it before their deaths. 

Shakespeare swaps the He in the song for a She and uses only the first few verses. 

For me, this moment in the play always makes me tear up. A good soundtrack will do that. 

The audience would have gotten it instantly. 

I’m so happy to have gotten to hear live music and especially this type of live music. 

I quite liked Ayreheart and bring your attention to this piece with a different lead singer. 

Beyond that, it’s clear that Shakespeare had music in his bones. 

According to google Shakespeare included approximately 100 vocal songs in his work and made over 400 references to music or things musical. 

I will leave you here with a few of my favorite Shakespeare music tunes but bear in mind they may or may not be Shakespeare. Like most else with the Bard it’s all speculation. So here are some songs I like that are Shakespeare adjacent. 

And this one because I sang it most recently. 

Hopefully someday I will have permission to post our version.