Walford Davies (1869–1941)

This 1942 reprint of a 1931 songbook includes titles that speak to their time: "Dashing Away with the Smoothing Iron", "I'm Seventeen Come Sunday", "Old Folks at Home", "God Save the King", "Cockles and Mussels", and 95 others. As the subtitle calls them: "A Hundred Songs for indoor or open-air singing as solos or in chorus, with or without accompaniment, chosen and adapted for the use of The National Adult School Union."

The Foreword eloquently chastises and condemns words-only songbooks:
"In speaking a poem or even in chanting it, words are the chief care. In a Melody, music is the thing. But in a perfect Song, there is the double joy of a melody and a poem, both are the thing. It is a marriage of true minds which admits no impediment. For fifty years and more the so called 'words only' edition of Song Books and Hymn Books has been an enormous impediment, issued avowedly for cheapness' sake. Millions upon millions have been issued. It is hoped that they may be deposed, depopularized, driven away for ever by millions of Melody Editions such as this. For, as a moment's thought will make clear, as well ask a man to look at a tune and think a poem as ask him to look at a poem and think a tune. He needs both. And the eye's need and habit must be to take in both in one visual impression, just as the mind's need and habit lead him to think both and love and sing them into a perfect unity."… (mehr)