If you go down to the woods today…

Walking in the woods today the music and words of Teddy Bear’s Picnic immediately came to my mind as I tramped in muddy boots through the trees. I hadn’t thought about the song for many years but it’s one that is so familiar to me, and I suspect to many of your reading this, and yet I knew nothing about its origins. Thanks to Wikipedia I discovered the melody was written by the American composer John Walter Bratton in 1907, and the lyrics were added by the Irish songwriter Jimmy Kennedy in 1932. The first vocal recording was by Henry Hall and his orchestra in 1932. Enjoy his classic recording as you “go down to the woods” with me, although “you better go in disguise.”