Lyr Req: Where are you going, my little one?

Subject: Where are you going, my little one...
From:
Date: 02 Apr 97 - 12:04 PM

I'm looking for the lyrics to song detailing the growth of a child as told from a parent's viewpoint. It might be a folk song or possibly from a musical. Roughly, it goes "Where are you going, my little one, little one. Where are you going,my child, my own. Turn around and you're 2, turn around and you're 4. Turn around and you're a young girl going out of ___ door.

A later verse includes the birth of a grandchild: ...Turn around and you're __ now with babes of your own.

Remember the old "That Girl" TV show? There was one episode where the sister of Marlo Thomas played a nun and she sang that song.

Subject: Lyr Add: TURN AROUND (Malvina Reynolds)
From:
Date: 02 Apr 97 - 01:13 PM

TURN AROUND
(Harry Belafonte, Alan Greene, & Malvina Reynolds)
As recorded by Malvina Reynolds on "Little Boxes and Magic Pennies: an Anthology of Children's Songs" (2017)

1. Where are you going, my little one, little one?
Where are you going, my angel, my own?
Turn around and you're two, turn around and you're four,
Turn around and you're a young girl going out of my door.
Turn around, turn around,
Turn around and you're a young girl going out of my door.

2. Where are you going, my little one, little one?
Little dirndls and petticoats, where have you gone?
Turn around and you're tiny, turn around and you're grown,
Turn around and you're a young wife with babes of your own.
Turn around, turn around,
Turn around and you're a young wife with babes of your own.

Subject: RE: Where are you going, my little one...
From: Joe Offer
Date: 02 Apr 97 - 09:40 PM

I've always wondered about the authorship of this song, "Turn Around," attributed to Malvina Reynolds, Alan Greene (who's he?), and Harry Belafonte. Is there a story about how these three songwriters came together to write this wonderful song?

Next question: does anybody know of a CD of Malvina Reynolds recordings? -Joe-

Subject: RE: Where are you going, my little one...
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 02 Apr 97 - 11:54 PM

It's in the database---generally a good place to start looking. Search for [Turn Around] or [Where are you going]

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Where are you going, my little one?
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Dec 10 - 05:14 PM

Is there a version of this song with a little boy growing up?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Where are you going, my little one?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 19 Dec 10 - 05:38 PM

The song by Belafonte, Greene and Reynolds (named in that order in the ASCAP registry), has been translated into German as "Dreh dich um" and French as "Tourne-toi."

Malvina Reynolds was prolific, with 147 songs registered with ASCAP, on every kind of subject.

She co-wrote "Malaguena salerosa," the version performed by the Limeliters.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Where are you going, my little one?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 19 Dec 10 - 11:34 PM

Differences I remember:

where are you going, my baby (not angel) my own...

turn around, you're a young girl (not bride) going out of the door

turn around, you're a young wife (not bride) with babes of her own..

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Where are you going, my little one?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 20 Dec 10 - 02:22 AM

make one up for a boy

Where are you going, my little one, little one?
Where are you going, my baby, my son?
Turn around and you're two, turn around and you're four,
Turn around and you're a young boy going out of my door.
Turn around, turn around,
Turn around and you're a young boy going out of my door.

Where are you going, my little one, little one
Pockets filled with surprises, where have you gone?
Turn around and you're tiny, turn around and you're grown,
Turn around and you're a young man striking out on your own.
Turn around, turn around,
Turn around and you're a young man striking out on your own.

Where are you going, my little one, little one
Playing soldier in the backyard, then in uniform gone
Turn around and you're ten, turn around thirty one.
Turn around and you're a father with a son of your own.
Turn around, turn around,
Turn around and you're a father with a son of your own.


easy peasy

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Where are you going, my little one?
From: Barbara
Date: 20 Dec 10 - 03:23 AM

As I understand it, the first few things Malvina wrote, the people who published her music told her she had to share the copyright with the people who arranged it and the people who sang and popularized it. Turn Around was one of the first, and she only later learned that the "sharing" of the royalties for what she wrote was a rip off. So that's her song, and the other folks are the ones who profited from her lack of knowledge.
Blessings,
Barbara

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Where are you going, my little one?
From: kendall
Date: 20 Dec 10 - 04:41 AM

I recall that this was used in a commercial back in the 70s. For a camera ad I think.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Where are you going, my little one?
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 20 Dec 10 - 12:30 PM

I remember it from when I was very small in the early 60s. I seem to want to relate it to Captain Kangaroo but I was only 3 to 5 years old so probably way off on that memory.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Where are you going, my little one?
From: GUEST,Morgana
Date: 20 Dec 10 - 02:45 PM

Joe,

A good Malvina Reynolds CD is called "Malvina Reynolds Sings the Truth." It was originally a vinyl from Columbia records, but the new version has several extra songs on it. There are about 30 or so songs in all, some of them released for the first time, or at least for the first time in their digital manifestations, on this CD. The song you've been discussing is not on it, unfortunately, but many of her other songs are.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Where are you going, my little one?
From: DonMeixner
Date: 20 Dec 10 - 03:19 PM

This was a Kodak add that I recall. Usually Sunday nites probably after the The Big Picture with Walter Cronkite and before Walt Disney.
My guess is more early 60's, 62-65 perhaps. I think Harry Belafonte was singing it but I am not sure, I'd have been 13 or fourteen at the time.

Not to change the topic but does anyone remember the 7 Up commercials with The Kingston Trio?

Don

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Where are you going, my little one?
From: Don Firth
Date: 20 Dec 10 - 04:09 PM

The first time I heard "Turn Around" was some time in the late 1950s, and it was sung by Nancy Reynolds, the daughter of Malvina Reynolds.

One of the regulars in the folk singing group in Seattle during the late 50s was Shirley Starkenberg. Shirley didn't sing, but she hosted a lot of get-togethers of local singers. She was from Seattle, but she spent some time in the mid-Fifties in the San Francisco Bay area where she met both Malvina and Nancy Reynolds. In the late Fifties, Nancy came to Seattle to visit Shirley for a week or two and during that time we had a song fest.

Most of us at the time didn't know anything about Malvina Reynolds. At the song fest, Nancy sang "Turn Around," saying that her mother had written it for her.

It was a few years later that I heard it on the radio. Harry Belafonte had recorded it. A few years after that, it was used in a television commercial (I'm pretty sure it was Kodak).

Leeneia's corrections at 19 Dec 10 - 11:34 p.m. above are, indeed, correct.

(One of the advantages of being an Old Geezer is that I remember when lots of things happened. Like, when the Big Bang occurred, I'm the one who said, "What the hell was THAT!??")

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Where are you going, my little one?
From: GUEST,Sue G.
Date: 24 Feb 11 - 09:17 PM

Since my granddaughter was born 2 weeks ago this song from the old Kodak commercial keeps popping into my head.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Where are you going, my little one?
From: clueless don
Date: 25 Feb 11 - 08:09 AM

I'm going strictly from memory here, so I might be dead wrong. But I remember the song being sung by a female voice in the Kodak commercial.

Don

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Where are you going, my little one?
From: Barry T
Date: 25 Feb 11 - 02:02 PM

If you get the opportunity, be sure to listen to a beautiful introduction to this song, written and performed by The Womenfolk on their 1963 album 'The Womenfolk Vol 1: We Give A Hoot'...

I sat and rocked this baby on my arm
And I said to myself, "Remember this day!"
And I said to myself, "Be happy while you may...
...for it won't be long this way."

Where are you going....

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Where are you going, my little one?
From: GUEST,gloriaeve
Date: 12 Sep 11 - 12:36 PM

My mother used to sing this to my sisters and myself in the 50's I have recently used it to sing my grandson to sleep, he loves it although it gets a bit hard after twenty verses! I could not remember much about it so was pleased to see it was recorded by Harry Belafonte, but do not remember the advert. It is such a lovely lullaby adapted for either boy or girl and Iwill continue singing it as long as he likes.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Where are you going, my little one?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 12 Sep 11 - 10:32 PM

Don Firth, here ya go!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Where are you going, my little one?
From: Bettynh
Date: 13 Sep 11 - 01:16 PM

The Kodak commercial

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Where are you going, my little one?
From: lefthanded guitar
Date: 13 Sep 11 - 02:16 PM

There's a song by Cat Stevens (when he was still Cat Stevens) that tells the story of leaving both from the parents and childs viewpoint in counterpoint called
Father And Son. I still find it touching.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Where are you going, my little one?
From: GUEST,Phil d'Conch
Date: 07 Nov 16 - 01:02 PM

Joe: "...attributed to Malvina Reynolds, Alan Greene (who's he?), and Harry Belafonte."

Alan Greene was a house conductor – composer for the American Negro Theater in Harlem. His was also one of the many couches Harry Belafonte slept on before the 'King of Calypso' hit the big time. Greene would have contributed the arrangements and adaptations necessary for Belafonte's full orchestra recordings and live shows.

Greene also co-wrote Love Is a Gentle Thing with Robert DeCormier (Bob Corman) and was a regular in the pop/ballroom Caribbean genre.

Belafonte's artistic contributions were questionable however, most of the legal problems came not from the mechanical rights but from the publishing. In HB's case that meant Clara Publishing (named after his soon-to-be mother-in-law Clara Robinson) The front man for Clara Pub. was Jesse Stool (aka C.C. Carter)

Clara & Belafonte were sued by just about every commercially savvy songwriter he ever worked with.

Trivia: Alan Greene is also the father of my grand-nephew's physics professor, Brian Greene... small world huh?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Where are you going, my little one?
From: BrooklynJay
Date: 07 Nov 16 - 06:25 PM

For the history of Turn Around, click here.

This is from the official Malvina Reynolds website, and the story is related, I believe, by her daughter.

Click here to hear the recording by Malvina. Simple, sweet and quite touching.


Jay

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Where are you going, my little one?
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Nov 16 - 11:51 PM

Didn't Burl Ives also do a version in the 60s on TV? Gopherit