Mick Hartley

In 1953 the Obernkirchen Children's Choir from North Germany won the Children's Choir Competition at the Llangollen International Eisteddfod. Dylan Thomas, who was perhaps very drunk at the time, described them as "pigtailed angels". 

The song was "Mein Vater war ein Wandersmann", written by Friedrich-Wilhelm Möller, brother of choir conductor Edith Möller. It was played on BBC radio, and before long was a major hit. Translated into English as "The Happy Wanderer", it went everywhere: a piece of chirpy 50s pop; the golden voices of Leonard and Robert Kranendonk with Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians; an inexpressibly dreary accordion piece; a Muppets sketch; and a staple ever since of scouting jamborees and similar such celebrations of the healthy outdoor spirit.

Have we forgotten the original, though? Well yes, perhaps we have. Its only YouTube incarnation is accompanied, for reasons best known to the poster, by an exceedingly dreary and badly-shot video of the country round Tasmania's Lake St Clair….but here it is anyway:

I admit that I searched this out expecting some saccharine piece of Euro-schmaltz along the lines, perhaps, of Dominique by the Singing Nun, mixed in with German oompah and lederhosen. But….well, it has an innocence and freshness which surprised me. Dylan Thomas may be forgiven. It's easy to understand the effect this had back in 1953, so soon after the war: a sign of rebirth, of hope from a ruined country. Suddenly from the land of Nazis and bombed-out cities and desolation here was a choir of orphaned children singing beautifully of nature and walking and being happy. Instead of "Mein Vater war ein Obersturmbannführer"; "Mein Vater war ein Wandersmann".

OK, having searched it out I'll admit that it's not a song I'll be returning to on a regular basis, if at all, but perhaps it needs some rescuing from the condescension of posterity, and the ghastliness of its English-language life.

Run the original German lyrics through Google Translate, by the way, and here's how it starts:

My father was a traveling man
and me stuck in the blood

Oh well.