Whether the 'racing country guitars' do the traditional melody justice is a good question of course! Robert Mathew-Walker, in Elvis Presley - A Study in Music, felt that " the words and the arrangement do not come up to the haunting quality of the original "
Still the film itself and the music marked an important break from the usual formula Presley films and the original song is interesting.
"Greensleeves" is a traditional English folk song and tune, a ground either of the form called a romanesca or of its slight variant, the passamezzo antico (see below for definitions)
It is often thought that Greensleeves was written by King Henry V111 but -
"There is a persistent belief that Greensleeves was composed by Henry VIII for his lover and future queen consort Anne Boleyn. Boleyn allegedly rejected King Henry's attempts to seduce her and this rejection may be referred to in the song when the writer's love "cast me off discourteously". However, Henry did not compose "Greensleeves", which is probably Elizabethan in origin and is based on an Italian style of composition that did not reach England until after his death.
A broadside ballad by this name was registered at the London Stationer's Company in September 1580,by Richard Jones, as "A Newe Northen Dittye of ye Ladye Greene Sleves". Six more ballads followed in less than a year, one on the same day, 3 September 1580 ("Ye Ladie Greene Sleeves answere to Donkyn hir frende" by Edward White), then on 15 and 18 September (by Henry Carr and again by White), 14 December (Richard Jones again), 13 February 1581 (Wiliam Elderton), and August 1581 (White's third contribution, "Greene Sleeves is worne awaie, Yellow Sleeves Comme to decaie, Blacke Sleeves I holde in despite, But White Sleeves is my delighte". It then appears in the surviving A Handful of Pleasant Delights (1584) as A New Courtly Sonnet of the Lady Green Sleeves. To the new tune of Green Sleeves.
The tune is found in several late-16th-century and early 17th-century sources, such as Ballet's MS Lute Book and Het Luitboek van Thysius, as well as various manuscripts preserved in the Cambridge University libraries.
Lyrical Interpretation
One possible interpretation of the lyrics is that Lady Green Sleeves was a promiscuous young woman and perhaps a prostitute.At the time, the word "green" had sexual connotations, most notably in the phrase "a green gown", a reference to the way that grass stains might be seen on a woman's dress if she had engaged in sexual intercourse out-of-doors.
An alternative explanation is that Lady Green Sleeves was, through her costume, incorrectly assumed to be immoral. Her "discourteous" rejection of the singer's advances supports the contention that she is not.
In Nevill Coghill's translation of The Canterbury Tales, he explains that "green [for Chaucer’s age] was the colour of lightness in love. This is echoed in 'Greensleeves is my delight' and elsewhere."
Source - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greensleeves
Shakespeare
In Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor, written around 1602, the character Mistress Ford refers twice without any explanation to the tune of "Greensleeves" and Falstaff later exclaims:
'Let the sky rain potatoes! Let it thunder to the tune of 'Greensleeves'!
These allusions indicate that the song was already well known at that time.
Musical Structure
"A ground or an ostinato is (derived from Italian: "stubborn", compare English: 'obstinate') is a motif or phrase, which is persistently repeated in the same musical voice, usually at the same pitch. The best known ostinato based piece may be Ravel's Boléro." Read more here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostinato#Ground_bass
"A Romanesca (originating in Spain) was a song form popular in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. It was most popular with Italian composers of the early Baroque period. A romanesca is composed of a sequence of four chords with a simple, repeating bass, which provide the groundwork for variations and improvisation. A famous example is the refrain of "Greensleeves" (whose verses follow the progression of the passamezzo antico, of which the romanesca is an alteration). The romanesca is usually in triple meter and its soprano formula (melody) resembles that of the passamezzo antico but a third higher." Read more here - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romanesca
"The passamezzo antico was a ground bass or chord progression popular during the Italian Renaissance and known throughout Europe in the 16th century. The progression is a variant of the double tonic: its major mode variant is known as the passamezzo moderno.
The sequence consists of two phrases as follows: (For an explanation of this notation see Chord progression)
| i | VII | i | V |
| III | VII | i V | i |
In the key of A minor this gives:
| Am | G | Am | E |
| C | G | Am E | Am |
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