"My Grandfather's Clock" is a song

Song

In music, a song is a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing.A song may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a cappella songs...

 written in 1876 by Henry Clay Work

Henry Clay Work

Henry Clay Work was an American composer and songwriter.-Biography:He was born in Middletown, Connecticut, to Alanson and Amelia Work. His father opposed slavery, and Work was himself an active abolitionist and Union supporter...

, the author of "Marching Through Georgia

Marching Through Georgia

"Marching Through Georgia" is a marching song written by Henry Clay Work at the end of the American Civil War in 1865. It refers to U.S. Maj. Gen...

". It is a standard of British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 brass bands

Brass band (British style)

A British-style brass band is a musical ensemble comprising a standardised range of brass and percussion instruments. The modern form of the brass band in the United Kingdom dates back to the 19th century, with a vibrant tradition of competition based around local industry and communities...

 and colliery bands, and is also popular in bluegrass music

Bluegrass music

Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music, and a sub-genre of country music. It has mixed roots in Scottish, English, Welsh and Irish traditional music...

.

Origin of the song

Most accounts say the song was inspired by the George Hotel, a wayfarers' inn in Piercebridge

Piercebridge

Piercebridge is a village and civil parish in the borough of Darlington and the ceremonial county of Durham, England. It is situated a few miles west of the town of Darlington. It is on the site of a Roman fort of AD 260-270, which was built at the point where Dere Street crossed the River Tees....

 on the border of Yorkshire

Yorkshire

Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...

 and County Durham

County Durham

County Durham is a ceremonial county and unitary district in north east England. The county town is Durham. The largest settlement in the ceremonial county is the town of Darlington...

. The hotel was owned and operated by two brothers called Jenkins, and in the lobby was an upright longcase clock. The clock kept perfect time until one of the brothers died, after which it lost time at an increasing rate, despite the best efforts of the hotel staff and local clockmakers to repair it. When the other brother died, the clock stopped, never to go again. It is said that in 1875 Henry Clay Work visited the hotel and based "My Grandfather's Clock" on the stories he heard there.

Storyline

The song is told from the standpoint of the grandson, who tells the story of a longcase clock

Longcase clock

A longcase clock, also tall-case clock, floor clock, or grandfather clock, is a tall, freestanding, weight-driven pendulum clock with the pendulum held inside the tower, or waist of the case. Clocks of this style are commonly 1.8–2.4 metres tall...

 that his grandfather owned. The Oxford English Dictionary

Oxford English Dictionary

The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is the self-styled premier dictionary of the English language. Two fully bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. The first edition was published in twelve volumes , and...

states that the song is responsible for the common name "grandfather clock" being applied to the longcase clock. However, the term appears as early as 1817 in Ovid's Art of love, Remedy of love, Art of beauty, and Amours, by John Dryden Ovid.

The clock was 1 1/2 times taller than his grandfather's eventual height (though the two would end up weighing the same), and was purchased on the morning of his grandfather's birth. The clock worked perfectly for ninety years without any problems (requiring only a weekly winding), though it did have one unusual "malfunction": it rang 24 times when his grandfather brought his bride (presumably the singer's grandmother) into his house.

However, in the dead of one night, the clock sounded an alarm, which the family knew meant that the grandfather would soon die. The clock, though, continued to keep the time until the grandfather's death, after which the clock suddenly stopped and never was able to be started again.

Covers and inspirations

"My Grandfather's Clock" was often played in Britain on Children's Favourites

Children's Favourites

Children's Favourites was a BBC Radio programme from 1954 broadcast on the Light Programme on Saturday mornings from 9:00. A precursor had been called Children's Choice after the style of Housewives' Choice....

 during that period was recorded by the Radio Revellers. In the United States, a version, without the last stanza of lyrics, was on an extended-play

Extended play

An EP is a musical recording which contains more music than a single, but is too short to qualify as a full album or LP. The term EP originally referred only to specific types of vinyl records other than 78 rpm standard play records and LP records, but it is now applied to mid-length Compact...

 45 rpm record on the Peter Pan

Peter Pan Records

Peter Pan Records is a record label specializing in children's music. It was created in the late 1940s. The label was owned by the Synthetic Plastics Company of Newark, New Jersey until the 1970s....

 label (the other song on that side was The Syncopated Clock

The Syncopated Clock

"The Syncopated Clock" is a piece of light music by American composer Leroy Anderson, which has become a feature of the pops orchestra repertoire.-Composition:...

, and the flip side had The Arkansas Traveler

The Arkansas Traveler (song)

"The Arkansas Traveler" was the state song of Arkansas from 1949 to 1963; it has been the state historical song since 1987. The music was composed in the 19th century by Colonel Sanford C...

and Red River Valley

Red River Valley (song)

Red River Valley is a folk song and cowboy music standard of controversial origins that has gone by different names—e.g., "Cowboy Love Song", "Bright Sherman Valley", "Bright Laurel Valley", "In the Bright Mohawk Valley", and "Bright Little Valley"—depending on where it has been sung. ...

). Johnny Cash

Johnny Cash

John R. "Johnny" Cash was an American singer-songwriter, actor, and author, who has been called one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century...

 covered the song twice on his 1959 album "Songs of Our Soil

Songs of Our Soil

Songs of Our Soil is the sixth album by the singer Johnny Cash. It was originally released in September 1959 , but later re-issued on August 27, 2002 with two bonus tracks....

" and his 1975 album, The Johnny Cash Children's Album

The Johnny Cash Children's Album

The Johnny Cash Children's Album is an album by country singer Johnny Cash, released on Columbia Records in 1975 . As the title implies, it contains songs written for children. Among others, this includes "Tiger Whitehead", a song later released on Cash's posthumous Personal File album in 2006...

. Other versions became popular in other countries. It is well known to many generations in Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

.

The song was the inspiration for the 1963 Twilight Zone

The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series)

The Twilight Zone is an American anthology television series created by Rod Serling, which ran for five seasons on CBS from 1959 to 1964. The series consisted of unrelated episodes depicting paranormal, futuristic, dystopian, or simply disturbing events; each show typically featured a surprising...

episode "Ninety Years Without Slumbering

Ninety Years Without Slumbering

"Ninety Years Without Slumbering" is an episode of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone. The title comes from the lyrics of the song My Grandfather's Clock.-Synopsis:...

", and was recorded by Boyz II Men

Boyz II Men

Boyz II Men is an American R&B vocal group best known for emotional ballads and a cappella harmonies. They are the most successful R&B group of all time, having sold more than albums worldwide. In the 1990s, Boyz II Men found fame on Motown Records as a quartet, but original member Michael McCary...

 in 2004. In the music for American Mcgee's Alice

American McGee's Alice

American McGee's Alice is a third-person action game released for PC on October 6, 2000. The game, developed by Rogue Entertainment and published by Electronic Arts, is set in an alternative universe of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland...

, and the accompanying soundtrack, a music box version of the chorus is included in the song, "I'm Not Edible".
A Japanese cover by Ken Hirai

Ken Hirai

is a Japanese R&B and pop singer. Since his debut, Hirai has worked as a model, actor, composer, lyricist, singer, and spokesperson.During his career, Hirai has released 32 singles and 11 albums up until October 2010. According to Oricon, his single Hitomi Wo Tojite became the best-selling single...

 (大きな古時計, ookina furudokei) was a great success in Japan in 2002.
In 2009, The Vietnamese singer - Dai Nhan, covered and re-wrote this song with the new title "The Last Class" (or" Tiet Hoc Cuoi Cung").

A popular clock toy, marketed by Fisher-Price

Fisher-Price

Fisher-Price is a company that produces toys for infants and children, headquartered in East Aurora, New York. Fisher-Price has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Mattel since 1993.-History:...

 in 1968, had a dial on it that, when turned, caused the toy to play the song along with clock-like ticking and moving hands on the face of the clock. An updated version of the toy (which is completely made of plastic and with other activities like a clicking plastic mouse on the side) has been manufactured by Fisher-Price since 1994. Imitations of the toy made by various companies exist and are sold in various countries worldwide.

An Australian one hit wonder band "The Creaky Buttocks" had their moment of fame when their a cappella version of My Grandfather's Clock went to number 9 in Indy Charts

UK Indie Chart

The UK Independent Chart or Indie Chart is a chart of the best-selling independent record releases in the UK.- History :In the wake of punk, small record labels began to spring up, as an outlet for artists that were unwilling to sign contracts with major record companies, or were not considered...

. Jamaican guitar legend Ernest Ranglin

Ernest Ranglin

Ernest Ranglin O.D. is a Jamaican guitarist and composer. Best known for his session work at the famed Studio One, Ranglin helped give birth to the ska genre in the late 1950s...

 recorded My Grandfather's Clock on numerous occasions, firstly in 1969 on Federal Records. Subsequently he recorded it on Below the Bassline and on Order of Distinction.

The song is given a nod by the English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 band Half Man Half Biscuit

Half Man Half Biscuit

Half Man Half Biscuit, often "HMHB", are an English rock band from Birkenhead, Merseyside, active since the mid-1980s, known for satirical, sardonic, and sometimes surreal songs. The group comprises Nigel Blackwell , Neil Crossley , Ken Hancock , and Carl Henry...

 in their song Joy Division Oven Gloves, which features the line My Grandfather's clock was too tall for the shelf/So I sold it and opened up a stall/Selling Joy Division Oven Gloves

The dirty ditty "Grandfather's Cock" parodies My Grandfather's Clock and is sung to the same tune.

Lyrics

My grandfather's clock

Was too large for the shelf,

So it stood ninety years on the floor;

It was taller by half

Than the old man himself,

Though it weighed not a pennyweight more.

It was bought on the morn

Of the day that he was born,

And was always his treasure and pride;

But it stopped short

Never to go again,

When the old man died.

CHORUS:

Ninety years without slumbering,

Tick, tock, tick, tock,

His life seconds numbering,

Tick, tock, tick, tock,

It stopped short

Never to go again,

When the old man died.

In watching its pendulum

Swing to and fro,

Many hours had he spent while a boy;

And in childhood and manhood

The clock seemed to know,

And to share both his grief and his joy.

For it struck twenty-four

When he entered at the door,

With a blooming and beautiful bride;

But it stopped short

Never to go again,

When the old man died.

CHORUS

My grandfather said

That of those he could hire,

Not a servant so faithful he found;

For it wasted no time,

And had but one desire,

At the close of each week to be wound.

And it kept in its place,

Not a frown upon its face,

And its hand never hung by its side.

But it stopped short

Never to go again,

When the old man died.

CHORUS



It rang an alarm

In the dead of the night,

An alarm that for years had been dumb;

And we knew that his spirit

Was pluming for flight,

That his hour of departure had come.

Still the clock kept the time,

With a soft and muffled chime,

As we silently stood by his side.

But it stopped short

Never to go again,

When the old man died.

CHORUS

External links

• George Hotel, Piercebridge - photo of the clock with song soundtrack
• Story of the clock