Johnny Mathis sung it and I hated it every time it came on the radio, the jukebox, or the Walkman in later life. The title, "The Twelfth of Never," intrigued me. Just what the hell was the "twelfth of never"? Besides, "twelfth" is a weird looking word standing on its own. Out of a twelve, you get a twelfth--Olde English looking, isn't it? Anglo-Saxon? In researching the word, I came across this interesting site:
Octave Quint English Twelfth English | Docena Spanish Quint French, German | |
| Duodecima Latin Minerici (unknown) | Open Twelfth English |
A mutation stop of 2-2/3' in the manuals and 5-1/3' in the pedal. It represents the lowest non-unison pitch that reinforces a harmonic of the fundamental pitch (8' on the manuals, 16' on the pedals). As such, it is the most important mutation pitch. It serves to bind together the 8' and 4' tones in a Principal chorus.
This stop is usually constructed of open cylindrical metal pipes yielding Diapason tone, usually and properly of smaller scale than the 4' Octave of the same division. Other forms and tones are used, especially conical pipes. On the theatre organ, the 2-2/3' pitch is taken from the Tibia Clausa or Concert Flute.
The name Quint is more properly a synonym for Fifth The name Nasard and its variants are often used as synonyms for Twelfth, but they are more properly of flute tone. Adlung writes: “Minerici 3' formerly stood in the Cathedral at Merseburg, and must have been an ordinary Quinte.”
Yes, it's all about organ stops. www.organstops.org
OK, OK, we got the twelfth out of the way, now, how about the "twelfth of never."
Let's look at the lyrics--by Paul Webster and Jay Livingston, from 1957:
You ask me how much I need you
Must I explain
I need you oh my darling
Like roses need rain
You ask how long I'll love you
I'll tell you true
Until the Twelfth of Never
I'll still be loving you
Hold me close
Never let me go
Hold me close
Melt my heart like April snow
I'll love you 'til the bluebells
Forget to bloom
I'll love you 'til the clover
Has lost its perfume
And I'll love you 'til the poets
Run out of rhyme
Until the Twelfth of Never
And that's a long, long time
Hold me close
Never let me go
Hold me close
Melt my heart like April snow
I'll love you 'til the bluebells
Forget to bloom
I'll love you 'til the clover
Has lost its perfume
And I'll love you 'til the poets
Run out of rhyme
Until the Twelfth of Never
And that's a long, long time
Until the Twelfth of Never
And that's a long, long time
A long, long time
"And that's a long, long time." What the hell does that mean? No wonder I never liked the song. It's standard Hollywood romantic-nerd lyrics, the kind a dude like Johnny Mathis could easily relate to since his love has been in "the twelfth of never" for a long, long time that's for sure. "I need you like roses need rain." Oh yeah. What about the desert rose? "Melt my heart like April snow." What the hell does that mean? When does it snow in Hollywood? Around the twelfth of never maybe? "I'll love you until the bluebells forget to bloom." Seems to me like it's the songwriter who's forgetting to bloom. How does one know when the bluebells are just forgetting to bloom or are just flat dead? "I'll love you until the clover loses its perfume." Have we ever had a perfume called "Clover"? Does Irish Spring soap supposedly smell like the perfume made from clover? Wait a minute! How does clover lose its perfume? Which comes first the clover or the perfume? "I'll love you til the poets run out of rhyme." Some poets, like Robert Creeley and that bunch of minimalists ran out of rhyme decades ago. Hey, William Saroyan's son, Aram, submitted blank pages as poetry and his book was accepted and published. Rhyming is for limerickists and silly songwriters now. And, oh boy, Hip Hoppers are said to be instant rhymers. Yo, Yo, Yo. But of course "Yo" has long been out as "Hey"--Wev.
Now I'm beginning to hate the title.
So I looked for an alternative to "never" in the Urban Dictionary and I found:
1. neva dat
never that
won't ever happen
not in a million years
I'm not that stupid
"did mike try to play you girl,"
" Naw, neva dat."
from www.urbandictionary.com/
This is a good dictionary to have in these days of the language of our garbled and short-cut-using irresponsible youth. Our young people are demanding a free life from us who have gone before them. Money rules in young people's world; their whole thing is "you gotta win the competition, baby, to get ahead these days." Everything's on an individualist basis except when it comes to their posses (followers) or whatever they're called these days--hell, I'll have to look it up in the Urban Dictionary, a masterful piece of Web work, don't you think?
Or do you not think? Maybe thinking is for...naw, you can't stop people from thinking, not even after you lobotomize them.
So "until neva-dat, and dat's a long, long time, you know?"
theprattlinggrowlingwolf
for The Daily Growler
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