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Under
the Talcott Tree
By
John Prindle Scott
Added
to website June 13, 2002
Tree
photo added February 2, 2014
Background: There
is a college dormitory in Oberlin, Ohio, called Talcott Hall.
Built in 1886, it once was exclusively for women. And there
once was a tree called the Talcott Tree.
This
is a photo of it in old age, from Pictorial Memories of Oberlin.
From 1851 to 1931 the tree was a billboard for generations of
Oberlin students. It is estimated that 60,000 tacks were
thumbed into its bark over the years.
A
old song proposes a tryst under the Talcott Tree. This
composition, now a century old, is one of my favorites from the 1946
edition of the Oberlin College Song Book. |
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The
words and music are by John Prindle Scott of the Conservatory's
Class of 1900. The tune goes like this, if you'd care to get
out your ukulele and sing along.

I
took the pictures below on June 12, 2002, in Oberlin. They
feature Talcott Hall as well as the Morgan Street bridge that crosses
little Plum Creek on the south side of town.
John
Prindle Scott wrote eight other songs in that Song Book. One
of them, "Down the Street," was intended as a victory
march after a winning football game by the Crimson and Gold
(once coached by John Heisman). "Every breeze through the
autumn trees now sets our colors flying!"
In
"There's No Place on Earth Just Like Oberlin," he rhymed
the title with "It's nothing like Paris or old-Turin."
(That's a bit of a reach, although it's hard to find anything that does
rhyme with Oberlin.) Scott went on to praise the town's piety
and sobriety:
It
breakfasts at six and turns in with the chicks,
When matins and vespers are said.
To
increase its renown, there's a college to crown
Its ultra-respectable head.
It's
keen as a vulture on all sorts of culture
Of whatever epoch or tongue;
A
town one commends to all parents and friends
Who seek a safe place for their young.
But
in the following song, "Under the Talcott Tree," Scott
admitted that sometimes young people will be young people after vespers.
Imagine
the wee hours of a moonlit night. Beneath a sleeping coed's
window, a college student is softly serenading her. |

Here
in the shade of the Talcott tree,
Love, I am singing my song to thee;
Waken and hear,
List to me, dear,
Hearken my tender tune.

Come,
ere the moon of the night is set.
Put on your rubbers; the grass is wet.
Dearest, make haste!
No time to waste;
Morning will be here soon.
REFRAIN
Open
thy window,
Come down to me.
No
one shall hear us,
No one shall see.
Here
I am waiting,
Waiting for thee,
Under
the Talcott tree!

Under
the bridge down at Morgan Street,
There I have anchored my sailboat fleet.
Safe in the dark,
There we'll embark,
If you will only come.

Then
say farewell to old Talcott Hall,
Baldwin and Peters, the gym and all;
Ere dawn of day
We'll sail away,
Borne on the raging Plum.
REFRAIN
Open
thy window,
Come down to me.
No
one shall hear us,
No one shall see.
Here
I am waiting,
Waiting for thee,
Under
the Talcott tree!
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