My Grandfather’s Clock

About this arrangement

Henry Clay Work’s song from 1876, one verse and the chorus, in C major (Work wrote it in B flat). It starts on a pickup and moves in crotchets and quavers (eighth notes), with dotted pairs on “for the”, and two quick semiquavers (sixteenth notes) in bars 14 and 22, on “nev-er”. The hand moves: it starts with the thumb on the G above middle C, the second half of the verse climbs to the G an octave higher, and the “tick, tick” bars of the chorus drop down to E and G. Bars 13 and 21, “stopped short”, are two short notes with rests between. In the chorus the left hand swings from C to G like a pendulum.

Practice tip: Learn the chorus first; it is easier and it comes twice. Play “stopped short” very short and count the rests, so the clock really stops.

The words

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. Ninety years, without slumbering, tick, tick, tick, tick, his life seconds numbering, tick, tick, tick, tick, it stopped short never to go again when the old man died.

A short history

Henry Clay Work (1832–1884), the American songwriter who also wrote Marching Through Georgia, published My Grandfather’s Clock through Chauncey M. Cady in New York in January 1876 and dedicated it to his sister Lissie. The singer Sam Lucas made it popular, and it is reported to have sold between eight hundred thousand and a million copies of sheet music.

The song tells of a tall clock bought on the morning the grandfather was born. It kept time for ninety years, needing only to be wound once a week, and stopped for good the moment he died.

The song is usually credited with giving tall pendulum clocks, properly called longcase clocks, their everyday name: grandfather clocks.

Quick facts

Tune

Henry Clay Work, 1876

Key

C major

Time signature

4/4

Length

24 bars and a pickup

Tempo

Steadily, crotchet = 100

Difficulty

Level 5: A wider range (piece 170 of 201)

Type

Children's song

Hands

Both: melody in the right hand, chords in the left

Copyright

Public domain tune; arrangement by Digital Greenhouse, free for personal and classroom use

Questions and answers