“Today” by the New Christy Minstrels, arranged with tab for fingerstyle guitar by Daryl Shawn.
“Today” is a 1964 folk song that was a hit for The New Christy Minstrels. Written by the group’s founder, Randy Sparks, it was introduced in the American comedy-Western film Advance to the Rear (1964) and released on the album titled Today.
Randy Sparks founded the American large-ensemble folk-music group The New Christy Minstrels in 1961, during popular music’s folk revival. The band recorded two Top 40 radio hits in 1963, Green, Green[1] and “Saturday Night”, but creative tensions within the organization led to Sparks’ decision to leave. On the verge of exiting the group, whose name he would sell to its managers, Sparks contracted to write the score for a film comedy set during the Civil War titled Advance to the Rear, and as part of that soundtrack he wrote “Today” (perhaps better recognizable from its opening line, “Today, while the blossoms still cling to the vine”), its simple folk style reflecting the 19th-century time period of the film. The temporal tone of the lyric, in turn, may have reflected the film’s wartime setting (“Who cares what the morrow may bring?”).
The final song on The New Christy Minstrels’ May 1964 Columbia Records album Today, the title track was released as the single Columbia 43000 with the B side “Miss Katy Cruel”. The record peaked at No. 17 on the Billboard magazine “Hot 100” chart and No. 4 on the magazine’s Adult Contemporary chart.
Lyrics:
Today while the blossoms still cling to the vine
I’ll taste your strawberries, I’ll drink your sweet wine
A million tomorrows shall all pass away
Ere I forget all the joy that is mine today
I’ll be a dandy and I’ll be a rover
You’ll know who I am by the song that I sing
I’ll feast at your table, I’ll sleep in your clover
Who cares what the morrow shall bring?
Today while the blossoms still cling to the vine
I’ll taste your strawberries, I’ll drink your sweet wine
I can’t be contented with yesterday’s glory
I can’t live on promises winter to spring (winter to spring)
Today is my moment and now is my story
I’ll laugh and I’ll cry and I’ll sing
Today while the blossoms still cling to the vine
I’ll taste your strawberries, I’ll drink your sweet wine
A million tomorrows shall all pass away
Ere I forget all the joy that is mini today
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