Over the Waves – Fiddle Tune a Day – Day 314

I have an interesting family memory about Over the Waves. When I was about 12, and we went to visit my Great Uncle Vincent.

Vincent was quite a character. He was a World War II veteran, and was on disability. He had shell-shock, and was never quite the same after coming back from the war. (Today they would call it PTSD.) He lived out in Yuma, Colorado by himself, and just about everybody in town knew him.

He came out to our car to greet us, and before long, I was playing him some fiddle tunes. He asked me to play Over the Waves. I told him that I had heard it before, but didn’t know it. He said, “You’re a Wickam. Play it!”

So I played it the best that I could, and he seemed OK with it. Needless to say, Vincent left a lasting impression on me.

Over the Waves according to Wikipedia

The waltz “Sobre las Olas” (or “Over the Waves“) is the best known work of Mexican composer Juventino Rosas (1868–1894). It “remains one of the most famous Latin American pieces worldwide,” according to the “Latin America” article in The Oxford Companion to Music.

It was first published by Rosas in 1888^[1]. It remains popular as a classic waltz, and has also found its way into New Orleans Jazz and Tejano music.

The song remains popular with country and old-time fiddlers in the United States.