“Those were the days, my friend,
We thought they’d never end,
We’d sing and dance forever and a day.
We’d live the life we choose; we’d fight and never lose,
For we were young and sure to have our way.”

Our latest handbell recording project is an exciting one! The song Those Were the Days was a top 10 hit in 1968, sung by Mary Hopkin. It started life as a Russian song – Дорогой длинною – which translates as By the Long Road. Boris Fomin composed the melody originally, with words by the poet Konstantin Podrevsky. Gene Raskin put English lyrics to the song, made a few changes to the melody, and a popular song was born! The song has now been recorded by many artists, in over twenty languages… and now it’s available for handbells!

More about Those Were the Days

Our arrangement is for 5-7 octaves of handbells, with some optional additional instruments – mandolin, tambourine, flute, wood block and… kazoo! We asked our expert flute-playing friend Rose Wiersma to join us for our demonstration video. Rose directs the Zeeland Community Band, and we’ve played handbells in some of their performances over the last few years. We didn’t know any expert kazoo players, so we had to play that part ourselves. Our mandolin skills are non-existent (and we don’t have a mandolin), but the interesting “thumb-damp shake” technique in the score makes it possible to manage without the mandolin and still achieve a similar effect. We had a lot of fun playing this piece, and we hope you will too!

Where to find the sheet music

Sheet music for Those Were the Days is available to purchase, download and print from Choraegus. You can either purchase an individual copy (useful for massed ringing events, or for preview), or purchase the full choir license. Purchase of the full choir license gives you our no-fuss permission to print up to 15 copies for your group. See our licensing agreement for full details. 

Choraegus handbell music will to come to you as a PDF file, which you’ll need to download. You’ll be responsible for printing your own music, and you won’t receive anything in the mail. If you haven’t purchased music online from Choraegus before, we recommend our step-by-step guide. We designed this guide to help you navigate the purchase and download process in a (we hope!) stress-free way.

We appreciate your help in spreading the word about Choraegus handbell music. If you record a video of your group playing any of our pieces, we’d love to see it. You’re welcome to share it with us on our Facebook page too!

Any questions?

If you have any questions about our music, please start by reading our Frequently-Asked Questions. If someone has asked us a question even once, it will be there, along with the answer. Please contact us if you don’t find the information you need, and we’ll be happy to help.