"My Grandfather's Clock" is a song written in 1876 by Henry Clay Work, the author of "Marching Through Georgia". It is a standard of British brass bands and colliery bands, and is also popular in bluegrass music. The Oxford English Dictionary says the song was the origin of the term "grandfather clock" for a longcase clock. In 1905, the earliest known recording of this song was performed by Harry Macdonough and the Haydn Quartet (known then as the "Edison Quartet"). Storyline The song, told from a grandchild's point of view, is about his grandfather's clock. The clock is purchased on the morning of the grandfather's birth and works perfectly for 90 years, requiring only that it be wound at the end of each week. The clock seems to know the good and bad events in the grandfather's life; it rings 24 chimes when the grandfather brings his bride into his house, and near his death it rings an alarm, which the family recognizes to mean that the grandfather is near death and gathers by his bed. After the grandfather dies, the clock suddenly stops, and never works again. Sequel Work published a sequel to the song two years after, and again the grandson acts as the narrator. The grandson laments the fate of the no-longer-functioning grandfather clock—it was sold to a junk dealer, who sold its parts for scrap and its case for kindling. In the grandfather's house, the clock was replaced by a wall clock, which the grandson disdains (referring to it as "that vain, stuck-up thing on the wall"). However, the sequel never reached the popularity of the original. The song was covered and translated many times, versions in other languages may vary. For example, in the Czech version, sung by the country band Taxmeni, the song continues with an additional, joyful strophe, narrating further events in the grandson's life: the birth of his son and the purchase of a new clock on the same day, to maintain the family tradition. Covers and inspirations "My Grandfather's Clock" was often played in Britain on Children's Favourites and during that period was recorded by the Radio Revellers. In the United States, a version, without the last stanza of lyrics, was on an extended-play 45 rpm record on the Peter Pan label (the other song on that side was "The Syncopated Clock", and the flip side had "The Arkansas Traveler" and