Hurdy-gurdy twenty-three different forms, and there is still no standardized design today. The six-stringed French "vielle à roue" is the best known and most common sort. A number of regional forms developed, but outside France the instrument was considered a folk instrument and there were no schools of construction that could have determined a standard form. There are two primary body styles for contemporary instruments: guitar-bodied and lute-backed. Both forms are found in French-speaking areas, while guitar-bodied instruments are the general form elsewhere. The box form of the "simphonia" is also commonly found among players of early music and historical re-enactors.
Hurdy Gurdy Man "singing songs of love". The song invokes "histories of ages past" with "unenlightened shadows cast" and the "crying of humanity" through "all eternity", and says tis then when the hurdy gurdy man comes singing songs of love". On his 1990 live album "The Classics Live" and in his autobiography, Donovan has said that there is also an additional verse that had been written by George Harrison that was not included on the radio single: When performing the song in concert, Donovan often relates to his audience the story of how this final verse came about. He played the song for