Music
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Could you tell those of us who can’t be bothered to go through the rigmarole of accessing age restricted stuff what the classic is? Is there not another version of whatever it is available elsewhere?
As someone who has spent his life usually ignoring lyrics to the extent possible in favor of just pitches and (if any) rhythm, I often repeat to myself the old adage ‘there’s no telling for taste’. I find nearly all of the music posted on this thread — however commendable [???] it may be in its lyrical content — to be unlistenable at the level of music. Further I think the Internationale has to be one of the worst melodies ever conceived, sung by the garden-variety leftist Billy Bragg or not.
As a politically non-tendentious break from it all —
‘She Moved Through the Fair’ (aka ‘White Summer’ and other names) is a folk-melody collected from County Donegal by a musicologist in c. 1909. Everyone and their dog has sung it, often in a sappy manner, but there are good renditions.
Below you will find the Yardbirds’ genius Indianisation of it (in two versions; one with an oboe) from 1967. This is a studio recording, not a later watered-down live rendering, a derivative Led Zeppelin version etc
Under that you will hear it played by folk-guitarist Davey Graham on TV in 1963. (The Yardbirds’ rendition is based on Graham for reasons that will be clear from the presenter’s introduction.)
Lastly, under that, you will find it sung in traditional (and non-sappy) manner by Anne Briggs (also 1963).
Or, if you want to go in reverse order — from least to most exoticised — start at the bottom and work up.
Could you tell those of us who can’t be bothered to go through the rigmarole of accessing age restricted stuff what the classic is? Is there not another version of whatever it is available elsewhere?
I’d post the lyrics but the mod would zap them down.
I’m guessing (now) that every version of this song on YouTube will be age restricted. In the famous words of Johnny Rotten on the Bill Grundy Show, ‘Rude words . . . rude words.’
I must have led a sheltered life because I am completely at a loss to know of what you speak Imposs1904.
Shall we play a socialist version of Beat The Clock? Or should that be Twenty Questions? Does it have the word Foxtrot in the title or lyrics?
as in Foxtrot the system? Genre, might it be punk?
Surprisingly, the below is not age restricted or censored although Tom Robinson rewrote the lyrics to the spoken part many years on. It’s a diatribe against right wing government and oppression and one would think it was aimed at Tories although when released in 1978 there was a Labour government. TRB also sang ‘Glad to be Gay’. Even straights can’t help but sing along to the chorus on that one!
For the most exquisite match of music and lyrics, I have two songs in mind. One of them is Schoenberg’s putting to music of Byron’s anti-Napoleon poem. Here it is divided into two videos.
(And if you want, here is the text of the poem along with explanatory footnotes: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Works_of_Lord_Byron_(ed._Coleridge,_Prothero)/Poetry/Volume_3/Ode_to_Napoleon_Buonaparte )
And the other one is the lyrically and musically stunning ‘Heroin’ by the Velvet Underground. I mean what’s on the 1967 album, not the inferior versions.
For great lyrics there is also the surrealist poem used for Schoenberg’s 1912 ‘Pierrot Lunaire’.
A performance of it conducted by Schoenberg himself in 1940:
The English translation of the sung German is here: https://yellowbarn.org/sites/default/files/pierrot_lunaire_translation.pdf
The music is not quite as good, but if you don’t want to be bothered by reading that English text while listening to the sung German and wondering where you are now in the proceedings, this is more accessible: an English-subtitled music-video based on it, in visual content nothing if not surrealist. Done by the film and theater director Oliver Herrmann in 2002:
The World in Union by Kiri Te Kanawa
It’s ironic that this is the anthem for a violent sport (rugby). This song gives Imagine a run for its money as a potential anthem for the World Socialist Movement.
Lyrics & background info: https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/world-in-union-lyrics-history-rugby-world-cup/
It’s ironic that this is the anthem for a violent sport (rugby). This song gives Imagine a run for its money as a potential anthem for the World Socialist Movement.
Gustav Holst at his finest!
And yes, ironic indeed!
Are you being provocative again? The tune may be ok but the words are anathema to Socialists. As bad as the “national anthem”, if not worse
“I vow to thee, my country, all earthly things above,
Entire and whole and perfect, the service of my love;”I think you can confirm that it could be roughly translated into German as my country uber alles.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Vow_to_Thee,_My_Country
Written by a Colonel Blimp they are patriotic (and religious) drivel. No socialist could sing that. In fact, if we dared, we should boo it every time we hear it. Personally I hate it and always have since we had to sing it in school.
Ironically, in his youth Holtz used to frequent meetings of the Socialist League. He should have known better than agreeing to his tune being perverted in this way.
“It’s ironic that this is the anthem for a violent sport (rugby).”
It’s actually the anthem for Rugby Union, not Rugby. The Rugby Football League split from the Rugby Football Union because the workers were starting to beat the public school boys at their own game. The claim was that miners and mill workers were professionals because they were given compensation from the clubs to make up for the time they lost playing rugby. The southern clubs, mainly based on old boys from the public school system, didn’t have to worry because they were “independently wealthy” i.e. living off the stolen profits of surplus value. A similar split occurred in Australia.
Rugby Leage was considered to be part of the radical movement in France and the Vichy state banned the game, with the support of the French Rugby Union and transferred all of the assets of the generally working class sport of Rugby League, to the French Rugby Federation. (Perhaps Moo would agree to banning Rugby in a Socialist Society???).
There are many people in the North West and Yorkshire despise the Rugby Football Union and similarly dispise that song.
I would also question whether or not Rugby (or any code of football) meets the definition of “violent”. Violent – “using or involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something.”
Aggressive, yes, violent?
And if in a Socialist society people freely choose to play football, rugby, Tae Kwando, Cumberland/Westmorland wrestling, boxing, tiddly winks or lacrosse, who am I or Moo to say they shouldn’t do it?
That doesn’t apply to the South Wales mining values where rugby union was the popular sport. Maybe why rugby league clubs sent out scouts to recruit players and anyone with a northern accent at a rugby match was looked on with suspicion. I don’t suppose many doctors and solicitors would have been tempted to change code for money.
Talking of “anthems”, the most popular rugby one was Cwm Rhondda. It’s actually a hymn whose words are terrible. Massed workers singing:
Guide me, O thou great Redeemer,
Pilgrim through this barren land;
I am weak, but thou art mighty;
Hold me with thy powerful hand:
Bread of heaven, bread of heaven
Feed me till I want no more.
Feed me till I want no more.does sound good but the words’ meaning is terrible — “I am weak, but thou art mighty”. Workers should rather be singing “Thou art weak [in fact thou existest not], but we are mighty”. Speed the day !
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