Music
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As ALB says, the text of “I Vow to Thee, My Country” is a rallying cry for youth to sacrifice their young lives, gloriously, for country.
As an anthem for blood sport, it better suits the perspective of the rabid one-eyed supporter.
By setting this fierce Old-Testament laden text (innocently enough for a girl’s school choir) to his rollicking “Jupiter” music from The Planets, he inadvertently created an ideal patriotic hymn for militaristic ceremonies and Last Night of the Proms.
Yet Gustav Holst was a decent human, though a muddled astrologer and confused socialist—many fin-de-siècle radicals went off the rails.
As a young man, Holst conducted [William Morris’s] Hammersmith socialist choir and read News from Nowhere.
He was a Christian socialist, later in cahoots with the “red vicar” of Haxted [Catholic] church in the Cotswolds, and so he approached (like that other decent human but confused socialist, Paul Dirac) within a few degrees separation from Stalin’s anti-socialist Russia.
Socialists might enjoy Tony Palmer’s hit film Holst: In the Bleak Midwinter for BBC4 in 2011.
“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”
Used to do bits of work up in South Wales, up into the valleys, etc. the rugby club culture was very different to that in England.
It’s similar when you go up to the Scottish Borders, Kelso, Galashiels, Melrose, etc. Rugby mad.
Thing is, if they made the ball round, they could kick it properly and they wouldn’t have to pick it up.
To clarify.
My comments relate solely to the text of “I Vow to Thee, My Country”, and in no way to the text of the International Rugby Union’s “World in Union”, which Moo (no doubt an “All Black” supporter) commends to us.
“Thing is, if they made the ball round, they could kick it properly and they wouldn’t have to pick it up.”
I think that in Ireland they play a sort of rugby with a round ball called Gaelic football. I suppose their anthem might be “The Merry Ploughboy” whose chorus is;
“And were all off to Dublin in the green
Where the helmets glisten in the sun
Where the bay’nets clash and rifles crash
To the echo of the thompson gun.”Certainly not last night of the proms stuff. At least not in London. Don’t know about Dublin except in pubs there.
- ‘Moo (no doubt an “All Black” supporter)’
What makes you think that, twc?Kiri Te Kanawa. And, perhaps mistakenly, I thought you hailed from, or once dwelled in, Aotearoa (New Zealand).
I do enjoy a rebel song https://youtu.be/vsb4tIhOyZQ?si=HMlg5sC-p7SVaZl8
Nb Not in moderator capacity
Ha I remember this one thank you Robbo. It reminds me of a primary school teacher called Miss Burnham who encouraged me to write. https://youtu.be/-Cjk0zst3Cs?si=vjceSPsNavqd0nia
– twc
I’ve never even been to the southern hemisphere! I was born in England & I’ve always lived in England (although, I might like to live in Italy, one day).
I discovered that wonderful performance from watching an episode of Top of the Pops ’91 (this one: https://thetvdb.com/series/top-of-the-pops-uk/episodes/5861434). That episode plays Bryan Adams’ Everything I do (I Do it For You) for the 17th/final time – they showed it once before it got to #1, which they surely must regret – I like that song, but THANK GOD THAT WAS THE LAST TIME!
“I think that in Ireland they play a sort of rugby with a round ball called Gaelic football. I suppose their anthem might be “The Merry Ploughboy” whose chorus is;”
They do play Gaelic Football, but it is definitely not a sort of Rugby, it is a far more fluid and less legally technical than either Union or League. It’s a terrific game to watch (as is Hurling). Been to several games and a trip to Croke Park is well worth a visit. (Maigh Eo Abú)
As to the music (keeping the discussion within the topic, mod) most games at county level begin with the Irish National anthem, The Soldier’s Song (Amhrán na bhFiann) which has the usual nationalistic bombast. The first verse for example starts with:
“Soldiers are we, whose lives are pledged to Ireland,” but to be fair the melody is a bit more lively than the dreadful dirges that make up the vast majority of National Anthems.– No need to apologise, twc.
This is an amazing cover-version of the Bruce Cockburn song: Lovers in a Dangerous Time. It’s by my favourite band: Barenaked Ladies (a Canadian country-rock band).
It contains the excellent lyric: “Nothing in this world comes without some kind of fight. Got to kick at the darkness ’till it bleeds daylight.” Fingers crossed I will get away with publishing that one lyric.
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