SONGS AND HISTORY.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1118, 4 May 1911, Page 5

SONGS AND HISTORY.

NATIONAL ANTHEMS WRITTEN BY FOREIGNERS. It will be news to most people that tho sir of the classic ditty, "We Won't Go H6rae Till Morning"—which is, of course, i, variation of "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow"—was originally the niusic of a pathetic French folk song. That this is tho fact we have on the authority of Sir Ernest Clarke, chairman of the Folk Song Society. Reference was made to it by Sir Ernest in an entertaining lecture on "Songs That Have Mado History," which he delivered before tho Incorporated Society of Musicians. In the original the air was supposed to have been sung by a French peasant woman in tho form of a hymn for h6r husband's safety on his departure for the wars. She continued to sing the hymn until her husband was brought back to her dead. Bofore the Terror, said Sir Erner-t, Mane Antoinette used to sing to the Dauphin.a popular song, "Malbrcok s'en ya-t-en guerre," which had got mixed up in sorno obscure way with our great general, Marlborough, and was freely translated into English as:Malbrookytho prince of commanders, Has gone to the war in Flanders. His fame is like Alexander's. . But when will he coino home? 'j\nd the adapter supplied an answer, not in the original:— Tiii Z on v , c , on ?<> home till morning, Till daylisht doth appear. melancholy French air nf Malbrook was people of all nntions hold so dear "re developed from the music or words of men of other countries. Thus the *M-i°-Killaise" was composed by a. German if Strassburg m 1792. lW music o the .Star Spangled Banner" wa,s orig nallv Stafford Smith's glee ■to "Anacre?n g Heaven," so that America's' principal patriotic ur was set to the music of P an English composor. ' ln Our own national anthem was evolved f622 ra byT , D , r Cal JoTn m S PtdiSC ° TO " di "