PATRIOTIC SONGS

Evening Star, Issue 23349, 19 August 1939, Page 3

PATRIOTIC SONGS

TOPICALITY IN THE MUSIC HALL (By J. B. Booth, in ‘The Times.) Time was, well within the memory of the older generation, when a crisis, social or political, without a song was inconceivable. The music-hall was at its zenith, and the music-hall had a distinct function —it played the part of commentator on matters of public importance. The music-hall audience was an entity with very definite views. Those views may have been crude, but they were simple, elemental, direct. So it came about that to a very large extent the songs of the halls- represented popular criticism of the topics of the day, sometimes treated lightly, sometimes with portentous seriousness, but invariably from a purely national point of view. The patriotic muse was intensely proBritish: the nation had not as yet arrived at the stage of apologising for its existence, and there was still the comfortable belief that Britain was the finest country in the world, andl one British soldier was equal to half a dozen foreigners. The British soldier was the salt of the earth, and as for the British sailor —lions and bulldogs were tame in comparison when bis country called him. Each foreign crisis inspired the music-hall bards anew; in the years between ‘ We Don’t AVant to Fight, But By Jingo! If We Do!’ and ‘Tipperary ’ He chapters of history—not only of the music-hall but of the nation.

Macdermott’s famous song has passed into tho language, but the same international complication which gave point to it produced a song by Clement Scott, tho dramatic critic, which attained) almost, equal notoriety. Scott had used an old children’s game for the motif of his warning to the possible enemy—

Here stands a post; Behold it and beware! Here stands a post; ’Tis a signal, not a snare! , Here stands a post—yes. but who put

it there ? Why, bettor men than you or I, so touch it, if you dare!

The half-forgotten Eastern crisis of the late ’seventies was responsible for many patriotic effusions such as ‘ Tho Turkey and the Bear,’ 1 We Mean to Keep Our Empire in the East.’ and an older song, , ‘ The Union Jack of Old England.’ which first made its appearance in 1872, was revived with immense success at the Standard Music-hall, now the Victoria Palace. This was written by Charles Williams, a former city clerk, who wrote and composed his own songs and sang them at smoking concerts before he drifted on to the halls. The literary merits of ‘ The Union Jack of Old England ’ were not great, but it had! a swinging chorus, which was whistled and sung all over the town:

The Flag that lights the sailor On his way, The Flag that fills all our foes with dismay. The Flag that always has carried the day, The Union Jack of Old England!

There was no room for pessimism when Charles Godfrew declaimed :— 1

We’re brothers of the self-same race, Sneakers of the self-same tongue. With the same brave hearts that

feel no fears. From fighting sires of a thousand

years; Folk sav: “ What will Britain do? “ Will she rest with banners furled ? No! No! No! When we go to meet the foe It’s the English-speaking race against the world!

And a national inferiority complex found no place in:— Sons of the sea. all British born. Sailing every ocean, laughing foes to scorn; They may build their ships, my lads. And think they know the game; But thev can’t build the boys of the bulldog breed Who made old England’s name!

At the time of the South African War there was in the natural course of things a tremendous music-hall revival of the patriotic song. Certain of these songs were purely of The moment, but one or two have a curious interest in these later days. Take, for example, the chorus of a ‘ Song of Greater Britain ’:—

Join hearts across the sea, In love and loyalty. For Englishmen are brothers, wherever they may be. No more ,’tis little England, The island of the free.

We fight for Greater Britain, our Empire o’er the sea!

‘ Throe Cheers for the Red, White, and Blue!’ ‘Why Rouse the British Lion?’ ‘The Bonnie Soldier Laddie,’ ‘ Under the British Flag,’ ‘We’re Australians, But Still Brittannia’s Sons,’ ‘America Looking On,’ ‘The Lion Hearts of England.’ ‘ Her Lad in the Scotch Brigade,’ ‘ Fighting With the Seventh Fusiliers.’ ‘ Tommy Atkins,’ introduced into ‘The Gaiety Girl’ by Hayden Coffin, Leslie Stuart’s ‘ Soldiers of the Queen ’ —all had their day, and at least two in the list have survived the years. And there was a song Harry (Rickards used to sing, to enormous apolause, the chorus of which was;— We’pe not dead yet. we’re not dead yet! We may have been asleep. But we’re not dead yet While we’ve got the lads to fight— A million, *ou can bet— We can prove to all the world

That we’re not dead yet! Another favourite was ‘ Good News From the War.’ the opening verse of which ran:—

The soldiers of England are in a foreign land. They’re fighting for their country, ’gainst foes on every hand, While we at home are waiting—expectantly we stand. For news, good news, from the war, Tales of disaster have often come our way. But we never gave up hope, we have never known dismay, The tide was sure to turn, and turned it has to-day. We’ve got good news from the war!

“The, music hall song was. ’and is, a necessary part of our civilisation,” Rudyard Kipling once wrote to me. And more than once he returned to tho subject. “Those old music hall ditties supply a gap in the national history, and people haven’t vet realised how much . they had to do with the natjonal life. One doesn’t feel very national when one is hummed at nasally by an alien to a banjo or ukelele accompaniment.” In some ways, the “movies" and the wireless are a poor substitute for the halls of old, and national emotions in time of crisis find one outlet barred. ,