RUTHLESS RHYMES
" Father heard his children scream So he threw them in the stream, Saying, as he drowned the third, ' Children should be seen, not heard.' "
That is one of some twenty-one ' Ruthless Rhymes ' by Harry Graham which the BBC's director of music, Dr Victory Hely-Hutchinson, has recently set to music. Several of them heard in a first performance by two artists who excel in the lighter vein of musical parody, Olive Groves and George Baker (the BBC overseas music director). Harry Graham was a much loved microphone personality of pre-war days and one of the wittiest broadcasters.
(Among his most successful ta.'ks were ' The Aunt Question ' and ' Ought the Children or not? ') • ' Ruthless Rhymes,' his first publication (in 1899) is not unlike, in style, the work of another satirist, Lewis Carroll, to whose verses Hely-Hutchinson has similarly been drawn.
Mot of the songs make their point by a clever sense of parody or a quick epigrammatic twist, as, for example:— Billy, in one of his nice new sashes, Fell in the fire and was burnt to ashes. Now, although the room grows chilly, I haven't the heart to poke poor Billy.
Permanent link to this item
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/ESD19451229.2.105
Bibliographic details
Evening Star, Issue 25678, 29 December 1945, Page 8
Word Count
192RUTHLESS RHYMES Evening Star, Issue 25678, 29 December 1945, Page 8
Using This Item
Allied Press Ltd is the copyright owner for the Evening Star. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons New Zealand BY-NC-SA licence. This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Allied Press Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.
Log in