FAMOUS SONGS

Greymouth Evening Star, 22 June 1923, Page 8

FAMOUS SONGS

INTERESTIN’ ’ An authentic and complete list of the songs that have been sung from time to Lime in the precincts of the British Houses of Parliament would make interesting reading. It would include such anthems of rebellion as “The Wearing o’ the Green” and “God Save Ireland, chanted by weary but still enthusiastic Irish Nationalists as they tramped the lobbies in the early days of “obstruction. Later “God Save the King” had its turn in the fateful August days of 1914, though the historian will be puzzled to determine the precise voice that led the loyal chorus, for one paper ascribes it to the “splendid bass” of the late Will Crooks, and another to the same membar’s “rich tenor.” “The Red Flag,” which must now be numbered with the others, is little known outside Socialist meetings, though the words and the music have been reproduced in a popular encyclopaedia. Ils’author, Jim Connell, was, and is, a. typical rebel, having in his time played the various part of a farm hand, a shepherd, a docker, a navvy, a,, railway servant, a draper, a journalist and lecturer. He has been both Communist and Fenian, and with his dark sombrero and flowing moustache used to look the, part of an Irish-American desperado in the days when nitro-glycerine was a term of evil omen. “God Save the King,” to which, when it was played in their honour in Paris the other cveiiing, the Irish Rugby team rose and sang “God Save Ireland,” is one of the universal tunes, and has been made to serve for a good many settings, including national songs of America, Germany and Russia. It can hardly claim, however, so many adaptations' 41 as another familiar air which the Crusaders arc said to have learned from the Saracens nearly a thousand years ago. It survived in various forms in Europe until 1566, when it gained a new and great popularity by being fitted to a lament for the Duke of Guise. One hundred and fifty years later, on the eve of the Battle of Malplaquet, a French officer wrote a satire on the English Coni-mander-in-Cliief, and wedded it to this air. “Marlbrook s’en va t’en guerre” was sung throughout the length and breadth of France—and beyond In the course of years it was sung as a lullaby by the nurse of Marie Antoinette’s little son. The Queen heard it, sang it herself, set all France singing it again. Beamarchias introduced it into “The Marriage of •::o.”' and Beethoven, enchanted by it, introduced the air into his Battle Symphony as symbolic of the French Army. It was introduced into England—and English folk found that they knew it already: had known it (•»■ a lorn/ time. It was sung even here to the classic words, “He's a Jolly Good Fellow.”