SONGS SCHOOLBOYS SING

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LVI, 18 July 1925, Page 5

SONGS SCHOOLBOYS SING

(I’.v Denis Dunn, in the Daily Mail) I lie niiinv '■.sing-songs'' at the recent O.T.C. camps prove that the average schoolboys reputed taste for saxophone and syncopation is a musical myth. He is chorally conservative. Amid a galaxy of old folk songs, senlitnenfal ballads, and school choruses, a well-known quadruped was only twice exhorted to elevate its tail—and Felix may still Ik* walking for all the interest ho aroused. "No John" and "Friend of Mine’’ were nightly successes, while the “Tarpaulin Jacket" was softly hummed from many touts after "lights-out-.’’ Schoolboys will attempt any tune thatoffers harmony. 1 have seen motorcoaches returning from victorious pitches laden with w . a lists, full of en. thusmsm. thundering forth the “Dies line" with "Clementine" as an encore. A modernist who attempted "1 Love life” was compelled to finish it himself amid a stony silence punctuated with sarenst ie comments. The schoolroom must be productive of seniimcntaljsiu, beenuise "Kathleen Milvoitrneen. "Allan Water, ' and itot)in Adair" are regular items at school concerts and entertainments. Every school has its own particular chorus which it never tires of rendering. One well-known northern public school possesses a song whose entire wording is composed of masters' nicknames. Hence the suspicious attitude of the academic staff when the most insignificant of sharps or the meanest of Hats begins to sound.