----- Original Message -----
From: "Alastair Wilson" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, February 23, 2002 2:31 PM
Subject: Re: Kipling's tunes
> I've seen this said in many other places, and I'm sure it's basically
true,
> but (and I say this with my tongue at least partly in my cheek) it does
> slightly spoil the effect in some cases.
> 1. Screw Guns - goes well to the "Eton Boating Song".
> 2. Recessional - indeed, we used to sing it to "Eternal Father" in the
> Chapel at Wellington.
> 3. McAndrew's Hymn - this doesn't fit properly to "The Church's One
> Foundation": the tune is 7,6,7,6; whereas the poem is 8,6,8,6. So you
> have to put in an extra syllable on the same note as another one.
> 4. Danny Deever. If the tune of "Bollocky Bill" is the one I think it
is
> (aka "Barnacle Bill the Sailor"), which is the same a "A Frog he would a
> wooing go", then it fits, after a fashion, but the lilt of the tune most
> certainly doesn't match the air of the words.
> 5. Shilling a Day - can't comment, because I'm never sure what the tune
> of "Villikins and his Dinah" is: I always get it mixed up with "Pretty
> Polly Perkins of Paddington Green"!
> 6. Follow Me 'ome - I can't make this fit decently to the "Dead March"
at
> all.
> 7. Jobson's Amen. You can sing it to "Onward Christian Soldiers", but
I
> suggest that the stresses all fall in the wrong places, and some of the
> lines don't really fit - partly because the form of the poem is statement
> and response (someone will tell me the correct name for that), and the
> statement is not the same metrically as the response - so while the
> staement can be sung to OCS, the response cannot.
> 8. Let us now Praise Famous Men - it does indeed fit Pop Goes the
Weasel,
> but again, the stresses are not in the right places, and the contrast
> between the jaunty lilt of the song, and the sense of Ecclesiaticus's
words
> as amended by RK is most marked.
>
> I am sure that I have seen Sir John Chaple's remark in one of the
> biographies - given the context, probably in Carrington. I seem to recall
> that it was said a propos of RK's time in Villiers Street when he first
came
> to London, and used to pop across to the Music Hall, now the Player's
> Theatre (is it still?)
>
> One other poem, which is an obvious fit for a hymn tune, is The Holy
> War - "A Tinker out of Bedford .....", which fits "The Church's One
> Foundation" very well. And as Jeffery Lewins suggests, I've no doubt there
> are many more.
> Yours,
> Alastair Wilson
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Saturday, February 23, 2002 11:39 AM
> Subject: Kipling's tunes
>
>
> > A Society member, Sir John Chaple, tells me that he was schoolboy to
> > the biographer Carrington who maintained that much of Kipling's verse
> > - at least in strophic form - was written to an underlying tune.
> > Carrington had, apparently, identified many and John can recall the
> > following:
> >
> > Screw-guns Eton boating song
> > Recessional Eternal Father Strong to Save
> > M'Andrews Hymn The Church's One Foundation
> > Danny Dever Bollocky Bill
> > Shilling a Day Vilikins and his Dinah
> > Follow me Home Dead March in Saul
> > Jobson's Amen Onward Christian Soldiers
> > Let us now praise
> > Famous Men Pop Goes the Weasel
> >
> > Would colleagues advance any further tunes?
> > --
> > Jeffery Lewins
> > 133 Thornton Road
> > Girton CB3 0NE
> > (01223) 276285
> >
> >
>
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