The Great Waltz

Well, discerning and flamboyant reader, you are no doubt agog to get to the substance of this week’s offering and so I will not delay.

I decided that it was about time that I again turned my critical eye to an iconic anti war song written by someone who lives in South Australia. You might recall the analysis of John Schumann’s work “I Was Only Nineteen (A Walk in the Light Green)” that appeared in these electro pages some time ago.

It was the one about how Frankie can only just have started his tour when he kicked the mine, which doesn’t seem to have been the point of the story and that therefore the sense of the thing was twisted in order to rhyme “moon” with “June”.

The salons of Croydon and Hahndorf are still buzzing with the controversy.

Although it was searing I don’t shrink from it. In fact it turns out it didn’t go far enough – apparently Australia didn’t send anyone younger than 20 to Viet Nam – but perhaps I should move on.

This time I decided to give some attention to “And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda” by Eric Bogle, currently living in Seaton or perhaps Semaphore. Somewhere near the beach and starts with an “S” I think. Possibly near Alby Mangels, but I digress.

The song is undoubtedly iconic. It has been performed by many people including the Pogues and I mean the real ones before Shane MacGowan got his teeth done.

But no one who listens to “And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda” can help but be struck by some difficulties with the lyric, even as they are wiping a not unmanly tear from their eye or eyes.

I will set them out but not dwell on them. One problem is that our protagonist cannot have joined the AIF in 1915 and still been present at the landing as he says. There wouldn’t have been enough time to get there.

The next is that the Australians didn’t land at Suvla Bay as he claims to have done.

Further, when he suggests that in 1915 his country “Gave me a tin hat and they gave me a gun and they marched me away to the war” he further exposes himself. The Australians didn’t get tin hats until 1916. I think that before then they preferred a nice slouch hat with cockade (which turns out not to be a drink as I had assumed).

So there.

Now all of this is of course deeply satisfying but I find that Bogle himself has beaten me to the punch. This paragon, possibly Peebles’ proudest product, has admitted all. I assume that he broke down and came clean after the stress of years of harbouring his guilty secrets took its toll.

He says he didn’t realise how long it took the troops to make it to Gallipoli. This seems to be right. He could have made it “In 1914 my country said “Son”” without it making any difference.

Similarly he didn’t realise about the tin hats. Again, he could change the lyric from “tin hat” to “slouch hat” and no harm done.

He has been quoted as saying that he would correct these inaccuracies if the song were not already entrenched.

Further and perhaps providing the best contrast with “I Was Only Nineteen ( A Walk in the Light Green)”, he concedes that he used “Suvla Bay” in part because it was easier to rhyme. He is on strong ground here because it turns out that ANZAC Cove didn’t have a name before that. It was just a small unnamed cove which would make both rhyme and scansion almost impossible so I think we should allow him some poetic licence.

So I draw the attention of the readerhulkthecityofadelaide to this more as a pleasant contrast than the main meat of this offering.

For that I will turn to popular songs of days gone by. Those of you who have had the pleasure of listening to any of my selections of music will know that once I start spinning those wax cylinders and placing the bamboo needle on the appropriate place, “Ti Amo” cannot be far behind.

“Well, nor should!” it I hear you exclaim.

My fondness for the work is so well known that a misguided young friend of mine went to some effort to source it for me during a recent period of ill health.

It would, she reasoned, smooth the wrinkled brow and bring a light smile to play about my rubbery but serviceable lips. And so it might have.

The problem, as you have no doubt anticipated, is that she had secured the Laura Branigan version instead of the original by Umberto Tozzi. The Laura Branigan version lacks the hard edge and intricate bass work of the original and it set my recovery back significantly.

I did, however, take the opportunity to think over the odd association between Branigan and Tozzi.

It seems that the Branigan version of Ti Amo wasn’t a hit in her native America. In fact it wasn’t much popular much outside Australia.

On the other hand, her big hit “Gloria”, was – and gird your loins for this – another Umberto Tozzi song!

I have been holding this notion up to the light and letting it, like a dome of many coloured glass stain the white radiance of eternity.

So long have I been contemplating it that I now have a headache and rather than risk Ms Branigan’s untimely demise in the same circumstances, am off to bathe my burning temples in eau-de-cologne.

The other problem is that now that I have thought of the song Gloria, I can’t get the ad for the Mitsubishi Cordia out of my mind. “Don’t you think it’s kind of sportia (sportia) don’t you think it’s kind of roomia (roomia) don’t you think it’s kind of handsome, I’m talking Cordia.”

They were turbocharged and that, too.

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