The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #63385   Message #3776883
Posted By: GUEST,Guest
05-Mar-16 - 07:06 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: The Old Superb (Newbolt/Stanford)
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Old Superb. Does it ring a bell?
This request is a bit dated (thirteen years) so possibly the person who wanted it is no longer around, but who knows...?

The poem was put to music (I forget by whom - should be easy enough to look up) and for some decades it was the official anthem of warships who carried on the name HMS Superb (as was the naval tradition) and all crew members learned it by heart. Nowadays our much diminished navy has no such ship but, by happy coincidence, one of the crew on the last HMS Superb (a cruiser which was still on active service in the 1950s) was the folk singer Jim Radford who served on the Superb during her 'show the flag' tour of the Americas in 1951 (http://www.maydaytugsofwar.com/trailers/share2.html).

Jim learned this song as a crew member but was never told it was from a poem by the laureate of the Empire (Newbolt) and thought it was a folk song so he added it to his repertoire. He sings it occasionally at folk venues and has recorded it along with many of his other songs. It is not available commercially but I expect Jim could probably provide a recording if anyone really wanted one.