"A song sung on the march, where the repetitions kept the rhythm and helped to take the soldiers' minds off the distances they had to travel. The lyrics give a fairly typical view of the war as it is presented today: highlighting the incompetence of the commanding officers, and emphasizing the cannon-fodder attitude to the troops.

Complete and utter nonsense!

Subject: RE: Soldiers songs calling officers
From: Will Fly - PM
Date: 06 Oct 16 - 11:53 AM

I dislike the religiously serious singing of "Hanging On The Old Barbed Wire" in places like folk clubs because - as Teribus rightly says - it's essentially a cynical, take-the-piss-out-of-everybody song to be sung in situ, i.e. mainly on the march.

If you've ever done a 20-mile route march, perhaps carrying a .303 or a Bren gun, or an FN, at the trail, then you'll know that one of the ways to relieve the boredom and the tiredness is to sing - preferably bawdy, sarcastic songs that give a verbal kick up the bum to those around you and mainly superior to you. But these songs weren't sung in the hushed, "isn't it awful?" tones that you hear in folk clubs - they were belted out, tongue in cheek, to keep spirits up.

Cynical, sarcastic, and piss-taking though they may have been, they were sung with comradeship and affection - everyone was in it together. To present it as a serious "us-against-them", anti-other ranks song, is a serious misapprehension of the context of the song.

Just my two pennyworth, as someone who's been on many of these marches many years ago.