Songs about Napoleon

Subject: RE: Songs about Napoleon
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 10 Apr 05 - 10:38 AM

Songs about Napoleon?

"Giddyup, Napoleon, it looks like rain!!

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Songs about Napoleon
From: NormanD
Date: 10 Apr 05 - 10:28 AM

Ta, richard, both links are really good and fill in a lot of the background to my query.
There are surely more songs about Bonaparte than any of his English contemporaries. Who'd want to sing about Wellington or Castlereagh (though Shelley did a good demolition job on the latter).

And the new Barry Dransfield album is as good as richard suggests

Subject: RE: Songs about Napoleon
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 10 Apr 05 - 10:19 AM

There's gotta be a site where you can pull up a netload of these things in one trawl

...which is why I linked to Vic Gammon's paper on Napoleon and Popular Balladry above.

Subject: RE: Songs about Napoleon
From: Phil Cooper
Date: 10 Apr 05 - 10:17 AM

Bonnie Light Horseman, Bonnie Bunch of Roses are both songs with a Napoleon reference. I seem to think of those songs a lot more these days with Bush's current folly.

A new Barry Dransfield album? Sign me up!

Subject: RE: Songs about Napoleon
From: Severn
Date: 10 Apr 05 - 09:59 AM

Drummer Boy of Waterloo
Boneparte's Retreat
Plains Of Waterloo
Boney (Sea Shanty)
Bonaparte Crossing The Rhine (fiddle tune)


...immediately come to mind.


There's gotta be a site where you can pull up a netload of these things in one trawl.

Subject: RE: Songs about Napoleon
From: OtherDave
Date: 10 Apr 05 - 09:27 AM

Capercaillie sings one in Gaelic --
"Bonaparte" -- lyrics on this page in Gaelic and English.

O gu sunndach mi air m' astar,
Falbh gu siubhlach le bheag airtneul,
Do a chomhrag ri Bonaparte,
'S e bha bagairt air Righ Deors'.

"I'm happy on my journey,
Travelling swiftly without flagging,
Heading off to do battle with Bonaparte,
He it was who threatened King George."

Subject: RE: Songs about Napoleon
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 10 Apr 05 - 07:48 AM

Loads of stuff here.

And this about Gordon Hall from whom Barry Dransfield got the song.

Unruly isn't out till 16 May on the new Violin Workshop label. Tell your suppliers when placing your orders that it will be distributed by Proper. It is truly gorgeous.

Subject: Songs about Napoleon
From: NormanD
Date: 10 Apr 05 - 07:28 AM

On the wonderful new CD by Barry Dransfield ("Unruly" - you really must buy a copy!) there's a song called "Grand Conversation" which, although it sounds very New Labour (ha ha), is a broadsheet ballad about Napoleon Bonaparte. The song is a narrative ballad, and not particularly anti-Bonaparte or even anti-French. So, could anyone give me their views on why there were so many pro-Bonaparte songs in Britain that appear to celebrate the life of this dictator? Was it because he posed a threat and an alternative to "our" own despotic monarchy and ruling class of the early-19th Century?

Other ideas, and examples of other Bonaparte songs much appreciated.

Regards

Norman D.