Lyr Add: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling, Speaks)

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: On the Road to Mandalay
From: Jeri
Date: 08 Feb 05 - 01:23 PM

"Where a cat can raise a thirst" is pretty good, too. And "crazy bells"...cool, man!

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: On the Road to Mandalay
From: GUEST,Jacqued
Date: 08 Feb 05 - 02:15 PM

Look for a CD entitled "The Widows Uniform" (Realisation 0101).   Full of Kipling's poetry (15!) set to music and sung beautifully by Dave Webber, Brian Peters, John O'Hagen, Annie Fentiman and John Morris.   You'll not regret it.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: On the Road to Mandalay
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 08 Feb 05 - 07:25 PM

Thanks Anglo, until 10 minutes ago I thought I was the sort of person that welcomed variation, but I'll be forced to seriously re-consider this self analysis. In any event I feel compelled to post the magnificent Speaks version of the tune.

Regards, John

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: On the Road to Mandalay
From: Lighter
Date: 08 Feb 05 - 09:44 PM

And whatever the lyrics may be on the LP, I swear I heard Sinatra sing "Burma *broad*," as mentioned earlier, back in the '60s. Back then "mother" might have flown right past me.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: On the Road to Mandalay
From: Barry Finn
Date: 02 Jun 08 - 04:54 PM

Seeing as Rudyard's bithday falls between Christmas & New Years (Dec 30th) I'd say that anyone looking for an exttra reason to celerbrate during the hoildays use his bithday in the same manner that folks celerbrate Burns Night. He may not be on the same level as Burns but I'm sure that had they been living in the same times & area the two would've been fast friends & been the talk & the toast of the borders they would've crossed in order to share some drinks together.

Barry

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: On the Road to Mandalay
From: Charley Noble
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 05:39 PM

I've been pondering the geography again and it just doesn't add up. Moulmein Harbour, where the great pagoda is located, is not even on the "Road to Mandalay" as the British referred to the Irrawaddy River (from Rangoon to Mandalay), and there is no way from Moulmein that one could view "the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay" or the Gulf of Martaban which lies beyond the harbour.

Great poem, though!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: On the Road to Mandalay
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 06:27 PM

The pagoda Kipling had in mind was the Kyaikthanlan Pagoda, from which one can look at the joining of the Thanlwin River and the sea, according to friends who have been there. But the dawn comes up over what used to be called Indo-China, not China.

Kipling never got to Mandelay.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: On the Road to Mandalay
From: Charley Noble
Date: 11 Aug 08 - 09:26 PM

Q-

Well, Indo-China works. Geographers do have a never-ending challenge to keep countries properly named, not to mention rivers and major cities.

"Kyaikthanlan Pagoda"

"Thanlwin River"

Whatever!

Cheerily,
Charlie Noble

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: On the Road to Mandalay
From: Mr Happy
Date: 26 Oct 08 - 06:55 AM

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=VcEAMqiclxw


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Dawson

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: On the Road to Mandalay
From: Snuffy
Date: 26 Oct 08 - 07:09 AM

Kipling never got to Mandalay

I hope he got to Rio before he was old

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: On the Road to Mandalay
From: Charley Noble
Date: 26 Oct 08 - 11:36 AM

Snuffy-

Sometimes it's better just to imagine being there!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: On the Road to Mandalay
From: Ron Davies
Date: 26 Oct 08 - 11:58 AM

It's interesting. Older people--(non-folkies) seem to far prefer the tune first used to set the poem to music---not the tune Peter Bellamy used. People like Peter Dawson evidently used the other tune before Peter Bellamy came on the scene. On the other hand I like the Peter Bellamy tune much better. I suppose it's what you first heard--or grew up with.

My stepfather loves the poem, but wants to hear it with the Dawson tune. So though I've learned the Bellamy tune and love to sing that while walking along, I'll have to also learn the other tune to please him.


(He's a great guy--loves music and has a sharp sense of humor--sings things like "Keep Your Head Down, Fritzi Boy"   (WW I parody of "Hold Your Hand Out, Naughty Boy").


Then I'll have to keep the two tunes totally separate.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: On the Road to Mandalay
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Oct 08 - 05:56 PM

With the dawn coming up from the direction of Indo-China, that'd be quite good enough to justify a Tommy in calling it China.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: On the Road to Mandalay
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Apr 09 - 12:27 AM

I vote for the Hedgecock MANDALAY!!!!
Ross San Francisco

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: On the Road to Mandalay
From: GUEST,david a banks
Date: 23 Aug 09 - 07:59 PM

I just found a copy of the sheet music (1898) of the Henry Trevannion setting. It reads Music Revised and Adapted by Henry Trevannion.
My question is...Adapted from what?

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling, Speaks)
From: Joe_F
Date: 14 Mar 12 - 10:07 PM

I have just been reading Kipling's autobiography _Something of Myself_ (with the OED, Google, & Wikipedia at hand) and have happened on the following, which should somewhat limit further speculation:

"...I wrote a song called 'Mandalay' which, tacked to a tune with a swing, made one of the waltzes of that distant age. A private soldier reviews his loves and, in the chorus, his experiences in the Burma campaign. One of his ladies lives at Moulmein, which is not on the road to anywhere, and he describes the _amour_ with some minuteness, but always in his chorus deals with 'the road to Mandalay,' his golden path to romance. The inhabitants of the United States, to whom I owed most of the bother, 'Panamaed' that song (this was before copyright), set it to their own tunes, and sang it in their own national voices. Not content with this, they took to pleasure cruising, and discovered that Moulmein did not command any view of any sun rising across the Bay of Bengal. They must have interfered too with the navigation of the Irrawaddy Flotilla steamers, for one of the Captains S.O.S.-ed me to give him 'something to tell these somethinged tourists about it.' I forget what word I sent, but I hoped it might help.
    "Had I opened the chorus of the song with 'Oh' instead of 'On the road,' etc., it might have shown that the song was a general mix-up of the singer's Far-Eastern memories against a background of the Bay of Bengal as seen at dawn from a troop-ship taking him there. But 'On' in this case was more singable than 'Oh.' That simple explanation may stand as a warning."

So! All we have to do now is unearth the original waltz tune, and discover precisely what Panamaing meant & why (the OED is unhelpful).

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling, Speaks)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 15 Mar 12 - 07:57 AM

Joe-

The journey continues, with its twists and turns.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling, Speaks)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 15 Mar 12 - 01:51 PM

Panamaed- my guess- borrow without permission.

Waltz tune? interesting.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling, Speaks)
From: Joe_F
Date: 15 Mar 12 - 03:38 PM

"Borrowed without permission" -- I dare say. But what is the allusion? Perhaps to Kipling's friend Teddy Roosevelt, who "borrowed" Panama without permission? %^)

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling, Speaks)
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 15 Mar 12 - 07:46 PM

Then how do you explain this?:

Mr. John Burns, "Address in Answer to the Queen's Speech," Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons, Fourth Series, Dec. 10, 1900, p. 468:

"What differentiates the British Parliament from any other Parliaments in the opinion of hon. Members opposite? It is because it does not 'Panama' as the French Parliament has occasionally done."

P. 474: "The man in the street who reads the Birmingham Post is beginning to think that our Parliament is also being 'Panama-ed' and that our public life has not that high standard of honour it formerly had....What is the charge against President Kruger [of the South African Republic]? It is that his administration was inefficent and his government corrupt. If that be true...we ought to put ourselves in a position which would make it impossible under our Standing Orders for such a charge to be made against our Parliament or any of our Ministers."

My guess is that it may mean "become corrupt(ed)." The French Parliament was swept by charges of bribery and corruption in 1892 related to plans for building the Canal.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling, Speaks)
From: Joe_F
Date: 16 Mar 12 - 03:06 PM

Aha! So Kipling is saying that the Americans *corrupted* the song.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling, Speaks)
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 16 Mar 12 - 04:52 PM

But it's still only a guess.

To "Panama" isn't in the OED. If it was as amazingly rare as it seems, I'm surprised that Kipling picked it up.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling, Speaks)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 17 Mar 12 - 10:40 AM

It is intriguing the half-life of slang words. "Boycott" has endured through the ages. "Watergate" and all the other "gates" has been persistent but will probably fade away. I hadn't run across "Panama-ed" but it certainly would have had some bite during the early 1900s.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling, Speaks)
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 06 Sep 13 - 08:02 AM

Q, still doubt you can sing "Mandalay" to "10,000 Miles Away"?

Try this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKOXJ9VwWtU

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling, Speaks)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 06 Sep 13 - 07:18 PM

Thanks for the Bellamy link.
In school long ago, we sang "A Capital Ship" at a fast clip. Sounds entirely different from the way Bellamy uses the tune.

chorus-
Then blow ye winds hi-ho
A-roving I will go
I'll stay no more on England's shore
So let the music play-ay-ay
I'm off to my love with a boxing glove
Ten thousand miles away.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling, Speaks)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 07 Sep 13 - 12:46 PM

Lighter, I had "Capital Ship" in mind. Never really listened to the original "Ten Thousand Miles."

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling, Speaks)
From: Dave Hanson
Date: 07 Sep 13 - 04:57 PM

OK

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling, Speaks)
From: Lighter
Date: 07 Sep 13 - 07:57 PM

Enlightening stylistic contrasts:

bel canto:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnKhTj4x2cc


bel canto lite:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahU2lUUKBC4


pop:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Bs2_WxT9bI

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling, Speaks)
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 27 Jun 15 - 09:59 AM

Wikipedia mentions a version by Vera Il'inichna Matveeva which is here(with a discussion about whether a good Russian should be singing songs by Kipling)
. . S. Valozhyn -Vera Matveeva. Polonsky. Kipling.
...for the mp3 go down a page or two to the fourth blue play button 'TYT'
(or use a translate button?)

This is also credited to Vera Matveeva but sung by Viktor Verstakov.(lyrics and YouTube)
. http://prevodi-tekstova.com/pesma/pokazati/1763527/vera-matveeva/tekst-i-prevod-na-doroge-v-mandalej/

. http://www.viktorverstakov.narod.ru

.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling, Speaks)
From: Thompson
Date: 27 Jun 15 - 06:40 PM

I'm fond of Kipling, but he was a horrid old jingoist.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling, Speaks)
From: FreddyHeadey
Date: 15 Oct 20 - 05:24 PM

YouTube of Vera Matveeva
https://youtu.be/ZWSI2BB8Sy8

Wiki Vera Matveeva
https://ru.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9C%D0%B0%D1%82%D0%B2%D0%B5%D0%B5%D0%B2%D0%B0,_%D0%92%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B0_%D0%98%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%87%D0%BD%D0%B0

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling, Speaks)
From: GUEST,keberoxu
Date: 15 Oct 20 - 06:43 PM

Who was the US politician who said:

The Panama Canal is ours --
we stole it fair and square!

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling, Speaks)
From: GUEST,Mike Yates
Date: 16 Oct 20 - 04:48 AM

To be honest, I much prefer the Billy 'Almost a Gentleman' Bennett's surreal parody:

On the banks of the River Schlemozzle,
Mid the deserts and sands of Dundalk,
I've hunted wild llamas in purple pyjamas,
I've eaten pea soup with a fork.
I've struggled with skivvies and oojah-ka-pivvies,
I've milked tabby cats in Tibet.
I've cut off the conkers from buzz-a-fazonkers,
But oh, the worst time I've had yet, was

On The Road To Mandalay, where you'll see the fried fish play.
They bring their own chips with them when it's early-closing day.
There's Ghurkas doing mazurkas with baboons inside their bunks,
There's kangaroos with carpet bags and elephants with trunks,
And fat men dump their 'ombongpong' inside their Clapham Juncs
On The Road To Mandalay.

In an old white-washed pagoda, looking Eastward to the West,
A Burmese girl from Bermondsey sits in a sparrow's nest.
She's as pretty as a picture, though she lost one eye they say,
Through the Black Hole of Calcutta, and the keyhole of Bombay.

Look as far as you can see, boy, look a little further son,
For that Burma girl is burning - stick a fork in, see if she's done.
Oh, that dainty dusky damsel, Indian features, proud and sweet;
Indian ink upon her fingers, Indian corns upon her feet.

There's not a drop of water, in this waste of desert land.
The soldiers' tongues are hanging out, and trailing in the sand.
They're hanging out like carpets, and you'll hear the natives say
'Mr Drage has laid the lino, On The Road To Mandalay.'

See that stately dromedary with his hind leg give a kick,
On his back there's two mosquitoes singing 'Stop Your Jockling, Tick'.
On the hump there sit two Hindus: when the drom-drom gives a cough
And they exit through the early doors, as the monkey says 'They're off!'

There's a farm on the horizon, looking eastward to Siam,
We could have some ham and eggs there, if they had some eggs and ham
They've only got one hen, they call her 'Mandy' by the way,
They found out she's a cock - that's why they can't make Mandy lay.

There's no maps for the soldiers, in this land of Gunga Din,
So they picked the toughest warrior out, and tattooed on his skin.
On his back he's got Calcutta, lower down he's got Bombay.
And you'll find him sitting peacefully On The Road To Mandalay.

On The Road To Mandalay,where the girls are tout-au-fait
They wear short skirts and shingled hair, and one dark foggy day,
I chased one in a kiosque...I'm a playful sort of chap,
I pulled her on my knee, then on the jaw I got a slap
I found a Gordon Highlander was sitting in my lap.

By the way, the joke about Kipling's name, mentioned above, featured on a well-known seaside postcard, which showed an elderly man looking at a younger girl. The man says, 'Do you like Kipling?' to which the girl replies. 'I don't know. I've never Kippled.'