The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?

Subject: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: matt milton
Date: 04 Apr 10 - 06:06 AM

what was the Scottish folk song Jazzer sang on the Archers this week? quite well, in fact...

Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 04 Apr 10 - 06:12 AM

The Roses O' Prince Charlie

Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 04 Apr 10 - 06:52 AM

Was it actually Ryan Kelly singing it on the Archers?

Kitty

Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: Jane Bird
Date: 04 Apr 10 - 07:07 AM

I don't know for certain if it Ryan Kelly, but if it's not it's a really good match for his speaking voice.

Will this become a favourite sing-a-long in the Bull, just like "The Village Pump"?

Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: GUEST,Derek Schofield
Date: 04 Apr 10 - 07:40 AM

when I heard it on the radio, I immediately thought ... The Corries... ! But surely Jazza is too young to have been listening to the Corries!!
"a match for his speaking voice" ... well, depends on whether singers should or do sing in their speaking voice... a least he wasn't breathy (see other threads!!)
Derek

Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 04 Apr 10 - 08:14 AM

The song is the sort of tartan-clad chauvinism that Glasgow children grow up knowing - that and Coutler's Candy and hurling jelly pieces, so it could have been worse. As I've already said elsewhere. Jazzer (who is an accordeon player) for the Young Folk Award.

Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 04 Apr 10 - 08:17 AM

I'd book him.

Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 04 Apr 10 - 08:46 AM

It's called national pride Diane.
The only pride you seem to take, is in making snide comments about anything, and everything.
Oh sorry, I forgot, and everyone.

Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 04 Apr 10 - 08:59 AM

Charles Edward Stewart was a product of pan-European Catholic aristocracy who could barely speak English, never mine Gaelic. He was responsible for the death or exile of far too many true Scottish nationalists. He was a drunken waster to the end of his days, which Flora MacDonald could have cut short by tipping him over the side on the way to Skye. He was the one who, at Culloden, "ran like a rabbit down the glen, leaving better folk than him to be butchered".

National pride?

Farewell to the heather in the glen
They cleared us off once and they'd do it all again
For they still prefer sheep to thinking men
Ah, but men who think like sheep are even better.

Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 04 Apr 10 - 10:36 AM

I am just as aware of my history as you are Diane.
I won't waste my time recounting the misdeeds of English kings, and the myths in which England, and many other countries take pride.
It would be lowering myself to your level.

Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: theleveller
Date: 04 Apr 10 - 11:01 AM

Bloody royalty - who needs any of them!

Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 04 Apr 10 - 11:02 AM

Ah, I thought the topic was the performance of a blind Scottish accordeonist / former busker / now actor doing a fake tartan Corrie impression (I'm sure he can do better) and not a lot to do with imperialism and English royalist claptrap.

What was I (actually Brian McNeill) saying about men who think like sheep?

Are you sittin in your council house dreaming o your clan?
Waiting for the Jacobites to come and free the land?
Would you rather stand and watch them dig your grave
While you wait for the tartan messiah?
He'll lead us to the promised land with laughter in his eye
We'll all live on the oil and the whisky by and by
Free heavy beer! Pie suppers in the sky
Will we never have the sense to learn?

(No gods & precious few heroes)

Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 04 Apr 10 - 12:51 PM

Remind me who it was who started the denigration game?

As someone said elsewhere, what is it with Mudcat, when most thread descend to nastiness within about 3 posts?

In many cases the answer is Diane Easby.

---

...and this is the point where the thread crossed the line, although it started getting nasty a few messages ago. To all participants in the squabble: Chill!!!!. Thank you.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 04 Apr 10 - 01:11 PM

I was denigrating the song, as I do with any tartan-clad, shortbread-wrapped bollocks that sentimentalises "B P" Charlie. I'm nevertheless glad Ryan Kelly (if it was he, and I suppose it was) did it and hope to hear more (and better).

Twas only when a snarling, blinkered Tory aka "Giok" came along with "the only pride you seem to take, is in making snide comments" à propos of very little other than a pathological hatred of the insight of Brian McNeill that inappropriate nastiness reared its head.

Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: GUEST,Abbul not yet hame
Date: 04 Apr 10 - 03:21 PM

well, i liked the song...still dunno what it was....loved the moment it happened and waited for the thread. Oh dear. Really am thinking of not bothering with mudcat . Same old miserable bastards with the same old miserable stuff. Al

Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 04 Apr 10 - 03:32 PM

still dunno what it was

Roses For Prince Charlie.

Just off to pick some really prickly ones for sticking up the arse of the contributor who fancies himself as a descendent of the idiot Pretender who knew how to heap death and misery on the Scottish people while looking after No 1.

Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 04 Apr 10 - 07:22 PM

Personally, I blame the ketamine.

Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 05 Apr 10 - 06:01 AM

Homilies are us

Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: Les from Hull
Date: 05 Apr 10 - 08:22 AM

Aye! Will ye no come back again? Will ye definitely no come back again?

Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 05 Apr 10 - 09:10 AM

BPC serves a useful function as a romantic loser figure we can all sing about without there being any chance at all that anything he stood for will ever crawl back out of the swamps of history to bite us. (Burns said something to that effect as early as the 1790s). He's the obverse of Guy Fawkes in England - when did his status as a folk demon last get any bystanders hurt? not for a very long time.

Come to think of it "Osama Bin Laden" scans just about the same as "Bonnie Prince Charlie" and he has a pretty similar historical position, it's just a bit soon for the songwriters to have got into action.

Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: GUEST,johnp
Date: 05 Apr 10 - 09:31 AM

if we are to denigrate songs for historical inaccuracy or for political correctness we will be left with very little. Certainly many ballads with their tales of incest, rape etc will have to go for starters.

Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: matt milton
Date: 05 Apr 10 - 10:27 AM

"BPC serves a useful function as a romantic loser figure we can all sing about without there being any chance at all that anything he stood for will ever crawl back out of the swamps of history to bite us"

For a fraction of a second, I misread this as "BBC serves a useful function as a romantic loser figure we can all sing about..." For that split-second I thought you were anticipating a wealth of folk laments for Reithian values in the face of swingeing cuts to the good old Beeb.

Anyway, having now looked up the words to 'The Roses O' Prince Charlie', well, they're pretty banal. My attitude towards political songs from bygone days is generally to start by seeing what poetry's in them, first and foremost. And I can't see any in 'Roses', it's pretty dull stuff.

Unlike, say, "Ye Jacobites By Name" or "It was all for our Rightfu King", which have some great lines in them.

Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 05 Apr 10 - 11:29 AM

Good tune, though.

Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 05 Apr 10 - 12:09 PM

It is a good tune, and best confined to marching bands sans words. After all, the Horst Wessel-lied is a good tune as is The Sash My Father Wore, but scarcely recommended to enhance the cause of community cohesion. There are many stirring Jacobite songs that don't glorify the idiot BPC who entirely wrecked the cause of Scots self-determination with a campaign that even his father warned him not to undertake.

Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 05 Apr 10 - 01:30 PM

Well, I just thought it was a plus that "Ambridge has talent" was won by someone singing a traditional song that had the audience clapping along, on a Radio 4 soap.... not the usual stereotype, and unexpected from Jazzer!

Kitty

Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 05 Apr 10 - 07:42 PM

Audiences that indulge in out-of-time clapping and joining in in a variety of keys ought to be forcibly bound and gagged.

However, what about when sectarian rabble-rousing singing doesn't stop there but ends up in actual street violence? (Not that I'm less than delighted that Terreblanche got what was coming to him, especially if the Kill The Boer episode puts a stop to the World Cup).

Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 05 Apr 10 - 07:56 PM

Songs about BPC do not lead to street violence. You're fantasizing.

Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 06 Apr 10 - 02:42 AM

Not fantasising but generalising about the inadvisability of letting crackpot interest groups hijack music for their own ends. My post of 07.42 however was far more concerned with curbing audience behaviour and with possibly halting the World Cup. A pleasing thought.

Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: sian, west wales
Date: 06 Apr 10 - 05:05 AM

Back to the original comment, Ryan Kelly who plays Jazzer is a self-taught accordion player and singer, and used to busk in his youth. I can't find the site where I first read about him. He was born in Scotland but grew up in the Midlands and is blind from birth.

sian

Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 06 Apr 10 - 05:21 AM

You read it here, several posts above, yesterday @ 11.02.

Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: GUEST,johnp
Date: 06 Apr 10 - 06:08 AM

"Not that I'm less than delighted that Terreblanche got what was coming to him" (Borchester Echo)
Taking delight in the murder of any human, no matter how much one may dislike the person's views, is something I find offensive. It seems rules of decent behaviour only apply to others and not Borchester.

Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 06 Apr 10 - 06:26 AM

Q: Was Eugene Terreblanche human?
A: Doubtful

/end OT

I imagine my esteemed organ would carry this glad news from South Africa with equal prominence as it gives to a review of Ryan Kelly's performance.

Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 06 Apr 10 - 06:45 AM

It occurred to me as an afterthought that apparently I need to reiterate the bleedin' obvious to the above bleedin' heart guest. The necessity of curbing the propagation of rabble-rousing, historically distorted song is precisely to stem the dispensation of summary justice. I'd actually far rather have seen Terreblanche face a properly constituted court to be ripped to bits. Charles Edward Stewart (BPC) too for war crimes, for that matter.

Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: Hamish
Date: 06 Apr 10 - 07:19 AM

Speaking as a Scotsman who is generally proud of being so, it was songs like that that put me off folk for a couple of decades. Only relatively recently have I been making an effort to find Scottish trad that I'm not only glad to sing, but comfortable to.

Having said that, Jazzer did an okay Corries impression and it could have been a lot worse. But I am perplexed by his (speaking) accent. It sounds like he probably is Scottish, but the producers have asked him to be "a bit more Scottish" and he's hamming it up big time.

Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: GUEST,johnp
Date: 06 Apr 10 - 07:45 AM

Resorting to personal insults, assuming everyone else is ignorant, and making sweeping unsupported statements about cause and effect, appears to be Borchester's forte.
Who decides what is historically distorted or rabble rousing?
what other songs should we ban and why?
I am sure as a journalist Borchester values freedom of speech the same freedom applies to songs. We have laws against racism, incitement to violence etc. I hardly think this song breaches any of these laws.
well done Jazzer!

Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 06 Apr 10 - 07:54 AM

Hamish, he's from Glasgow, but then moved to "little Glasgow": Corby in Northants.

From an interview:

"I lived in Corby when I was younger and there were lots of Scottish folk involved in the steel trade there so I kept my accent.

"I play Jazzer's accent much broader than my own, though.

"I can never understand why Scots on telly seem to tone it down to 'posh Scots'. Even in Taggart all the police have nice soft voices - it's not the way they speak in real life.

"It can be a great laugh, though. I always remember Jazzer having to recite a poem about the haggis at Mrs Snell's Burns Supper.

"Jazzer, or me, made the whole thing up. It started something like, 'Ah, yee wee sleekit lummering toastie'. It was brilliant."

Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 06 Apr 10 - 08:17 AM

The guest who seems to think s/he has been "personally insulted" hasn't been (yet) though may have been peeved that it became necessary to spell out the bleedin' obvious. I have denigrated BPC, Eugene Terreblanche and the lack of merit of a mediocre sort of Jacobite ditty. As for whether the jury is still out over the selfish, cowardly and criminally insane behaviour of BPC, I think not. True, there may still exist a few idiotically romantic, benighted airheads still "sitting in their council house waiting for the tartan messiah." But history has condemned the young pretender fairly comprehensively and with right.

Never at any point was I suggesting the "banning" of a tedious ditty like Roses for Charlie nor anything else, including songs of slavery, racism and violence towards women. It is important to recognise that outmoded attitudes and practices existed in our past - even to restage them as examples thereof - so thet we might remember not to go that way again. It is just as important to be vigilant about not letting our cultural heritage fall into the hands of racist and fascist morons.

Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: GUEST,johnp
Date: 06 Apr 10 - 08:52 AM

The implication of (yet) is that personal insults may follow. This could be construed as harrassment/bullying particularly by a bleedin' heart liberal.

Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 06 Apr 10 - 09:07 AM

Jacobite songs have had more than 250 years to incite a riot and haven't managed it yet.

The last instances of violence associated with Guy Fawkes Night are a lot more recent than that, so if you want to get pointlessly steamed up about something irrelevant, go for that one first.

There are some instances of literature from the distant past serving as a rallying point for present-day reactionary thugs - like Zionists with the Book of Kings or Hindu fundies with the Ramayana - but these movements don't actually need those ancient texts to inspire what they do, and Jacobite songs aren't in practice used that way.

Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 06 Apr 10 - 09:12 AM

Personal insults may well follow. It's what happens on Mudcat to those who can't be arsed to follow a thread. Unlikely from me though. I haven't a clue who you are and cannot, equally, be arsed with off-topic trollisms from "guests". Especially those unable to spell.

Let's see: a soap character in the circulation area of the Borchester Echo sings a dubious song in a talent contest. People (some of them) are exchanging information on the song's provenance and suitability and who actually sang it - the actor who plays Jazzer, or not.

This "guest" seems to want to talk about how nice and tartany BPC is and how equally nice a South African fascist was. Get ye to BS or even further. If you have nothing to contribute about the song, its background or the performer, that is.

Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: Zen
Date: 06 Apr 10 - 09:18 AM

I took a quick look in out of interest from the title of the thread but see that the nastiness which made me step back from Mudcat a while back is still alive and well.

Some people have nothing to contribute other than to be negative about everything and everyone.

Zen (Irishman in Scotland)

Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 06 Apr 10 - 09:21 AM

Ah, the danger of songs like this is that they don't inspire Scots today "sitting in their council houses, dreaming of their clan" to get there and fight to save what's left of nationhood and political determination.

As Brian McNeill says:

So don't talk to me of Scotland the Brave
For if we don't fight soon there'll be nothing left to save
Or would you rather stand and watch them dig your grave
While you wait for the Tartan Messiah?

Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 06 Apr 10 - 09:51 AM

I turned to another thread and read this:

My tolerance for knee-jerk hysterics "rape, murder, fire!" at the slightest expression of a personal opinion that isn't total fawning sycophancy on this board, is becoming exceedingly low.

The poster, a woman of my distant acquaintance, was instantly reviled by another anonymous "guest" who assumed she was a man, for failing to tolerate his outrageous (and OT ) "opinion". Mudcat was, I believe, once supposed to be a forum for informed discussion about traditional, roots and related music and its place in society. No wonder it is increasingly regarded as a branch of Care in The Community where nutters howl at the moon.

Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: Zen
Date: 06 Apr 10 - 09:58 AM

Just off to pick some really prickly ones for sticking up the arse of the contributor who fancies himself as a descendent of the idiot Pretender who knew how to heap death and misery on the Scottish people while looking after No 1.

Mudcat was, I believe, once supposed to be a forum for informed discussion about traditional, roots and related music and its place in society.

I agree with the second statement. But does the first contribute to that objective?

Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 06 Apr 10 - 10:07 AM

The first statement was in response to an abusive attack on me which the moderators removed. Its essence was that my head was where I later proposed stuffing the roses. Actually, my head was in my ballads database at the time, composing an informative reply for someone who wanted to know. That's all I ever come to Mudcat for: to impart information and correct ballsed-up misinformation. Then I get drawn in to responding to off-topic trolls. So tedious.

Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: Mavis Enderby
Date: 06 Apr 10 - 10:14 AM

So don't get drawn in - simple.

Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: Zen
Date: 06 Apr 10 - 10:23 AM

Link to the lyrics for anybody interested.

Not my personal cup of tea but offered for information.

Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 06 Apr 10 - 10:25 AM

Easy to say. I just can't bear to see the oftimes discredited bollocks rolled out yet again for the occasional non-suspecting seeker of enlightenment accidentally swallowing it as gospel.

Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 06 Apr 10 - 10:44 AM

I haven't a clue who you are and cannot, equally, be arsed with off-topic trollisms from "guests".

I have no idea if it's me you mean (there have been hardly any guest posts in this thread), but if you don't know who I am you must be profoundly Google-challenged.

As for who you are - I know you only as a Mudcat poster. Beyond your messages here, nothing. What do think I infer from those?

You didn't start out too well:

the sort of tartan-clad chauvinism that Glasgow children grow up knowing - that and Coutler's Candy and hurling jelly pieces

Four implicit mistakes in half a sentence. Even Braveheart didn't reach that density of factual booboos.

Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 06 Apr 10 - 11:25 AM

I know who Jack Campin (who is not a "guest") is. Not that it matters; we are supposed to be here to impart and exchange information, not speculate on who we are, or not. I also know who Guest: Derek Schofield is.

JC doesn't know who I am. Tough. All that writing over so many decades unnoticed. Do I care? No. I mind who my readership is.

I was referring mainly to a "guest" who - on a quick look at previous posts - is a SoH fan unaware of madlizziecornish. Bizarre. He also appears to have Terreblanche associations. Yeuk. He followed the lead of that reactionary Tory Mackenzie with apparently little better to do than sit in his council house dreaming of his clan and worshipping at the shrine of BPC. Packhunting without purpose.

As a Northumbrian, I know quite a lot about "tartan-clad chauvinisam" and pink-tinted specs ditties. They flooded into Newcastle with their kilts and claymores. They were waiting to assault my ears in London too. Thank deity of choice for Brian McNeill.

Some Jacobite songs are OK, that one is banal as already explained above in some detail. I don't care if Jack Campin happens to like it. Anyway, my beef is with the cowardly, drunken idiot BPC, not the entire concept of the Jacobite cause. I learned about that period of Scottish history in some detail from June Tabor who, fresh down from Oxford, was loafing about in C# House and I doubt that she knows less than Jack Campin.

The OP wanted to know about the song. I and others told him. I know lots about the soap in which the character appeared too. Though the "guest" I was referring to fails even to recognise my current Mudcat name as that of the local paper circulating in the area. Duh.