'Garryowen' as a dog whistle

Subject: 'Garryowen' as a dog whistle
From: Jack Campin
Date: 06 Jul 20 - 10:06 AM

This was new to me, and probably to most people in the contradance a ene where it's a popular tune. From a post on FB.


Last night, the Trump administration played the song “Garryowen” before the fireworks.
“Garryowen” was the official battle tune, and nickname, of the 7th Cavalry Regiment, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer. The tune has come to symbolize the wholesale massacre of Native Americans at the hands of white people.

And someone in the Trump camp thought it would be a good idea to play that tune at an event staged on land stolen from Native Americans. (The Treaty of Fort Laramie, in 1868, gave the Sioux Nation possession of the Black Hills, but the U.S. Government broke the treaty).

This is a special kind of dog whistle. It probably meant nothing to the MAGA folks in the crowd, but Native Americans know what that tune means.
He then started his speech, on land stolen from Native Americans (the Supreme Court ruled on that point), and mentioned that a memorial he would like to see is one for Andrew Jackson, who forced the Trail of Tears on Native Americans.
This is the most vile administration the country has ever seen, and none of it is a coincidence."

Please remember that Trump isn't this smart and keyed in. There's a team of people behind this human shitstain that knows exactly what they're doing to push the cruelest buttons at just the right moments. We've got to get them all out of there and it's not going to be easy or pretty.

— From Mason Butler
Via Dimitra Stathopoulos & Aaron CarapellaL

Subject: RE: 'Garryowen' as a dog whistle
From: robomatic
Date: 06 Jul 20 - 10:22 PM

I like the tune, and I like Hawaiian shirts, but there is also:

A weird but real visual dogwhistle 'electric boogaloo'

Subject: RE: 'Garryowen' as a dog whistle
From: CupOfTea
Date: 08 Jul 20 - 10:07 PM

A response to this tune that I endorse is Robert Emmet Dunlap's song Mick Ryan's Lament - to the tune of Garryowen.


Joanne in Cleveland

Subject: RE: 'Garryowen' as a dog whistle
From: Jack Campin
Date: 09 Jul 20 - 03:57 AM

Sometimes writing a response using the same tune as an offensive song is appropriate. Not here. The point is that the victims respond to the tune itself as an attack. (I had no idea it even had words - I doubt if even the most historically minded contradancers would lnow them).

Subject: RE: 'Garryowen' as a dog whistle
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 09 Jul 20 - 07:32 AM

I wouldn't call it a dog whistle - just terrible taste.

The tune features very prominently in the absurdly whitewashed but entertaining Errol Flynn movie, They Died with Their Boots On (1941), about Custer and the 7th Cavalry.

In that version, Custer (Errol) promises the Sioux they can keep their lands, but is subverted by crooked politicians and railroad millionaires, who set him and his soldiers up for destruction at the Little Big Horn.

I am sure that the planners of the musical program at issue have *no* concept of actual history, regard the movie (beloved by millions) as a pretty accurate picture of Custer, and regard him as a Great American Tragic Hero.
(The evil pols and magnates of the movie are easy to miss as representative figures, if you're either ten years old or morally obtuse.)

On the other hand, the tune must be especially galling to the Lakota:   it was the 7th Cavalry that fortuitously discovered gold in the Black Hills, inspiring the gold rush that led directly to the abrogation of the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty and the seizure of the territory by the United States.

Subject: RE: 'Garryowen' as a dog whistle
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 09 Jul 20 - 10:26 AM

General Custer told us, we were going for a ride
Over by the Big Horn river, where the water is deep and wide
Soon as I get my hair done, we will win the war
Won't somebody go tell the boys, what we are fighting for.
Cho
He said give somebody a medal, give somebody a three day pass
Tell 'em 'bout the light at the end of the tunnel, and tell 'em to hold their sass,
And pass me my looking glass.

Subject: RE: 'Garryowen' as a dog whistle
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 09 Jul 20 - 12:21 PM

Garryowen
<https://www.irishsongs.com/lyrics.php?Action=view&Song_id=129<

Let Bacchus' sons be not dismayed
but join with me each jovial blade
booze and sing and lend your aid
to help me with the chorus

CHORUS
Instead of spa we'll drink down ale
and pay the reckoning on the nail
no man for debt shall go to jail
from Garryowen in glory

We are the boys that take delight
smashing the Limerick light when lighting
through all the streets like sporters fighting
and tearing all before us CHORUS

We'll break the windows we'll break the doors
The watch knock down by three's and four's
then let the doctors work their cures
and tinker up our bruises CHORUS

We'll beat the bailiffs out of fun
we'll make the mayors and sheriffs run
we are the boys no man dares dun
if he regards a whole skin CHORUS

Our hearts so stout have got us fame
for soon 'tis known from whence we came
where're we go they dread the name
of Garryowen in glory



................

GARRYOWEN. DT #2180
( The DT version lacks the joyful jubilation of running amuck>

Let Bacchus' sons be not dismayed
But join with me, each jovial blade
Come, drink and sing and lend your aid
To help me with the chorus:

cho: Instead of spa, we'll drink brown ale
And pay the reckoning on the nail;
No man for debt shall go to jail
From Garryowen in glory.

We'll beat the bailiffs out of fun,
We'll make the mayor and sheriffs run
We are the boys no man dares dun
If he regards a whole skin.

Our hearts so stout have got no fame
For soon 'tis known from whence we came
Where'er we go they fear the name
Of Garryowen in glory.


Sincerely,
Gargoyle

great tune with a history that far exceeds the small glory we can give it... hear.

Subject: RE: 'Garryowen' as a dog whistle
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 09 Jul 20 - 04:19 PM

As I wrote a few years back:


The "Garryowen" song in "They Died with their Boots On" combines some of the earlier lyrics with (mostly) an abridged version of the Irish nationalist call to arms written by the Irish poet Robert Dwyer Joyce (1830-1882).


Joyce's complete text, from Richard Nagle's "Popular Poets and Poetry of Ireland" (1887):

They say a dead man tells no tales,
That silence o'er his tomb prevails,
However blow blind Fortune's gales,
In peace or battle gory;

But we can give that phrase the lie,
For dead men's voices fill the sky,
And float from Limerick's towers on high,
O'er Garryowen and glory!

O mighty dead! O unforgot!
O heroes of the glorious lot!
Your deeds they sanctify each spot,
Your names each legend hoary!

From charnel crypts of mouldered bones,
From fosses, walls, and graven stones,
Your voices sound in thunder tones,
O'er Garryowen in glory!

Thy name, great names, great battles won,
Great deeds by Irish heroes done,
They cry, "Unite! Be one! Be one!"
From ancient graves and gory.

They bid us, brothers, all prepare
For th' hour when we can do and dare,
When Freedom's shout shall rend the air,
O'er Garryowen in glory!

And we can dare, and we can do,
United men and brothers true,
Their gallant footsteps to pursue,
And change our country's story;

To emulate their high renown,
To strike our false oppressors down,
And stir the old triumphant town,
With Garryowen in glory!

And when that mighty day comes round,
We still shall hear their voices sound,
Our tramp shall roll along the ground,
And shake the mountains hoary.

We'll raise the Sunburst as of yore,
And Limerick's streets and Shannon's shore
Shall echo to our shout once more,
Of Garryowen in glory!


The following words are sung early in the film. They differ slightly from those of the original 18th century song:

Instead of water we'll drink ale,
And pay no reckoning on the nail,
No man for debt shall go to jail,
From Garryowen in glory! Hail!

Then follows the usual chorus of "Our hearts so stout have got us fame, etc." again with an added "Hail!" The "Hails" disappear in the later scenes.

Subject: RE: 'Garryowen' as a dog whistle
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Jul 20 - 06:18 PM

RE: As I wrote a few years back....

Mr. Lighter,
Anything YOU post...is pre- certified ...

Please url?

Subject: RE: 'Garryowen' as a dog whistle
From: Lighter
Date: 10 Jul 20 - 06:31 PM

Thanks, Guest! People usually say I'm "certifiable" instead!

The book is in Google Books, at

https://tinyurl.com/yccyvdm5

Page 606.

Subject: RE: 'Garryowen' as a dog whistle
From: Jack Campin
Date: 13 Jul 20 - 05:43 AM

Surreal sidelight: a friend of mine, many years ago, was reading through Andrew Carnegie's private correspondence (he would have had access to all of it). He said he'd found evidence of a three-way gay love triangle with Carnegie and Lincoln both vying for the affections of General Custer. True or not it would have been entertaining to see Trump's response to that.

Subject: RE: 'Garryowen' as a dog whistle
From: GUEST,Earth Adobes
Date: 13 Jul 20 - 09:44 PM

This thread is a dog whistle