Lyr Add: The Civil War in Spain

Subject: Lyr Add: THE CIVIL WAR IN SPAIN (Joe Mulheron)
From: belfast
Date: 08 Feb 03 - 11:12 AM

THE CIVIL WAR IN SPAIN
(Joe Mulheron)

Who will call the meeting now and who will take the chair?
Who will lead us out on strike, demand an equal share?
For Johnny, Brave young Johnny, in Ireland won't remain
For he's gone to fight the fascists in the civil war in Spain.

With men from many countries you fought to save Madrid
No one knows just how you held: the world all knows you did.
The people armed with sticks and stones against the tanks they came
And they drove back Franco's army from the city once again.

Hitler sent the bombers in, Mussolini sent his guns
The church excommunicated all her daughters and her sons
They fought to make us equal, take back the rich mans gain
And they died in muddy trenches in the civil war in Spain.

McCrotty, Derry City, Danny Boyle from Belfast town
Dinny Cody from south Dublin, they fell on Spanish ground
Kit Conway, Tipperary, Charlie Donnelly from Tyrone
Frank Ryan taken prisoner, he never would come home

And if fascist bullets won't permit our Johnny to return
This grievous loss his Belfast friend will never cease to mourn
He fought for the Connolly in the brave Fifteenth Brigade
And he died for Spanish workers in the civil war in Spain.


In another thread(Click here) about "The Patriot Game" the words of a song, "The Battlefields of Spain",were posted by Suffet. It was said to be to the same tune as "Sean South". Martin Ryan pointed out the similarity between some of the lines and "The Bantry Girl's Lament". He later correctly identified the author as Joe Mulheron. (Joe would know "The Bantry Girl's Lament" from the singing of Tim Lyons.)   Above are the words as written and sung by Joe Mulheron. The folk process has added quite a bit to the original and dropped a verse or two.

Joe would also have been acquainted with MacColl's "Jamie Foyers". Compare and contrast, as they say.

Subject: Lyr Add: THE NEW SAINT (Lorcan Otway)
From: InOBU
Date: 08 Feb 03 - 11:20 AM

Brilliant, I wrote a song about the fact that the Catholic church cannonized a Gitano facist to the same tune, an ironic song, since one out of every three Roma (Gypsies) were killed by facists, .... here it is...

THE NEW SAINT
Tune the bantry girl's lament, words, Lorcan Otway all rights reserved...

Oh tell me father Michael, What's that I heard you say
That the church for all its past neglect, named a Gypsy saint today.
Tell me all the details, I'd really like to know
For its been more than a little time, since to our church I'd go.

Tell me what his deeds were, and how he came to die.
Was he murdered by the Gadje, while in exile forced to fly
Or hanged by James of Scotland, when Faa was sent away
Or killed by a polish peasant mob on some lonely cold byway

Did he die with the resistance, in that cold Vichy midnight
While bringing food and weapons to carry on the fight
Or aiding Jews and exiles to escape the Nazi scourge
Or killed by a Nazi death squad bent on their racist purge

Did he die in Auschwitz death camp, when Ziguenier Nacht took place
On that day the tens of thousand Rom, where murdered for their race
Or in in the Czech Republic, thrown from a bridge to die,
O tell me father Michael, was that the reason why

I can't believe what your are telling me, about the way he died
Defending a Fascist priest, defending Franco's side.
If that's the side that God was on, forgive me if I say
It will be a cold day in hell before with you I'll pray.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Civil War in Spain
From: InOBU
Date: 08 Feb 03 - 11:22 AM

PS Do you know the song, Jamie foyers??? Another great Civil War song. Cheers again, Larry

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Civil War in Spain
From: belfast
Date: 08 Feb 03 - 11:50 AM

An excellent piece of work,InO . A nice coinidence that yourself and Joe Mulheron should have both used the Bantry Girl's Lament for an anti-fascist song.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Civil War in Spain
From: InOBU
Date: 08 Feb 03 - 01:16 PM

Well... actualy the Johny who died in the Bantry Girl's lament, who I thought was a casualty of the Napolianic wars, was in fact, the same Johnny killed in the Civil War. Bantry Girl's lament, or so I am told, is about the Spanish Civil war! Sounds older, doesn't it!
Cheers
Larry

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Civil War in Spain
From: MartinRyan
Date: 31 Jul 03 - 05:07 AM

Not so, Larry - Bantry Girl is indeed from Peninsular War - and Wexford!

Regards

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Civil War in Spain
From: GUEST
Date: 31 Jul 03 - 02:51 PM

Do you know the Spanish rarely mention the Spanish Civil War, and if it is mentioned at all it is most likely to be brought into the conversation by us foreigners.

The reason, they say, is that it was too personal; families were literally torn apart by it.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Civil War in Spain
From: Art Thieme
Date: 31 Jul 03 - 06:00 PM

Ed Balchowsky, an old friend and a vet of the Lincoln Brigade, went back to Spain long after the war. He lost an arm there--in '37 on the Ebro River---and he was a promising concert pianist before the war. Back in Spain he tried to talk to some people on camera bout how, in one battle, their town had been saved for a time by he and his compatriots. Nobody wanted to hear anything about it let alone talk about it. I have a copy of part of his films from a documentary that was on PBS in Chicago about Eddie after he was killed by a subway train.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Civil War in Spain
From: Mark Ross
Date: 31 Jul 03 - 06:57 PM

Art,
    Would it be possible to get a copy of that documentary? I'd known about Eddie from Utah, finally got to meet him one night in Troubles on Lincoln Ave.

Mark Ross

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Civil War in Spain
From: Barry Finn
Date: 31 Jul 03 - 08:32 PM

I have it from Dick Swain that the Bantry Girl's Lament" is from Spain's' War of Jenkin's Ear'. Don't ask, you'll have to do a search on it but it is for real. Barry

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Civil War in Spain
From: GUEST,Q
Date: 31 Jul 03 - 09:32 PM

Spain has changed a great deal since those days. Young Spaniards have only a dim idea of that conflict. The civil war was over 60 years ago and Francisco Franco died over 25 years ago.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Civil War in Spain
From: Art Thieme
Date: 31 Jul 03 - 11:48 PM

Mark,

Right now I have no way to copy it. I don't get around much these days.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Civil War in Spain
From: MartinRyan
Date: 01 Aug 03 - 06:41 AM

Barry

Gotta ask....!

Regards

p.s.I'm actually off on holidays tomorrow to the other Bantry, as it happens...

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Civil War in Spain
From: MartinRyan
Date: 17 Aug 03 - 12:48 PM

Any advance on Jenkin's Ear?

Regards

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Civil War in Spain
From: GUEST,Jonathan Hill
Date: 17 Aug 03 - 02:50 PM

You might want to check out the BBC's website..there was a documentary about the SCW broadcast on Radio 4 last week which may still be available via web.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Civil War in Spain
From: GUEST,Ada the Cadre
Date: 25 Jun 10 - 04:57 AM

It would be interesting to know what Spanish songs have survived from the civil war and how and where they were kept alive.
There are many reasons for the Pacto de Silencio, the deal that meant that in Spain the civil war could not be discussed. Most obviously Franco was in power for another 40 years. Singing antifascist songs would be severely punished. All the Civil War memorials were erected to commemorate the Fascists, sometimes by Republican slave labour. When Franco had gone the arrangement was that you don't talk about it, because of official fears of recrimination and to protect the new democracy. After all, when Franco died it was by no means clear what would follow. Some families were torn apart it is true, but that is not the main reason for the Pacto. Also for us in the UK, US and Ireland, Spain can be seen as the first battle against fascism in what became WW2, where we know who were the goodies, and which we won! History is written by the victorious, but sometimes the defeated have songs and memories they share quietly. Now as the survivors and their children are aging they are literally digging up their dead and trying to memorialise the war. I don't know any songs from this period and no habla Espanol but its an interesting topic.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Civil War in Spain
From: GUEST,^&*
Date: 25 Jun 10 - 05:09 AM

GUESTAda the Cadre

We've had quite a few threads on the Spanish Civil War here over the years. The main one is HERE - with lots of songs, mainly, of course, in English.