Subject: RE: Lyr Req: German Happy Birthday Song
From:
GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 21 Nov 04 - 10:26 PM
Condenced from several pages.
There is a cross-cultural confusion when one begins to mix Anglo celebrations with Germanic tradition.
I like William Manchester's historical works. His bias is usually less apparent than in the following narrative. In my mind, this particular cultural blind spot has spawned a trepidation in the reading of all his other pages and pages of hard wrote research. The loaded-words, and connotative insinuations flow from this piece of prose.
It also, illustrates that Germans have a hard time with Anglo songs/traditions/celebrations of praise.
Manchester, William The Arms Of Krupp, William Brown and Co., 1968, pp 776-780.
'By January 24, 1967 Arndt was in his thirtieth year....he anticipate his approaching middle age by throwing postwar Germany's biggest birthday party as lavish gesture of self-esteem. "The scene was Humplmayr's and it was beyond doubt the most extravagant ball in the history of the establishment." "The Reich has seen nothing like it since the Fuhre's fiftieth birthday on April 20, 1939….The dance opened according to formal protocol....There had been a few changes since then, but the oldest rule of all still held; length of bloodline took precedence over resonance of title.
" A clock struck zwolf. Abruptly the dancing stopped completely, There was an embarrassed pause..One group was from London.- they sang. One chorus had been especially popular the autumn after Arndt's birth, and back in the United Kingdom some of the singer's parents sill identified it with Munich:
For he's a jolly good fellow,
For he's a jolly good fellow . . .
And so said all of them. But their host, master of six tongues, was momentarily nonplussed. Hesitating in mid-step he asked Fraulein Neff, "Was is das fur eon Fielding?" She was speechless. She couldn't tell him what the little song was.Hildegarde was as sophisticated as Arndt.To his lovely partner he whispered again, 'Was is das fur ein Liedchen?" (He had now concluded that it was a ditty.) She shook her head, they exchanged a blank glance, and the Briton, who had been watching carefully held a mirthful conference. They raised their tenors in a reprise lentissimo. Their puzzled host stared at them, people from a faraway country of which he knew nothing.
Sincerely,
Gargoyle
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