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The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?

04 Apr 10 - 06:06 AM (#2879265)
Subject: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: matt milton

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


04 Apr 10 - 06:12 AM (#2879267)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: John MacKenzie

The Roses O' Prince Charlie


04 Apr 10 - 06:52 AM (#2879275)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: Herga Kitty

Was it actually Ryan Kelly singing it on the Archers?

Kitty


04 Apr 10 - 07:07 AM (#2879277)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: Jane Bird

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"?


04 Apr 10 - 07:40 AM (#2879287)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: GUEST,Derek Schofield

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


04 Apr 10 - 08:14 AM (#2879300)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: The Borchester Echo

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.


04 Apr 10 - 08:17 AM (#2879302)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: Ruth Archer

I'd book him.


04 Apr 10 - 08:46 AM (#2879315)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: John MacKenzie

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.


04 Apr 10 - 08:59 AM (#2879320)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: The Borchester Echo

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
.


04 Apr 10 - 10:36 AM (#2879345)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: John MacKenzie

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.


04 Apr 10 - 11:01 AM (#2879355)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: theleveller

Bloody royalty - who needs any of them!


04 Apr 10 - 11:02 AM (#2879356)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: The Borchester Echo

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)


04 Apr 10 - 12:51 PM (#2879422)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: John MacKenzie

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-


04 Apr 10 - 01:11 PM (#2879431)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: The Borchester Echo

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.


04 Apr 10 - 03:21 PM (#2879517)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: GUEST,Abbul not yet hame

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


04 Apr 10 - 03:32 PM (#2879525)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: The Borchester Echo

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.


04 Apr 10 - 07:22 PM (#2879649)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: Ruth Archer

Personally, I blame the ketamine.


05 Apr 10 - 06:01 AM (#2879861)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: John MacKenzie

Homilies are us


05 Apr 10 - 08:22 AM (#2879922)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: Les from Hull

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


05 Apr 10 - 09:10 AM (#2879945)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: Jack Campin

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.


05 Apr 10 - 09:31 AM (#2879955)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: GUEST,johnp

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.


05 Apr 10 - 10:27 AM (#2879978)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: matt milton

"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.


05 Apr 10 - 11:29 AM (#2880019)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: Jack Campin

Good tune, though.


05 Apr 10 - 12:09 PM (#2880039)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: The Borchester Echo

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.


05 Apr 10 - 01:30 PM (#2880090)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: Herga Kitty

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


05 Apr 10 - 07:42 PM (#2880322)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: The Borchester Echo

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).


05 Apr 10 - 07:56 PM (#2880329)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: Jack Campin

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


06 Apr 10 - 02:42 AM (#2880473)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: The Borchester Echo

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.


06 Apr 10 - 05:05 AM (#2880511)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: sian, west wales

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


06 Apr 10 - 05:21 AM (#2880516)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: The Borchester Echo

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


06 Apr 10 - 06:08 AM (#2880536)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: GUEST,johnp

"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.


06 Apr 10 - 06:26 AM (#2880542)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: The Borchester Echo

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.


06 Apr 10 - 06:45 AM (#2880546)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: The Borchester Echo

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.


06 Apr 10 - 07:19 AM (#2880566)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: Hamish

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.


06 Apr 10 - 07:45 AM (#2880575)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: GUEST,johnp

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!


06 Apr 10 - 07:54 AM (#2880580)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: Ruth Archer

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."


06 Apr 10 - 08:17 AM (#2880594)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: The Borchester Echo

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.


06 Apr 10 - 08:52 AM (#2880623)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: GUEST,johnp

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


06 Apr 10 - 09:07 AM (#2880631)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: Jack Campin

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.


06 Apr 10 - 09:12 AM (#2880633)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: The Borchester Echo

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.


06 Apr 10 - 09:18 AM (#2880635)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: Zen

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)


06 Apr 10 - 09:21 AM (#2880637)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: The Borchester Echo

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?


06 Apr 10 - 09:51 AM (#2880658)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: The Borchester Echo

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.


06 Apr 10 - 09:58 AM (#2880666)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: Zen

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?


06 Apr 10 - 10:07 AM (#2880674)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: The Borchester Echo

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.


06 Apr 10 - 10:14 AM (#2880681)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: Mavis Enderby

So don't get drawn in - simple.


06 Apr 10 - 10:23 AM (#2880687)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: Zen

Link to the lyrics for anybody interested.

Not my personal cup of tea but offered for information.


06 Apr 10 - 10:25 AM (#2880692)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: The Borchester Echo

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.


06 Apr 10 - 10:44 AM (#2880705)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: Jack Campin

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.


06 Apr 10 - 11:25 AM (#2880729)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: The Borchester Echo

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.


06 Apr 10 - 11:55 AM (#2880747)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: Jack Campin

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.

It is banal, and I don't particularly like it (still less do I like John MacKenzie's politics, as he presents it here). But it isn't a reactionary anthem as you're representing it.

It has the great merit, compared with any of the Brian McNeill songs you're recommending, that it doesn't drone on for long enough to threaten the audience with pressure sores in the bum.

I know June Tabor has been to Scotland at least once, as I've seen her here (about 15 years ago). But if she told you that way of spelling Coulter, that either Roses of Prince Charlie or Coulter's Candy was a Glasgow song, or that The Jeely Piece Song was traditional, she didn't spend long enough up here to learn very much.


06 Apr 10 - 12:49 PM (#2880787)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: The Borchester Echo

As I said, I had a discussion with June Tabor soon after she'd come down with a history degree(c 1969). She pointed me to contemporary sources of the Jacobite campaigns, in particular graphic descriptions of the slaughter at Culloden which every armchair BPC worshipper should be compelled to read. No, we did not talk about Glasgow children's street songs nor the output of Adam McNaughtan (why would we?) who wrote a song about throwing jelly sandwiches out of the window. This may be a traditional practice but the song is copyrighted to him.

As for Roses For Prince Charlie, I did not describe it as "reactionary" merely a tad tedious and banal. If you wish to engage with me, kindly take note of what I actually say.


06 Apr 10 - 12:52 PM (#2880790)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: Ruth Archer

It certainly sounded like him - and given that he has in the past been a musician and a singer (and studied music at school), I'm betting it was him.


06 Apr 10 - 01:15 PM (#2880813)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: GUEST,johnp

Jack Campin
I may be the troll in question
I quite like the song, the words are bland the tune is good.
1. I am not a Show of Hands fan
2. I was unaware of Lizzie Cornish until I starting looking at this forum recently. As to whether she is mad I am not qualified to say.
3. I detest Terreblanche and his politics but I do not take delight in the murder of any human.
4. "chauvinisam" (The Borchester Echo) this is a spelling mistake I believe.
I apologise if I have been guilty of trolling and will leave this thread now and allow the rest of you to get on with it.


06 Apr 10 - 01:18 PM (#2880816)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: Jack Campin

She pointed me to contemporary sources of the Jacobite campaigns, in particular graphic descriptions of the slaughter at Culloden which every armchair BPC worshipper should be compelled to read.

I've probably read the same ones (and descriptions of the slaughter at Prestonpans, which I might have thought was more to the point). But so what? To decide whether a particular song is likely to be a rallying point for some violently reactionary present-day grouping, the history of two centuries ago is not that relevant - you need to know how present-day mass culture works. And it seems Tabor didn't inform you too well on that, if in fact she knew anything about modern Scotland.

Since at least Carlyle's time, the historic figure used as a rallying point by the Scottish far right has not been BPC, but Wallace. And songs haven't come into it to any significant degree (in Scots Wha Hae, Burns was writing in code about Thomas Muir, and the message seems to have got through to the fascists that that song is not one of theirs). When an Australian fascist film-maker gets hold of the Carlylean myth and spends millions going global with it, that is a matter of concern. Braveheart has got people hurt.


06 Apr 10 - 01:33 PM (#2880822)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: John MacKenzie

My politics are my own business, but I will say that Ms Echo is wrong in her definition of them.


06 Apr 10 - 01:41 PM (#2880826)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: The Borchester Echo

I wrote:


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.


Had I written "chauvinisam" it would indeed have been a spelling mistake. However I did not. I notice however that I made a typo when writing Coulter's Candy and at last comprehend what Jack Campin is on about. No, it is not how June Tabor told me to spell it. We absolutely did not mention it.

I think it was established rather a long time ago that the tune of Roses for BPC is quite OK when played by a marching band but the words are crap. Jazzer could have chosen better.

The guest johnp wrote some time ago: "Show of hands are talented musicians who produce some interesting material". He took a somewhat unheathy interest in MLC (and even more alarmingly in Eugene Terreblanche) and can't spell "harassment".


06 Apr 10 - 01:50 PM (#2880832)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: The Borchester Echo

it seems Tabor didn't inform you too well on that [present-day mass culture], if in fact she knew anything about modern Scotland

My conversation with Ms Tabor was, as I said, about Jacobitism. Not modern Scotland. And it was 40 years ago. After it I researched Scottish balladry though probably not as much as she did.

Now piss off, I'm going out.


06 Apr 10 - 02:04 PM (#2880843)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: The Borchester Echo

To decide whether a particular song is likely to be a rallying point for some violently reactionary present-day grouping . . .

Eh? Not what I said AT ALL. My point about gooey, rose-tinted, Jacobite romanticism was that it engendered INACTION. "Sitting in your council house dreaming of you clan . . . free heavy beer and pie suppers in the sky . . . "

Yes, I've read the accounts of Prestonpans too. All BPC sycophantic gushers should be forced to.

I don't intend to engage with Jack Campin any further. His Humpty-Dumpty style of misreading reminds me too much of someone else. And the question's been long since answered.


07 Apr 10 - 04:41 AM (#2881204)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: GUEST,Wanderer

Chill out Borchester echo, and go and have a cuppa with Mrs. Snell. Jazza's song was a lot better then Ghostbusters and the feeble attempt at Michael Jackson. He definatley got my vote.


07 Apr 10 - 09:32 AM (#2881335)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: GUEST,bert fry

I agree with wanderer, Borchester Echo chill out, cause even though we can be heard almost every day of the week, we are only figments of a script writer vivid imagination !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


07 Apr 10 - 11:57 AM (#2881422)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: GUEST,Ed Grundy

Leave my mate Jazzer alone!
Love it when people who REALLY know what they're talking about take Ms Echo to task for the disinformation she habitually spreads in such an aggressive manner. Poor June Tabor must curse the day she ever got embroiled in a conversation with this person.


07 Apr 10 - 12:25 PM (#2881450)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: The Borchester Echo

Right E Grundy. Wait till I get an opportunity to slate your trashy C&W. If I could be arsed to review it, that is.

As for June Tabor, she was talking to me about Scottish history and balladry in the VWML. Some cloth-eared Scot called Campin seems to have been eavesdropping in a highly inattentive way and is trying to make out that we talked about rubbishy kids' street songs and the not particularly very funny "comic" output of Adam McNaughtan. This was absolutely not the case. This Scot obviously has some problem with June Tabor's work. Be that as it may, it has no place in a thread in which the OP is merely requesting the origins of Roses for Prince Charlie. Which was done and dusted long ago. A banal Corries copy not worth the time spent on it.

Furthermore, I mentioned that my information came from Ms Tabor (and not from some highly biased, hap't in romanticism Scot) because she had, at the time, recently graduated in history and was thus an impeccable source.


07 Apr 10 - 01:40 PM (#2881497)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: GUEST,Ed Grundy

Ooh go on, please review my trashy C&W. I'm intrigued, though, where would you review it (if you were to review it)? You keep bragging about being a journalist but apart from some bits and pieces in a couple of obscure publications in about 1937 you don't appear to get anything published.


07 Apr 10 - 02:38 PM (#2881547)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: Mavis Enderby

My earlier advice still stands.............


07 Apr 10 - 03:10 PM (#2881563)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: greg stephens

How come Jazzer hasn't been doing this sort of thing before round Ambridge? We have become used to people having personality transplants according to whatever Vaness Whitbuirn thinks might be good for making the Archers more "relevant", but this sudden acquisition of talent without any previous practise is odd.Or have I missed something previouly with Jazzer singing at the Bull?
What will be the next thing? Brenda Tucker's other life as a famous sculptor with her own show at Tate Modern? Pip and Jude's tap-dancing duo?
Maybe all this is preparory to another addition to the "celebrity folk" package we see developing at folk festivals these days. Perhaps a Mark Radcliffe/Adrian Edmundesn/Jazzer super(?)group?


07 Apr 10 - 03:25 PM (#2881575)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: Jane Bird

Jazzer played his bagpipes at the fete last summer. Don't you remember?


07 Apr 10 - 06:37 PM (#2881707)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: The Borchester Echo

It's a quarter of a century since I was retained as a music columnist and as I never contributed to Idiot's Guide To Veal Calf Butchery, it is unsurprising that "guest E grundy" is unaware of my output. My most recent job was translating contracts for a brewer about to set up in francophone Africa and last Easter (I remember clearly because of the need to haul the commissioner into the Small Claims Court for non-payment) was some tripe about homeopathy. Such is the varied life of a freelance writer / translator.

I sometimes dream of the day when it becomes unnecessary to castigate a certain brand of bloke as a patronising, purposeless prat but as this is far from dawning, I know not if I will ever turn again to music journalism. However I have never reviewed rubbishy stuff I dislike, preferring to return tickets / merchandise, so the chances of my touching a trashy C&W CD are less than zero.

A musician friend remarked to me the other day that the very thought of Mudcat rendered him, simultaneously, suicidal and homicidal . When aforementioned patronising prats on Mudcat mistake a perfectly reasonable (though not very edifying) query about a song in a soap as an invitation to assess the relative merits (?) of Corries / M Jackson covers in a parody of a TV "talent" show, I see what he means and despair. As someone else also remarked recently: home taping didn't kill music. Downloading won't kill music. But a Simon Cowell ethos and dumbed-down media trashing scarcely encourages the British people to treasure their cultural heritage or even take it seriously. I sure as hell won't be "chilling out" till the tradarts get the funding, support and recognition they deserve.


07 Apr 10 - 07:18 PM (#2881739)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: John MacKenzie

Nah, I see you more as Arlene Philips than Simon Cowell.


08 Apr 10 - 04:03 AM (#2881919)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: Gervase

I see what he means and despair
You're not alone. I sometimes wish my passion was shared by more normal people - just imagine, one could be a trainspotter or a twitcher and not be embarrassed to admit it in public.
I do often wonder how a lot of the British posters on this forum would score on this test.


08 Apr 10 - 04:59 AM (#2881949)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: Rusty Dobro

Which 'Archers' character was it who sang 'Barabara Allen' in an Ambridge talent contest in the late 1950's/early 1960's?


08 Apr 10 - 06:18 AM (#2881984)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: greg stephens

I missed Jazzer's pi[ping. WEhat else can this Renaissance man do? He's very good at making up stupid bits of Scottish dialect, too.


08 Apr 10 - 08:18 AM (#2882037)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: GUEST,Bert fry

EEeee Borchester Echo, you ort to pair up with Dave Kidman, you'd make a wonderful couple !!!!!!!(shudder, shudder)


15 Apr 10 - 08:05 AM (#2887120)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: Marje

Just to answer a couple of points related to the Jazzer character: the actor is in fact a Scot, although I agree that he lays it on a bit thick. Anyone who'd lived in the west of England for as long as he has would no longer be likely to stick to the Scots pronunciation and dialect words as he does, as they'd so frequently fail to be understood.

And as to why we haven't heard him sing before: some years ago, Jazzer used to be a singer in a band with Fallon. An ill-advised experiment with the drug ketamine caused him to suffer some brain damage. How could they tell, you're asking? Well,after this incident it was alleged he could no longer remember the words to songs, so he stopped singing with the band. (Sudden thought: he could have carried on his singing in folk clubs, though, couldn't he?) The brain damage did not, alas, alter his tendencies to lechery and to extreme Scottish pronunciation (I'm not suggesting for a moment that these two are connected).

So either his brain has spontaneously regenerated its memory capacity, or this is a song he's known since he was a wee tot and it's never been erased from the database.

This has been a public sevice announcement for the information of Archers listeners everywhere.


15 Apr 10 - 08:13 AM (#2887129)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: Rob Naylor

It's all Greek to me.

I thought the Archers had all died in a fire or something in the 1950s. Are you telling me it's still going?


15 Apr 10 - 09:24 AM (#2887179)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: Jack Campin

And this thread is still going on? Oh well...

As for June Tabor, she was talking to me about Scottish history and balladry in the VWML. Some cloth-eared Scot called Campin seems to have been eavesdropping in a highly inattentive way and is trying to make out that we talked about rubbishy kids' street songs and the not particularly very funny "comic" output of Adam McNaughtan. This was absolutely not the case. This Scot obviously has some problem with June Tabor's work. Be that as it may, it has no place in a thread in which the OP is merely requesting the origins of Roses for Prince Charlie.

To recap how this started: Diane's initial comment on the song was:

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.

I pointed out that that was wildly wrong - none of the three is in any sense a traditional Glasgow children's song, and neither "Coulter's Candy" nor "The Jeely Piece Song" is in any way tartan-chauvinistic. (The origins of "Coulter's Candy" get an interesting chapter in Ewan McVicar's book on Scottish children's songs, "Doh Ray Me When I Was Wee" - the sort of thing Malcolm Douglas might have written).

Diane's response is to say I must be wrong because her friend the torch singer was told the Jacobites were crap on a college course 30 years ago.

When I point out that there appears to be a certain lack of logical relevance here, the response is a lot of flailing bluster.

The main place I've seen this kind of rhetorical strategy before is in polemics from British Trotskyist sectlets, like the Workers Revolutionary Party. Maybe we should be told the late Corin Redgrave's line on Glasgow song culture.

BTW I rather doubt Ronnie Browne wrote the tune for "Roses of Princes Charlie" (which is the good bit of the song). Any earlier sightings of something similar?


15 Apr 10 - 09:44 AM (#2887190)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: Jack Campin

Further point: I don't follow The Archers so I don't know what sort of character Jazzer is, but this thread demonstrates that if he was the sort of guy who liked winding the middle English up, that song was a great one to pick. Well done those Brummie scriptwriters for a nice piece of characterization.


15 Apr 10 - 12:50 PM (#2887307)
Subject: RE: The song Jazzer sang on the Archers?
From: Marje

Still going? How could The Archers not be still going? You don't ask whether cricket is still going, or allotments, or beer, or fish and chips.

And it's traditional - I think I have said this before, but it's older than most folk clubs, deals with many of the topics popular in folk song (lambs, the local pub, harvest, pregnancy, death, adultery, etc) and has a country-dance-type signature tune. It'll still be going when we have all moved on to that great singaround in the sky.

Marje