Some years ago, there was a kind of a copyright-related argument about a book title, "No Pope of Rome", derived from a Rangers song which I haven't heard for a while. To the tune of "Home on the Range", it went: "Oh --- no Pope of Rome, No chapels to sadden my eyes, No nuns and no priests, And no Rosary beads, Every day is the Twelth of July" The author of the book imagined that this stuff was an example of "the folk process in action"; but he was sued by the author, apparently prepared to own up to having composed these lines. I've heard Celtic fans shouting their own version of this, which goes: "Oh---------------- Pope of Rome! And chapels to sadden (sic) my eyes, There's nuns and there's priests, And Rosary beads, And we don't have the Twelth of July" Recently, on a bus passing Celtic Park ("The dear old Paradise..."), I heard a new one which shows that the wordsmiths keep abreast of current affairs. To the air of "Comin' round the mountain" (or, in Glaswegian, "Ye cannae shove yer grannie aff a 'bus"), the sartorial admission, "I'd rather wear a turban than a Sash..." (part of the apparel of the Orange Order - like white gloves and black bowler hat - as its members celebrate the anniversary of a battle three hundred years past by marching with increasing unsteadiness through the streets of Glasgow escorted by hundreds of Polis and cursed by thousands of delayed motorists) Finally (just to sweep some more related material together), mention of Jock Stein - manager of Celtic at or about the same time as a certain Colin Stein played for Rangers - brings to mind a song I heard as a child, the last line of which I still find hilarious, though I doubt that wasn't the intention: "We hate Jock Stein and Davie Hay, We hate the Pope and the I.R.A., We've got Greig and we've got Stein, And Her Majesty (pause) The Queen"
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