CET

You Said

"Well, Cdr Crabbe, it seems to me that Murray has it right, and that your response is a bit petulant. If you sing the song the way you punctuated it, you are singing gibberish. Kavangh's work deserves the respect of getting the punctuation (and the meaning) right."

Well

I haven't denied that Murray has it right. The punctuation he put up is correct. It's just that the punctuation Kavanagh used for the poem is difficult for the tune "Dawning of the Day" which is most popularly used for singing it.

Murray also says "notwithstanding the fact that most people mistakenly sing it the way he (my goodself) punctuated it". This is presumably because that is the way it best fits with the tune.

As Tootler said it's not easy to sing because of the phrasing. So it needs to be chosen carefully to convey the meaning correctly, which as I said, I endeavour to do, so as to avoid it being the gibberish you say it becomes.

May I re-iterate that if I ever read it as a poem I will punctuate it the way Kavanagh wrote it. Also when I sing it I will do my best to convey the true meaning out of respect for his work.

To my knowledge I am not aware that either Murray (or your good self) have actually heard me sing it. So I fail to see how you could judge my performance of Raglan Road based on the placing of two commas. That said, if you have, then comment away. All constructive criticism is gratefully received.

If I actually charged money for my performances and you had witnessed them then I might accept the criticism as fair game.

It is also some kind of rare talent to be able to determine petulance from an inert line of text on a forum.

Like I said "while I choose to sing it, I'll arrange it and perform it any way I want" If you, Murray or in fact anyone witnesses my performance and doesn't like it, feel free to tell me in person straight away. I don't mind if you do.

However, as you feel qualified to make judgement about me based solely on a comment made on this forum. Then I'm sure you will not object if I point out that your spelling of Kavanagh is not quite right.

Please be assured that I personally don't care if this is down to lack of ability or that you forgot to review your message before posting it.

Yours, fairly objectively but not very petulantly or pedantically.

Commander Crabbe