The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #117587 Message #2977014
Posted By: Young Buchan
31-Aug-10 - 06:04 PM
Thread Name: Song Sung Wrong
Subject: RE: Song Sung Wrong
Decca Mitford called a volume of autobiography A Fine Old Conflict because, she claimed, when her Nanny used to take her for walks through Hyde Park Corner she thought the Communists were singing 'It is a fine old conflict, let each stand in his place' rather than 'It is the final conflict...'
Actually I've always been rather doubtful about that story because British communists normally sang the translation which goes 'Comrades come rally, and the last fight let us face, till the Internationale unites the human race', rather than the Final Conflict translation which is popular in America (where of course she lived in later life).