BS: Any popular 'winners' ?

Subject: RE: BS: Any popular 'winners' ?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Apr 06 - 07:02 PM

Death provides winners with (folk) status which winning itself probably wouldn't. And losers are very likely to be on course for that status to begin with

For the loser now will be later to win...

Subject: RE: BS: Any popular 'winners' ?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 18 Apr 06 - 12:35 PM

I'd like to point out that death does not prevent "winner" status. A soldier's (sailor, airman, etc.) has the duty to kill the enemy, or to take a given bit of territory, or protect his comrades, and so forth. "Winning" does not require survival.

That said, how about Colin Kelly? How about Rodger Young?
A hero who sacrifices his own life to achieve success in his mission is hardly a loser. The popularity of the songs about Kelly and Young demonstrates that the public didn't consider them losers.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Any popular 'winners' ?
From: Bert
Date: 18 Apr 06 - 12:27 AM

Microsoft

Subject: RE: BS: Any popular 'winners' ?
From: Bert
Date: 18 Apr 06 - 12:25 AM

Eisenhower? Eisenhower???

Shouldn't he be on the loser's thread. After all it was his failure to control his prima donnas Monty and Patton, that lost us the battle of Arnhem.

Subject: RE: BS: Any popular 'winners' ?
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 17 Apr 06 - 09:40 PM

Ultimately, the only real winner is Death, and there've been plenty of songs written about him.

Subject: RE: BS: Any popular 'winners' ?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Apr 06 - 05:50 PM

"but I can't think of any about Wellington."

Having said that,I checked with the Digital Tradition, and here is one, and a good one: With Wellington we'll go:

The eighteenth day of June, my boys, Napoleon did advance
With the choicest troops that he could raise, within the bounds of France
With the glittering eagles showing all around, and proud to face the foe
But the British lions they tore their wings on the plains of Waterloo

cho: So with Wellington we'll go
So with Wellington we'll go
For Wellington commanded us
On the plains of Waterloo

That's just the first verse and chorus. To the tune of "a-hunting we will go". (I've modified the last line of the verse to match the version in Karl Dallas's "The Cruel Wars" - "British lions" seems more likely than "British lines" in a song like this.)

Subject: RE: BS: Any popular 'winners' ?
From: alanabit
Date: 17 Apr 06 - 04:59 AM

Thanks DMcG. It is always comforting to discover that the age of spin did not begin with New Labour!

Subject: RE: BS: Any popular 'winners' ?
From: DMcG
Date: 17 Apr 06 - 03:15 AM

Agincourt: Our king went forth to Normandy .. the version I know is MUCH longer.

Subject: RE: BS: Any popular 'winners' ?
From: alanabit
Date: 17 Apr 06 - 03:06 AM

It's very British to lose and to be proud of our defeats. We have "The Grand Old Duke of York",which celebrates an igmominious defeat at the beginning of the Revolutionary Wars. We commemorate the Charge of the Light Brigade and Dunkirk - probably because we lost. However, there really are no songs I know of, which commemorate Marlborough's victory at Blenheim of the battle of Agincourt. Glorious failure seems to be the British thing.
I am moved to wonder whether Sir Francis Drake ought not to have been born an Irishman. Then we would certainly have some songs, which celebrated the victory over the Armada!

Subject: RE: BS: Any popular 'winners' ?
From: Bill D
Date: 16 Apr 06 - 09:45 PM

"winners" songs are like "requited love" songs...the happy victors are too busy with the spoils to do a lot of clever song writing. The losers are off composing wicked ditties about how unfair it all was.

Subject: RE: BS: Any popular 'winners' ?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Apr 06 - 08:13 PM

Being burned at the stake is a pretty extreme form of winning. (And of course the preveding victories were victories against a seemimngly stronger foe. In fact they were literally regarded as miraculous by the French, and as witchcraft by the English.)

I'm not disputing that winning can make you popular, even when you are on the stronger side. But it doesn't seem to translate into hero status so far a songs or legends go. Jack the Giant Killer is the hero, not Giant the Jack Killer.

Subject: RE: BS: Any popular 'winners' ?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Apr 06 - 07:43 PM

Joan of Arc, when she broke the British siege of Orleans, and at a number of subsequent victories, was a winner so popular that she had attained a virtually superhuman status in the eyes of the French. She may also be numbered among the most tragic losers by her later capture, trail, and execution. As such, she has inspired many songs, movies, books, and other commemorative works.

Subject: RE: BS: Any popular 'winners' ?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 16 Apr 06 - 07:11 PM

I dunno - its that Prince Hal and Falstaff thing.
to be a winner like Prince Hal, you're a probably a bit of shit - I think Shakespeare implied that, and he wasn't daft.

Subject: RE: BS: Any popular 'winners' ?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Apr 06 - 02:30 PM

Battle of New Orleans really falls into category of the underdog beating the favourite. (After the war was supposed to be over, but that was because they didn't have mobile phones and suchlike in those days. But it mustn have been frustrating for the winners - like putting the ball into the net and getting it disallowed, so it couldn't have any effect on the result.)

Those winners Little Hawk gave there might have been popular with at least some people, but they didn't really register when it came to songs and suchlike.

There are plenty of good songs about Napoleon in the traditions of the British Isles, centring on his defeats (and on the whole rather sympathetically), but I can't think of any about Wellington. Or Patton, MacArthur, Montgomery or the rest of the crew.

One of the few cases I can think of where, on the face of it, the victor is celebrated is that of Santy Anna - sung of as having "won the day" while "General Taylor ran away", which is of course the reverse of what actually happened.

It still seems to me that if your victory isn't an amazing surprise, or you don't get killed in the process of winning, you'll never make it as a song hero.

Subject: RE: BS: Any popular 'winners' ?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Apr 06 - 11:25 PM

Wellington was certainly a popular winner. So were Patton, MacArthur, Montgomery, Eisenhower, General Zhukov (in Russia, anyway), George Washington, the Marquis De Lafayette, Richard the Lionhearted, Julius Caesar (popular with some, but not all), Alexander the Great, Napoleon (most of the time)...

Seems to me winners are almost always popular, but tragic deaths in battle make for great songs, as do the tragic sinkings of ships.

Subject: RE: BS: Any popular 'winners' ?
From: Teribus
Date: 15 Apr 06 - 09:50 PM

I think Wellington was a fairly popular winner having knocked seven bells out of the French in Spain and in the South of France he went to Vienna and managed to get an agreement out of all the countries present to abolish slavery, this process was interupted by Napoleon's 100 days, which came to grief at Waterloo within 96 hours of Napoleon leaving France via Charloi.

Subject: RE: BS: Any popular 'winners' ?
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Apr 06 - 09:45 PM

'I Fought the Law' by the Clash.

Didn't win anything, but they are winners just the same.

Subject: RE: BS: Any popular 'winners' ?
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Apr 06 - 09:38 PM

just because we didn't win
doesn't mean we didn't lost..!????????/






[f*cked if i know either.. too many double negatives..]

but i dont care who i won a wll faught manly battle to
unless they are measly city folk lawyer bastards
who can constanly rewrite the rule book
to fit their own evil ruthless ends

Subject: RE: BS: Any popular 'winners' ?
From: GUEST,john 'donovan' wayne
Date: 15 Apr 06 - 09:28 PM

remember the alamo

Subject: RE: BS: Any popular 'winners' ?
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Apr 06 - 09:15 PM

Oh come on now, sometimes great songs win.

I forget the year, but Ray Charles won a Grammy gong for Best R & B song for 'I Can't Stop Lovin' You'. That's a great song by a great artist.

Ditto "By the Time I Get to Phoenix" by Glenn Campbell. He may look bad in the mugshot, but that was a great song and Campbell did it brilliantly.

Go.

Subject: RE: BS: Any popular 'winners' ?
From: GUEST,heric
Date: 15 Apr 06 - 09:11 PM

I've got one: "Battle of New Orleans." (What do I win?)

Subject: RE: BS: Any popular 'winners' ?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 15 Apr 06 - 09:10 PM

Torville and Dean

how do they manage on all that slippy ice. i love Jane Torville, by the way.

Subject: RE: BS: Any popular 'winners' ?
From: Bobert
Date: 15 Apr 06 - 09:09 PM

Rocky Balboa...

Subject: BS: Any popular 'winners' ?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Apr 06 - 09:06 PM

There's a current thread BS: Most popular historical losers... which was started by LittlemHawk with the remark and question:.


While it is the winners who are usually most popular after great historical conflicts, and the losers are usually condemned or looked down upon in some way...there are some notable exceptions to that.

So, who are the most popular figures from lost battles and/or lost causes?

A good thread, which threw up all kinds of interesting stuff. But it occurred to me that, when it comes to songs at any rate, in fact it's almost always the losers who win out.

I can hardly think of a single song that has made it into the repertoire which celebrate the winners, except in the special case where the winners get killed in the process, like Nelson or Wolfe, or Admiral Benbow - and maybe a few cases when the winners are people who hadn't a chance of winning, but somehow pulled it off anyway. The folk like underdogs and fallen heroes.

And when I said as much and asked for suggestions, no one seemed to have any.

So I thought I'd start up a thread specifically asking the question. About the only one I can think of that might qualify is "Marching through Georgia".

But, unless there's a fair amount of thread drift, I think this one is going to be a pretty short thread.

And yes, I've put this in as BS, even though it's about songs - but the other thread was BS too, so I thought this should be in the part of the forum where it'd be more likely seen by people who have read that one.