Remembrance/Armistice/Veterans day songs (Nov 11)

Subject: rememberence day
From: acegardener
Date: 09 Nov 10 - 04:56 AM

What is your favourite song for rememberence day. I like this one

On your maypole green
see the winding morris men
Angry Alfie, Bill and Ken
waving hankies, sticks and boots
- all the earthen runes
Standing at the crease
the batsman takes a look around
The boys are fielding on home ground
The steeple sharp against the blue
- when I think of you

Sam and Andy, Jack and John
Charlie, Martin, Jamie, Ron
Harry, Stephen, Will and Don
Matthew, Michael - on and on

We will remember them
remember them, remember them
We will remember them
remember them, remember them

Time has slipped away
The summer sky to autumn yields
A haze of smoke across the fields
Let's up and fight another round
and walk the stubbled ground

When November brings
the poppies on Remembrance Day
when the vicar comes to say
'May God bless them, every one
Lest we forget our sons'

We will remember them
remember them, remember them
We will remember them
remember them, remember them


Easy but effective little song to learn and perform, I expect the chords and such should be easy to find on any knopfler search.

Subject: RE: rememberence day
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 09 Nov 10 - 05:05 AM

Home Lads Home.

Subject: RE: rememberence day
From: GUEST,Sue
Date: 09 Nov 10 - 05:33 AM

As I've just replied on Facebook link: it's remembrance NOT rememberence - please do change title of this thread, it really makes me wince, which is probably not the reaction you're wanting!

And in reply, the hymn 'I Vow to thee my Country', although I confess that's really because of Holst's wonderful tune.

---------------------Done. JoeClone----------

Subject: RE: Remembrance day songs
From: acegardener
Date: 09 Nov 10 - 05:54 AM

As I've just replied on Facebook link: it's remembrance NOT rememberence - please do change title of this thread, it really makes me wince, which is probably not the reaction you're wanting!

Do you know for a minute there, I thought you was addressing some one who give a damn!

Subject: RE: Remembrance day songs
From: GUEST,^&*
Date: 09 Nov 10 - 05:58 AM

Do you know for a minute there, I thought you was addressing some one who give a damn!

Naah--- she's addressing the ones who give a dam.

Subject: RE: Remembrance day songs
From: Jeri
Date: 09 Nov 10 - 06:20 AM

I like the Knopfler song, but it's a bit confusing to me (probably cultural).
Keith, I also like the Cicely Fox Smith/Sarah Morgan "Home, Lads, Home".
Dick Gaughan's "Childhood's End". For a while, things seemed a bit more hopeful.

Subject: RE: Remembrance day songs
From: Jeanie
Date: 09 Nov 10 - 06:30 AM

"Needle and Thread" by Henry Clements (=Mudcatter HenryClem). The lyrics are here on Mudcat - and it's on one of Tom Bliss's CDs. Not a Remembrance Day song in the usual sense. It brings home the ongoing reality of what going to war means. It's a White Poppy, rather than a Red Poppy song.

- jeanie

Subject: RE: Remembrance day songs
From: Waddon Pete
Date: 09 Nov 10 - 06:33 AM

"Silver Queen" by our own Jerry Rasmussen.....

Best wishes,

Peter

Subject: RE: Remembrance day songs
From: Waddon Pete
Date: 09 Nov 10 - 06:37 AM

There's also 'Afternoon in August' written by Anthony John Clarke. There is a thread running on this song at the moment. Do give it a listen!

Best wishes,

Peter

Subject: RE: Remembrance day songs
From: breezy
Date: 09 Nov 10 - 06:43 AM

cf AJC thanks

Subject: RE: Remembrance day songs
From: breezy
Date: 09 Nov 10 - 06:51 AM

here

Subject: RE: Remembrance day songs
From: breezy
Date: 09 Nov 10 - 06:55 AM

Afternoon in August by Anthony John Clarke

Time was I would not wear the poppy
It belonged upon my parents' Sunday best
I had no time for remembrance or nostalgia
I found it easier to forget
As a young boy I'd not watch the old man marching
Or ask about the medal on his chest

Chorus

But that afternoon in August
When you drove me out to Arnhem
I saw Portland Stone and Hero
At its very very best

please check out the entire song on you tube if you have time

peace

Subject: RE: Remembrance day songs
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 09 Nov 10 - 08:10 AM

I tend to do "John Condon" at this time of year.

I *know* that JC was most likely 19 rather than 14 when he died, and that the body in his grave is probably that of a 34 year old from a different regiment, but the song still "resonates" with me.

Subject: RE: Remembrance day songs
From: GUEST,Square the Circle
Date: 09 Nov 10 - 08:10 AM

May I suggest Vimy by Canadian, Tanglefoot. "Raise your flask, aim your rifles high"

Subject: RE: Remembrance day songs
From: GUEST,ruairiobroin
Date: 09 Nov 10 - 09:43 AM

We tend to remember several
A nice peaceful one from 1970 Go home you Bums, moving on to The Men behind the Wire, from 1971, Quite a few about the Bloody Sundays,   
You'd have a lot less to remember if your German kings and queens and their cousins' armies had all stayed where they belonged.


On the eighteenth day of November ,
Outside the town of Macroom.
The Tans in their big Crossley Tenders
Were making their way to their doom
But the boys of the column were waiting
With handgrenades primed on the spot
And the Irish Republican Army
Made shite of the whole fucking lot

Subject: RE: Remembrance day songs
From: bubblyrat
Date: 09 Nov 10 - 10:25 AM

"If you want to see the Colonel, I know where he is".......

   etc.

Subject: RE: Remembrance day songs
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 09 Nov 10 - 10:40 AM

"Tommy's Lot", by Graeme Miles.

"Whitsun Dance", Trad/John Austin Marshall

Don T.

Subject: RE: Remembrance day songs
From: GUEST,Van
Date: 09 Nov 10 - 11:01 AM

Men Behind the Wire would be a most inapropriate song for Armistice day. Unless you are an Northern Irish Rebublican who admires the antics of the Provos in the Sixties/Seventies. As far removed from the concept of the Remembrance Day Service as you can get. To compare a bunch of thugs killing women and children in the name of,not freedom, but to join up with a country that doesn't want them as distinct from young men who met the enemy face to face to ensure we would not be governed by Fascists verges on the obscene.

Subject: RE: Remembrance day songs
From: GUEST,Lanfranc
Date: 09 Nov 10 - 11:29 AM

"Standing in Line" from June Tabor's album "Apples"
"The Statue" and "La Colombe" by Jacques Brel
"Lilli Marlene" because it was sung by both sides
"D-Day Dodgers" because my late father was one

Alan

Subject: RE: Remembrance day songs
From: Bounty Hound
Date: 09 Nov 10 - 11:47 AM

Probably stating the obvious, but no-one has mentioned it yet, Eric Bogle, Green Fields of France. Or the Steve Knightly song 'The Keeper' Or for a different point of view, how about John Richards 'The Deserter'

Subject: RE: Remembrance day songs
From: GUEST,Liane
Date: 09 Nov 10 - 12:01 PM

I immediately thought of Eric Bogle's "And the Band Played 'Waltzing Matilda'," even though he may have written it for ANZAC Day (25 April). It's the most powerful song I can think of about the first World War.

Subject: RE: Remembrance day songs
From: Sooz
Date: 09 Nov 10 - 12:15 PM

I usually sing Mike Harding's "Accrington Pals" around Remembrance Day. It is about the Somme but I think it fits well.

Subject: RE: Remembrance day songs
From: Young Buchan
Date: 09 Nov 10 - 12:19 PM

Tommy's Lot is by Dominic Williams, not Graeme Miles.

Subject: RE: Remembrance day songs
From: Ann N
Date: 09 Nov 10 - 12:24 PM

The Harvey Andrews song 'Margarita' always reminds me of my lost great-uncle, killed and never found in one of the early battle of WW1

Margarita Harvey Andrews

Subject: RE: Remembrance day songs
From: Terry McDonald
Date: 09 Nov 10 - 12:29 PM

I shall sing Jim Hanlon's 'Remembrance Day' and John McCusker's 'Will I See Thee More?' at Wimborne on Thursday

Subject: RE: Remembrance day songs
From: Young Buchan
Date: 09 Nov 10 - 01:00 PM

There's a simple little cross out at Mons;
Just a simple little cross out at Mons.
There's a little heap of stones that stands above the bones
Of Private William Jones, out at Mons.

And the cross is just a simple soldier's gun,
With the business end still pointing to the sun.
There's a bayonet 'cross the top, and it doesn't look a lot;
But now that's all he's got out at Mons.

And there are no pretty flowers on the grave;
And there is no fine memorial to the brave.
He's a hero so they say - but he's thrown his life away
For fourteen pence a day, out at Mons.


I found it amongst some music hall material. It was performed about 1919 (I think as a recital rather than a song) by a female performer whose name I have regretably lost.

Subject: RE: Remembrance day songs
From: olddude
Date: 09 Nov 10 - 01:05 PM

Here is one I wrote, such as it is ...
memorial day

I think the best is Kendall doing "and the band played waltzing Matilda"

Subject: RE: Remembrance day songs
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 09 Nov 10 - 01:41 PM

Leaves of Grass by Gordon Lightfoot is quite nice...If I were free to speak my mind..Tim Rush I think??? Last Halloween in France..Fires of Dieppe?? Calais I think...Banks of the Maury?? Fleurs of the Forest played on pipes...Long long trail awinding reminds people...mg

Subject: RE: Remembrance day songs
From: GUEST,selby
Date: 09 Nov 10 - 01:56 PM

the antelope by Mick Ryan and sung by him
spine tingling

Subject: RE: Remembrance day songs
From: Sailor Ron
Date: 10 Nov 10 - 09:28 AM

Les Sullivan's two sngs 'Menine Gate', and 'Flowers of nomans land', O & don't forget the sailors who died his haunting 'Jutland'.

Subject: RE: Remembrance day songs
From: Sandy Mc Lean
Date: 10 Nov 10 - 12:09 PM

Mudcatter Barry Taylor's Return Of The Unknown Soldier is one that I would pick:

Return Of The Unknown Soldier

Subject: RE: Remembrance day songs
From: Sandy Mc Lean
Date: 10 Nov 10 - 12:20 PM

Also credit to Steve S. Kelly for the above.

Subject: RE: Remembrance day songs
From: GUEST,Van
Date: 10 Nov 10 - 04:20 PM

Perhaps a bit of thread creep. Alocal steam train preservation society have just completed the restoration of the coach that brought the body of the unknown soldier from france to England.

Subject: RE: Remembrance day songs
From: Big Mick
Date: 10 Nov 10 - 04:37 PM

There are so many elements to this question, especially for those that have served and lost friends. But one that always comes to mind for me is Terry Kelly's "Pittance of Time". I love the fact that it doesn't make pronouncements about motives, but rather the cost of war, and the price that many payed. Sometimes we blame warriors for war, when often they are just young people doing a duty they feel they have to do, sometimes for patriotic reasons, sometimes for economic reasons, sometimes just because they were searching and ended up there. Regardless of the motive, the price was paid and we need to take the moment to remember and reflect. God be good to them all.

All the best,

Mick

Subject: RE: Remembrance day songs
From: mg
Date: 10 Nov 10 - 04:58 PM

ich hatt einen kameraden

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RVSfltrmbU&feature=fvsr

click

which says it all...another song never needs to be written in my opinion but I am glad if they are. mg

Subject: RE: Remembrance day songs
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 10 Nov 10 - 05:20 PM

Ich hatt'- excellent images on that one. The best song of the war.
Another linked below, because it has the words.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVpM8OPixds&feature=related

Subject: RE: Remembrance day songs
From: ragdall
Date: 10 Nov 10 - 05:30 PM

Many years ago I taught my Grade 3 students this song to sing at the Remembrance Day Assembly. (As everyone "fought for peace" it seemed appropriate.) I was pleased to find it is still being sung in the schools here at Remembrance Day Assemblies.

Last Night I Had The Strangest Dream
words and music by Ed McCurdy

Last night I had the strangest dream
I'd ever dreamed before
I dreamed the world had all agreed
To put an end to war

I dreamed I saw a mighty room
Filled with women and men
And the paper they were signing said
They'd never fight again

And when the paper was all signed
And a million copies made
They all joined hands and bowed their heads
And grateful pray'rs were prayed

And the people in the streets below
Were dancing 'round and 'round
While swords and guns and uniforms
Were scattered on the ground

Last night I had the strangest dream
I'd never dreamed before
I dreamed the world had all agreed
To put an end to war.

John Denver singing it on YouTube.

               rags

Subject: RE: Remembrance day songs
From: Commander Crabbe
Date: 10 Nov 10 - 06:27 PM

Try this one.

Thiepval*
By Micca, May 2002

Its Halloween midnight in the low lands of Flanders
A cold pale fog on the land it is spread
And out of the mist, come a marching and singing
Long gaunt files of men near a hundred years dead

They stand, parade order, by the building at Thiepval
And at the command each steps up and stands tall
And receives in his turn from the ghost Colour Sergeant
His name rank and number removed from the wall

Their spectral Officer call the dismissal
And grey NCOS give each man his paybook
They salute and depart from the grim fields of Flanders
Without a glance sideways or a backward look

They march away and their singing is fading
But long before dawn their home places they've found
And finally back, after nearly a century
Each man with relief can sink into home ground

And all over Blighty their names are erasing
From column, memorial and empty tomb
The lost and the missing that have no known resting place
Returning to lie in their dark native womb

And now here at Thiepval there stands a cold monument
Blank and unmarked made of pale Portland stone
Because all the men it was made to memorial
Have all returned home, to sleep still with their own

"There's a long, long trail a winding into the land of my dreams
Where nightingales are singing and a pale moon gleams"

CC

Subject: RE: Remembrance day songs
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 11 Nov 10 - 03:54 AM

Bogle's NO Man's Land is a fine song but not suitable for Remembrance I would suggest.
I regard it as patronising and insulting to the dead of WW1 to say that they knew not why they were fighting and that they died in vain.
Similarly the Waltzing Matilda song that asks why they are marching.

Subject: RE: Remembrance day songs
From: Phil Edwards
Date: 11 Nov 10 - 04:06 AM

Jon Boden agrees with bubblyrat, and I think I do too.

Subject: RE: Remembrance day songs
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Nov 10 - 04:20 AM

Ben Campbell's (words from a poem by Graeme Searl) 'Song of lost skies'

Subject: RE: Remembrance day songs
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 11 Nov 10 - 04:57 AM

For me it will always be Reg Meuross's beautiful song about Harry Farr, a young soldier shot at dawn. It's called '...and Jesus Wept' and it touched my soul so deeply the first time I heard it, a few years back.

Mike Harding has called this song one of the best he's ever heard concerning WW1. I agree. It moved me so much I made this page:

"...and Jesus Wept' by Reg Meuross - The true story of Harry Farr

If you open that link, please scroll down to the 'friends' section, then click on the wonderful page for dear Harry Patch.. It's beautiful.


Reg singing '..and Jesus Wept' - Youtube

Subject: RE: Remembrance day songs
From: G-Force
Date: 11 Nov 10 - 09:52 AM

'Remembrance Song' by Jake Thackeray. It's remarkable for being so different from what he's usually known for.

Subject: RE: Remembrance day songs
From: Liane
Date: 11 Nov 10 - 10:13 AM

"Bogle's NO Man's Land is a fine song but not suitable for Remembrance I would suggest.
I regard it as patronising and insulting to the dead of WW1 to say that they knew not why they were fighting and that they died in vain.
Similarly the Waltzing Matilda song that asks why they are marching."

Not to cause trouble here, and certainly no disrespect meant to the soldiers of World War I (who included my mother's father), but we remember that terrible war in part precisely because it was fought for reasons that were not always clear and because it accomplished so little. Instead of being "the war to end all wars," it set the stage for World War II, while essentially wiping out a generation of young European men. "The Waltzing Matilda song" is about Gallipoli, which, historians generally agree, was a badly-planned disaster for both sides.

All right, off my soap box!--I realize that this is a forum for music, not history.

Subject: RE: Remembrance day songs
From: Gozz
Date: 11 Nov 10 - 10:41 AM

I'm with Liane (and a few others) on the "Band Played Waltzing Matilda" suggestion. I did it one year on this date at a folk club and it seemed to all the more powerful a song for the singing on that day.
Another suggestion would be "The Old Barbed Wire" which and old friend of mine used to sing up in North Devon.

Subject: RE: Remembrance day songs
From: GUEST,keith A
Date: 11 Nov 10 - 01:43 PM

Old Barbed Wire has already been mentioned, and I agree.
It is an authentic song of the war rather than a modern song written from a late 20th Century perspective.

Subject: RE: Remembrance day songs
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 11 Nov 10 - 02:12 PM

'Lay Me Low' - Coope Boyes & Simpson - Youtube

'Only Remembered' - CB&S

Subject: RE: Remembrance day songs
From: Singing Referee
Date: 11 Nov 10 - 02:35 PM

Guest at 4:20am was me!

Subject: RE: Remembrance day songs
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 11 Nov 10 - 03:27 PM

Dancing At Whitsun



      It's fifty long springtimes since she was a bride
      But still you may see her at each Whitsuntide
      In a dress of white linen and ribbons of green
      As green as her memories of loving

      The feet that were nimble tread carefully now
      As gentle a measure as age do allow
      Through groves of white blossom by fields of young corn
      Where once she was pledged to her true love

      The fields they stand empty, the hedges grow free
      No young men to tend them or pastures go see
      They have gone where the forests of oak trees before
      Have gone to be wasted in battle

      Down from the green farmlands and from their loved ones
      Marched husbands and brothers and fathers and sons
      There's a fine roll of honour where the maypole once stood
      And the ladies go dancing at Whitsun

      There's a straight row of houses in these latter days
      Are covering the downs where the sheep used to graze
      There's a field of red poppies, a wreath from the Queen
      But the ladies remember at Whitsun

      And the ladies go dancing at Whitsun

It is relevant, although it mentions Whitsun, it's about the widows and girl friends, of those who never returned from the green fields of France.
I love this song, and sing it whenever I feel like it. No point waiting till the correct time, to sing a good song, is there?

Subject: RE: Remembrance day songs
From: GUEST,Gail
Date: 11 Nov 10 - 03:31 PM

My favourite Eric Bogle song is 'All the Fine Young Men' but I'm inclined to agree with Keith A that today's not the day for those songs.

Liane says "we remember that terrible war in part precisely because it was fought for reasons that were not always clear and because it accomplished so little."
Well yes and no. All the fine young men may well have been misled and betrayed but that doesn't diminish their personal loyalty, courage and desperation when faced with fear and horror. That's what moves me on November 11th, not the merits/demerits of particular wars/policies and that's why, just for one day, my favourite song isn't the right one.