No Man's Land/willie McBride-rap version?

Subject: RE: No Man's Land/willie McBride-rap version?
From: oldhippie
Date: 11 Nov 12 - 08:51 PM

Perhaps the confusion is due to a rap artist named Willie McBride, who can be found on soundcloud. But he does not perform the Eric Bogle song.

Subject: RE: No Man's Land/willie McBride-rap version?
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 12 Nov 12 - 04:50 AM

Somebody else who can't take what he dishes out regularly and at great length

Whatever I may question here, be it No Man's Land or the religiosity of the Folk Movement as a whole, I never attack anyone personally. As we've seen on this thread people have been quick to take offence, which you've used as an opportunity NOT to defend the subject in question (about which you made your own feelings clear on in your Cat Among the Pigeons post of 10 Nov 12 - 06:59 AM), but to launch an entirely unprovoked and wildy inaccurate personal assault on me.

I so not dish it out. If you (or anyone else) takes personal offence at what I write here, then I suggest you actually bother to read it before flying off the handle with a barrage of petty insults and entirely false assusations (themselves based on half-remembered misinterprations of things I said years ago). Here's a novel idea, Jim - why not try actually discussing the issue at hand for a change? Could be interesting. But no - I guess even your response to this will be along the usual you-are-a-twat-and-an-armchair-tosser-who-demolishes-rather-than-builds-and-your-so-called-music-is-shit-because-I-was-once-a-member-of-the-critics-club-now-I'm-out-of-here-so-don't-even-bother-replying lines.

Oh, and my earlier comment Hey - I don't preach. I urge & inform. was meant in jest. I'm sorry I didn't make this clear enough by inserting a smiley face.

Subject: RE: No Man's Land/willie McBride-rap version?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 12 Nov 12 - 05:22 AM

"I never attack anyone personall"
By sweeping aside without qualification academics, folkies, collectors children playing Irish music.... whoever, you dismiss whatever work they might have done on their subjecy out of hand, and the snidey, sneery, pompously verbose way you do just that is as personal as it gets.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: No Man's Land/willie McBride-rap version?
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 12 Nov 12 - 06:33 AM

you dismiss whatever work they might have done on their subjecy out of hand

A slight overreaction here, Jim. I have never dismissed anything out of hand, just pointed out (from time to time) that class-condescension & patronisation are inherent in the underlying assumptions of The Folk Revival as a whole. It's there for all to see - an essentially bourgeois / academic movement founded on the appropriation & subsequent taxidermy & taxonomy of working-class art which is anathema to the nature of the art itself - much less to the culture that gave rise to it.

Tradition = John England singing The Seeds of Love as he goes about his daily duties.
Revival = Cecil Sharp collecting The Seeds of Love, making a parlour piano arrangement to perform to his posh mates that self same evening.

So what? I've read the books, I've research in the libraries, I've collected in the field, and I've even attended & performed at academic conferences. The best academics, like the best Folkies, are all too aware of this state of affairs and the ethical complexities arising therefrom. Indeed - they revell in it.

*

And if I find the idea of state-sponsored prescribed folk correctness anathema to the root cause & innate radicalism of working-class musical creativity, then please forgive my enthusiasm for a music defined primarily by social context than aforementioned stare sponsored folk correctness. The working-class will always have their music - just it might not seem that way (or be of any interest to) folkies, which is what partly moved me to join in with this thread in the first place, reacting to the usual folk-righteous dismissal of one of the most significant & dynamic traditions of popular music making ever to emerge: greater than Folk, greater than the Blues, yet implicity a product of both infused with the inspirations of German electronica in general (and the genius of Kraftwerk in particular).

I first became aware of Hip-Hop in 1980 when a friend came back from New York laden down with 12" mixes of a music that really made me sit up and listen. 32 years on, I'm still listening to Hip-Hop and 'Rap Music' in a state of reverential awe - always amazed at the inventive vernacular genius manifest in wondrous diversity on both sides of the Atlantic, even in Japan and France. Nothing Folk has to offer comes close to this vibrancy, except, of course, the primal numinescence of this thing we call The Tradition.

So - let's talk, eh, old man? But if all you're going to offer is another barrage of Feck! Arse! Girls! then perhaps best not bother.

Subject: RE: No Man's Land/willie McBride-rap version?
From: kendall
Date: 12 Nov 12 - 06:46 AM

Everyone is entitled to my opinion. (David Brinkley)

Subject: RE: No Man's Land/willie McBride-rap version?
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Nov 12 - 08:17 AM

will you guys never learn - dont feed the Troll!

Subject: RE: No Man's Land/willie McBride-rap version?
From: johncharles
Date: 12 Nov 12 - 08:45 AM

I have searched the web and been unable to find a rap version of Willie Mcbride. No one else seems to have found it . Therefore the answer to the initial enquiry is to look elsewhere.
As to the merits of Willie Mcbride as a song, this is a value judgement with mawkish at one end of the continuum and a meaningful and moving anti-war song at the other; find your own position on the line.
Historians are still debating whether soldiers died in vain 100 years after the event so I doubt we will resolve that one here. This debate is also current in terms of the worth of soldiers fighting a war in Afghanistan.
John

Subject: RE: No Man's Land/willie McBride-rap version?
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 12 Nov 12 - 09:01 AM

A Troll in Mudcat-speak is simply someone who dares suggest that a difference of opinion is a worthy thing - certainly worthy of discussion and civilised argument - but instead all they manage is to raise the righteous ire of the mob & their righteous agitators with accusations of being 'Hostile' and a 'Tosser!' etc. etc. I'm still optimistic enough think of Mudcat as a civilised & erudite forum where such debate is possible - just as long as Jim Carroll stays off the Windolene.

The only true Trolls around here are the faceless GUESTS who post such unthinking sloganeering as don't feed the troll with the purpose of causing bother. Sorry for feeding him, but I'm also optimistic enough to believe there's a least a shread of humanity worth fighting for around here...

What do you, reckon, Elmore???

Subject: RE: No Man's Land/willie McBride-rap version?
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 12 Nov 12 - 09:24 AM

Historians are still debating whether soldiers died in vain 100 years after the event so I doubt we will resolve that one here.

My point is that whatever the benefits of hindsight, one should respect the fact that countless ordinary soldiers such as Private Willie McBride have made the ultimate sacrifice in good faith, and are thus worthy of greater respect than the song is suggesting. War is a human reality - it's not nice, nor yet is it desirable, but we will always need heroes like Willie McBride whose courage in the face of such an overwhelming hell I cannot even begin conceive of, much less dare to comment on other than with absolute respect.

I am not, nor yet will I ever be, a pacifist. And whilst back in the 80s I actively marched & supported CND in fear of my country becoming an unsinkable air-craft carrier for the Yanks, I nevertheless regard PEACE as much as a middle-class myth as FOLK. Indeed, the last time I inspired as much mobbish righteousness as this is when I dared to wear a Red Poppy at a Storytelling event...   

Songs such as My Boy Jack, Banks of Sicily and Ford o' Kabul River resonate with the respect and honour of human experience that is entirely lost in the mawkish agenda of songs like No Man's Land. I know in saying so I'm paraphrasing what I've already said, but having been accused of being an agitating hostile nasty old tosser-cum-troll-fol-de-rol for saying it, I feel it bears repeating in the hope people might have settled down by now.

Subject: RE: No Man's Land/willie McBride-rap version?
From: GUEST,Grandad8
Date: 12 Nov 12 - 10:01 AM

Perhaps in one or two hundred years popular songs we hear now will become folk songs because of what I have quoted below collected from various sources. Imagine then in a pub a grand gentleman of 90 saying "let me sing you a folk song passed down to me its called "Yesterday" or how about a song called "Stan" (Eminem)

A hundred years before the new millennium when there were no mechanical recording devices a singer would sing the song and if it meant something to the listener it would be remembered.
'Handed down from generation to generation are the songs of the people; some of these songs have a history of which the true origin will never be found.
Twenty years before the new millennium the general opinion was that to qualify as a folksong it must have spent part of its life out of print and in the mouths of singers. This is of course a definition to which no two folksong enthusiasts would agree making it difficult to lay down a firm set of rules saying whether a song is a folksong.
'We cannot shut our eyes', wrote a Dorset collector of songs. 'To the fact that the old traditional songs are fast dying out. Boys educated at a National School think it almost beneath their dignity to sing the ungrammatical, unrhythmical and unpoetical songs in which their fathers and forefathers delighted.' Another collector had the same fears when he wrote. 'The old traditional songs are fast dying out, never to be recalled. They are now seldom or never sung, but rather remembered, by old people.' The greatest collector of folksongs Cecil Sharp declared that 'the last generation of folk singers must have been born not later than sixty or seventy years ago - say 1840.'
Collectors of songs thought that they had heard the swan song in the pre-1914 era but they were wrong. 1960 saw a great folksong song revival.
Labourers, milkmaids, people in service would sing the songs because for them they were too an escape from the harsh realities of life. They treated the songs as an escape into nostalgia and for Heather she experienced the same feelings, the songs were a powerful communication from the past. (Quotes collected from various sources)

Subject: RE: No Man's Land/willie McBride-rap version?
From: kendall
Date: 12 Nov 12 - 10:16 AM

Willy McBride points out the stupidity of war.

Subject: RE: No Man's Land/willie McBride-rap version?
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 12 Nov 12 - 10:49 AM

Collectors of songs thought that they had heard the swan song in the pre-1914 era but they were wrong. 1960 saw a great folksong song revival.

This isn't strictly true. What the collectors were interested in was the tail-end of a vibrant culture of working-class song making in a particular idiom (which, as Sam Lee & others have demonstated, isn't quite dead yet!) - whereas the Great Folksong Revival (which began somewhat earlier than 1960) is something very different indeed. This is why there is a very clear demarkation between 'Traditional Singers and 'Revival Singers', though there is a persistent conceit amongst certain members of the latter that what they are doing is 'Continuing The Tradition', but nothing could be further from the truth.

This isn't to devalue what the Revival has done, and is continuing to do, just to say that one thing it most certainly ISN'T doing is continuing the tradition. Indeed, one might argue that The Revival has done much to obfuscate the vibrancy of Traditional Folk Song by an over association with other musical idioms (singer-songwriter / MOR pop / rock derivations etc.) in the name of Folk. Though no purist - I'd say myself that the only way to experience the pure beauty of a Traditional Folk Song is to listen to a Traditional Singer singing it.

Songs like Yesterday & Stan are products of respective traditions of working-class song-making every bit as vital as that which gave us 'Folk Songs'. Both of these songs and the people who made them have inspired & redefined the traditions that gave rise to them. Both were masters of their respective arts who raised the bar for successive artists to rise to. In rock this lead to all sorts of developments (where would the glories of Prog be without The Beatles??) and in Hip-Hop you can hear how Eminem's edgy storytelling & exacting use of language & sampling have inspired dozens of artists who followed him, both great & small. Kanye West is an obvious example, but I've heard virtuoso street rappers in London, Manchester and Liverpool who have seized upon Eminem's vibrant style and taken it even highter - and I'm talking kids as young as 12 here.

This music - Popular Music - is truly living & vibrant vernacular tradition; wheras Folk is a revived idiomatic hobby that operates at several very significant cultural & social removes from The Tradition that it supposedly revives. Maybe that accounts for its curmudgeonly passions and fundamentalist religiosity? Who knows? But don't get me wrong I've been a Folkie since the age of 11, and 40 years on I'm a Folkie still; I only feel the need to add such qualifications least one of my accusers comes along howling about me belittling 'their kind of music' rather than just trying to keep things in perspective.

Subject: RE: No Man's Land/willie McBride-rap version?
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 12 Nov 12 - 10:56 AM

Willy McBride points out the stupidity of war.

The songs makes that assumption for sure; for Pte. W. McBride (and millions like him down the aeons of human history fighting to defend heath & home) it wasn't stupid in the slightest. This is why I hate the song & its sentiments, because it assumes a position of idealistic moral correctness which has nothing to do with the real world in which war is a grim necessity to which we owe our present freedoms.

Subject: RE: No Man's Land/willie McBride-rap version?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 12 Nov 12 - 11:00 AM

There are interesting disagreements, and there are tantrums. Tantrums are a waste of energy and time.
................
I make no secret of who I am.

So post in your own name, and stick to it. Or don't...

Subject: RE: No Man's Land/willie McBride-rap version?
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 12 Nov 12 - 11:38 AM

Tantrums, McGrath?

And who I am has nothing to do with my name. On Mudcat, I've had a few over the years, but most people here go by assumed names - so why just stick to the one?

That said... Jack Blandiver is a name I chose back in summer & I've been consistent with it ever since, though I dropped the Mudcatter Formerly Known As Suibhne O'Piobaireachd early on. Although I emailed Joe Offer in good faith back in June, he refuses to change it, or even acknowledge my request. I'm not too bothered about the weird laws, hierachies and attendant sycophancies that go on around here; Mudcat is a great place for a blether with the rank & file and a fine resource and good place to just lurk, soaking up the wit & wisdom. So until Pope Joe honours my request, I'm happy being GUEST Blandiver.

Subject: RE: No Man's Land/willie McBride-rap version?
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 12 Nov 12 - 11:43 AM

To the OP of this thread...

I'm so sorry about all of this, Barry. I bet you wish you'd never bothered, eh? If that rap version of No Man's Land ever does turn up, you will be sure to let us know, won't you? Hell, I'm even thinking of recording it myself...

Subject: RE: No Man's Land/willie McBride-rap version?
From: johncharles
Date: 12 Nov 12 - 12:36 PM

Many made the sacrifice in good faith, many realised they had been sold the old lie, dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, and some who were pushed beyond their limit were shot by their own side for "cowardice".
john

Subject: RE: No Man's Land/willie McBride-rap version?
From: Allan Conn
Date: 12 Nov 12 - 06:36 PM

"war is a grim necessity to which we owe our present freedoms." But the song is specifically about WWI. I think many people, and not just Bogle and a few idealists, would struggle to understand why the said war was a necessity? As well as WWI it also evokes Flodden. Bogle showing his Scottish Borders roots. Flodden was another completely unnecessary conflict. Germany wasn't threatening British freedom in the run up to WWI and likewise England wasn't directly threatening Scottish freedom in the run up to Flodden. I take it you are not suggesting all war is necessary?

Subject: RE: No Man's Land/willie McBride-rap version?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 12 Nov 12 - 09:53 PM

Tantrums? Precisely. And the trouble is, tantrums lead to tantrums. Which I suppose is often the intention.
........................................

Bogle's song in no way "disrespects" the soldiers who lie beneath the "countless white crosses", and who really did believe that this was, in the words of a book by HG Wells written in 1914, "The War That Will End War". Tragically it turned out that this was not only wrong but the reverse of the truth. It was the war that provided the mainspring of wars of one sort and another that are still continuing today after nearly a century. But recognising that in no way "disrespects" those who died in that belief or that hope. On either side.

Subject: RE: No Man's Land/willie McBride-rap version?
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 13 Nov 12 - 06:00 AM

But recognising that in no way "disrespects" those who died in that belief or that hope.

I disagree. It's both disrepectful and patronising to address historical hindsight and hippy revisionism to a casualty of an admittedly unpleasant circumstance, but one who nevertheless gave his life in very good faith. War to end wars? Very nearly, if one views the events of the first half of the 20th century as a continuity culminating in the development of the atomic bomb, which has kept the international 'peace' for nigh-on 70 years.

I take it you are not suggesting all war is necessary?

War is integral to human nature & culture, as might be demonstrated by a grance through the history books and a casual analysis of the actual nature of aforementioned 20th / 21st Century 'peace' - and a consideration of the price we've had to pay for it. That said, I shudder to think how things might have been if a) Nazi Germany had developed the bomb first or b) if it hadn't been developed at all.

I must admit, I'm torn on this one. Part of me is still the old green-punk anarcho-peacenik who once marched to Sun Ra's anthemic hip-hop inspired Nuclear War, yet part remains the cynical realist for whom The Groundhogs' folk-acoustic blues Thank Christ For the Bomb still rings true to this day. Would that things were ever so simple, eh?

Mostly though, my gripe is with folkies dissing Hip-Hop, which is of infinitely greater musical, artistic, human, cultural, historical & commercial relevance than Folk will ever be. It's also about having had to put up with being preached at by these two Eric Bogle songs for the last nigh on 40 years when all I ever wanted in a folk club was to drink beer, smoke fags and bask in the hearty glow of a bunch of revivalist traddies singing Traditional Folk Songs & Ballads. The Medium is the Message. I have the same gripe with a good number of such songs actually - and artists - but this is neither the time nor the place.   

It's also not a tantrum, just a bit blether to pass a cheery half-hour's procrastination over more pressing matters to which I must now, alas, address myself as my deadline looms...

Subject: RE: No Man's Land/willie McBride-rap version?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Nov 12 - 07:08 AM

While the song is evoked by "Willie McBride" - it's not really addressed to him. It's about a man generations later talking to himself, sharing the kind of thoughts that are inescapable for most of us when we go to visit one of the amazing war cemetaries in Flanders and around. You walk around among the rows of gravestones and look at the names and try to make some sense of it all.

There's no "hippy revisionism" in it. (The idea of Eric Bogle as a hippy is indeed bizarre...) You know that if you'd been there then you'd probably have joined up and shared the hope that it would somehow make things better - and likely enough it would be you lying there now.

The belief that this was to be "The War that will End War", so widely and generously and hopefully held at the time, turned out to be a cruel illusion. Even those few people who still see it as a justified war, "a cruel necessity" would mostly share this judgement, I would suggest.

But it just didn't end wars, it gave birth to wars. The Second World War, the Russian Revolution, the splintering of the empires in Europe and the Middle East, the Balfour Declaration and its consequences... No doubt there would have been wars since then - but the wars we have had have very largely had their root in the events of 1914-1918. That was the history that was chosen. One in which we can indeed
"shudder to think how things might have been if ... Nazi Germany had developed the bomb first".

And maybe mourn for a world in which there never was a Nazi Germany, never was a Holocaust and a Second World War... and in which those heartbreaking war graves across Northern France and Belgium, and Great War memorials in every town and village never needed to come into being.

Subject: RE: No Man's Land/willie McBride-rap version?
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 13 Nov 12 - 08:21 AM

I hear what you're saying - and with no little sympathy believe you me - but sadly there's a world of difference between what is & what ought to be. As an old mate of mine once said the only way humanity will ever stop fighting among themselves is when an Extra Terrestrial intelligence shows up either to enslave us, enlighten us, or give us a common enemy on which to focus our aggressions. Meanwhile, the worst, I fear, is yet to come. I keep watching the skies in hope...

Subject: RE: No Man's Land/willie McBride-rap version?
From: kendall
Date: 13 Nov 12 - 09:43 AM

I repeaT, WAR IS THE ULTIMATE FAILURE.
Damn few wars are about freedom.

Subject: RE: No Man's Land/willie McBride-rap version?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Nov 12 - 10:36 AM

I don't think it's aggression that drives us to fight wars, most of the time. I doubt if it would have been aggression that would have driven Willie McBride and the others to their deaths, any more than it is for those fighting in Afghanistan. On either side.

Subject: RE: No Man's Land/willie McBride-rap version?
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 13 Nov 12 - 10:58 AM

A fragment of a piece I was working on earlier which in the light of the present discussion I've called Nullius Ager (No Man's Land)...

http://soundcloud.com/sedayne/nulliusager

Subject: RE: No Man's Land/willie McBride-rap version?
From: kendall
Date: 13 Nov 12 - 11:02 AM

War is usually about territory or resources.

Subject: RE: No Man's Land/willie McBride-rap version?
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 13 Nov 12 - 11:13 AM

All human life is about territory and resources.

Subject: RE: No Man's Land/willie McBride-rap version?
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Nov 12 - 11:14 AM

Surely Nullius Terra would be No Man's Land, Nullius Ager is No Man's Farm.
John

Subject: RE: No Man's Land/willie McBride-rap version?
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 13 Nov 12 - 11:25 AM

Blame Google Translate!

I thought Ager was Farm, but then I thought of Kipling's The Land, which is essentially about a farm - and the M R James story A Warning to the Curious which features one Willian Ager. No Man's Land was farmland that became farmland once more; and much of our own farmland is reverting to wilderness - the once fecund corn fields in which I romped in as a child have lain untouched for decades & their once proud hedgerows are all dead.

Subject: RE: No Man's Land/willie McBride-rap version?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Nov 12 - 11:25 AM

Not really - "fundus" would be a more normal normal Latin word for farm; ager is more "territory" or maybe better "field" - as in battlefield as well as field on a farm.

Subject: RE: No Man's Land/willie McBride-rap version?
From: GUEST,anonymous
Date: 13 Nov 12 - 11:38 AM

"War is integral to human nature & culture"

Blandiver, I suggest reading this article by Paul K Chappell, a wonderful speaker and veteran of the Iraq war.
Humans are not naturally violent towards each other.

Subject: RE: No Man's Land/willie McBride-rap version?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Nov 12 - 12:08 PM

"Terra Nullius" would be the term for territory that belonged to no one in the sense that it was, for example an unoccupied desert island. It was term grotesquely applied by the newcomers to Australia in the 18th century.

The Great War sense of No Man's Land for devastated ground in between two opposing armies is however a different one. I wouldn't think there was anything really analogous in Roman warfare. "Nullius ager", or perhaps "ager nullius" would seem an excellent choice.

Subject: RE: No Man's Land/willie McBride-rap version?
From: Elmore
Date: 13 Nov 12 - 12:57 PM

The tone of this thread has improved a bit since last I looked at. It's much better since I participated in it. My latin is quite rusty, I'm afraid. Later.

Subject: RE: No Man's Land/willie McBride-rap version?
From: GUEST,Warren Fahey
Date: 13 Nov 12 - 04:33 PM

As Eric Bogle's record label for well over 30 years (we must be the folk industry's longest marriage going from my earlier label, Larrikin, to my current folly, Rouseabout Records)I found this topic irresistible. There's been a long history of parodies of Eric's main songs, especially No Man's Land and Matilda...... one even used Matilda for a song about a racehorse. Did you know REM recorded it and, for a time, were considering releasing it (Eric had already planned on how he'd spend the dosh). EVERYTHING is fair game in songwriting. Bring them on - the good, the bad and the really ugly. It's the process.
PS: I hadn't heard my mate Fintan Vallely's adaption but it's a corker.
PS2. Eric tells me he is working on a new album for 2013 release - rust never sleeps...... ?

Subject: RE: No Man's Land/willie McBride-rap version?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Nov 12 - 06:03 PM

I suspect this might be the source of the misunderstanding that gave rise to this thread B.o.B - No Mans Land
..................................

I don't think that rap/hiphop, call it what you may, could be a musical approach that really fits with the meditative mood that underlies Bogle's song, and that is so appropriate to its story. (Not always reflected in the way it gets sung either.) Rap/hiphop is too declamatory. Too like a certain style of preaching, you could say.

Rap/hiphop is essentially one aspect of folk music. It's right to be aware of its strengths. But we shouldn't trap ourselves into seing just one part of the folk spectrum as uniquely significant, whatever part that might be.

Subject: RE: No Man's Land/willie McBride-rap version?
From: GUEST,Blandiver
Date: 13 Nov 12 - 06:46 PM

There's a lot of really chilled understated hip-hop out there. I'd dispute it being 'folk' as such (no more than I'd call any other pop music genre Folk - apart from Folk that is!) though Japan's Dragon Ash certainly weave in some acoustic-folky textures which aid the reflective nature of their joints. Try this for starters:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4-2vml9I9E

In translation:

Grass and trees become green, flowers colorfully bloom.
Seasons come by again. A comfortable spring day,
With out anything to do I think by myself
in the tree lined street.
The days go by without any break.
I am struggling to manage myself here.
Sometimes, let's live a life
Without thinking so deeply.
Morning comes, the sun rises again.
Outside the window the south wind
blows the pain in my heart.
Shall the tears I shed in the past days
be pulled into my unconsciousness.
what is important is the light,
I'd like to stay here a bit more.

WE GO EVERY DAY, let's go with laughter
To the direction of the shining light
heading into the open future ahead.
WE GO EVERY DAY, let's go with laughter
Like pouring water into a vase
my wishes please be granted.

Subject: RE: No Man's Land/willie McBride-rap version?
From: Elmore
Date: 13 Nov 12 - 07:15 PM

Attn Warren Fahey: Thanks for the information on Eric's new album. I'm really looking forward to it. Perhaps he could include a rap song. He's written several hilarious songs over the years. Also, I wish he'd reconsider his decision to stop touring. After all, Leonard Cohen is 78, and is according to the Portland Oregonian, "at the peak of his career."

Subject: RE: No Man's Land/willie McBride-rap version?
From: bradfordian
Date: 03 Nov 16 - 03:52 PM

Ok, found it(not that I've been looking very hard these past 4 years). --It's that time of year now.
Sacrilege or not, it's there, you makes your choice!

From this thread

To be 'spoken' (or 'rapped') un-accompanied in 4/4 time, to the backing of a bodhran...


Well, how's she hangin', young Willie McBride?
Can I stop for a smoke, to take me out of my stride?
And just sit here and chill, and bring the World to a stop,
'Cos I've been ramblin' through the fields, and I'm ready to drop?
So you were only a kid when you went to the war,
Was it your first time abroad, and you didn't know the score?
And at the risk of soundin' morbid, I would like to say
That I hope it happened quick, when you got sent on your way.

Or was it all like a dream, where you got carried aloft
With the drummers at attention, and the pipes blowin' soft?
Was the sun goin' down, did you capture the mood?
As the speeches were read, did it make you feel good?

Now, did you have a babe before you went to the fight?
Did she lie by your side, and give you love every night?
Did she ask you on her knees, to never forget her?
Did she ask you to become a concientious objector?
Or is your picture pasted into an old photograph book,
With no-one knowing why, or when, or where it was took?
Were your intentions pure, was your heart filled with pride?
Was there a smile on your face, was there a gun at your side?

And did they beat? ..... you know the rest.
Did they drape the flag and beret, and the gloves on your chest?
And did they party, to send your soul on its way?
Did they fire the salute as you went into the clay, eh?

Well, I'm sittin' here, Bill, and it's a fabulous day,
The mushies are up, and everything is OK.
There aint no tanks, nor no poisonous gases.
Just lines and lines, and lines of white crosses.
And this cemetery's full of people like you,
That Governments uprooted, and told what to do.
Did they really give a shit about your plans and your dreams?
As your lights went out, did they hear your screams?

Well, how about it man, did the hat go around,
As your mutilated body went into the ground?
Were you banner headlines, were you front page news?
Did the heads of state come and pay their dues?

Well Willie, I'm sorry, I can't figure it out.
Did your next-door neighbours, here, check it all out?
Did they believe all the bullshit and the lies and the crap,
That for once and for all, you'd blow the Hun off the map?
Well, I don't know if you get to see the tube where you are,
But we haven't really come along the road very far.
And all over this planet; Listen to me, Liam
The words are different, but the song is the same.

And did they sing it... did they sing it again?
Do your unborn children ever mention your name?
Are you happy now, or do you feel like a prat?
If you could have it again, would you do it like that?

Subject: RE: No Man's Land/willie McBride-rap version?
From: GUEST,DeanofRochester
Date: 04 Nov 16 - 04:08 AM

Thank you for the lyrics ... the folk process in action .... I think they're really strong .. well done to the writer