Lyr Req: Jingo Song / Macdermott's War Song

Subject: We don't want to fight
From: Paul
Date: 13 Dec 99 - 03:14 PM

The next line goes But by jingo if we do

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: We don't want to fight
From: Bert
Date: 13 Dec 99 - 03:28 PM

...We've got the ships, we've got the men, we've got the money too... & something about the Russians shall not have Constantinople.

My Dad sings that one but I can't remember any more offhand. I'll ask him.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: We don't want to fight
From: Murray on Saltspring
Date: 14 Dec 99 - 03:31 AM

It continues:
We've fought the Bear before, and while Britons shall be true,
The Russians shall not have Constantinople.
By G. W. Hunt (1829?-1904), a music-hall song of 1878. What the rest of the words are, and the tune, I have no info.

Subject: Lyr Add: JINGO SONG / MACDERMOTT'S WAR SONG
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Jan 03 - 09:11 PM

What with the current rush to war I thought it timely to revive this thread, and add the words of the song. The verses may be a bit out of date, but the general sentiment, especially of the chorus, seems to match pretty closely the rhetoric from the White House, with its echo in Downing Street providing a shrill descant:

JINGO SONG
The dogs of war are loose and the rugged Russian bear
All bent on blood and robbery has crawled out of his lair
It seems a thrashing now and then will never help to tame
That brute he's out upon the same old game.
The lion did his best to find him some excuse
To crawl back to his den again, all efforts were no use
He hungered for his victim, he's pleased when blood is shed
But let us hope his crimes may all
Recoil on his own head.
Chorus:
We don't want to fight but by jingo if we do
We've got the ships,we've got the men
And got the money too
We've fought the bear before
And while we're Britons true
The Russians shall not have Constantinople.

The misdeeds of the Turks have been spouted through all lands
But how about the Russians can they show spotless hands
They slaughtered well at Keever,in Siberia icy cold
How many subjects done to death we'll n'er perhaps be told.
They butchered the Circassians, man, woman yes and child
With cruelties their generals their murderous hours beguiled
And poor unhappy Poland. Their cruel yoke must bear
While prayers for freedom and revenge
Go up in to the air.
Chorus:
We don't want to fight but by jingo if we do
We've got the ships,we've got the men
And got the money too
We've fought the bear before
And while we're Britons true
The Russians shall not have Constantinople.

May he who began the quarrel soon have to bite the dust
The Turks should be thrise honoured for he has his quarrel just
Tis' said that countless thousands should die through cruel war
But let us hope most fervently not long it will be for.
Let them be warned old England, Is brave old England still
We've proved our might, we've claimed our right, and ever ever will
Should we have to draw the sword our way to victory we'll forge
With the battle cry of Britons, Old England and St George.
Chorus:
We don't want to fight but by jingo if we do
We've got the ships,we've got the men
And got the money too
We've fought the bear before
And while we're Britons true
The Russians shall not have Constantinople.
(Words taken from here.)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: We don't want to fight
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Jan 03 - 09:23 AM

Interestingly there was a piece in the Times of London not so long ago actually directly extolling jingoism as appropriate at this time, and quoting that song:

"Jingoism has become synonymous in the public mind with bellicose adventurism. But when the word first emerged, it encapsulated the essence of prudent foreign policy. In the words of the music-hall song which inspired the phrase: 'We don't want to fight, but, by jingo if we do, we've got the ships, we've got the men, we've got the money too.' And in that raucous chorus there lies more wisdom than in most contemporary pronouncements on foreign affairs."

I lifted that quote from this site which has a bit more about the circumstances that lay behind that song, as well as other stuff thta is of current relevance..

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: We don't want to fight
From: masato sakurai
Date: 25 Jan 03 - 10:45 AM

"The Jingo Song" in Forbes Stuart's Stries of Britain in Song (Longman Young Books, 1972, pp. 198-201; with tune) is a 4-stanza song. The second verse is:

The Turk has got his faults, of crime he bears the taint,
The Russian like sly Reynard, pretends to be a saint,
'Tis all for Christianity the heathen Turk he'll fight,
Altho' when told, and pretty plain, two wrongs don't make a right;
As peacemaker Old England her very utmost tried,
The Russians said they wanted peace, but then those Russians lied,
Of carnage and trickery they'll have sufficient feast
Ere they dare to think of coming near our Road unto the East.

~Masato

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: We don't want to fight
From: masato sakurai
Date: 25 Jan 03 - 11:00 AM

Correction: Stories of Britain in Song

An edition at Bodleian Library Broadside Ballads bears the title of "The Great War Song":

The great war song ("The "dogs of war" are loose and the ragged Russian bear ...")
Subject: Crimean War, 1853-1856
Harding B 15(122b)
Printer: [s.n.] ([s.l.])
Date: [s.a.]

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: We don't want to fight
From: masato sakurai
Date: 25 Jan 03 - 12:27 PM

Presumably "Subject: Crimean War, 1853-1856" is incorrect.

From THIS PAGE (Macdermott's War Song (1878), written and composed by G. W. Hunt):

Music-hall singer G. H. Macdermott (aka "the Great Macdermott") found this piece immensely popular at the London Pavilion during a diplomatic crisis in 1878. Both Macdermott and the songwriter G. W. Hunt took themselves seriously as commentators on foreign affairs, an opinion not necessarily shared by Britain's foreign-policy decision-makers.

We attempted to interest a corresponding member in rendering the musical score, but he disparaged it as "second-rate Gilbert and Sullivan."

The Russians eventually agreed to retreat from Bulgaria, restoring it and Macedonia to Ottoman Turkish rule. The withdrawal was considered a diplomatic triumph of Britain's Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, though it was not such a good deal for Balkan Slavs, hobbled by Ottoman misrule for another generation.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: We don't want to fight
From: masato sakurai
Date: 25 Jan 03 - 12:31 PM

The page linked to above has "temporarily made the musical score available."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: We don't want to fight
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Jan 03 - 01:40 PM

Cosmotheka used to lead audiences in singing this with great enthusiasm. Ironically, I hasten to add. Happy days.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: We don't want to fight
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Jan 03 - 07:19 PM

The line that makes the bombast so sordid and bathetic is that one about "We've got the money too".

If it had been something like:

"We've got the ships, We've got the men
So gallant and so true"

it wouldn't have left quite that nasty taste in the mouth. But then I doubt very much if anyone would remember it today.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: We don't want to fight
From: Joe_F
Date: 26 Jan 03 - 10:14 AM

The "score temporarily available" seems to be missing a page.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: We don't want to fight
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 26 Jan 03 - 09:19 PM

Here's another horribly topical one, written by a bloke called Charles Godfrey many years ago:

We're brothers of the self-same race
Speakers of the self-same tongue,
With the same brave hearts that feel no fears
From fighting sires of a thousands years;
Folks say, "What will Britain do?
Will she rest with banners furled?"
No! No!! No!!!
When we go to meet the foe,
It's the English-speaking race against the whole world.

And another patriotic one:

We are marching into the future, man by man,
We march for liberty through night and dread
With the flag of the youth for freedom and bread.
Our flag is right in front of us.
Our flag stands for the new time.
And the flag leads us into eternity,
Yes, the flag is more than all death!

Except I cheated there - the song didn't actually say "We march for liberty". It said "We march for Hitler".

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: We don't want to fight
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Jun 06 - 05:04 PM

I have rendered the �score temporarily available� mentioned above at into a MIDI file. You can listen to it here Macdermott'sWarSong2.mid
or on my own webpage
http://www.davidkidd.net/20plevna.html
The tune is in G but some of those chords are damned difficult to figure out. What on earth is E A C# G ? And what is B D G# Fnatural? Dm6? The arrangement has a fine Victorian Music Hall feel to it. My webpage is about the various British attitudes to the Russo-Turkish war and discusses Jingoism with lots of historical quotations.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jingo Song / Macdermott's War Song
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 24 Oct 13 - 03:43 PM

Nineteenth C. song sheet:

"Pop Him Into Limbo"

1
Our Queen woke up the other night
And filled the room with laughter,
She sang aloud, in sweet delight,
Now petticoats is master
The married women rule the roast*
Most excellent, by jingo
Give him six long months in quad
And pop him into limbo.
Now, if a man offends his wife,
He must pay twenty pounds by jingo
Or else for six very long months
They'll pop him into limbo.

and etc.

Song sheet in American Memory.

I'll leave it to someone familiar with the court case and the time to explain the song.