Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 14 Feb 12 - 06:41 PM

Charley, that's roadkill.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 14 Feb 12 - 06:37 PM

"That's why they can't make Mandy lay."

Eggs-actly!

Charley Noble

Subject: Lyr. Add: On the Road Amanda Lay
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 14 Feb 12 - 06:23 PM

ON THE ROAD AMANDA LAY
Airfarcewon, sung by Frank Sinatra

She kinda looked like Abe Vigoda
Had a nose like Jimmy "D"
But that busty broad from Burma
Was a body, Yessiree!

I was cruisin' past some palm trees
On my happy Honda way
When I almost dropped my slurpee
On the Road Amanda Lay
On the Road Amanda Lay

On the Road Amanda Lay-ay
Asked, "Could we?" She said "Okay."
Thunder struck with awe and wonder,
As her love she tossed my way..

On the Road Amanda Lay
Yes, it was my lucky day
So I fooled around and funned her
She was Gothic in her way.

It was someplace east of L. A.
Where our passion was dispersed.
Disobeyed all ten commandments,
But I think that chick was cursed
Cause across the road a'runnin'
Came a big dude packin' heat
He was yellin' and a shootin'
Bullets flyin' at my feet.

On the Road Amanda Lay-ay
Guess her luck ran out that day
Quickly hopped back in my Honda
And like Nascar zoomed away..

On the Road Amanda Lay-ay
It's too bad but what's to say?
Just glad I'm not six feet under
Where soon will Amanda Lay..

On the Road Amanda Lay.. ...


http://www.amiright.com/parody/60s/franksinatra55.shtml

This site has parodies and misheard lyrics.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 14 Feb 12 - 06:02 PM

Billie Bennett parody of Mandalay:
http://www.epicure.demon.co.uk/mandalay.html

The chorus-
On the road to Mandalay
Where you see the fried fishes play.
They bring their own chips with them
When it's early-closing day.

I can't bring myself to post this parody. One verse:

There's a farm on the horizon Looking eastward to Siam
We could have some ham and eggs there, if they had some eggs and ham
They've only got one hen, they call her "Mandy" by the way
They found out she's a cock- That's why they can't make Mandy lay.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 14 Feb 12 - 04:28 PM

Outrageous!

Obviously "The Road to Paroday" was not paved with good intentions.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 14 Feb 12 - 03:34 PM

...genteel..., that is.

There seems to be a parody, On the road to Mandeville (location of the asylum for the insane in Louisiana.

Subject: Lyr. Add: ON THE ROAD TO DONGOLAY
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 14 Feb 12 - 02:56 PM

Lyr. Add: ON THE ROAD TO DONGOLAY

In a little town called London,
Far away, and o'er the sea,
There's my own best girl a' waiting,
And I know she waits for me.
How I'd like to spend an evening
In the same old cheery way,
But there ain't no songs nor suppers
On the road to Dongolay

On the road to Dongolay
Where the ancient railway lay,
How they toiled, and moiled and sweated,
Just to make one mile a day.
Chorus:
On the road to Dongolay
Where the dying camels lay,
And the sun struck down like hell-fire
And gfrew hotter day by day.
2
Shif me somewhere south of Sarrass,
Where the medal roll begins,
And aman wipes out his sins,
And there ain't no wine nor women,
And a man wipes out his sins.
I begin to think it's gospel
What I've often heard them say,
That when once you tast Nile water
You won't never go away.

On the road to Dongolay, etc.

Literary Notes, Star, Putange 5699, 19 Whiringa-a-nuki 1896, page 2.
"Correspondent, "Canterbury Times," London, August 21.
From another issue:

Here's a health and best of luck, boys,
To you all in the ExA., [?]
From Sirdar down to Drummer,
May we get to Dongolay!
With a little help from England,
And no one to say us nay,
We'll spend a merry Xmas
Further south than Dongolay!

On the road to Dongolay,
Where the ancient railway lay,
As we toiled, moiled and sweated-
Just to make one mile a day-
Chorus- On the road to Dongolay, etc.

Seems to me that these rhymes have been altered for a gentile readership.

A fragment from a different parody-
There's a chance for Tommy Atkins
And the Sikh to have some fun
We take the work and finish
What the Gippy's well begun,
For there's still a bit of country
Lies stretching south, away
From Dongola to Dafur,
On the road to UGAN-DAY.

Evening Post vol. LII, 28 Nov. 1896, p. 2. Rhodesian Rhymes.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 14 Feb 12 - 02:25 PM

British Army soldiers parodied the poem in their song relating to actions in the Sudan.

On the road to Dongolay
Where the dying camels lay
And the sun comes down like hell-fire
And grows hotter day by day.

Excerpt given in introduction to a chapter in Roy McLaren, 1978, Canadians on the Nile, 1882-1898, Univ. British Columbia Press.

I could not find the whole, but I have a couple of British Army songbooks to look at yet.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 14 Feb 12 - 02:08 PM

Charley, put together from the refuse in my brain. Open to all for revision, additions, etc.
I remember some parodied lines my father used to sing, so others may have "done the foul deed" multiple times.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Lighter
Date: 14 Feb 12 - 01:24 PM

Tattooed ladies are far less exotic today.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Artful Codger
Date: 14 Feb 12 - 12:40 PM

Idealizing the exotic gave us another classic: "Lydia, oh Lydia, say, have you met Lydia? Lydia the tattooed lady..."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 13 Feb 12 - 05:20 PM

Q-

Where did you dig up that splendid parody?

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Lighter
Date: 13 Feb 12 - 04:56 PM

The guy wants to ditch London and head back to Burma to spend the rest of his life with his true love.

Obviously he got way over his racism.

Though not his tendency to idealize the exotic. And those are just two things that make it a great poem.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 13 Feb 12 - 03:20 PM

Oh, dear, teach- Just for you (1st draft)

By the smoky Mersey Dockland, lookin' cross-eyed at the sea,
Tere's a limey chit a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me;
For the wind is in the lime trees, and St. Mary's bells thay say:
"Come you back, you Gurkha soldier, come you back to Liverpool!"
Come you back to Liverpool
Where the old flotiller lay
Can't you 'ear the cranes a hummin' from Wapping to Bath Street?
On the road to Liverpool,
Where the rummies set and drool,
And the clouds come rollin' in from Thule far away!


Her drawers were dingy gray, and 'er little arse was lean,
An' 'er name was Elizabeth, jes' the same as Blighty's queen,
And I seed her first a-puffin' on a Players Navy Cut,
An' a-wastin Hindu kisses on a Christian idol's foot:
Bloomin' marble idol
Wot they called Jesus Christ
Dash all she cared for idols when I kissed 'er where she....
On the road to Liverpool....

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: tonyteach1
Date: 13 Feb 12 - 02:25 PM

I have the Peter Dawson version of the music and used to sing it a lot until someone told me it was racist and I was a racist to sing it.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 13 Feb 12 - 01:54 PM

Gee, Snuffy, Kansas has ports on the Arkansas and Missouri Rivers, which feed into the Mississippi and thus flow into the Gulf of Mexico. Is Kansas thus a maritime region?




(OK, Snuffy, point taken.)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Snuffy
Date: 13 Feb 12 - 08:21 AM

Kansas is also part of a country that borders a sea: it is therefore correct to speak of the coast of Kansas?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Feb 12 - 02:43 PM

For pedantic pedants only-
Bohemia. Croatia Slovenia bordered the Adriatic. When Bohemia was part of the Hapsburg Monarchy (c. 1815), Bohemia thus was part of a country that bordered a sea.

The poets technically were correct.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 11 Feb 12 - 09:33 AM

"A woman is only a woman but a good cigar is a smoke!"

Whatever!

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 11 Feb 12 - 02:36 AM

I like "eastward" in v1.
Kipling liked it too.
He changed it to a lesser version to appease pedants.
It is an old soldier's imperfect reminiscences, not a Geography lesson.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Lighter
Date: 10 Feb 12 - 10:06 PM

Q, our posts crossed.

Wasn't there some other famous writer who thought you could visit a seashore in Bohemia?

"Bill" or "Will" somebody, I think.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Lighter
Date: 10 Feb 12 - 09:30 PM

I believe that the dates in the 1880s that Q cites are for Kipling's first collection, "Departmental Ditties."

"Mandalay" first appeared on page 124 of The Scots Observer (June 21, 1890), as No. 10 of Kipling's series of "Barrack-Room Ballads." The first line reads,

"By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' eastward to the sea."

Details for pedants only:

The same reading appears in the first book publication, p. 92 of "Departmental Ditties, Barrack-Room ballads, and Other Poems" (N.Y.: United States Book Company, Successors to John W. Lovell Company, 1890). The final stanza, like that of the Observer version, has "lookin' lazy."

Acc. to K's recent editor, Andrew Lycett, the book was first pub'd in N.Y.C. because K's "best friend in London was the American publisher Wolcott Balestier." Balestier was London agent for the United States Book Co.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 10 Feb 12 - 09:23 PM

Lighter, Keith linked the Kipling website previously. If you click on "poem" to the right, the first verse has "lazy...." So naturally I assumed etc. etc.
It does give the information that the poem was published in the Scots Observer, 1890.
I must admit that I didn't read any more of the article, only looked at the pictures.

Scroll way down, and the note appears:
"lookin' lazy at the sea 'lookin' eastward at the sea' in the original version but corrected by Kipling when it was pointed out to him that Moulmein had no view of the sun rising over the Bay of Bengal, still less over China. See the notes below on the chorus."

Farther on, "As Kipling later observed [other points of jumbled geography] in the poem]: "Had I opened the chorus of the song with 'Oh' instead of 'On the road.' etc., it might have shown that the song was a sort of general mix-up of the singer's Far-Eastern memories against a background of the Bay of Bengal as seen at dawn from a troop-ship taking him there. But 'On' in this case was more singable than 'Oh.' That simple explanation may stand as a warning.""

Perhaps we should "take a warning" that our insistence on ferreting out details should not get in the way of our enjoyment of the song.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 10 Feb 12 - 08:22 PM

Lighter-

Good to have you weighing in on this.

So none of my Kipling anthologies have the phrase "looking eastward" in them. Which edition did the phrase appear?

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Lighter
Date: 10 Feb 12 - 08:05 PM

The Kipling website identifies "lookin' eastward" as "the original version" in stanza 1 :

http://www.kipling.org.uk/rg_mandalay1.htm

"Lookin' lazy" seems always to have been the phrase in the final stanza.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: pdq
Date: 10 Feb 12 - 06:05 PM

Lawrence Tibbett did a spirited rendition of this song. I have it on a 12" 78 RMP record.

There is a video of him singing it on YouTube.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 10 Feb 12 - 05:36 PM

The printer is Lovell (two l's). Date 1890

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 10 Feb 12 - 05:29 PM

Found this- Departmental Ditties..... John Lovel, New York: ".....the first book edition (english of American) of the Ballads (including 'Gunga Din,' "Danny Deever," and 'Mandalay')...

http://www.kipling.org.uk/facts_collecting.htm

The poem written in 1890(?) and does not appear before that date.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 10 Feb 12 - 05:08 PM

Which editors??
First edition, Lahore, Civil and Military Gazette Press. Only 350 copies. Not seen. 1886. Dunno if this had "eastward" or "lazy." Copies a few hundred to a few thousand dollars. They also printed a second edition, 1887.

Thacker, Spink Co., Calcutta, 1886; later London, 2-7th eds, 1890-1892. Second edition, 1886, had five new poems and alterations to three. Third edition, 1888, has 10 additional poems. Fourth Edition had additional poems.Fifth ed. dated 1890. The seventh ed. I think added more.

London, U. S. etc. Other editors. I assume all of these were "lazy."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 10 Feb 12 - 04:28 PM

Keith-

One can follow the discussion of "looking Eastward" or "looking lazy" back and forth. In draft I believe it was "looking Eastward" but the editors had problems with that and somehow it got changed. For some reason, the singers persist in singing the line "looking Eastward" and it's true if you look Eastward far enough you end up looking at what's West.

Kipling agreed to the change and why argue with that.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 10 Feb 12 - 04:24 PM

My Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads has "lookin' lazy." 1890 reprint. Was there an earlier one?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 10 Feb 12 - 03:56 PM

I only learned from that site that he changed the first verse to "looking lazy."
I only knew it as "looking Eastward" which apparantly was the original.
I have always sung "looking Eastward" in v1 and "looking lazy" in last verse.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 10 Feb 12 - 03:22 PM

Good close-up of the Pagoda, Keith. The one I linked shows too much construction in front of it.
Kipling's poem has her "looking lazy at the sea...." Not sure what you mean by eastward. She would be looking across Karan State to Thailand.

Mandalay is inland to the north, a long way up river (Irrawaddy) from Rangoon (old spelling).


This map shows Moulmein, Rangoon (across the bay from Mandelay) and Mandelay:
http://images.nationmaster.com/images/motw/middle_east_and_asia/burma.gif

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 10 Feb 12 - 10:58 AM

Keith-

Nice Kipling reference website.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 10 Feb 12 - 09:11 AM

Here are images of "the old flotilla," elephants piling teak, and Theebaw, King of Burma.
http://www.kipling.org.uk/rg_mandalay1.htm

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 10 Feb 12 - 08:18 AM

Q-

Thanks for the current view of the Pagoda.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 10 Feb 12 - 03:22 AM

However, The Burma girl is not "lookin lazy."
She is gazing "eastward to the sea" where she had seen her soldier depart.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 10 Feb 12 - 02:52 AM

Wow.
It's real.
Thanks guys.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 09 Feb 12 - 08:55 PM

Moulmein now known as Mawlamyine (Mawlamyaing); main seaport in SE Burma.
Here is a current photograph of the pagoda:
http://www.mawlamyine.com

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 09 Feb 12 - 08:15 PM

If you'd like to enjoy the view from the old Moulmein Pagoda: Click here for view!

The Pagoda's actual name is the Kyaikthanlan Pagoda, overlooking Moulmein Harbour in Burma.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: On the Road to Mandalay (Kipling)
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Feb 12 - 05:50 PM

I remember Dody's version; he had a backpack with saucepands etc that clanged as he moved, and a false leg on his belt with chich he'd do a "three-legged" dance. Been trying to find a clip of it for, oh, years!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Road to Mandalay
From: GUEST,Ooh-Aah
Date: 29 Jul 04 - 07:15 AM

How wrong can you be - like that fellow who turned down the Beatles.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Road to Mandalay
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 28 Jul 04 - 08:26 PM

The question was raised by Joe F. in a previous thread, 11643 (linked at top). No one seems to have a copy of the first printing of the poem, so I am safe in posting this explanation.

Kipling was 3 1/2 sheets to the wind when he wrote the poem long after he left the scene of his youthful indiscretions and confused east with west. When he sobered up, he sent it off without proof-reading. After it came out, an editor happened to look at a map and changed it to lazy. 'Lazy' reads better than either eastward or westward.
The editor considered other changes, such as replacing her 'little banjo', which made the poem sound like something done by Foster when he was in his cups, with an 'ukulele, but gave that up since Kipling's writings were unlikely to survive to another edition anyway.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Road to Mandalay
From: Joe_F
Date: 28 Jul 04 - 06:27 PM

The text given by the Walrus, as well as the one here, has "lookin' eastward to the sea" in the first line, whereas _Rudyard Kipling's Verse: Definitive Edition_ (Doubleday, 1940, p. 416) has "lookin' lazy at the sea" both there and in the last stanza. The "eastward" reading is extremely common, and it would be interesting to know where it came from, in that it adds to the geographical perplexity of this song, which has been much argued over.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Road to Mandalay
From: Dave Bryant
Date: 28 Jul 04 - 12:37 PM

I think that the original setting of this poem was made by Oley Speaks, but Henry Handel Richardson (pseudonym of Ethel Florence Lindesay Robertson) is also credited with one. Robbie Williams of course also produced a song of the same title, but with completely different lyrics.

I assume that the "folk version" is the setting By Peter Bellamy which unlike the Speaks one uses the whole Kipling poem.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Road to Mandalay
From: GUEST,weerover
Date: 28 Jul 04 - 02:41 AM

From what i remember, Bellamy's version uses the tune "10,000 Miles Away"

wr.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Road to Mandalay
From: Charley Noble
Date: 27 Jul 04 - 08:24 PM

Jeff Warner sang the Peter Bellamy version of this song the other night at the Chocolate Church in Bath, ME. I felt like I could listen to it all evening.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Road to Mandalay
From: Susan A-R
Date: 18 Aug 00 - 11:08 PM

Yes Bob S, that's the one. There is some Wonderful material on that one.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Road to Mandalay
From: GUEST,Bob Schwarer
Date: 17 Aug 00 - 10:08 AM

Take a listen to the John Roberts & Tony Barrand CD "Naulakha Redux" It's a collection of 16 Rudyard Kipling songs. Most of the songs are credited to Peter Bellamy.

Bellamy's tune to "The Road to Mandalay" is also on The Friends of Fiddler's Green CD of the same name. Fiidler's Green is Ian Robb, Grit Laskin and 5 more. A nice CD.

Bob S.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Road to Mandalay
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 17 Aug 00 - 03:38 AM

Well, well ... in the good old days we used to use Mandalay to close the club at the Songsmiths (Fitter's Arms) in Walsall. Not that we wanted to sing it, but everyone used to insist. 'Last night I dreamt I went back and sang "Mandalay"' ...

The published song version has only the first second and last verses (with some liberties taken in verse two, I think); that's the way Peter Dawson recorded it, and it's plenty long enough for most people!

Ken Dodd's version was actually Billy Benett's version from the twenties or thirties, but I can't bring it to mind right now.

Alison, you're thinking of 'The green eye of the little yellow god' by Melvin Hayes. There are two or three 'standard' comic versions, or presentations rather, of this; it's a shame nobody does it straight (except me, I do!) any more, as it's quite good, especially if you haven't heard it before and don't know the ending.

Steve