Lyr Req: Down with Hitler and the Nazis

Subject: Lyr Req: Down with Hitler and the Nazi's
From: Mr Red
Date: 28 Jun 05 - 01:52 PM

I got two songs from a little old lady who served in the military.
One I can find all over the web, but the other seems to not be documented here or through Google/Alltheweb.

The operative catch phrases "Down with Hitler and the Nazi's" and "There's a place upon the map called England"

given the scansion it is unlikely that the words will be much different.

I have two verses.

Before I entertain the possibility of having found an undocumented snippet has anyone got any insight, given the above clues?

BTW has anyone seen posts from "the Walrus" lately? He is into military stuff. After that I may trouble Roy Palmer &/or Max Arthur for answers. They have written books on military songs.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Down with Hitler and the Nazi's
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Jun 05 - 02:14 PM

"Nazis" is not spelled with an apostrophe "s". Neither are most other plurals.

Examples:

CDs. Banks. Records and tapes. Radios. Blankets. Nazis. Chips.

This has been a pedant alert announcement. Take note, go your mortal way, and sin no more!

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Down with Hitler and the Nazi's
From: Mr Red
Date: 28 Jun 05 - 04:10 PM

OK OK thanks for the really helpful info.
Google still can't find it with or without the s, with or without the apostrophe - either side of the s. With or without Down or Hitler. I didn't want to bore people with minutia.

Nazis' it is then. Short for "Nazis best efforts" (or troops) as all songs truncate (v.i.) in the interests of art.

The question is the Lyrics (yes that is grammatically correct) All I want are the data (also lexicographically correct).

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Down with Hitler and the Nazi's
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 28 Jun 05 - 04:21 PM

Not in Hopkins'.
Give us what you have- it may twig the memories of some of us old WW2 vets.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Down with Hitler and the Nazi's
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Jun 05 - 06:02 PM

It isn't "Nazis'" either. Nazis' means "belonging to multiple Nazis". Whereas..."Nazi's" means "belonging to one Nazi".

The only thing that means "more than one Nazi" is "Nazis". Got it? Imagine how Herr Goebbels would be upset by your misuse of these words. It doesn't bear thinking about.

Pedant alert # 2 has just been issued.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Down with Hitler and the Nazi's
From: alanabit
Date: 29 Jun 05 - 04:22 AM

Anything which would have upset a little shit like Goebbels would have been OK by me...

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Down with Hitler and the Nazi's
From: Mr Red
Date: 06 Jul 05 - 11:27 AM

refresh

Roy Palmer has never heard of the song, and he has a book on military songs covering pre crimean to WWII.

The search goes on - Max Arthur next.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Down with Hitler and the Nazi's
From: Peace
Date: 07 Jul 05 - 02:44 AM

Not an answer for you, but a neat site nevertheless.

www.britishsoldier.com/music.htm

Subject: Lyr Add: DON'T LET'S BE BEASTLY TO THE GERMANS
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 07 Jul 05 - 03:17 AM

Of course, if you're going to sing this, then in the interests of impartiality, you need to learn this one:


Don't Let's Be Beastly to the Germans
Noel Coward (1943)

REFRAIN 1: Don't let's be beastly to the Germans
When our victory is ultimately won.
It was just those nasty Nazis who persuaded them to fight,
And their Beethoven and Bach are really far worse than their bite.
Let's be meek to them
And turn the other cheek to them
And try to bring out their latent sense of fun.
Let's give them full air parity
And treat the rats with charity,
But don't let's be beastly to the Hun.

VERSE 1: We must be kind,
And with an open mind
We must endeavour to find
A way
To let the Germans know that when the war is over,
They are not the ones who'll have to pay.
We must be sweet,
And tactful and discreet,
And when they've suffered defeat,
We mustn't let
Them feel upset
Or ever get
The feeling that we're cross with them or hate them.
Our future policy must be to reinstate them.

REFRAIN 2: Don't let's be beastly to the Germans
When we've definitely got them on the run.
Let us treat them very kindly as we would a valued friend.
We might send them out some Bishops as a form of lease and lend.
Let's be sweet to them
And day by day repeat to them
That sterilization simply isn't done.
Let's help the dirty swine again
To occupy the Rhine again,
But don't let's be beastly to the Hun.

VERSE 2: We must be just,
And win their love and trust,
And in addition we must
Be wise
And ask the conquered lands to join our hands to aid them.
That would be a wonderful surprise!
For many years,
They've been in floods of tears
Because the poor little dears
Have been so wronged,
And only longed
To cheat the world,
Deplete the world, and beat the world to blazes.
This is the moment when we ought to sing their praises.

REFRAIN 3: Don't let's be beastly to the Germans,
For you can't deprive a gangster of his gun.
Though they've been a little naughty to the Czechs and Poles and Dutch,
I don't suppose those countries really minded very much.
Let's be free with them
And share the B.B.C. with them.
We mustn't prevent them basking in the sun.
Let's soften their defeat again
And build their bloody fleet again,
But don't let's be beastly to the Hun.

REFRAIN 4: Don't let's be beastly to the Germans
When the age of peace and plenty has begun.
We must send them steel and oil and coal and everything they need,
For their peaceable intentions can be always guaranteed.
Let's employ with them
A sort of 'strength through joy' with them.
They're better than us at honest manly fun.
Let's let them feel they're swell again,
And bomb us all to hell again,
But don't let's be beastly to the Hun.

**** This song was banned by the BBC for being too 'pro-German'.

LTS

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Down with Hitler and the Nazi's
From: alanabit
Date: 07 Jul 05 - 04:01 AM

It is a nasty, spiteful, sarcastic piece of work. It is well written though. I couldn't help smiling in spite of myself. For the time I guess it was understandable.
The German historian Guido Knopp states that in the aftermath of the war, some six million Germans died of exhaustion and starvation in the forced resettlement. Nobody had a monopoly on suffering in the Second World War.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Down with Hitler and the Nazi's
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 07 Jul 05 - 07:54 AM

Isn't it just!!!

Oddly enough, there was a programme on UKHistory this morning about that very subject alanabit.... that and the suspected million prisoners of war that died in the month after ceasefire, in the concentration camps that they'd previously manned.

LTS

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Down with Hitler and the Nazi's
From: GUEST,Mr Red
Date: 07 Jul 05 - 08:01 AM

Whoever said wars were pretty.

They are designed to impress or repel greed.

There are benefits eg community spirit, for warless times look to soccer hooligans etc.

Youth needs excitement, hence wars are possible.

Just today we see the effects the gullibility of some to espouse a cause and justify "whatever". Mindless footsoldiers & deranged generals they may be not forgetting the charismatic leader.

Che Guevara was a terrorist after all. Not that his image suffers for it.

At least the other song I collected essentially is about soldiers not wanting to be in the Army, and it is found the world over as a marching song (or cadence song).

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Down with Hitler and the Nazi's
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 07 Jul 05 - 11:46 AM

Hear "Don't Lets Be Beastly to the Germans" on this "BBC at War" program:
BBC Homefront

Many listeners missed the subtlety of the song and complained to the BBC for airing it, but it was never banned by the BBC. It became popular in America too.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Down with Hitler and the Nazi's
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 07 Jul 05 - 11:52 AM

I got the lyrics from the Noel Coward biog site and that states it WAS banned by the BBC... confused?

LTS

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Down with Hitler and the Nazi's
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 07 Jul 05 - 12:20 PM

Nope. Never believe anything on the internet (including...).

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Down with Hitler and the Nazi's
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Jul 05 - 07:24 PM

Regarding Che Guevara: every revolutionary is seen as a "terrorist" by the powers that be...unless he wins the war! Then he is hailed as a hero by the new order. The truth may lie somewhere between the extremes...or it may be that both views are equally true, in some cases, such truths being a matter of perception.

Had George Washington lost, he would have been seen as "a traitor", "a terrorist", and he would have been hanged or shot by the British, unless he had arranged an escape to France, in which case the French would have hailed him as a hero in the fight against "perfidious Albion".

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Down with Hitler and the Nazi's
From: alanabit
Date: 08 Jul 05 - 03:20 AM

When Churchill agreed to the Nürnberg reprisals, under pressure from Stalin, he muttered something ruefully to an aide along the lines of, "We had better not lose the next one - or we'll be up against the wall too..." (That is not the exact quote - but it's the gist of it).

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Down with Hitler and the Nazi's
From: Matt R
Date: 08 Jul 05 - 03:55 AM

I know how you feel, Little Hawk. I've spent the last few days educating some braindead people that "Nazis" contains so apostrophe.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Down with Hitler and the Nazi's
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Jul 05 - 08:13 AM

Yeah, Matt. The thing that amazes me is when I see signs all over the place advertising CD's for sale when it's supposed to be CDs. I wonder how this whole apostrophe thing got started? Why do people who are ignorant of grammar make words more complicated rather than less in their effort to express themselves? Why do they turn "huge" into "humungous"? It's like a hillbilly saying "that there dog" instead of just saying "that dog", because he apparently doesn't realize that the word "that" already means "the one over there"! ;-)


This has been another pedant alert. Nazis...take note!

Alanabit, I entirely understand your feelings about Herr Goebbels. He was a nasty man.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Down with Hitler and the Nazi's
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 08 Jul 05 - 03:51 PM

That thar dog is specific, meaning that one there that you can plainly see. It distinguishes from the dog(s) over there. I larned this from a quarey* man in Texas.
*quarry

Bodaceous dates back to 1845 in print. Give humungous another 50-100 years and it also will appear in the OED.
(Moreover it rhymes with fungus)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Down with Hitler and the Nazis'
From: GUEST,Mr Red
Date: 11 Jul 05 - 10:15 AM

Matt R

The problem with pedantry is that first you must not fall into the trap of being wrong - "so" what you may say (and you did).

The second is the context, if you knew where in the song the words come from you might, in the obvious solipsism that goes with pedantry, argue that there is a possesive - albeit not "contained" but attached thereto. Nazis' (marking possesion and missing words). And argue, I suspect, would be the response of those who don't know the answer to the question.

Of course being picky and ignoring the original question and subsequent explanation begs another WRONG - read what is said not the buzzing of the bee in your particular titfer.

On such misreadings are altercations based and sometimes wars fought. Because the real issue is not correctness, but correct behaviour.

Now can we have an answer to my questions or are we just here to spoil the party?
Tick one of the above.

But thankyou for refreshing the thread - you have your uses, both of you.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Down with Hitler and the Nazis
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 13 Jul 05 - 09:18 AM

After loads of digression and discussion, no one has answered Mr. Red's original request for a song (or songs?) containing the lyrics "Down with Hitler and the Nazis" and "There's a place upon the map called England."

Mr. Red: You mentioned that you had two verses. Would you post what you have?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Down with Hitler and the Nazis
From: Mr Red
Date: 01 Aug 05 - 10:11 AM

After Bridgnorth FF. Donnie lives in Kidderminster and I intend calling-in and getting any more songs she wants to sing. She hasn't answered my letter yet. One worries - she is getting on.

I called-in to the Lord Leycester Hospital while in Warwick at the FF. Their regimental museum curatoress didn't recognise the lyrics, so I left copies for her and to distribute amongst the veterans who live there (it is in essence an old soldiers home - rather fine oak beamed edifice that it is). She had other avenues to try for me.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Down with Hitler and the Nazis
From: Paul Burke
Date: 01 Aug 05 - 11:00 AM

Is that Donnie who lives in Kidderminster the same Donnie of that place who stood on a chair and silenced the chatterers in a crowded bar, by her excellent singing (unaccompanied, but very loud)? That would be about 30 years ago.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Down with Hitler and the Nazis
From: Mr Red
Date: 08 Aug 05 - 07:27 AM

I can't think of any better description of the lass. She ran folk clubs there many years ago and the singing is so out of character with her stature.

For those going to the Bridgnorth Folk Festival - (aka Shrewsbury 2006) I will be recording her singing a few collectables and the plan is to drive her up to the pre-fest session and get her home.

Those planning to be there early - we should be in the Castle pub - usually we are.

Still no come-back on the lyrics - even on the BBC Mesage boards about war.