1 Songs of the world
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Kate Bowan
Abstract
This chapter explores the genesis, history and travels of three songs, charting their movements across the radical Anglophone world and considering their functions and meanings in different local settings. The three songs are Rouget de Lisle's war hymn the Marseillaise, Robert Burns's Scots ballad John Anderson my Jo and Chartist leader Ernest Jones's labour song Song of the 'Lower Classes'. The different functions of these three songs in radical culture were produced in part by the different balance between words and music. In different ways these three songs contribute to an understanding of the importance of song and singing in nineteenth-century demotic politics and the role of print and the oral tradition in transmitting and sustaining a radical and reformist culture.
Abstract
This chapter explores the genesis, history and travels of three songs, charting their movements across the radical Anglophone world and considering their functions and meanings in different local settings. The three songs are Rouget de Lisle's war hymn the Marseillaise, Robert Burns's Scots ballad John Anderson my Jo and Chartist leader Ernest Jones's labour song Song of the 'Lower Classes'. The different functions of these three songs in radical culture were produced in part by the different balance between words and music. In different ways these three songs contribute to an understanding of the importance of song and singing in nineteenth-century demotic politics and the role of print and the oral tradition in transmitting and sustaining a radical and reformist culture.
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Dedication v
- Contents vii
- List of figures viii
- Founding editor’s introduction x
- Acknowledgements xii
- Introduction 1
- 1 Songs of the world 32
- 2 The sound of marching feet 100
- 3 Votes for a song 140
- 4 ‘Sing a Song of Sixpence’ 165
- 5 Music, morals and the middle class 228
- 6 The challenges of uplift 264
- 7 ‘Sing of the warriors of labour’ 294
- Conclusion 345
- Index 363
Chapters in this book
- Front matter i
- Dedication v
- Contents vii
- List of figures viii
- Founding editor’s introduction x
- Acknowledgements xii
- Introduction 1
- 1 Songs of the world 32
- 2 The sound of marching feet 100
- 3 Votes for a song 140
- 4 ‘Sing a Song of Sixpence’ 165
- 5 Music, morals and the middle class 228
- 6 The challenges of uplift 264
- 7 ‘Sing of the warriors of labour’ 294
- Conclusion 345
- Index 363
