First broadcast on Exile FM September 2018.
Paul and The Talking Machine explore the music behind the last modern-day oral traditions and dips into the deep reservoir of Folk poetry to find the origins of over 100 years of terrace song Features music from Doris Day, Johnny Cash and John Portsmouth Football Club Westwood among others
The Talking Machine - SHALL WE SING A SONG FOR YOU
Length: I Hour
Cwm Rhondda – The Morriston Orpheus Choir (Excerpt)
The Battle Hymn of the Republic – Johnny Cash
Stars & Stripes Forever (Excerpt)
La Donna E Mobil (Excerpt) – Luciano Pavarotti
He’s Got the Whole World in his hands – Sing Hosanna
Simple Gifts – The Shaker Children (Excerpt)
The John B Sails – The Four Brothers
The Wild Rover – The Dubliners
My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean = Laura Right
My Old Man – Rita Williams
Blaydon Races – The Longsands
Johnny Todd – Bob Roberts
Club Anthem’s Medley Includes:
Go West – The Village People
Glad All Over – The Dave Clark 5
When the Saints go Marching In – The Dukes of Dixieland
I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles – Doris Day
Delilah – Tom Jones
Annies Song – John Denver
Honolulu Baby – Singer Unknown
You’ll Never Walk alone – Christine Johnson
On the Ball City – Singer Unknown
Tom Hark – The Piranhas
Winter Wonderland – Macy Gray
Let It Snow – Dean Martin
You'll Never Walk Alone - Gerry & the Pacemakers & Supporters of Liverpool FC
“Being a football fan entitles us to a temporary, recurring retreat, a short holiday from real existence. Our lives can be in chaos and nothing seem fixed. Nothing except how we feel on a Saturday at 3pm, when we are elevated into blissful and infuriating distraction. What a privilege that is.”
Public Singing
The sound of voices emanating from the terraces on a Saturday afternoon is so normal to us now that it's hard to believe that this kind of spontaneous group singing was ever frowned on. But believe it or not, communal singing was once a radical, revolutionary practice that brought religion and politics together with an almighty crash.
It was in 16th-century Germany that Martin Luther – composer, theologian, priest and a seminal figure in the Protestant Reformation – realised that singing together is about a lot more than just making music. When we sing, we’re expressing identity, spirituality and solidarity, whether it's in a church or the football stand.
To sing together is to make the connections and relationships between us – usually invisible, inaudible – resound together.
Cwm Rhondda as an example
Indelibly associated with Welsh Male Voice Choirs and Eisteddfods, this hymn was originally written in Welsh by a Methodist preacher William Williams (1719-91), a pioneering hymnist who (in the words of S W Duffield) 'did for Wales what Wesley and Watts did for England.'
In 1771 it was translated into English by Peter Williams, no relation, and Williams himself. The verse was tinkered with several times in the course of the 19th century, and the hymn is still often sung as 'Guide me, o thou great Redeemer'. It can be heard sung in Welsh in John Ford's Oscar-winning movie of 1941, How Green was my Valley.
Williams' words have been much admired for their plain yet majestic dignity. 'The grandest re-enactment in modern hymnody of the Israelite journey through the barren wilderness to the Promised Land, which is the type of all spiritual pilgrimage', assert Marjorie Reeves and Jenyth Worsley; while J R Watson judges it 'one of the greatest of evangelical hymns, mainly because of its understatement.'
The tune, 'Cwm Rhondda', sung in the trenches and mines as well as at numberless rugby matches, was composed in 1905 by John Hughes for a singing festival – legend has it that he wrote it in chalk on a tarpaulin (though why he should have done so has never been explained). The repeated high notes of the verse's last line are a gift to Welsh tenors keen to show off their larynxes and can be drawn out to awesomely vulgar musical effect.
In the second half of the 20th century, English and Scottish football fans began to regularly sing a song based on this tune using the words We'll support you evermore which in turn led to many different versions being adapted. Currently, the variation "You're Not Singing Anymore" when taunting the fans of opposing teams who were on the losing sides remains extremely popular. The chant, along with many variations, remains popular to this day.
Listen to the show
Broadcasts on Exile FM
The first Sunday of the month 16:00 to 17:00
(Repeated on Wednesdays, 20:30-21:30 UK time.)
Podcast will appear here after broadcast
