Comrades who know me will know that I am a traditionalist when it comes to singing - I think socialists should know all the verses of all the great socialist hymns (and the sectarian versions for singing in the bar too).
I leave you for my late summer break with one of my favorite Italian socialist songs, which is genuinely moving and beautiful - it was the song of the partisans going off to fight Mussolini - (not that I am going up into the mountains as a partisan, we may be 9% behind in the polls but it hasn't quite come to that yet):
Una mattina mi son svegliato,
O bella ciao, bella ciao,
Bella ciao, ciao, ciao,
Una mattina mi son svegliata,
E ho trovato l'invasor.
O partigiano portami via,
O bella ciao, bella ciao,
Bella ciao, ciao, ciao,
O partigiano portami via,
Che mi sento di morir.
E so io muoio da partigiano,
O bella ciao, bella ciao,
Bella ciao, ciao, ciao,
E so io muoio da partigiano,
Tu mi devi seppellir.
Seppellire lassù in montagna
O bella ciao, bella ciao,
Bella ciao, ciao, ciao,
Seppellire lassù in montagna
Sott l'ombra di un bel fior.
E tutti quelli che passeranno
O bella ciao, bella ciao,
Bella ciao, ciao, ciao,
E tutti quelli che passeranno
Diranno «guarda che bel fior».
È bello il fiore del partigiano
O bella ciao, bella ciao,
Bella ciao, ciao, ciao,
È bello il fiore del partigiano
Morto per la libertà!
But what we really want to know, is what are the words to Twelve Go the Chimes on the Kremlin Clock, of which you are famed performer at Labour Party Conferences?
ReplyDeleteI will respond to requests on my return.
ReplyDeleteSinging Communist songs is a bit hard-left for you isn't it Luke?
ReplyDeleteDid you ever hear Dennis Healey's radio 4 programme a few years back about labour movement songs? The highlight of it for me was him and his son singing, "I am the man, the very fat man, who waters the workers' beer".
Err! Don't forget your toothbrush!
ReplyDeleteanonymous, the song is known as "Red Fly the Banners-Oh!" and the numbers are
ReplyDelete1 - workers unity and ever more shall be so
2 - the workers hands working for a living-oh
3 - the KGB
4 - Four Great Teachers (Marx, Engles, Lenin, Stalin) (1st time) years it took them (subsequent)
5 - years of the five year plan
6 - days of the general strike
7 - hours of the working day
8 - eighth red army
9 - Tollpuddle Martyrs
10 - days that shook the world
11 - Moscow Dynamos
12 - chimes of the Kremlin clock
plus
13 - holes in Trotskys head
14 - circulation of the Morning Star
15 - membership of the CPGB
etc, etc, etc
I thought the 4 great thinkers were "Marx, Engels, Blair, Mandelson" and 3 was the LCC rather than KGB...
ReplyDeletealso the version I learnt ended "14 for the IQ of an average Trot, 15 for the IQ of an intelligent Trot".
You clearly were singing the post-1989 (or was that 1956?) revisionist version. Bloody typical.
ReplyDeleteI bet you don't even know the words to the Red Airforce song... after me: Oh, we're off to Moscow in a Tank, where the icepicks glisten in the snow...