Kaharz wrote:Also the subject of one of the most depressing songs ever. The Pouges Waltzing Maltida. My phone doesn't let me get YouTube URLs to link. But it is about the horribly planned attack on Gallipoli.
The Irish and the Scots are obsessed with that song! Eric Bogle, The Pogues... I don't know why. There must be a shared cultural affinity fuelled by centuries of anti-English sentiment. I was at Carr's, a
notorious Irish pub a stone's throw from
le jardin des Tuileries, this one time. Fairly inebriated, I ingratiated myself with the honky-tonk
piannah, and was soon playing requests whilst my erstwhile lover crooned the lyrics, hastily grabbed from popular lyrical sites via her ailing 2.5G EDGE connection. Alongside standards like
The Auld Triangle and
Lonely Banna Strand, they kept requesting
And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda. It always brought me to tears, and I have my Kiwi history teacher to thank for introducing me to it, but I wondered why--aside from the Pogues connection--it's an immensely popular ditty in Ireland.
Then again, the patrons were happy with a twenty-eight minute slurred rendition of
Johnny B. Goode, so the cultural connection might have been projected by myself somewhat.