[Dixielandjazz] No dirge for England--not quite yet

[Charlie Hooks]

on 5/30/02 10:54 AM, Jazzjerry@aol.com at Jazzjerry@aol.com wrote:

> 
> What a strange outburst coming from a citizen of a country largely populated
> by 'immigrants' who have managed in the last few centuries to decimate the
> indigenous population.
> 
> An interesting thread indeed but bugger all to do with jazz.

Absolutely nothing to do with jazz!  DOESN'T BELONG ON THE LIST!  HOW DID
THE TOPIC EVER GET ONTO THE LIST?

Think it began with someone's labelling "God Save the Queen" as a dirge.

You play it that way?  You got it that way.  That's you, Jerry, and your
opinion is fairly your own.  I don't hear it that way.

I hear it as a Grand March in 3/4 time. Heads high, calmly and inevitably
moving forward into the future, British banners aloft, those idiotic British
military shorts looking somehow not at all idiotic, with maybe some skirling
pipes behind.  Perhaps it is your own viewpoint than has made of it a
dirge--for the funeral of the Empire.

My feeling goes back and back, before that unpleasantness known as the
American Revolution in 1776, which would change the entire history of the
world in the 20th century  Had we (you and I, Jerry) been, as we should have
been, fellow citizens with Canadians in the "Commonwealth of North America,"
WWI might have been avoided, and thus WWII.  Kaiser Bill might well have
reconsidered, had he but known that The Commonwealth of North America's
entire industrial might would most certainly fall on him in war.  (Barbara
Tuchman totally agrees, I most pleasantly discovered  I'm sure you know
Barbara, don't you?)

So maybe I'm not speaking to the British of today, but only to those of
yesteryear, to men who no longer exist: to men who would fight on the
landing grounds, on the beaches, who would never surrender...."  Those men
must have been terribly mistaken!

Nowdays we would sit down and talk with Hitler's hordes: we would speak of
our mutual problems, hug each other, seek to understand each other, and
Oprah would Em-Cee.  And the "musically challenged members of your
population could warble on suitably patriotic occasions."

Love it!  They could, indeed!

charliehooks@earthlink.net