Talk:All The Little Angels
Only, the first part, which resembles the fragments in the book, doesn't scan in the meter of Ach du Lieber Augustine.(1) The second part does, but I don't remember any of that in the text.--Old Dickens 18:13, 5 May 2007 (CEST)
(1)This may be because Ach... is in 3/4 time, which will cause funny marching.--Old Dickens 18:38, 5 May 2007 (CEST)
Note the appearance of All The Little Angels in Mess Hall Songs of the RAF (1545), at http://www.drinkingsongs.net/html/books-and-manuscripts/1940s/1945.09.00--1961-mess-songs-and-rhymes-of-the-raaf-(mimeo)/index.htm . It gives a tune, "Poor Alice is a-wooping". (Anon 22 Dec. 2008)
So the chorus has a history. This is identical to the "Google Answers" piece but still not related to the marching song described in Night Watch. I wonder where to find the tune "Poor Alice..." The link looks like a useful resource for some other songs (it includes The Ball of Kerrymuir, for instance.) --Old Dickens 15:18, 22 December 2008 (UTC)
- Well, I've found a nursery song called Poor Jenny Is A-weeping", which, interestingly, has exactly the same rhythm as Augustin. But, again, you can't really march in 3/4 time (PDQ Bach wrote the hilarious Minuet Militaire pretty much to prove that: Hut! Two! Three! Hut! Two! Three!)
- Perhaps Pterry was charmed by the lyrics of the RAAF song with its pun on Ascend up/Arse end up- but then why did he remove it?
- I've seen a not unreasonable suggestion that the tune is that of Short'nin' Bread:
Mama's little baby loves short'nin', shortnin
Mama's little baby loves short'nin' bread...
compare
All the little angels rise up, rise up
All the little angels rise up high
Solicitr 16:25, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
Similarity with "Drunken Sailor"
I'm just listening to the song Drunken Sailor (basically Ó ró se do bheatha bhaile with different lyrics) and it is very similar especially at the chorus stage, I think.188.141.58.135 01:20, 29 March 2011 (CEST)
Dead link
Mess Songs and Rhymes of the RAAF no longer seems to be available on the web. Can anyone else find it? --Old Dickens 03:10, 1 December 2011 (CET)
- Easy enough now: see [1], but you need to download the pdf; the html is a mess. --Old Dickens (talk) 01:39, 29 May 2016 (UTC)
The foremost authority...
Mr Pratchett's injunction not to Google the song was probably wise at the time, but now the first item found is this page (15,945 hits at the moment). --Old Dickens (talk) 01:39, 29 May 2016 (UTC)
In support of the Augustin source
One of Pratchat’s listeners arrived at the same answer, but via a different route. Along the way, they found Terry’s post from the newsgroup in which he thinks the source song was a trench song, not a marching one. It’s also never referred to in the book as a marching song, only as a “soldiers’ song”, so a well known tune in 3/4 seems fine. They also found a post from an old folk song forum in January 2002 in which they come up with this song as a possibility, in response to a call out from folk song expert Steve Roud, whom according to the fellow who posted the question there had been asked by Pratchett for help in finding out if it was a real song for copyright purposes. All that sounds pretty plausible, and to me at least the song does scan in a similar way to many other reuses of Augustin; I also don’t agree that accent is a problem for the pun (in Australian English at least it doesn’t take much to make ascend/arse-end work). So while it may or may not be the song Terry remembers from his youth, I think it’s a plausible candidate for the inspiration, and seems to have been a real song. Any objections to adding these details to the article?