Silly Little Country

Observation not Dodged

I did not engage, even as a passive watcher, in any of the observations of November 11 broadcast earlier (at the official times) on TV today.
Inadvertently this evening, I stumbled across a powerful broadcast on the local Toronto Rogers cable TV station, staged by the War Amps and featuring singing by John McDermott.
So far I have been shaken by the song for Willie McBride, Eric Bogle's stunning "And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda" (about which I suspect the War Amps and Bogle have slightly different views), and then 'Danny Boy', featuring the teriible parental expectation to be dead by the time of the return of the son from the war. All are songs I know and love.
And then apparently a US Civil War song I do not know at all - quite lovely - "A Faded Coat of Blue".
Omigosh - now Christmas in the Trenches! This is like listening to Max Ferguson in the past on November 11 - and underlines the terrible point about the mutual respect of fighters on both sides (and the song features a timely and sad quotation from 'The Minstrel Boy'). But what a great line - "Whose family have I fixed in my sights?". Thank you, Francis Tolliver.
And now he sings "The Minstrel Boy". Like, these are many of the best songs ever written!! And then "When I Grow too Old to Dream." Wow. (By the way, on the screen as these songs are sung, battlefields and graveyards are being shown on screen. I will NEVER forget taking a short walk at a stop on a bus ride from Calais to Paris, and walking into a field behind the Auberge where the bus stopped, full of graves of Canadian casualties from the First World War. The scale was unimaginable to me, and I suspect as well to our public today - our current casualty cost in Afghanistan is nothing compared to that one battle that occurred in that one spot.)
He also sings "The Rose of Tralee" and "Auld Lang Syne". Burns' request that we remember is very fitting.

I thank the world of today for my 500 channels because I am so pleased to have found this one for the last hour. If you missed it it seems you can order the video here. Please do - it will support an utterly worthy cause.

posted by Alan Adamson @ 7:27 PM