Wikipedia:Peer review/A Song of Patriotic Prejudice/archive1

A Song of Patriotic Prejudice

Hi all. Never done a song before. I am looking for advice on whether I'm missing anything technical that could be added (the music etc. itself, tunes, harmonies, composition), and also what's thought of the themes/analysis sections, which I get the impression overflow into each other a little. I hope no one's offended by the contents. Even for satire, it's pretty close to the bone, I admit. Any thoughts/suggestions are gratefully received. Thanks, everybody! Serial 13:39, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

Comments from Tim riley

I have known every word of this song for nearly sixty years, and now you tell me the words are supposed to be satirical rather than plain truth! Shall look in. Brace yourself: shall have much to say – helpful, I hope. – Tim riley talk 18:01, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

Detailed comments

• a 1963 comedy song by musical duo Flanders and Swann – the first of many horribly clunky false titles.
• It was originally released on their At the Drop of Another Hat album – that reads as though it were the song's first airing, but it was regularly performed live before that. It is mentioned in The Times's review of the London first night of the show at the Haymarket on 2 October 1963, but there was a pre-London tour, starting on 2 September, taking in Bristol, Coventry, Cambridge and Bath. The song was presumably performed on that tour, but you should check.
• The song is a satire of contemporary attitudes towards foreigners in the wake of the country being on the winning side after World War II but losing an empire – I see nothing in the main text to back this up.
• including the French and the Greeks (as Garlic eaters) – the song doesn't accuse the French of being Garlic eaters – and why the capital G for garlic?.
• Although both had wholly middle class and archetypal English backgrounds – nonsense! Swann's father was a Russian doctor and his mother a Turkmen-Russian nurse. They were refugees from the Russian Revolution.
• Flanders campaigned throughout his life for disability rights – throughout his life: even as a schoolboy?.
• Although their singalong style was derivative of the Music Hall, they have been described in a piece edited by music journalist Paul Du Noyer as a "more subtle and intelligent version", being in the nature of a "gently satirical". There are three things wrong with this. First, the false title; secondly, it doesn't make sense: it was "in the nature of a gently satirical" – a gently satirical what? And thirdly, though music hall was among the influences on Flanders and Swann, it was only one of several: Swann lists "classical, ballad, music hall and folk song", their early songs were written for revues, and the two-performers-with-piano format was familiar from BBC broadcasters such as the Western Brothers and Flotsam and Jetsam.
• The historian Victor Bulmer-Thomas suggests Flanders and Swann's song "brilliantly captured" the sense of superiority prevalent in the British imperial mindset. – this and what follows are irrelevant to the song, which is precisely not about Britain ("if we've done anything good, it's 'Another triumph for Great Britain', and if we haven't it's 'England loses again'.") Most of this paragraph should be deleted, although the point that the two performers were of leftward leaning views is worth the mention.
• Biting satire is revealed in the opening lines: The rottenest bits of these islands of ours – Two things here. First, "biting satire" is your opinion and either WP:EDIT or WP:OR. Secondly, as you lead with the 1964 Parlophone recording, those aren't the opening lines of the song as sung there. They are, it is true, the opening lines in the printed version Swann published in 1974, after Flanders's death, but more people will be familiar with the recording than with the book. Clarification is wanted here.
• The reference to Scotsmen as being mean was a long-standing stereotype although the Scots themselves would prefer to refer to this characteristic as probity" – why on earth would anyone describe meanness as "probity"? Giving the Scottish Chambers precedence over the OED for once: "probity: uprightness; moral integrity; honesty"; OED: "The quality or condition of having strong moral principles; integrity, good character; honesty, decency".
• Other references include the Welsh as being "untrustworthy miner monkeys" – this is a misquotation.
• The chorus varies but includes the line, "The English, the English, the English are best, we wouldn't give tuppence for the rest" – you mean the refrain, not the chorus, you've missed two words out, "we" should be "I", and this line is not included in every iteration.
• It is a mixture of arrogance and self-deprecation – Swann didn't think so: "the English are best! (Please read the lyric at once for the ironical overtones …)".
• Musicologist Dai Griffiths – false title.
• Musical details are lacking in the Construction section. You correctly give the opening key as B flat, but why omit the tempo indications? They are "Lively – dotted minim = 76"
• The song was premiered in the duo's 1966 At the Drop of Another Hat tour of the United States – no it wasn't. It was premiered in England in 1963.
• Why the extensive, not to say excessive, detail about the American tour – more than 200 words, mostly about the show and not the song? The show toured Britain after the London run, but this is not mentioned, the tours to Australia and New Zealand are dismissed in seven words, and the visit to Hong Kong is not even mentioned. Your representation of the American reception strikes me as unbalanced: consider these – "They couldn't be more welcome, they couldn't be more delightful, they couldn't be more wanted and needed" (The New York Times), "I'm delighted that producer Alexander H Cohen has persuaded these charming and mind-resting gentlemen pay us another visit" (The Daily News).
• they "blow up policemen, or so I have heard / And blame it on Cromwell and William the Third" – a misquotation. The line is in the singular, and mustn't be distorted to fit into your syntax.
• However, the music is "clearly utterly comedic" and so identifies the song as humorous despite the lyrics,[2] even if it is not as clear as it might be – even if what is not as clear as it might be?
• at whom the song's satire is directed at – eh?
• to those of a nationlist outlook – spelling
• sef-mocking – ditto.
• The song is both ridiculous and libellous – can one libel a whole nation?
• during live performances, the abuse laid out foreigners – what does that mean?.
• Dambuster daughter and psychologist Mary Stopes-Roe – manically false titles.
• recognizable to the audience – you should make up your mind whether you prefer –ise forms or –ize ones in your prose. At present we have both at various points.
• The presentation of The English presented – what? And why the capital T.
• Professor of Divinity, Paul Ellingworth – false title.
• the poltical historian Jenny Wormald – spelling.
• old-fashioned humourists – does the source really misspell "humorists"?.
• the notion that the duo could only gentile, pastoral tunes – missing a verb, and I doubt if "gentile" is what you mean.
• so self-confident were they of their identity – not clear who "they" are. The English one assumes, but it should be made clear.
• Psychoanalysts Kenneth Smith and Stephen Overy – false title.
• Lord Tebbit – I've removed the libellous label.
• argued less than 30 years later, quite seriously, that migrants should be made to pass a cricket test to establish the likelihood of their assimilating British values – as phrased, this is unhelpful to anyone unfamiliar with Tebbitt's conceit that one's loyalty to Britain is to be judged by which Test side one supports.
• more, rather than less, likely than previous – less likely than previous what?
• "nationalism was on its way out" and that "we got pretty much everything we wanted" – it's "we'd got", rather than the un-English "we got".
• This was the 1967 single 'Twenty Tons of TNT', the B-side to 'The War Of 14-18' (Capitol Records, P5884). This was a translation of Georges Brassens' original French song – you should make it clear that it is the latter that is a version of the Brassens song.

I hope these comments help you improve the article. Tim riley talk 11:49, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for this Tim riley, magister, magister! All excellent stuff. There's nothing like a review from you to remind oneself how crapply one writes  :) I've highlighted a couple of your points in red. That's by way of an aide-memoire to myself, so I remember what I need to come back to. Many thanks for looking in! Serial 13:02, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

My pleasure. I don't play LPs all that often these days, but I put the one of At the Drop of Another Hat on my turntable and listened with renewed enjoyment, and I thank you for prompting me to do so. I bought the LP while I was still at school in the 1960s, and I think, by a whisker, I am even fonder of it than I am of the two recordings (mono and stereo) of At the Drop of a Hat. Tim riley talk 17:01, 17 October 2023 (UTC)