[18] Bagpipe Music
The second of our guest poems, sent in by Anustup Datta <Anustup.DATTA@>
It's no go the merrygoround, it's no go the rickshaw,
All we want is a limousine and a ticket for the peepshow.
Their knickers are made of crepe-de-chine, their shoes are made of python,
Their halls are lined with tiger rugs and their walls with head of bison.
John MacDonald found a corpse, put it under the sofa,
Waited till it came to life and hit it with a poker,
Sold its eyes for souvenirs, sold its blood for whiskey,
Kept its bones for dumbbells to use when he was fifty.
It's no go the Yogi-man, it's no go Blavatsky,
All we want is a bank balance and a bit of skirt in a taxi.
Annie MacDougall went to milk, caught her foot in the heather,
Woke to hear a dance record playing of Old Vienna.
It's no go your maidenheads, it's no go your culture,
All we want is a Dunlop tire and the devil mend the puncture.
The Laird o' Phelps spent Hogmanay declaring he was sober,
Counted his feet to prove the fact and found he had one foot over.
Mrs. Carmichael had her fifth, looked at the job with repulsion,
Said to the midwife "Take it away; I'm through with overproduction."
It's no go the gossip column, it's no go the Ceilidh,(1)
All we want is a mother's help and a sugar-stick for the baby.
Willie Murray cut his thumb, couldn't count the damage,
Took the hide of an Ayrshire cow and used it for a bandage.
His brother caught three hundred cran when the seas were lavish, (2)
Threw the bleeders back in the sea and went upon the parish.
It's no go the Herring Board, it's no go the Bible,
All we want is a packet of fags when our hands are idle.
It's no go the picture palace, it's no go the stadium,
It's no go the country cot with a pot of pink geraniums,
It's no go the Government grants, it's no go the elections,
Sit on your arse for fifty years and hang your hat on a pension.
It's no go my honey love, it's no go my poppet;
Work your hands from day to day, the winds will blow the profit.
The glass is falling hour by hour, the glass will fall forever,
But if you break the bloody glass you won't hold up the weather.
-- Louis MacNeice
|
---------------------------------------------------------------
(1) Caelidh : pronounced 'kaley', Gaelic term for a round of
gossiping visits.
(2) cran : a measure for the quantity of just-caught herrings.
---------------------------------------------------------------
This poem is by Louis MacNeice (1907-1963), one of the great
modern Scottish poets. It is set in in Scotland in the 1930's,
they years of the Depression, years which led up to the Munich
crisis if 1938 and the outbreak of WWII in 1939. The poem found
an honoured place in a wonderful recent anthology of "Poetry to
be Read Aloud".
I really love the poem's vigorous meter and its wonderful sound
- you can actually hear the bagpipes playing in the background.
Definitely a poem to read aloud. In a weird way, one is reminded
of the poetry of Philip Larkin, of whom more later.
Anustup
From: "Sandford Smith , Ben (ELSLON)" <ben.sandfordsmith@>
Hope you don't think this is too pedantic but I think Louis MacNeice is from
Northern Ireland not Scotland.
And I don't think that's the right definition of a ceilidh either...
Thanks for the site
Ben Smith
From: "Sullivan, Jonah" <jonah.sullivan@>
A Ceilidh is a party with dancing and live music.
MacNeice was born in Ireland, although he is considered (and thought of
himself as ) a British poet.
Jonah Sullivan
From: "Rob Spence" <spencro@>
Well, Louis MacNeice was of course from Northern Ireland, which means that he was British- his family was of the upper class, his father being a senior Church of Ireland
clergyman, and he was educated at Marlborough, a leading public (i.e. private) school, and at Oxford. For most of his life he worked for the BBC in London- so there's really no Scottish connection at all.
I like the vigour and colloquial feel of this poem, but I don't think the atmosphere it evokes is a pleasant one- surely we have here the sense of apathy and despair that characterised Britain as it slipped into the war with Germany. MacNeice - like Eliot
and Pound- despaired for a civilisation gone rotten. God knows what he'd make of today's Britain...
From: "o.ohare" <o.ohare@>
And this is totally pedantic. MacNeice was born in Belfast in 1907.
"Nothern Ireland" was not at that time a political entity. In other
words he was born in Ireland and was therefore Irish. He would no doubt
have also considered himself to be British and indeed worked and lived
for most of his life in London.
William Kirk
From: Andrewdcramb@
In Scots gaelic, the word " ceilidh " can have both the meanings referred to
above. I would guess that Macneice's ancestors were almost certainly scottish
not Irish. It is strange no-one has attempted to interpret the poem, but I
would have thought it is a perfect comment on modern day Britain !!
From: MoparGurl15@
What's the irony of the sugar stick in Bagpipe Music? Any clue? Who are the
speakers in this poem? The falling glass...what is it represanting? I'd
really appreciate any insight.
Veronica
student at CSUSM
From: Helayne Beavers <helayne@>
In response to Veronica's question:
The "glass" referst to a weatherglass, or barometer. There's no particular irony to the the sugar stick, it just refers to the practice of giving a baby candy to shut it up from crying.
--Boundary_(ID_+z4Dx6v1AUuJF2/OPA/mVw)
Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<META content="MSHTML 6.00.2800.1141" name=GENERATOR>
<STYLE></STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY bgColor=#ffffff>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>In response to Veronica's question:</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>The "glass" referst to a weatherglass, or
barometer. There's no particular irony to the the sugar stick, it just refers to
the practice of giving a baby candy to shut it up from
crying.</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>
--Boundary_(ID_+z4Dx6v1AUuJF2/OPA/mVw)--
From: "Ambrose Kennedy" <KennedyA@>
The question from one commentator suggesting that Louis McNeice would
have found modern day Britain in worse condition than when he penned
this verse fails to take into account the state of the country when the
poem was written . There was no National Health Service, infant
mortality was high , there was no minimum wage, there was no
pregnancy(never mind paternity) leave, health and safety at work was so
rudimentary as to be practically non-existent, only monied people could
avail of further education, TB was rife and usually fatal , life
expectancy was much shorter, there had been a horrendous World War
barely over 20 years before and the world was on the cusp of another
one, etc. I could go on indefinitely. Why do people tend to think that
the age in which they live is the worst in history when all common sense
and humanitarian criteria indicate that while the world is never perfect
it does (slowly ) improve in what most would feel are the crucial
areas.
On a lighter note - one of the funniest things I've ever heard was the
late Sir Michael Horden reading this poem on a programme called "Muses
With Milligan"(hosted by the also unfortunately late Spike) which goes
back to the late 60s or early 70s.
Ambrose Kennedy
<mailto:kennedya@> kennedya@belfastcity.gov.uk
From: "shadow cat" <chadowkat@>
<html><div style='background-color:'><DIV>hi!! </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I don't understand exactly the meaning of this poem, can you help me?</DIV>
<DIV>What is the meaning of Yogi-Man, Blavatsky, Laird o' Phelps, Hogmanay, Herring Board?</DIV>
<DIV>Who are MacDonald, MacDougall, Murray??</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>thanks</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>PS: sorry for my english, i'm not english<IMG height=12 src="http://graphics.hotmail.com/emwink.gif" width=12></DIV></div><br clear=all><hr>Découvrez les nouvelles émoticônes animées de <a href="http://g.msn.com/8HMBFRFR/2737??PS=">MSN Messenger nouvelle formule</a> </html>
From: "jenny" <jenny5688@>
Li4NCg=
From: helen MACMILLAN <macmillan@>
MacNiece was born in Belfast - you are right, from there he moved to either America or Canada, it escapes me.
From: RTCot@
Thanks for posting the poem! I appreciate the comments after it, also. But
I have a few more questions:
Can anybody explain "Blavatsky"? The only Blavatsky I can find is a 19th
century Russian Helena Blavatsky who was the founder of Theosophy. I don't think
she had any connection to Scotland, but I don't know for sure.
What does "Laird o' Phelps" mean. Laird is Scottish for Lord, so does this
mean, the Lord of Phelps? Is Phelps a region of Scotland?
Lastly, are you sure the poem was written during the Depression? It sounds
post-WWII to me.
Thanks! Chris
From: michelle.gallen@ Wed Jun 9 05:14:41 2004
Hi,
There's a BBC website with a section on the life and works of MacNeice.
Video clips from the BBC NI Writing Home documentary will be included
shortly.
Check out
http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/learning/getwritingni/writing_home.
shtml
Good Luck!
Michelle Gallen
BA Online
02890 338250
079 68480331
www.bbc.co.uk/ni/learning/gogetit
www.bbc.co.uk/ni/getwritingni
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ - World Wide Wonderland
This e-mail (and any attachments) is confidential and may contain
personal views which are not the views of the BBC unless specifically
stated.
If you have received it in error, please delete it from your system.
Do not use, copy or disclose the information in any way nor act in
reliance on it and notify the sender immediately. Please note that the
BBC monitors e-mails sent or received.
Further communication will signify your consent to this.
From: michelle.gallen@ Wed Jun 9 05:15:57 2004
Sorry - URL not working - check out www.bbc.co.uk/ni/getwritingni and
use the left-hand nav to navigate to the macneice section!
Michelle Gallen
BA Online
02890 338250
079 68480331
www.bbc.co.uk/ni/learning/gogetit
www.bbc.co.uk/ni/getwritingni
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ - World Wide Wonderland
This e-mail (and any attachments) is confidential and may contain
personal views which are not the views of the BBC unless specifically
stated.
If you have received it in error, please delete it from your system.
Do not use, copy or disclose the information in any way nor act in
reliance on it and notify the sender immediately. Please note that the
BBC monitors e-mails sent or received.
Further communication will signify your consent to this.
From: "Fludernik" <Monika.Fludernik@>
Does anybody know what the Herring Board is? Does it have to do with
herring (i.e. fish), but that does not seem to fit the line. It also
cant be herring bone, I guess.
Thanks for any info.
Blavatsky is indeed that Madam Blatvatsky about whom Yeats and the
theosophists were wild. In conjunction with the yogiman (i.e. yoga man),
the line suggests that spiritualist approaches are no longer "in".
Monika