A SONG ABOUT “BLIGHTY."

Hokitika Guardian, 30 June 1917, Page 1

A SONG ABOUT “BLIGHTY."

I cannot suppress a liking for soldier songs however nonsensical ■ the words. To hear soldiers singing on the march or rolling out, a chorus, deep-throated, at a singsong always pulls at the heartstrings.

A,song sticks when everything else is forgotten, and itselt is the best anodyne for weariness. A chorus, whatever the words, binds men together in comradeship and forgetfulness of trouble.

When the Middlesex stood to their Birkenhead drill and gallant Colonel John Ward bade them “Be British,” they sang -“Tipperary,” “The long, long trail,” and every song they knew. It is long odds that they sang also “Take me back to Blighty,” a rollicking knockabout ditty which has had a remarkable vogue for months past among the troops up and down the lines in France and along the Tigris to Thigh dad.

Listen to the refrain : Iddle-dy, iddle-,dv i-ti! Take me back to Blighty ! Blighty is the place forme

Scott and Mills, who composed and wrote “ Blighty,” are very irank about the origin of it. They wanted to write a success, something which would be “another Tipperary.” That has been the hopekind ambition of hundreds of song-writers since the war began : If. they have not succeeded some have come verv near to it.

“Mills said to me,” said Scott the other day, “'Let’s write a song about “ Blighty.” ’ That was a year ago. I said, ‘ Not yet, Mills ; the public doesn’t know the word.’ But the word stuck in my.head, and last November I said, ‘lt’s about time we wrote that “Blighty” song.’ So we sat down at the piano, decided on a six-eight measure, jp good marching swing, and ; the words and music came.” * V? * * & “ It’s no good,” remarked this sage student of popular songs, giving modern soldiers sentiment to «*rng, or heroics about their ' life and deeds. They want .somethingwith a touch of the comic spirit aij.d a shout. We worked it out on those lines, and though you. may .call it machine-made popularity, popular the song is. Hear that ‘ Whoa ! ’ that’s the shout. Hear ‘ iddle-dy, iddle-dy-i-ti,' that’s comedy, and ‘ want to see my best girl ’ is all the sentiment we would allow, except, of course, the main idea, ‘ Take me hack to Blighty,’ which they sing meaning it and not meaning it. All the rest is just words to carry the air.” Whatever the reason may lie, the song is here and everywhere. It was sung in ever}- pantomime last winter, and has gone the round of every soldier concert and every marching regiment. Scott’s letters

front the front show that it lias been “ featured ” at regimental “ revues ” in France and Salonica. “ I have mv two comedy men make an eu-trn-uce during the first chorus of the third verse,” writes one soldierproducer, “ one with his toot covered with bandages and the other with his arm in a sling. It was an enormous success.” Unconquerable spirit that; which makes a screaming joke of blindages. ■ The question the song-writers of the day are now asking themselves is V Who will write the song winch the men will sing when they all come home again ?