WILLIAM HEUGHAN

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 821, 15 November 1929, Page 16

WILLIAM HEUGHAN

WILL SING FINE WAR-SONG During his wanderings William Heughan, the incomparable actorsinger, who is to give two good-bye concerts tomofroiv and Monday, is inundated witli requests to sing songs by local writers. It was while he was performing in Manchester that a song called "The Silent Host" was given to him. To use his own words, "it was a song that grave me a thrill in the spine, an evidence of its emotional quality.” This number was written and composed by Horace Shepherd, an English composer of the younger school. It was written soon after the war, but the music publishers did not want this kind of war song, and would not take it up. “The Silent Host” is an intense dramatic piece with the war sacrifices and also those of the pioneers as its theme, and it did not fit in with the spirit of those wild, jazzy days of early peace. Heughan, however, liked the song and took it with him on his world tour. It impressed every 'audience to which he sang it, but its clever youthful composer has still not had it published. The people of the great new countries apparently understand its meaning and message better because its greatest successes have been in the Dominions. There is tremendous inspiration in the final lines: ‘‘Win through as they have won. Your work soon will be done, With those glorious ones You shall call to your sons. Upward and onward, Always march on.” All who love their country should hear this song. Heughan will appear at the Town Hall tomorrow evening.