Wagging a Flag in a Good Cause

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 397, 31 January 1947, Page 10

Wagging a Flag in a Good Cause

[Pw Elgar have a warped sense of humour or did he really believe that "Land of Hope and Glory" was great music? Did the composer of the "Internationale’ see himself sitting next to Beethoven in Elysium? Of all the flagwagging, or up-and-at-’em songs, the "Marseillaise" is still the most inspiring and the best of music, but "Ballad for (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) Americans" runs it pretty close. "Ballad for Americans" is not a thing you whistle on the street: as sung by Paul Robeson and an American People’s Chorus from 3YA_ the other night, it ran for about 12 minutes and contained some fairly intricate part singing. The Corwin influence could be felt in the lyric, in the telling use of repetition ("Nobody who was anybody believed it, everybody who was anybody they doubted it") in the occasional sharp phrase, and in the personal appeal to each individual listening, which has been crudely demonstrated often enough in these days of Top Secrecy by the notice "Keep ‘Out: This Means YOU." I know that after hearing " Ballad for Americans"--somehow or other I had not heard it before-I felt I too was involved in the American experiment, and that if the mixture of races which makes up America became intolerant ‘of each other, or of the peoples outside their frontiers, then I too would be in some measure responsible. The idea of behaving responsibly towards one’s fellow human beings is not exactly a new one, but when men in high authority are to be heard righteously cutting off UNRRA funds it is cheering to know that the other idea is also being spread about a bit.