Forgotten you? Well... (30 vii 87)

There is a power in silly songs to resurrect the past,
quite out of proportion to their quality as songs.
For instance, when I'm overseas
and hear the BBC World Service
dropping Lilliburlero into the static,
I think of King Billy, his left-footers,
Wexford in the sixties,
and a particularly pretty girl who used to sing it.
I also wonder whether the BBC is being
deliberately provocative,
or just plain insensitive,
but I digress.

Take wars:
Green grow the lilacs equals the Texas revolt.
Dixie equals the War between the States.
Dolly grey equals the Boer War.
Tipperary equals the First Great War.
Lilli Marlene equals the Second,
and the Marseillaise,
whatever it may mean to the French,
means the Retreat from Moscow to the rest of us.

Take peace:
Bunclody takes me back to hot days cycling,
sleeping rough under the stars,
the raw feel of the pre-dawn mist
and the ease of catching the first trout
with the first cast of the day.
A hundred other ballads call up
places, singers, lovers, friends.

I remember coming down the cliff-path at Rosslare,
one Summer evening,
and coming on two men singing on a bench,
to no-one in particular,
and I can still remember the pleasure they took
in the drop:

What's it to any man, whether or no,
whether I'm easy or whether I'm true?
I lifted her petticoat, easy and slow,
and I rolled up my sleeves,
for to buckle her shoe.

Heart-sick though I was for sweet Mary Wickham,
it cheered me up.