Thanks to Charlie Horse 47 and Killdumpster for their sponsorship of this post, via the magic of Patreon.
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Waltzing Matilda? Waltzing Matilda? Who'll go Waltzing Matilda with me?
Not the people of Australia. That's for sure.
What was this madness?
And who was going to break the news to Skippy?
Sadly, there was no sign of either of those songs on the UK singles chart, that month, although Waltzing Matilda would later make it onto the hit parade, thanks to Rod Stewart.
But even Lionel is only human and quickly had to make way for the juggernaut that was Now That's What I Call Music 2 by the act known as Various Artists.
It was dishing up its familiar diet of Sláine, D.R. & Quinch, Judge Dredd [guest-starring Dave the Orangutan], Strontium Dog, Rogue Trooper, and Tharg's Future-Shocks. It seems we'd have to wait for future issues for anything new and startling to raise its head.
Clearly, plenty of drama there but what of the galaxy's greatest comic? What thrills, spills and chills was it dishing up?
Growing up in Gary Indiana in the 1960s, we learned a couple songs by heart. We seeing them every week in our music class. One was waltzing Matilda. The other was marching to Pretoria. Anyone else?
ReplyDeleteAustralia's original anthem was 'God Save The Queen' so anything was preferable to that sycophantic dirge.
ReplyDeleteI was recently reading an article in The Guardian about which anthem an independent Scotland would choose. Among the suggestions was 'Auld Lang Syne' which obviously does qualify as it was written by Robert Burns but it's too associated with New Year's Eve to be a national anthem surely? Anyway the timid SNP has declared that Her Maj (or King Charles) will remain Head Of State in an independent Scotland so they'll probably keep God Save The Queen/King too.
Charlie, I remember sitting cross-legged on the floor in music class when I was about 5 or 6 and the two songs I vividly recall singing were 'Yellow Submarine' and 'Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep' (a massive #1 hit in the UK in 1971).
ReplyDeleteAh, it was so satisfying to see Duran Duran top the US Billboard chart for the first time with "Reflex". We were still way behind the UK in appreciation for New Wave, but things were looking better.
ReplyDeleteCharlie- we sang "Pretoria " too ( which I often confused for "Peoria"; not ever certain why anyone would march there). There was no "Waltzing Matilda", but there was some song about "Kookaburra sitting in the old Gum tree". Merry merry king of the bush was he...
Like Colin, I remember us being made to sing Yellow Submarine and Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep. Also, Lilly the Pink, Green Grow the Rushes, O and Morning has Broken. We also had an Australian teacher who liked to whip out her guitar and get us all singing Kumbaya.
ReplyDeleteI remember "Yellow Submarine" from Kindergarten!
ReplyDeleteYeah, we sang that too.
And now, nearly fifty years later, I still haven't tried LSD.
M.P.
RED - I wonder if "Marching to Pretoria" was part of the State of Indiana's curriculum lol for grade school in the 1960s.
ReplyDeleteI and most of the class would also sing "Peoria" instead of "Pretoria" which made sense since we were way to young to really comprehend international geography but had certainly heard of Peoria given it was only about 2 hours away.
And you are right that it is pretty darn cool to see / remember the "big guns" of NEW WAVE starting to bust open the charts and the fllod that would soon follow.
Charlie would like to congratulate the UK for coming in 2nd this year for Eurovision.
ReplyDeleteLast year England also got 2nd in the Eurocup.
What does the future hold?
Could the UK launch yet another "British Invasion" of the Pop Charts???
Could there be a World Cup Championship in 7 months in England's future???
The suspense is palpable!!!
Calm down, Charlie - stop getting overexcited or you'll do yourself a mischief.
ReplyDeleteColin, I think I can safely say "Good save the Queen/King " would not be Scotlands National anthem when we( personally) hopefully move on from the UK. And of course we already have "Flower of Scotland" which we use.
ReplyDeleteMCSCOTTY -
ReplyDeleteWhat are the odds of "MULL OF KINTYRE" being the Scottish National Anthem? WHy not?
(I no nothing much about Scotland besides DC Thomson and my father's mother's mother coming from Dundee and her father crossing the ocean some ridiculous number of times to serve as a gardener for (we think) a family in Wilmette, Illinois.
By the way, have you ever come across the OOR WULLIE "bucket 'trail" one can walk in Dundee?
Charlie: I haven't been on the "bucket trail" as such but I have seen a fair few of the Oor Wullie statues in various towns and cities in Scotland.
ReplyDeleteI reckon the odds of Mull of Kintyre are less than nil, basically as we already have an anthem , maybe the tune "Hoots Mon ( there's a moose loose about this hoose)" by Lord Rockinghams X1 has a better chance Charlie .
Isn't it SNP policy to keep the monarchy, Paul?
ReplyDeleteSomehow I can't see Scotland achieving independence until they get past stuff like that. Er, not that its up to me of course.
Charlie, surely you lot have something you prefer to the Star Spangled Banner?
Thats famously a hard song to sing because of the range (the best thing I read about it was that the word 'free' is set so high nobody can reach it. Ba-dum tsshh).
What about 'I Wanna Be Your Dog'?
-sean
Matthew, the progs are in a rut at this point? Really?
ReplyDeleteWow - you and Steve are difficult to please!
You're right about Strontium Dog being workmanlike... but theres always stuff like that in 2000AD. I go with DW's rule of thumb - two good stories = a win.
So on that basis, here you've D.R. & Quinch in Hollywood by the Alans - "Mind the oranges Marlon!" - Slaine, not drawn by McMahon (and its gone a bit Welsh) but still very readable, and some decent Dredds. Even Rogue Trooper looks ok drawn by Cam Kennedy.
Thats 22p of your Earth money well spent imo.
Go back a couple of years, and you've got the Apocalypse War, Ace Trucking, and Robo-Hunter in Brit-Cit - now thats a rut!
-sean
Nahhh. Rogue Trooper had a revolving door of stellar art talent and it still never came to life.
DeleteI’m not really into barbarians so apart from the McMahon then Slaine didn’t set my world on fire.
And the latter Dr & Quincy stories outstayed their welcome.
I am indeed a miserable sod.
Agree about the Apocalypse War, though.
It went on forever. Even worse was the depressing year following where all the stories were set in the devastated MC1. So boring.
Another song I remember singing in school was called 'Yellow Bird'
ReplyDeleteYellow bird
Up high in banana tree
I've just been listening to it on YouTube and according to the comments it was originally a poem from Haiti and later set to music.
And another song we sang was 'Marie's Wedding' (it's a Scottish song so Marie is pronounced Marry not Maree).
ReplyDeleteI thought DR and Quinch stayed solid to the end and so these represent the culmination of a pretty decent run. I think the weekly schedule and rotating artists tended to make most issues seem just ok, at the time, and with hindsight we realised they were actually pretty good. Halo Jones and Skizz were both a bit underwhelming at the time but improved retrospectively. I was shitty at the time Halo was abandoned, probably because it was just hitting its straps. Not discounting my two story rule, 2000AD was always more reassuring than essential.
ReplyDeleteDW
For grades 1 thru 6 I went to a parochial school, so the closest thing to a pop song we ever got to sing was ‘O Happy Day’.
ReplyDeleteHilariously, when I typed ‘thru’ up above, autocorrect / predictive text decided the word I was looking for was ‘Thrudvang’ . For a second I was like ‘WTF is a Thrudvang?’ Then I remembered it was that ugly yellow goober from SWAMP THING 24, which we discussed here awhile back.
b.t.
ReplyDeleteColin, the only song I recall learning was ' Frere Jacques" which was also pretty much my entire French schooling at Primary.
Sean, yeah I think the SNP plan to keep the Monarchy , after all it's not the English monarchy the UK monarchy followed the Scots Kings lineage etc for which I can only apologise to all.