大象传媒

Armistice Day... Frontline ~ Stevie Wonder

Elegy for Dunkirk - Jeff Beck - (Emotion and Commotion)

if ever there were a time to play Jeff Beck, this is it.

Southampton Dock - Pink Floyd

I've worked for the Army for very nearly 30 years...have to take a wee while to get the sentiments right...will be back tomorrow :o)

THURSDAY

'A Day to Myself' - Clifford T. Ward

听A beautiful song; appropriate for the occasion.

Seconds again for CTW. Very appropriate

As well as the forces who gave up their lives we should also remember the innocent victims of war.
Paul weller's finest song was as a result of a visit he paid to a concentration camp.

Ghosts of Dachau / Style Council

Hauntingly beautiful

Bang the drum slowly - Emmylou Harris
Devils and dust - Springsteen

Joe
Linlithgow

Eric Bogle - And The Band Played waltzing Matilda

and well said Paolo

John and Yoko - Hapy Xmas (War Is Over)

Time has slipped away
The Summer sky to Autumn yields
A haze of smoke across the fields
Let's sup and fight another round
And walk the stublbed ground

When November brings
The poppies on Remembrance Day
When the vicar comes to say
Lest we forget our sons

We will remember them
Remember them
Remember them

Mark Knopfler - Remembrance Day

The sentiments required could indeed be a problem for today's show, as alluded to be Julie, and indeed the only laughs available might be due to the old firm's demise.
I'm pretty much unaffected by war issues but I do owe my existence to the fact that my dad had the good fortune to be doing his national service during the Korean war and was lucky enough to return home from a free world cruise to Seoul.

Throw Down The Sword - Wishbone Ash, when have they ever been played?
Summer Soldier - BJH, just in case you need time to nip down to the cenotaph!
Slip Kid - The Who, when were the 'oo last played?
Soldier - Neil Young, can we ever get enough?

Paul from Ayr

Just heard Radiohead's 'Harry Patch (in memory of)'...tribute to Britain's last surviving WW1 veteran. It's rather beautiful.

Oh and...#9 I do much prefer the Eric Bogle version.

BATTLE HYMN from BATTLE HYMN by WILD TURKEY
SOLDIER from THANK CHRIST FOR THE BOMB by THE GROUNDHOGS
COLD DAYS OF FEBRUARY from THE SEED-AT-ZERO by ROBIN WILLIAMSON (who is appearing at The Fraser Centre, Milngavie on Saturday night)
THE FLOWERS OF THE FOREST from FULL HOUSE by FAIRPORT CONVENTION
BANKS OF THE NILE from FOTHERINGAY by FOTHERINGAY

and to end the show

2032 from 2032 by GONG which, as we all know, is when PLANET GONG will finally make contact with Earth and bring global peace.

All this user's posts have been removed.Why?

I don't have a personal tale to tell - my Dad was sent with the RAVC to Razmak at the North-west frontier and was subsequently shipped home with a head injury. He later went to work as a vet on Bute where he met my Mum, a fiery lass from Surrey who was working as a land-girl, getting up at 5 a.m. to hand-milk 12 cows.
Dad used to get quite emotional on Remembrance day and now I know why, as I'm sitting here at the pc, tears dripping after looking out a story from Dunkirk. The Waverley is dear to my heart and I knew that her forebear had been involved in the Dunkirk landings. Here is her tale, and a letter from a survivor.

Captain John Cameron was on the bridge of the original Waverley when she took part in the Dunkirk landings. He recalled a cheer going up when the troops saw her and one lad shouting 'We're oan the auld Waverley gaun' tae Rothesay. We're awright noo'. However, after trying to pull another Clyde paddle steamer off the beach she was hit by 3 bombs and went down. Many troops were saved by the bouyant seats that floated free as she sank.

And here is a letter from one survivor, Lt Col Gordon Mitchison


Dear Both, Well here I am. Turned up like a bad penny. God only knows how I got here. The blighters sunk us, got two direct hits. Swam about for half an hour and then was picked up by another boat. It was terribly cold, however, I got here at last and they have been awfully good to us.
All I have left in the world is: one battle dress top, one cigarette case, one whistle, one pen and one pair of swiss binoculars which I took off a bosh! They remained round my neck all the time.
They bombed us for one hour and then they tried low flying attacks and got two direct hits which blew the side of the ship out, it sank in about 7 mins. I took to the water just before she went down. Thank God I could swim, the water was terribly cold. I was picked up by a motor launch and was eventually transferred to another boat.
I don鈥檛 know what is going to happen to us. Will contact you later I expect. Hope you鈥檙e both fit. Don

Elegy for Dunkirk - Jeff Beck

A song that will surprise a lot of people (although slightly less now that they have re-recorded ace of spades for beer advert)

Motorhead - 1916

Neither pro or anti war - just tell a story from ordinary soldiers point of view.

All this user's posts have been removed.Why?

I work for the Army 听and it鈥檚 easy sometimes to be blas茅 about the job they do when you鈥檙e seeing them in the UK non-operational environment.听 The only real experience I have, from having been married to a TA Officer who did tours in Bosnia and Iraq is how difficult it can be for families who have to keep things going while their partners are away.听I go into work in the morning and switch on the computer鈥he homepage usually informs me that there鈥檚 been yet another casualty in Afghanistan鈥ither an immediate casualty of a roadside bomb or suchlike, or sometimes that yet another soldier has died of injuries sustained on duty. 听听I recently attended a couple of 鈥楬omecoming鈥� Parades of the local Regiments. So many of them were scarred and it was so shocking to see how many limbless soldiers there were 鈥� just young boys really. 听Where I work just now, with students, some go on to join the Regular Army or TA as Officers. Some of those ex-students will be in Afghanistan now or will be in a few years once they鈥檝e completed their training. I feel guilty when I hear about a casualty and immediately think 鈥減hew!...nobody I know鈥�.听 It shouldn鈥檛 matter if I knew them or not.听听What I鈥檝e noticed recently is a profound change in the public鈥檚 attitude towards the Armed Forces. 听I鈥檓 not one to call them all heroes (I鈥檇 prefer that to be reserved for the very bravest of them) but I am glad they鈥檙e being respected more as people who do a job that I and (I imagine) a huge majority of people would never in a million years want to do. 听听Rod McKuen wrote a song called 鈥楾wo-ten, six-eighteen (doesn鈥檛 anybody know my name?)鈥欌�bout a soldier coming home after war and finding that everything had changed in his family and the town he grew up in. 听Johnny Cash did a good version, or there are other versions (Rod Mckuen, Waylon Jennings).听Heard 鈥楬arry Patch (in memory of)鈥� 听by Radiohead this morning. It was rather beautiful and was written in memory of the last surviving WW1 veteran who died last year who Thom Yorke had heard being interviewed. It can be downloaded from their website and the proceeds go to the British Legion.听If you play either of them, play them for my friend Rene鈥n Officer in the Dutch Army鈥e鈥檚 currently serving in Kandahar and I do hope he keeps safe.

10000 Maniacs - Anthem for a Doomed Youth
Wilfred Owens' haunting poem Dulce et Decorum Est set to music.

Near-repeating my suggestions of a couple of weeks ago on History night, as they're more specifically relevant now than they were then:

* Billy Bragg - Tank Park Salute
A hugely powerful meditation on loss.

* June Tabor - Happed in Mist
* Oysterband - Deserters
What would your reaction be to the horror of WWI (or any conflict)? Running away seems to me to be a perfectly rational response. The first of these makes me shiver; the second a bit more 'up'.

* The Pogues - The Band Played Waltzing Matilda
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

* Men They Couldn't Hang - The Colours
Whose war is it anyway?

* Donovan - Universal Soldier
The most powerful war memorial I've seen is the Vietnam Memorial in DC. It's only when you get close to it and the mass of names become individuals that it hits you.

* Judy Small - Mothers Daughters Wives
It's not only the soldiers who are impacted

As you'll guess from the above, I'm not even ambivalent about war. However, let's never confuse being anti-war with being anti-troops. I'm (at least partly) anti-war because I'm pro-troops.

Two quotes - both from very dark comedy - I think sum this up:

Jeremy Hardy
Let's support the troops by not sending them to fight stupid pointless wars.
(Paraphrasing from memory)

I know it's fashionable amongst some commentators to condemn criticising wartime objectives as somehow undermining the troops, but wars are always sold to the troops and the population as being moral.

However, with the exception of WWII, I can't think of a UK conflict of the last 200 years that had a strong moral case worth the valuable lives of those who did the fighting and dying.

Baldrick
Why can't we just stop, sir? Why can't we just say no more killing, let's all go home? Why would it be stupid just to pack it in?

Oh go on, just one more suggestion:
* Malinky -

The Green Fields Of France - The Fureys & Davey Arthur

Wondering whether last night's karaoke night was to balance what will inevitably be quite a sombre affair tonight.

When the Tigers broke free - Pink Floyd

DC

Two Suns in the sunset - Pink Floyd


DC

All this user's posts have been removed.Why?

I can still remember last years show and all the tunes were great. Tonight is equally as great. I would love to here the Rolf Harris Two Little Boys track or something from the original War Child album. By the way I'm not trucking tonight so I have taken the chance to get on the blog!!!!

Welcome Ali! There's a few country fans on here will be interested on how many wheels that truck of yours has :-)

Well done Turkish Ali. The Blog has had a pretty poor return these past 3 days. If it hadnt been for the Great DJ Debate, yesterday wouldn't have broken 50.

You also reminded me of a good war tune:

War Baby - Tom Robinson.

If its not too late.

Oops, thats Trucker Ali then.

And the Band played waltzing matilda has to be the ultimate antiwar song but much as I like the Pogues I have to say heir version's not a patch on the Bogle original or Liam Clancy's version.

Good show tonight though.

#19 nice post Julie

Hear hear paolo.

You always here / heir good choons on this show......

My husband never knew his maternal grandfather. Neither did his mother. A conscript, he had no choice but to go fight for the cause, which he didn't believe in. He died 4 months before my mother-in-law was born. Her mother spent years searching for information on where he died, to no avail and she never got over it. Nor, I think, has my mother-in-law.

My mother-in-law is German, her father wasn't a Nazi and neither were a whole load of the other soldiers who died on the "wrong" side - some of "their" boys were victims of war, too. They also deserve our remembrance.

Utmost respect to those who have paid the ultimate price, be it in a just war or otherwise.
On that basis - backing Capt Ramius' Donovan Universal Soldier.

#34 my use of hear hear was correct (this time)

#32 Thanks Paolo. I was thinking that it's all very sombre...does it all have to be? The Daughter was telling me about a mini outbreak of teenage girly hysteria at the school remembrance service. She's waved her Dad off to 'war' quite a few times so she thought they were overreacting a bit! Her Dad also says that when singers go out to give concerts for the troops they always sing some ballad that reminds them of their families - in his opinion that's a bit cruel! Anyway, I was thinking that any Army Remembrance Service I've been to, once the poignant serious bit's finished, has been followed with food, alcohol and laughter :o)

#36

I strongly suspect that #34 refers to #32


#28

Trucker_Ali,

Your presence here will keep the poets happy! Are you from Nantucket?

>8-D

Aaaarrrggghhh! Shuggy + Shout covering 'Shipbuilding' - horrible!

ooops sorry DC!

#39

I'm still in shock.

Although it's just happened I think I'm already aware that was the worst track I've ever heard played on GIO - not something I'd say lightly since both Dignity,the MacIntosh Ross singing 'Sunshine On Leith' are serious contenders.

Is that not just the worst version of any song you've ever heard?

regardez youse

henri

Well, someone must like it to have requested it so maybe I should've kept mum!

There was an Elvis Costello v Robert Wyatt debate on here some time ago which resulted in a theme of lesser known originals being played. That would be one theme worth repeating.



And Declan's is best!

Prefer Robert...best single sleeve too.

Na Declan. Don't think he released it as a single so he never had a sleeve. Just class!

#44 Have to agree with paolo - maybe it's because it's the first version I heard.

As to the H&C version - aye, well. Moving swiftly along...........

#38

Referring to #32 & #28 actually

#47

Never give a Trucker an even break...

Of course, he could well be Turkish too.

Did no one ask for Poppy Love last night?