The song list drawn up for the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games is a disgrace. Surely everybody knows that by now, but then what can you expect when the selection is made by a pair of disc jockeys? There is nothing that reflects our nation’s love affair with the sea, no acknowledgement of our bawdy humour, no hymn or carol, no G and S, and the brass band appears somewhat bathetically only in the theme tune to Coronation Street. You could pop into any snug bar in the kingdom, and find a pair of sozzled old topers who could run up a better list.
The obsession with pop music of the past 20 years has blinded this hapless pair to the immense treasure-trove of British music, going all the way back to Tallis and Byrd. In fact you could fill all 60 places with selections from the Tudor songbook, not to mention the work of Elgar and Vaughan Williams. As for Butterworth, Holst, Delius, Bax and Finzi, whose music is imbued with Englishness, there is no trace. Evidently they didn’t take drugs, or shout abuse at passers-by, so they must be below the salt.
So here is a list of 10 pieces that should have been included. The music is high and low, but it is undeniably British. The best of British.
1) Autumn Almanac, The Kinks.
Blackpool holidays, roast beef on Sunday, football at the weekend, and ‘my poor rheumatic back’, this is Ray Davies’s happy-sad vision of his childhood, rooted in a music-hall tradition he clearly loved. Oh yes, yes, yes…
2) On Wenlock Edge, Vaughan Williams.
VW originally set six poems from Housman’s A Shropshire Lad for tenor voice, piano and string quartet before arranging the piece for the orchestra. They work superbly in either setting but a personal favourite is the recording Mark Padmore made with members of the Schubert Ensemble four years ago. This is English melancholy in its richest colours. In particular ‘From Far From Eve and Morning’ is a homage from one master to another.
3) Nina, Noel Coward.
Talking of masters, here is The Master himself, sending up Carmen Miranda and other Latin floozies in an absolute dazzler. ‘She refused to begin the beguine when they besought her to, and in language profane and obscene she cursed the man who taught her to…she cursed Cole Porter too’. Not as good as Oasis, of course, but it will have to do.
4) Sailing By, Ronald Binge.
Ronald Binge composed that little classic as recently as 1963, but it feels as if it has been around for at least a century. Delightfully light, this song continues to send thousands of Radio 4 listeners to the Land of Nod each evening.
5) Lullay, Mine Liking, Gustav Holst.No people have written more beautiful carols than the British, and this one, to which Gustav Holst supplied the music, is one of the most beautiful of all. Used memorably in Michael Powell’s great film, Black Narcissus, it is based on a medieval poem in which the Virgin Mary addresses the infant Christ.
6) The Sun whose Rays are all Ablaze, Gilbert and Sullivan.
You could take The Mikado from start to finish, for its sumptuous melodies and witty words. This, however, is the stand-out song, about the sun and the moon; in other words, about Gilbert and Sullivan themselves. For three minutes the mask of mockery is lowered, and the result is haunting.
7) When an Old Cricketer Leaves The Crease, Roy Harper.
Composed in 1975, this tribute to ‘those fabled men’ who played the summer game is deepened by the Grimethorpe Colliery Band, whose chorale supplies an elegiac feel. It is a song about the passing of time, the loss of one’s powers, and the unchanging rhythms of the English countryside.8) When I’m Cleaning Windows, George Formby.
Woo, turned out nice again! This is Formby at his most impish – ‘for a nosey parker, it’s an interesting job’. A saucy seaside postcard in vocal form, strummed by the king of Blackpool on his faithful uke, who can resist this slice of English life?
9) John Barleycorn, Traffic.
The famous folk song has been interpreted in dozens of ways, but Steve Winwood’s performance on Traffic’s 1970 LP of the same name gave it a popular dimension. The finest singer pop music has thrown up, Winwood sensibly lives in glorious Gloucestershire, not far from where Vaughan Williams was born.
10) Meet on the Ledge, Fairport Convention.
Richard Thompson wrote this song at the tender age of 19, and it will last for ever. Sung by Ian Matthews and Sandy Denny, it is about friendship, and no people do friendship quite like the British.
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