Oh, it’s glorious when people resist.
Wales fans ignored the WRU’s ban on the Principality Stadium choir singing Sir Tom Jones’s hit Delilah in their side’s Six Nations clash with Ireland.
After being rocked by allegations of sexism, racism and misogyny, the WRU told the choir that performs before their home matches not to sing the song.
The response was a massive ‘fuck you.’
Before, during and after yesterday’s game against Ireland, however, the song rang out loud and proud from the terraces. The resistance began early. In the hours ahead of kick-off, the hit was heard loud on the streets and, of course, in the pubs.
And nowhere was it delivered with any more gusto than in the Old Arcade, one of the capital’s most famous rugby taverns. “I’d played it five times by 12.30pm,” Mark Falzon, the establishment’s manager said. “And the punters were requesting it all the time. There was not much support for the WRU here.”
Throughout the match, a rather large ensemble in the 74,500 crowd were intent on not being silenced. As the second half began — and, pertinently, in the moments just after the vanilla, corporate friendly tunes booming out over the tannoy had blessedly gone quiet — so the song’s lyrics reverberated under the roof. Wales actually scored their first (and only) try as the rousing rendition was under way.
Naturally, the ban was the brain child of that nasty little fucker Chris Bryant.
Labour MP Chris Bryant, who has been campaigning for a ban for the best part of a decade, attempted to link the hit to a ‘dramatic rise in domestic violence on match days across Wales’. Similarly, Richard Lewis, the chief constable of Powys Police, says it’s ‘time to sing something else’, because ‘approximately two women a week are murdered by a partner or ex-partner’.
But what the WRU, Bryant and the chief of Powys Police forget is that ordinary rugby fans are perfectly capable of recognising that these lyrics are not about real life. This is an imagined scenario, not a literal description of a murder, let alone an incitement to start knifing one’s partner. In other words, it’s part of what civilisations like to refer to as… ‘culture’.
We are many, they are few. The Welsh Rugby fans did their country proud and they did the cause of liberty proud by defying the petty little tyrants who would rule our lives and restrict our speech. And a big fuck you, to Chris Bryant, which is what he deserves. It is by resistance to tyranny that we make it unworkable. There is a lesson here.
Meanwhile you can turn on the telly and see whole programs devoted to murder!
They’ll be going for ‘Land of My Fathers’ next.
I like Alex Harvey’s version that has all the over wrought and hammy overacting in it. Also yes, a big poke in the eye for the bansturbaters.
Me too – while Jones wins hands down on vocal quality, the venom with which Alex Harvey delivers the line “She stood there laughing” is superb.
I guess some minion in the WRU won’t get his MBE after all.
The RFU no longer sells merchandise referencing Swing Low Sweet Chariot or displays the lyrics at Twickenham, but they had the sense to realise that they could not ban fans from singing it.
They’ll be after “The Italian Job” next, because it advocates theft and dangerous driving.
Wait until they discover war movies!
And Shakespeare had better watch out: “Romeo & Juliet”…underage sex, self-harm, suicide…
Not to mention almost any tragic opera you care to mention, including ‘Carmen’, allegedly the inspiration behind ‘Delilah’ .
I read an interesting review of a recent book by a feminist author about the oppression of female characters in opera, using examples from Verdi’s ‘Otello’ (indirectly Shakespeare again) and ‘Rigoletto’ to Berg’s ‘Lulu’, in which the eponymous protagonist is murdered by Jack the Ripper. As the reviewer pointed out, the book, rather incongruously for an in-depth study of opera, made almost no mention anywhere of music.
Therein, I think, lies the problem with much of this contemporary censorship; reduce any art form to its component parts and you lose sight of the context – in this case, a long-standing folk tradition of murder ballads and, given Jones’ vocal technique, opera – and the cultural element – a rousing tune that lends itself spectacularly well to communal singing.
As the man said; “The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils; […]. Let no such man be trusted.”
“…‘Carmen’, allegedly the inspiration behind ‘Delilah’.
I did not know that. I wrote a not too serious review of Carmen here:
https://forum.diabetes.org.uk/boards/threads/a-night-at-the-opera.99342/
I just re-read it and was surprised that I didn’t mention the fact that, in this production, Carmen was a bit of an Amazon while her killer looked as though he couldn’t fight his way out of a wet paper bag.
“a ‘dramatic rise in domestic violence on match days across Wales’.”
Riiiiight. ‘Cos the boyos forget all about thumping their wives until they hear someone singing about it. Sure, Chris, sure.
“In other words, it’s part of what civilisations like to refer to as… ‘culture’.“
Nononononono. Culture it what Our Betters make with the money they steal from us. Piles of rubbish in Victorian art galleries; ballets about imaginary Christian theocracies; poems that don’t scan, rhyme, or make sense; plays about murdering Leave voters; that kind of thing.