Swing low Sweet Chariot...

Bounty Hunter

Couldent quite decide on what forum to put this in but due to it connection with English Rugby where its like their fields of athenry and the Victor ubogu (sp?) story.

recently had a conversation with an english mate of mine (im living in London) while watching an english side in the HC about the song the crowd were singing, Swing Low Sweet Chariot. I told him how id heard that it was originally a slave song, something he didnt know and that the first time that i know of it being sung at an England rugby match was when victor Ubogo (on of englands first black players) debuted. I never got why it wouldent be considerd odd (didnt wanna touch the word racist) for a mostly white crowd to sing a slave song just because a black player is playing, on this point my friend couldent help and just suggested that I probably didnt have the proper story.

Last night a new scrubs aired in which there were two swing low mentions:

1) Elliot (blonde, white female doc) is singing the song and is told by her friend "Elliot!, you cant sing that song"

then later

2) As the show ends Elliot starts to again sing the song in the hospital and all the black doctors in the background begin to give her dirty looks etc?

this got me thinking, does anyone know the real deal with the song and how it first came into use as a Rugby song? is it racist somehow to sing it?

RuggieBear

i'm pretty sure it was first sung when chris oti was playing

Padjoe

URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Swing_Low,_Sweet_Chariot&action=edit&section=5"][COLOR=#0000ff]edit[/COLOR][/URL Usage in rugby union

Swing Low, Sweet Chariot has been sung by British rugby players and fans for some decades[4] , but became associated with the English national side, in particular, in 1988. Coming into the last match of the 1988 season, against Ireland at Twickenham, England had lost 15 of their previous 23 matches in the Five Nations Championship. The Twickenham crowd had only seen one solitary England try in the previous two years and at half time against Ireland they were 0-3 down. However during the second half England scored six tries to give them a 35-3 win. Three of the tries came in quick succession from Chris Oti, a black player making his Twickenham debut. A group from the Benedictine school Douai started to sing a rugby club favourite – the gospel hymn "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot" – in honour of their new hero, large sections of the crowd joined in. The song is still regularly sung at matches by supporters.[5][6][4]
The England national rugby union team returned from the 2003 World Cup triumph in Australia on a plane dubbed 'Sweet Chariot' [1].




Find out more here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swing_Low,_Sweet_Chariot

Serenity Now!

RuggieBear wrote: »

i'm pretty sure it was first sung when chris oti was playing

That and this whole thing is a myth. English fans have been singing that song way before the Millenium test in 1988.

Enduro

Its a bit more convoluted than that, I think.

It links to the song "Jerusalem" which is kinda the reserve English national anthem. Jerusalem the highlight of the last night of the proms, which is one big huge English patriotism festival. The song has the now famous "Chariots of fire" reference. (and if you watch at the film of the same name, you'll notice "Jerusalem" being used prominantly). From there it was a short hop to "swing low, sweet chariot" (Jerusalem would be harder to sing, and the words are trickier ). Nothing to do with slavery/race at all.

damselnat

Haha I grew up in London in a big rugby supporting family...till I was about eight I actually thought it was the national anthem..:olol

TarfHead

Serenity Now! wrote: »

That and this whole thing is a myth. English fans have been singing that song way before the Millenium test in 1988.

I disagree. I have being watching international rugby for over 30 years and Sweet Chariot coincided with Chris Oti - not the Millennium match, it was the 5N game.

For me, the adoption of Sweet Chariot is an indictment of English culture and it's ignorance of their folk tradition. The Welsh have songs, the Irish have songs, can't remember what Scotland before Flower of Scotland (i.e. pre David Sole's march), but the vast majority of English supporters have no repertoire of folk songs to draw on.

On the morning of the Hand of Back HEC Final, we were on a train from Bristol to Cardiff. We were engaged in banter with Leicester fans and asked them to sing a song that wasn't Sweet Chariot.

They had nothing.

anonymous_joe

TarfHead wrote: »

I disagree. I have being watching international rugby for over 30 years and Sweet Chariot coincided with Chris Oti - not the Millennium match, it was the 5N game.

For me, the adoption of Sweet Chariot is an indictment of English culture and it's ignorance of their folk tradition. The Welsh have songs, the Irish have songs, can't remember what Scotland before Flower of Scotland (i.e. pre David Sole's march), but the vast majority of English supporters have no repertoire of folk songs to draw on.

On the morning of the Hand of Back HEC Final, we were on a train from Bristol to Cardiff. We were engaged in banter with Leicester fans and asked them to sing a song that wasn't Sweet Chariot.

They had nothing.

This is going majorly off-topic, so excuse me here:

Similar to France under Napoleon, one of the important things of the English culture was the transformation into British culture - that is, there was a dream of a centralised culture, whereby everyone would be British. Obviously the English adopted it en masse, whereas it met with little success in the 3 other parts of the UK, that is us, Scotland and Wales.

In France all the local dialects etc were wiped out by Napoleon, whereas, for example, in Italy, they persisted until the First World War, and most Italians would also speak dialect as well as Italian.

In England their culture was submerged under that of Britishness as part of a policy of increasing loyalty to the greater whole, leaving them as the English, completely bereft of a culture, as it had all been swallowed up by 'Britishness.'

shmaido

Well, I grew up with it.... I grew up abroad and our family were part of a large expat community there (Libya), a good mix of Irish/English/Welsh/Scottish and of course.. a few ozzies. So naturally enough there was a rugby club and most weekends there would be a match organised, a pretty scratchy affair at the best of times but never the less good fun.

What was even better fun though was the afters and the inevitable post match analysis/sing song/piss up (the usual craic with most rugby clubs I'd say), now I was quite young but I can clearly remember them singing swing low before 1988, I asked my dad and he said they'd been singing it even before he got there in the early 70's so it was a well established song and was always a favourite, long before twickenham got a hold of it. It has loads of actions to go along with the words too which were also pretty hilarious, especially after they had a few..

So as I heard it (could be wrong here) there was a load of expats on tour in england that year and of course went to that match in which Oti scored three tries... I'll let you fill in the blanks I suppose. I'm not saying it was our rugby club directly responsible for it, we travelled about a bit at the time and it seemed to be the norm in other expat rugby clubs we went to aswell. I reckon if you google some expat rugby club sites you'll find more info on it.

my 2 cents anyway, sorry for the length of it.

TarfHead

shmaido wrote: »

.. (the usual craic with most rugby clubs I'd say), now I was quite young but I can clearly remember them singing swing low before 1988, I asked my dad and he said they'd been singing it even before he got there in the early 70's so it was a well established song and was always a favourite, long before twickenham got a hold of it.

I agree - in the absence of anything equivalent to, say, Molly Malone or Fields of Athenry, the English only had recourse to Swing Low, which was not the preserve of English rugby.

And the alignment of this song to Chris Oti's ancestry made it all the more apposite.

And, in the days of my first visits to Lansdowne, the Fields was never sung - just Molly Malone. But, back then, we rarely had anything to sing about.

Snickers Man

I can remember being taught the hand actions to Swing Low Sweet Chariot by a bunch of English lads I met on a boat to the Greek islands in 1981.

And whatever about the song itself, clearly a "Negro Spiritual" recorded by Paul Robeson et al early in the 20th century, the ribald gestures have rugby club sing song written all over them. So it's been around for a while.

Snickers Man

TarfHead wrote: »

the vast majority of English supporters have no repertoire of folk songs to draw on.

Well there's a whole genre of "Rugby song" that consists mainly of juvenile smut. Eskimo Nell, Dinah Dinah show us your leg, Dikki-Di-Do etc.

And of course there are traditional English songs which have been sung for years such as Jerusalem (a poem by Blake) and Ilkley Moor Bar t'hat (and if that's not dialect, I don't know what is).

I don't think you can get too sniffy about Englishmen broadening their culture if you're a Munster fan who has pinched a song from Galway.

And please, none of this crap about the other Athenry in Waterford. Has it got a prison? A bay?

I don't think so.

TarfHead

Snickers Man wrote: »

I don't think you can get too sniffy about Englishmen broadening their culture if you're a Munster fan who has pinched a song from Galway.

Which I'm not

Which reminds me .. Edinburgh - mid-90s - in the company of 3 lads from Limerick who weren't shy about the whole "rugby capital of Ireland, we were there in '78" palaver. I tried to lead them into a rendition of 'There is an Isle' and they hadn't a clue between them. I thought they all had it sung to them in the cradle and the rest had it beaten into them by the Brothers ?

thehighground

TarfHead wrote: »

Which I'm not

Which reminds me .. Edinburgh - mid-90s - in the company of 3 lads from Limerick who weren't shy about the whole "rugby capital of Ireland, we were there in '78" palaver. I tried to lead them into a rendition of 'There is an Isle' and they hadn't a clue between them. I thought they all had it sung to them in the cradle and the rest had it beaten into them by the Brothers ?

'The Isle' is a Shannon RFC song. You'd hardly expect anyone else from Munster to want to have anything to do with a Shannon RFC song, would you?

One of the reasons why Munster sing "The Fields" is because it doesn't have any strong connection to any particular place in Munster, unlike say 'Molly' which is a Dublin song. As for 'Stand Up & Fight" - Italian opera

By the way, There is an Isle is a Scottish poem. (Big hint as to its origination would be "A bonnie Isle'

'The Isle' is Shannon RFC's anthem/victory song. It originated as a Scottish poem and was put to music in 1924 by Anna Maria Lynch, who was music teacher in St. Mary's girls school, at the time. It got its first rendition outside of Cowey's bar (now Radcliff's) on Athlunkard St. in the 'Parish'. It has been getting an airing a lot more frequently in recent years, for obvious reasons, led by the 'Bard of Thomond' Frank O'Flynn.

The Ritz

I can remember hearing "Swing low......" in the mid 70's being sung as a "rugby" song amongst other less reputable ditties - the "Wild West Show" being a particular favourite.

As to "Stand up and Fight", it's from Carmen Jones, based on Bizet's "Carmen". Bizet was French, and the "Carmen Jones" was a 1943 stage musical with an all-black cast based on the opera, subsequently made into a film in 1953, directed by Otto Preminger The lyrics in the stage and film version are credited to Oscar Hammerstein II, and the music from the opera is "Votre Toast", the torreador song, so it can hardly be called Italian opera!

The actual piece from Carmen Jones is the song of a prize fighter who tells an admiring crowd how he has achieved his success....

Follow this Youtube link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjlN6lQWIPM and roll on to 4.26 for the full version of the song.

The original can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqEn57tVA1s

If you can watch this stuff without the hair on the back of your neck standing up........


Ritz.

Ulstermell0

this thread has educated about rugby songs - love learning about them, even learnt Molly Malone for the Wasps - Leinter match. then my mate's dad told me that it always used to be sung at ireland matches and the n Athenry took over.

one thing i wondered - at ireland matches its only the chorus of Athenry that gets sung - how much of molly is usually sang?

Crash

All of it generally (or by all of it, I mean the 3 verses and the chorus) provided people can actually keep it going. Its rare that i've heard it get past the first chorus really though.

Also, I have to say, I have always been a fan of the perverted Bohs version:

In Dublin's fair city,
Where the girls are so pretty,
I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone,
As she wheeled her wheelbarrow
Through streets broad and narrow
Crying (clap)(clap)(clap)(clap)(clap)(clap)(clap)(clap)(clap)(clap)(clap) Bohs

Wonderfully childish

garbanzo

Ulstermell0 wrote: »

this thread has educated about rugby songs - love learning about them, even learnt Molly Malone for the Wasps - Leinter match. then my mate's dad told me that it always used to be sung at ireland matches and the n Athenry took over.

one thing i wondered - at ireland matches its only the chorus of Athenry that gets sung - how much of molly is usually sang?

Did you make it to the Leisnter v Wasps game UlstermellO? I recall you on another thread about getting to Twickenham. Was a great day out. We had a ball and shame about the result in the end.

You rarely get past the first verse and chorus of Molly Malone at a match because it is fairly long. The Fields has taken over and it is a worthy song to lose out to.