“We have both kinds. Country and Western.”

[The Blues Brothers]

I really shouldn’t listen to the BBC.

Having completed the pre-news political indoctrination slot, in which a member (or fanatical supporter) of the Labour Party holds forth, usually upon the topic of social engineering, without any pretence at balanced debate, Radio 4 got on to the news, the main story of which was a School of Rantzen piece about a very sick baby whose life-support system will be switched off in due course, all of the doctors, the court, and the appeal court having agreed that this is the best thing to do, being opposed in this decision by the parents, ’some of the nurses’, and the BBC.

Following this there was the most absurd item about Rugby, and singing, and the Welsh.

Now I am not myself Welsh {huge, perfectly synchronised stage whisper from 90-man Male Voice Choir: “Not Welsh? Oooooh!”}. Nor am I much of a hand at singing. I have, however, played some Rugby.

The point of the absurd item seemed to be that the Welsh sing songs at Rugby matches. One of these songs is Delilah, by two fellows whose names now escape me, but made famous by the celebratedly Welsh Mr. Tom Jones, he of the leather suiting and decidedly-other-than-Anglo-Saxon attitudes.

This was bitterly complained of by some woman from the Welsh Assembly, whose pursed lips were clearly audible on FM, and who considers Mr. Jones’ song to be politically incorrect. Apparently it is something to do with domestic violence.

To me it sounds like a song in the American country and / or western tradition. Because the musically specific ‘country and / or western ballad’ is insufficiently cute, Americans sometimes use instead the term ‘a someone-done-somebody-wrong song’. Most country and / or western songs seem to be about domestic strife of some kind, unless one counts ‘The Ballad of Hollis Browne’, which is about multiple murder and suicide.

Billy Connolly, years ago, was quite specific about the requirements for a successful folk-song:

You need death, and plenty of it. Lots of stuff about babies, dying. In the snow. Outside churches.

So presumably folk songs are also ruled out. The prescriptive, repressive nursery-school in which we are all expected to live has almost completed its metamorphosis into a Sunday-school. Eventually there will be a list of Party-approved songs, and proles singing anything not on the list will be vapourised.

To bait the politically correct, I propose to sing darkly ominous songs in a language that they do not understand.

Hortz fur dëhn štekëhn ŵešt
Hortz zi ŵëhr dünt da hertz
Hortz da felt dos fünker
Hortz zebëhn dë ğeuštaah
Hortz ŵïrt tlaït üts mïtlaït
Hortz ŵïrt tlaït üts mïtlaït
Hortz ŵïrt tlaït üts mïtlaït
Hortz ŵïrt tlaït üts mïtlaït
Hortz fur dëhn štekëhn ŵešt
Hortz da felt dos fünker
Hortz zebëhn dë ğeuštaah
Hortz ŵlasik Kobaia

[Magma: Mekanïk Destruktïŵ Kommandöh, 1973]