about
This one was originally titled 'Queen Of Light', with a repeating hammered dulcimer synth line and electric guitars and opened with the striking match. Mark heard a marching sound with it and talked of soldiers marching and letters home to loved ones and really had me fired up and thinking along the lines of a WWI theme and as he'd expressed a desire to revisit my earlier piece 'Lament For The Fallen, then the idea of the WWI Centenary Suite was born. But this track has evolved into what we have now by the inclusion of spoken word parts by Mark for the intro 'Lamps Going Out' inspired by 'Lord Grey's speech on the eve of the war and also Mark picking up on the theme of the Kaiser's speech with the repeated lyric 'We'll be home for Christmas, just you wait and see' and recording multiple vocal tracks, not in perfect sync to emulate the sound of rookie soldiers singing and marching slightly out of time and I've added the sound loop of the soldiers marching to reinforce this feel. However when I set to to record spoken parts myself, using written accounts of soldiers experiences in WWI, I came across these recorded clips of Private Harry Patch's testimony of his experience of the Great War and this piece took another turn entirely ...
Harry Patch, 'the last fighting Tommy', born in Somerset in 1898, the same year as my own father, was a remarkable man. He is famous as being the last British 'Tommy' survivor of the Great War, dying peacefully in 2009 aged 111 years old. He was of course feted by the great and the good and those who would bask in the reflection of his stardust in countless photo opportunities and his funeral was a state affair with several dignitaries in high profile attendance. But, Harry in life would have no truck with that nonsense and had no hesitation in putting many of them firmly in their place and sent many of them scuttling away in bruised indignation ... for though Harry had volunteered for King and Country at age 16 'to do his bit', he and 4 other pals vowed that they would never kill their foe, preferring instead to stop their man and bring him down without killing him. Of course they knew that what their little band of brothers were in a pact to do would be regarded by the authorities as an act that would lead to court martial and summary execution and whenever he mentioned it all those years after the event he would give a nervous conspiratorial chuckle as if he might still be held to account for his deeds.
Harry's thin raspy voice and age-worn Somerset accent exudes the emotion and horror of those desperate times in the trenches and his accounts are so deeply moving ... this track is dedicated to him and his little group of five as much as to the millions of others who laid down their lives for their country in the Great War of 1914~1918 ...
Instrumentation: Fender Strat electric guitar through Apogee Gio pedal board interface to access the onboard GarageBand guitar amps and FX pedals for all electric guitars.
Korg Kronos X synthesiser for main keyboard arrangement
EWQL Voices Of Passion vocal layers and choirs and atmospheres.
lyrics
'The Great War 1914~18 Centenary Suite' (iii) ~ The Lamps Are Going Out ... The Ballad Of Harry Patch' ( © Lavallin/Bennett 2014 )
Spoken word:
'The lamps are going out all over Europe ...we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime' ~ Lord Edward Grey's famous speech on the eve of the Great War.
Lyric:
We'll be home in time for Christmas, just you wait and see (3X)
Spoken word:
'You will all be home before the leaves have fallen from the trees' ~ The Kaiser's speech to departing troops in August 1914
Narrative:
'A private soldier from Somerset, Harry Patch, became the very last 'Tommy' who actually fought in the trenches of the western front'.
Harry Patch:
'You could hear the guns ... you never knew when one was going to fall short ... that was the bugger of it!'
'We heard the shell burst, saw the flash and I went down ... how long I stayed there I don't know' ... (gunfire & explosion)
Narrative:
'Harry was badly wounded and three of his friends were killed'.
Harry Patch:
'There was nothing ever found .......... (long pause) .... I was lucky. (big sigh) 'I've tried for eighty years to forget it ... but I can't. If any man tells you he went over the top and he wasn't scared ... he's a damn liar!!'
'I had no inclination to fight anybody ... I mean, why should I go out and kill somebody I never knew ... for what reason?'
'When I joined the Army, I swore I would serve my King and Country and by some reason or other it flashed into my mind, when Moses came down off Mount Sinai ... the sixth commandment he brought down ~ "Thou shalt not kill" ~ and I can't kill him. I had about five seconds to make my mind up ... I shot him above the ankle and above the knee and I brought him down ... I didn't kill him'.
Lyric:
We won't be back in time for Christmas ...
Harry Patch:
'The five of us were a little group together and that's what worried me most, when three, four and five were killed'.
Narrative:
'The pact's members, and those whose lives they'd saved, would now be joined by one who'd spent 111 years as a living testimony to the priceless virtue of none of it ever happening anymore ... if Harry patch could help it.
Wars will cease when men refuse to fight. By his giving it the firmest possible shine, it had made him and his old friends greater than anything that had taken place in that so called Great War ~ that serial enormity ...
Lyric:
We won't be back in time for Christmas ...
Harry Patch:
'I picked up a piece of shell about two inches long, half an inch wide ... jagged edge to it ... right in the groin! (gunfire & explosion)
Doctor came along and he said "Would you like me to take that shrapnel out?"
And the pain from it was terrific, and he said "Before you say yes, I've no anaesthetic in the camp whatsoever ..."
I said "How long will you be?"
He said "Well about two minutes ..."
So I thought for a minute and I said "Go ahead with it" and, in those two minutes, I could have killed that bloody doctor!!'
Narrative:
'Every Remembrance Day the Nation falls silent to honour the millions of men who fought and sacrificed themselves in the Great War of 1914 ~18'
Lyric:
We won't be back in time for Christmas ...
Narrative:
'The name of Harry Patch, the very last fighting 'Tommy', will live on forever with them ...'
With grateful thanks to Alan Cox and Bernard Hill for tenure of the text of the narrative and of course the deeply moving account from Harry himself.
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