Friday, November 25, 2016

Bagpipe Music

Today is so-called "black friday" -- perhaps no more fitting time on so many levels can be found for this week's poem. It is both a kind of warped satirical nursery rhyme for adults and a treatise of social criticism. MacNeice's "Bagpipe Music" dates from 1937.



Bagpipes, like some politicians, are full of hot air. And so this re-make of MacNeice's "Bagpipe Music" appropriately refers to Ronnie, presumably Ronald Reagan. The song was part of their album The Janngling Man (1990).




Find out more:

Text of MacNeice's "Bagpipe Music" at Poetry By Heart
http://www.poetrybyheart.org.uk/poems/bagpipe-music

With the Poetry Foundation
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/louis-macneice

French translations of some of MacNeice's poems at Esprits Nomades
http://www.espritsnomades.com/sitelitterature/macneice/macneice.html