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 n d the
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l M yth
Nati
ona W a r in
t W orld M usic
Fi r s a r
n P opul
r
THE
Mode nt a
STUDIES IN
PALGRAVE SUBCULTURES r Gr
F Pete
HISTORY O ULAR MUSIC
AND POP
Palgrave Studies in the History of Subcultures and
Popular Music

Series Editors

Keith Gildart
University of Wolverhampton
Wolverhampton, UK
Anna Gough-Yates
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From 1940s zoot-suiters and hepcats through 1950s rock ‘n’ rollers, beat­
niks and Teddy boys; 1960s surfers, rude boys, mods, hippies and ­bikers;
1970s skinheads, soul boys, rastas, glam rockers, funksters and punks; on
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­ enuinely cross-disciplinary and transnational outlet for a
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 Peter Grant

National Myth and

the First World War
in Modern Popular
Music
Peter Grant
Cass Business School
City University of London
United Kingdom

Palgrave Studies in the History of Subcultures and Popular Music

ISBN 978-1-137-60138-4    ISBN 978-1-137-60139-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-137-60139-1

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 Acknowledgements

Especial thanks go the following: Terri Blom Crocker, for lots of advice
and information on the Christmas Truce as well as comments on earlier
drafts; Al Stewart, Karl Willetts and Verity Susman for interviews; Kmaa
Kendell for information; Arnaud Spitz for many of the French examples
and to his excellent website on popular music and the First World War
(www.great-war-music.com); Julian Putkowski, for information on the
Christmas Truce; Emma Hanna for further comments; Greg Harper,
for background information on his songs; The Decemberists and Jason
Colton at Red Light Management; PJ Harvey and Jan Hewitt at ATC
Management and to PJ Harvey, Bolt Thrower, Leon Rosselson, Verity
Susman, Al Stewart and Guv’Nor for permission to quote from their lyrics.
Also to all of the following who suggested songs to include in the book:
Stephen Badsey, Rod Beecham, John S. Connor, Paul Cornish, Emmanuel
Debruyne, Dominiek Dendooven, Chris Drakeley, Alun Edwards, Jason
Engle, Damien Fenton, Stuart Hallifax, Julia F. Irwin, Maurice Janssen,
Alan Kaplan, Eva Krivanec, Thomas Michael Littlewood, Edward
Madigan, David Mastin, Mahon Murphy, Nicolas Offenstadt, Justin
Quinn Olmstead, Giorgio Rota, Chris Schaefer, John Seriot, Jan Van der
Fraenen, Michael Walsh, Jon Weier, Vanda Wilcox and David M. Young.

v
 Contents

1 Introduction 1

2 National Myth and the First World War 13

3 Remembrance, Memory and Popular Music 49

4 Words and Music 67

5 The Voice of the People 87

6 Butcher’s Tales and Gunner’s Dreams 121

7 Shrill Demented Choirs 147

8 Football in No Man’s Land 183

9 The Gospel According to St Wilfred 203

vii
viii Contents

10 Bombazine Dolls and Orders from the Dead 227

11 Conclusion: Music and the Centenary 259

Bibliography 273

Index 277
 List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 The ‘Ring of Remembrance’, Notre Dame de Lorette,

near Arras, France (Courtesy of Philippe Prost) 38
Fig. 4.1 Word cloud for all lyrics in English 74
Fig. 4.2 Word cloud for all lyrics in French 74
Fig. 4.3 Word cloud for lyrics by British writers 75
Fig. 4.4 Word cloud for lyrics by American writers 75
Fig. 4.5 Word cloud for lyrics by folk writers 75
Fig. 4.6 Word cloud for lyrics by metal writers 76
Fig. 5.1 Jean-Pierre Leloir’s famous 1969 photograph
of Jacques Brel, Léo Ferré and Georges Brassens
(© Archives Leloir) 92
Fig. 7.1 Bolt Thrower at the Artillery Monument, London
(Courtesy of Bolt Thrower) 164
Fig. 7.2 Jo Bench performing at Damnation 2014
(© Kirsty Garland) 167
Fig. 7.3 Sabaton at the Ataturk memorial in Gallipoli
(Courtesy of Pär Sundström) 168
Fig. 8.1 n gram of occurrences of the phrase ‘over
by Christmas’ between 1880 and 2015 184
Fig. 8.2 n-gram of occurrences of the phrase
‘Christmas Truce’ between 1880 and 2015 185
Fig. 9.1 Electrelane at the time of ‘The Valleys’
(Courtesy of Verity Susman, photo by Louis Décamps) 221
Fig. 10.1 The Decemberists (Courtesy of The Decemberists) 232
Fig. 10.2 Diamanda Galás (Courtesy of Diamanda Galás) 239

ix
x List of Figures

Fig. 10.3 PJ Harvey in performance, Rock on Scene Festival 2003

(Photograph by Jean Baptiste Lacroix © Getty Images) 251
Fig. 10.4 PJ Harvey in performance at the Royal Albert Hall 2011
(Photograph by Annabel Staff © Getty Images) 252
 List of Tables

Table 4.1 Total songs and number of bands from main countries 69
Table 4.2 Number of songs released by year 70
Table 4.3 Number of songs and bands by genre 71
Table 4.4 Genre and decade of production 71
Table 4.5 Percentage of country’s songs in each genre 72
Table 4.6 Readability of selected songs 77
Table 4.7 Comparison between ‘Somewhere in England 1915’
and ‘The End’ 82
Table 4.8 Key Canadian and Australian war myths 85
Table 4.9 Comparative analysis: ‘Remembrance Day’ (Bryan Adams) and
‘And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda’ (Eric Bogle) 85

xi
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

When PJ Harvey’s Let England Shake was released, Guardian music critic
Alexis Petridis suggested that ‘rock songwriters don’t write much about
the first world war’ (Petridis 2011b). Intrigued, I began researching
whether he was right and, to date, have identified over 1,500 songs on
the subject, not all ‘rock’ songs but a far from negligible number. They
come from more than 40 different countries and though the largest pro-
portion are from First World War combatant nations many are from non-
belligerents. The third line of the opening song of Harvey’s album asks a
question this book seeks to answer: are we, especially in Britain, ‘weighted
down’ by the ‘silent dead’ of the First World War? Do the War’s six million
victims inhibit artistic expression and ensure conformity to stereotyped
depictions of a conflict which, at the time of its centenary, still ‘haunts
modern society’? (Wilson 2013, p. 1).
Martin Stephen, one of the most perceptive writers on the poetry of
the First World War, lamented that ‘military history and literary criticism
do not sit easily side by side’ (Stephen 1996a, p. xiv). Military historians
are frequently appalled at the lack of knowledge of First World War battles
and commanders demonstrated by cultural historians whilst their cultural
counterparts are equally mystified by the military historians’ lack of under-
standing of key artistic texts from Wilfred Owen to Blackadder. This book
seeks to find a balance and stimulate dialogue between them.

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017 1

P. Grant, National Myth and the First World War in Modern
Popular Music, DOI 10.1007/978-1-137-60139-1_1
2 P. GRANT

APPROACH AND STRUCTURE

This study inevitably entails an inter-disciplinary approach as it covers
both historical and musical analyses, the nature of myth and the impor-
tance of memory and remembrance in modern society. This means
explaining something of the theoretical background to these topics. So
Chapter 2, National Myth and the First World War, examines the key
concepts of nation, myth and remembrance and their relationship with
history. It then briefly describes the key myths of the First World War in
significant countries. Chapter 3, Remembrance, Memory and Popular
Music, looks more closely at remembrance formation and practice and
the role popular music plays in it. The following chapters utilise a range
of approaches to the music itself. Chapter 4, Words and Music, is the
most analytical. At the macro level it looks across all of the songs on the
basis of categories such as country of origin and genre. This is followed
by some more detailed textual analysis of lyrical content, a consideration
of other critical factors including gender and a closer look at a small
number of songs that exemplify important approaches. Chapters 5, 6
and 7 cover the musical genres that most frequently reference the War.
Chapter 5, The Voice of the People, looks at French chanson, other
French music and folk from the Anglo-Saxon world, the genres most
usually associated with political and social themes. Chapter 6, Butcher’s
Tales and Gunner’s Dreams, considers a wide variety of ‘mainstream’
styles broadly defined as pop, rock and jazz whereas Chapter 7, Shrill
Demented Choirs, focuses specifically on more ‘extreme’ music pro-
duced by industrial and metal artists. Chapter 8, Football in no-man’s-
land, is a case study of a single War myth, the Christmas Truce of 1914,
and how it has been approached by popular musicians. Chapter 9, The
Gospel According to St Wilfred, discusses the myths that have attached
themselves to the war poets and poetry’s relationship to songs about the
War. Chapter 10, Bombazine Dolls and Orders from the Dead, identi-
fies those artists whose approach is distinctive or radically alters the way
we think about the War and its mythology. The final chapter considers
how popular music is being deployed during the commemorations of
the centenary of the War and draws some conclusions regarding the
changing nature of national myth.
 INTRODUCTION 3

DEFINITIONS
I should define what I mean by ‘popular’ music and how a composition
qualifies for inclusion in this study. I refer broadly to all ‘popular’ music
produced since the advent of rock-and-roll in the late 1950s, including
French chanson, jazz, folk, rock and its close relatives (for example pro-
gressive and psychedelic rock) and then the myriad of genres that have
developed from rock including punk, industrial, rap, hip-hop and heavy
metal and its more extreme derivatives. What is excluded is the music com-
monly referred to as ‘classical’. There is also a definitional issue regarding
what to call each piece of music. I have decided to use the term ‘song’
even though some of the pieces have no lyrics. I use ‘War’ (with a capital
‘W’) when I mean the First World War and ‘war’ (lower case) when war
in general is meant. Titles of songs are given in single quotation marks,
album titles in italics and on first mention of notable examples their date
of first release and record label.
My main criteria for inclusion of a particular song is that the influence
of the War, whether directly or through ‘signifiers’ or references, is dis-
cernible in the title or lyrics. Here I follow the definition of Santanu Das
in relation to First World War poetry when he suggests that to qualify ‘the
war does not have to be directly present or mentioned, but […] some
context of the war has to be registered and evoked’ (Das 2013, p. 9). So
the Rolling Stones’ ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ qualifies as it connects the
War with the fall of the Romanovs, but Boney M’s ‘Rasputin’, which is
solely about the ‘mad monk’, does not. One or two songs that are more
about war in general are included because they reference the First World
War in another way —a good example being Paul McCartney’s ‘Pipes of
Peace’ which makes no reference to the War but whose accompanying
video depicted the 1914 Christmas Truce.
I also exclude songs written for the soundtracks of musicals, films
or television shows; most cover versions of the same song, unless they
add a new dimension; and new versions of songs composed or popular
during the War itself unless they add something significantly new as do
Bill Carrothers’ jazz album Armistice 1918 and Art Abscon(s) version of
‘Roses of Picardy’.
4 P. GRANT

MUSICAL GENRES
Fabian Holt has pointed out that ‘generic categories underpin all forms
of culture’ yet genre in music is a highly contested area with some seeing
genres as restrictive stereotypes that inhibit artistic expression (Holt 2007,
p. 2; Walser 2014, p. 7). Musical genres are often more useful to the sell-
ers of music than their producers, and fans often vehemently argue about
whether a band is a ‘true’ member of a particular genre. Simon Frith sees
genres as the result of collusion between producers, distributors and con-
sumers and they are also collective; an individual singer, band or indeed
fan may have their own ‘style’ but it takes a critical mass to make a genre
(Frith 1996, p. 88; Holt 2007, p. 3). My approach is to utilise ‘genre’ as
being a widely understood term and deploy it similarly to David Machin
who suggests ‘there are really no fixed genre boundaries’ but that we can
identify signifiers that demarcate genres (Machin 2010, p. 5). Among
these are the music adopted (chords, mode and so on); instrumentation
(what instruments the band members play); the vocal style adopted by the
singer(s); dress (including make-up and jewellery); performance (gestures
on stage, body language); lyrical content and what kinds of words are used
(slang or swearing for example) and visual symbols (album art, merchan-
dise and, at live shows, lighting or props).
Though it is difficult to accurately describe the ‘rules’ that constitute dif-
ferent genres we usually have no difficulty quickly determining the genre of
a band or artist simply by looking at a photograph of them or picking up a
copy of one of their albums (Fabbri 1982; Machin 2010, pp. 4–5). However
genre boundaries are frequently transgressed which can lead to the forma-
tion of new ones so that genres also develop historically. There are some
overarching ‘metagenres’ such as rock, which transcend historical epochs
and others, such as progressive rock or punk, which do not. Subgenres in
particular are ‘intrinsically tied to an era’, coming about through specific
circumstances and then either fade from view or mutate into other forms
(Borthwick and May 2004, p. 3). New genres emerge when musical, tech-
nological, commercial or social forces combine, as Mikhail Bakhtin sug-
gested ‘individual genres are themselves the product of an ever-mutating
dialogue between historically contingent features’ (Borthwick and May
2004, p. 3; Cope 2010, p. 91). Genres, especially long-lasting ones, are
also highly fluid and bands or singers do not always remain within a specific
genre. Individual performers may move between genres in their careers, on
individual albums or even within specific songs (Kahn-Harris 2007, p. 12).
 INTRODUCTION 5

This seems especially true of songs that have the First World War as a theme.
Some artists eschew their usual styles when performing these specific songs
(examples include Motörhead and Electrelane). All these provisos need
bearing in mind but in most cases I have accepted the genre definition of
the artists concerned or that of music critics reviewing the song. In a few
cases I have allocated a song to a specific genre myself.

MUSIC, LYRICS AND MEANING

As Emma Hanna has pointed out in relation to The Great War on the Small
Screen there are dangers when historians begin to analyse artistic creations.
Just as some literary or film critics have a shaky understanding of history
so many historians have an equally shaky or partial understanding of lit-
erature, film or music (Hanna 2009, p. 3). It is imperative for a writer to
understand both the ‘language’ of music, something about its sonic quali-
ties, and the more specific ‘language’ of the genre they are writing about.
Yet many writers seem incapable of realising this. To take one example,
extreme metal music is not just inexplicable noise or, always, unintention-
ally camp, it just ‘speaks a different language’ (Hodgkinson 2015). Even
some knowledgeable musicologists, from Theodor Adorno on the left,
to Roger Scruton on the right, are blind to the qualities of most popular
music (Adorno 1941, pp. 17–48; Scruton 1998, p. 90; 2010).
These and other writers have discussed the ‘language’ of music and this
raises the question as to where the ‘meaning’ of a popular song lies. Is it in
the music, the lyrics (if any), other factors (such as the nature of the per-
formance or production), or a combination of these? This book has more
to say on the lyrical content of songs than the music which, for example,
means that instrumentals are covered less fully. My justification is twofold.
Firstly the study is about the songs’ approach to the First World War and
that is usually (though not exclusively) clearer in the lyrics than the music.
Secondly, though there are problems in adopting a socio-cultural approach,
there are even more in adopting a purely musicological one. As Burns and
Lafrance admit ‘it is difficult to write music-theoretical analysis in such a
way that a general reader can follow the argument’ and Frith has suggested
that musicology is ‘for people who want to compose or play it’, whereas a
sociological analysis is ‘for people who consume or listen to it’ (Burns and
Lafrance 2002, p. 38; Frith 1996, p. 267). This is not to say that musicol-
ogy is entirely redundant. One must have some way of analysing how the
music works and so, where appropriate, I rely on some key musicological
6 P. GRANT

texts that make their theories understandable for a wider readership.

Overall my approach is that adopted by Ron Moy in his excellent study of
the work of Kate Bush: ‘academic, yet inter-disciplinary and […] intended
to be as accessible as the complexity of some of the analysis and debates
allows […] yet at times openly emotive and affective’ (Moy 2007, p. 5).
Middleton is however right to conclude that ‘a simplistic content analysis
of lyrics is insufficient’ as they ‘are not verbal texts but […] sung words,
linguistically marked vocal sound-sequences mediated by musical conven-
tions’ (Middleton 2000, p. 7). But, with the exception of the addition of
the musical element, does this make musical ‘texts’ that much different
from other forms of art whether poetry, literature, film or painting? In
some ways it does because ‘music’s representational capacities are limited
and ambiguous compared with literature, painting and other art forms; the
meaning of a musical design must be clarified by some kind of text’ (Gracyk
2007, p. 67). With a purely instrumental work this might be what the com-
poser or performer has said about it or be a critical interpretation. In many
cases it is because the music is accompanied by spoken or, more usually,
sung words. But it is certainly true that ‘no authorial intention or other
mechanism can fix or fully determine the meanings and values of […] songs
and performances… [W]ithin popular culture meanings always remain to
some degree open-ended’ (Gracyk 2007, p. 45). Anyone has a perfect right
to disagree about the ‘meaning’ of a song and, in this sense, the author’s
intention is no more important than anyone else’s (Moore 2012, p. 1).
But this is not to say a song might have any meaning, there are con-
straints on what meanings can be read from a particular work (Bicknell
2009, p. 115; Negus and Astor 2015, p. 240). A good example of these
differences is to be found in two songs, both titled ‘Remembrance Day’
and both, clearly, about the sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland. One,
by Midge Ure (from Answers to Nothing, 1988, Chrysalis), sticks closely
to its subject. Ure uses words that have very specific meanings, mainly by
the song being in the first person but also by his choice of images such as
the colours associated with both sides. In contrast the heavy metal band
Demon’s song (from Taking the World by Storm, 1989, Sonic) is much
more ambiguous. They utilise less precise language and the song is in the
detached third person, giving it a wider, more universal, anti-war message.
So there are many other considerations to take into account as well as
the actual words, ‘the voice invests the words with feeling, and hence with
meaning. Contained in different versions of the same song […] are different
visions, different narratives’ (Street 2012, p. 107). One only has to hear the
 INTRODUCTION 7

updated versions of popular First World War tunes in the martial industrial
genre or the different versions of Eric Bogle’s ‘No Man’s Land’ to under-
stand this point. Different performances add ‘expressiveness’ if not a specific
emotion. Some pieces quote from other music where a specific meaning has
already been commonly accepted and thus may be understood by listeners
who recognise the musical or lyrical reference. Examples here range from
the synthesised bagpipe lament at the opening of Barclay James Harvest’s
‘The Ballad of Denshaw Mill’, used to invoke the idea of loss or death, to
Havergal Brian’s musical quotation from Richard Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben
in his satirical First World War opera The Tigers, used ironically to underline
the regiment’s cowardly nature. Some songs have more ‘closed’ meanings
than others. Here one might mention System of a Down’s ‘P.L.U.C.K.’
which stands for ‘Political Lying Unholy Cowardly Killers’ and is about the
Armenian genocide and the Turkish government’s complicity. It is hard to
see how the song could be interpreted as anything other than an all-out
assault even though it does not actually mention Armenia or Turkey.
Perhaps it is best to see music as being on a continuum of ‘meaning’.
At one end you have music with words that are very clear and the music
appears to match: a football team singing ‘We Are the Champions’ when
they have just won the League title. They really are champions. At one
remove are their fans singing the same song, as it is not the fans who have
won the League. Then there is the song by Queen where the refrain has
no specific meaning. At the other end of the continuum you have purely
abstract music: perhaps sounds randomly generated by a computer or, if
that is not thought to be music, randomly generated chords. Yet, even
here, people will naturally try to find some meaning in the randomness.

POPULAR MUSIC AND WAR

Popular music has become an intrinsic part of historical events; it both
‘forms and informs our history’ and increasingly functions ‘as a discourse
for articulating public memory of peoples and nations at major official
events’ such as the fall of the Berlin Wall, Princess Diana’s funeral, the
Soccer World Cups and the Olympic Games (Street 2012, p. 117; Holt
2007, p. 1). When music interfaces with war this becomes an ethical issue
as music can be both ‘a poison to excite hostility and a potion to foster
friendship’ (O’Connell 2011, pp. 112 and 117). There are examples
of the former in this study—such as the Ukrainian fascist band Sokyra
Peruna—though fortunately they are a small minority. Far more follow
8 P. GRANT

the latter course in honouring history’s victims in the hope of preventing

the repetition of tragic events (Misztal 2003, p. 68).
Modern popular music thrives on references to popular mythology and
composers and lyricists try to rework these into new or arresting images
that convey a message to the listener. With the First World War one only
has to mention ‘trench’, ‘mud’ or ‘barbed wire’ and listeners immediately
understand the reference. They are shorthand for war in general and the
First World War is appropriated as an example, often an extreme one, for all
wars. Popular musicians are also ‘investigators of alternative memories’ an
ethical dilemma that is increasingly being studied by Ethnomusicologists
in conflict situations (Arnold 1993; Pieslak 2009; Baker 2010, Cusick
2006). However there is little literature on popular music and its interpre-
tation of conflict or, indeed, other historical events. On the First World War
and music there are four relevant books: Glenn Watkins Proof Through the
Night (2003) discusses classical composers’ responses to the War whereas
Les Cleveland’s Dark Laughter: War in Song and Popular Culture (1994),
Regina Sweeney’s Singing Our Way to Victory: French Cultural Politics
and Music during the Great War (2001) and John Mullen’s The Show Must
Go On! Popular Song in Britain during the First World War (2015) are
about wartime popular music rather than post-war compositions. These
studies identify five main types of First World War songs:

1. Propagandist—urging people to ‘support the cause’.

2. Satirical—critiquing the propagandists.
3. Sentimental and romantic—longing for home and the war to end.
4. Ironic—mocking authority or the singer’s situation.
5. Songs of remembrance—looking back on comradeship or loss.

There are hardly any modern songs in the first category, a few in cat-
egories 2 and 3 and the majority from the last two.

THE FIRST WORLD WAR IN POPULAR MUSIC BETWEEN

1919 AND THE LATE 1950S
There are examples of popular songs about the First World War from the
1920s, 1930s and 1940s. They include Al Dubin and Harry Warren’s
‘Remember My Forgotten Man’, the standout finale from the film Gold
Diggers of 1933, and the Gershwin’s 1927 satirical musical Strike up the
 INTRODUCTION 9

Band (Watkins 2003, p. 416). However it was not until the late 1950s,
first in France then in Britain and the USA, that popular musicians gave
the First World War any significant attention. Major historical changes
both within popular music itself and in society were responsible. It was
not until the later 1960s that rock-and-roll, or rock, developed to the
point where it started dealing with wider social or political subjects. Yet
both chanson and folk had always tackled these topics so why not the First
World War? The answer here is that, like writers from Homer to Tolstoy,
songwriters allude to the present through the past and it was not until the
late 1950s that the War had sufficient cultural (or mythical) significance.
Cultural and national myths do not develop in a vacuum, they come about
because of their present-day utility, and it was only when the War became
useful as a myth that said something about the modern world that song-
writers began alluding to it (Wilson 2013 pp. 16–19). French songwriters
began referencing the War in order to comment on the conflict in Algeria
either indirectly, for example Barbara or Jacques Brel, or more directly
such as Georges Brassens in ‘La guerre de 14–18’ (1961). When Michael
Flanders translated Brassens’ song into English three years later, the refer-
ence to Algeria was dropped in favour of one about Vietnam and many of
the songs from the English-speaking world for the next ten years, includ-
ing by Bob Dylan, Don McLean and Eric Bogle, were more about the
Vietnam conflict than about Ypres or the Somme. There are broadly three
reasons why popular musicians turn to historical subjects:

1. To comment on the event itself and tell an interesting or arresting

story that helps us understand the world by communicating an his-
torical experience (Clover 2009, p. 2). This is a less common
approach as popular song is not the ideal medium for an historical
narrative. Occasionally a song does capture the complexities of his-
tory, though this is usually about recent events with which the
writer/performer has a personal connection. Many of the early
songs of Bob Dylan such as ‘The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll’,
Neil Young’s ‘Ohio’ or Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On are exam-
ples. Al Stewart is a leading exponent of this approach and his songs
often work like history lessons in the best possible meaning of that
term, for example his ‘Roads to Moscow’ (from Past, Present and
Future, 1973, CBS) is an exemplary presentation of the Soviet expe-
rience of the Second World War.
10 P. GRANT

2. To use the event to draw comparisons and make a point about

contemporary society and often songs that appear to fit the first
category are more about the period they were written. The largest
number of songs discussed here fall into this category. Many make
highly relevant, sometimes revelatory, comparisons whilst others
choose inappropriate or trite ones.
3. To use the event as a metaphor for more personal topics. Using real
events in this way is a well-trodden one in popular music since the
mid-1960s, whether it was John Lennon utilising newspaper head-
lines (in ‘A Day in the Life’) or Elvis Costello commenting on the
Falklands War (in ‘Shipbuilding’). This category fits a significant
proportion of the songs discussed here, mainly in the more ‘self-
reflective’ genres such as chanson or progressive rock, as well as
Electrelane’s ‘The Valleys’ discussed in Chapter 9.

A small number of songs operate at more than one of these levels at

once, or even all three, which is one reason Polly Harvey’s songs on Let
England Shake are so extraordinary.
Yet some people consider historical subjects inappropriate for popular
songs. In discussing Dylan’s ‘With God on Our Side’ one of the most
respected of rock critics, Greil Marcus, wrote that both the Dylan song
and the Cranberries’ ‘Zombie’, about the history of sectarian violence
in Ireland, create a ‘displacement’, that it was ‘bizarre’ for a rock song
to refer to events before the lifetime of its audience and that both con-
stitute ‘a strange violation of an art form’ and the Allmusic Guide says
of ‘Zombie’ that it ‘ends up sounding trivialized’ (Marcus 2010, p. 184;
Raggett 2002, p. 263). This is a frequent criticism when popular music
tackles historical or political topics, especially when they are not in suppos-
edly ‘authentic’ genres such as folk, punk or rap. Rock criticism is riddled
with notions of ‘authenticity’ which privileges certain genres over suppos-
edly ‘inauthentic’ ones, of which progressive rock and heavy metal are the
most usually reviled. So musicians who decide to approach the subject of
the First World War take up a poisoned chalice. The chances of ridicule
are high and yet the potentialities are enormous. It is why the subject has
attracted such a diverse group of artists from passionate pacifists to preen-
ing narcissists and even a few extreme militarists. The examples that follow
may sometimes be crass or simplistic but far more often they are arresting
and intelligent.
 INTRODUCTION 11

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 CHAPTER 2

National Myth and the First World War

IMAGINED COMMUNITIES
Nations are mythical constructs. In the influential words of Benedict
Anderson they are ‘imagined communities’ who, through perceived
similarities of race, language and history, conceive themselves as unified
entities (Anderson 1983; Fulbrook 1997, p. 72; Archard 1995, p. 474).
Nationalism played a leading role in the conflicts of the twentieth cen-
tury and, though the modern concept of the nation has its roots in post-
Enlightenment Europe, the prelude to the First World War saw it develop
into new, more aggressive, forms (van Evera 1994; Rosenthal and Rodic
2015). All belligerents exhibited exaggerated concepts of themselves as
‘nations’, whether to enhance the status of relatively recent creations
(Germany, Serbia, Australia, Canada, even the USA); promote imperial
unity between conflicting national groups (Austria-Hungary, Russia, the
Ottoman Empire, Great Britain); or proclaim renewed independent iden-
tity (Poles, Kurds, Czechs and many others). The nationalist paradigm was
further foregrounded in the debate over the extent to which Woodrow
Wilson’s concept of national self-determination would shape the post-War
world. In the 100 years since Versailles the mythical nation has continued
to dominate international relations in Europe and beyond: in aggressive
and belligerent form from Hitler to Milošević, the Irish Republican Army
(IRA) and the Basque Homeland and Liberty (ETA), or in more benign
incarnations such as Alex Tsipras’s reinvention of Greece, the resurgence

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017 13

P. Grant, National Myth and the First World War in Modern
Popular Music, DOI 10.1007/978-1-137-60139-1_2
14 P. GRANT

of Scottish nationalism or even John Major’s idea of England as the ‘coun-

try of long shadows on cricket grounds [and] warm beer’ (Moschonas
2013; Spourdalakis 2013; Major 1993).
Anderson’s concept has been utilised to analyse the social, cultural and
political consequences of war and the memory of warfare remains of pri-
mary significance in forming national identity (Purcell 2000, p. 188). All
nations are underpinned by national myths and they create commemo-
rations, monuments and traditions as symbols of unity (Misztal 2003,
p. 38). The ‘new nationalism’ of the First World War significantly added
to or modified these myths and their nature is explored later in this chapter
(Rosenthal and Rodic 2015, p. 2).

NATIONALISM, HISTORY AND MUSIC

The rise of nationalism in nineteenth-century Europe was accompanied
by new forms of nationalist music, often incorporating folk idioms or
the selection of mythical, historical or political subjects (Kennedy 2006;
Daniel 2015; Kolt 2014, pp. 1, 5). This came at a time when a more scien-
tific and ‘objective’ approach to history, based on written documents, was
rejecting myth-making about the past, leaving the field of myth to artists,
most notably musicians (Samuel 1994; Misztal 2003, p. 40). Musicians
express national identity in a multitude of ways and, despite becoming
more multi-cultural, music still plays a significant role in the construc-
tion of national mythologies (Bohlman 2004; Connell and Gibson 2002,
p. 118; Weisenthaunet 2007, p. 194; Bohlman 2003, p. 50). Bohlman
suggests that, contrary to many predictions, nationalism in music has not
declined and cannot be separated from its nationalist potential (Bohlman
2003, p. 56). One of the conclusions of this book is that the suggestion
that music is the servant of a constantly evolving and destructive national-
ism is unduly pessimistic.
In relation to popular music there is significant discussion about the
nature of ‘place’ at the local, national and global level. Biddle and Knights
suggest that, in the Anglo-American tradition, nationalism is not dealt
with very constructively and there is ‘tension between the centralized cul-
tural policies of nation-states and the “local” or more distributed practices
of popular musicians’ (Biddle and Knights 2007, pp. 8–9, 12). Whether
this tension still exists when popular musicians conceptualise ‘the nation’
is not made clear and there is confusion in Biddle and Knights’ work
between the concepts of globalisation and transnationalism. Globalisation
 NATIONAL MYTH AND THE FIRST WORLD WAR 15

is a ‘colonising’ approach where cultural ideas from the dominant culture

sweep aside local models. Transnationalism is more democratic and con-
sensual, allowing local cultural forms to co-exist with ‘imported’ ones.
The positive aspect of transnationalism is supported in different ways by
both Patrick Mignon and Keith Negus. Mignon compares national pop
culture with Anderson’s imagined community whereas Negus describes
how music operates ‘beyond the boundaries of the nation state’ as a
transnational alliance for solidarity and resistance (Mignon 1996: Negus
1996a, pp. 188–91; 1996b; Looseley 2003a, p. 99). The sense of place
inscribed in popular music is also relevant in the development of social
capital. Music helps form the associational bonds which are critical for
many aspects of people’s lives. So a relevant question in our analysis is
which ‘imagined community’ is the song addressing: a local, national, or
transnational one?
For both George Lipsitz and Simon Frith popular music is the main cul-
tural product that crosses national boundaries (Biddle and Knights 2007,
p. 7). Lipsitz believes that through popular music people ‘can experience
a common heritage’ and ‘acquire memories of a past to which they have
no geographic or biological connection’ (Lipsitz 2001, p. 5). The link
with Anderson’s ‘imagined communities’ is obvious and suggests popular
music can build transnational identities that breach narrow nationalisms
or, as Connell and Gibson confirm, ‘music nourishes imagined communi-
ties, traces links to distant and past places’ (Connell and Gibson 2002,
p. 271). Lipsitz also outlines a critical interrelationship between popular
music and history. He argues that popular music is ‘dialogical’, a concept
he adapts from the work of Mikhail Bakhtin. By this he means that it is
the product of ‘an ongoing historical conversation’ whereby it depends
upon the ‘recovery and re-accentuation of previous works’ (Lipsitz 2001,
p. 99). Here he is at odds with Frith who sees references to the past in
popular music as innately conservative (Frith quoted in Lipsitz 2001,
p. 104; Negus also suffers from the same inherent bias, Negus 1996b,
p. 130). Conversely Lipsitz suggests that a significant reason for the pow-
erful effect of popular music ‘is its ability […] to make both the past and
present zones of choice that serve distinct social and political interests’
(Lipsitz 2001, p. 104). Dialogic criticism, he contends, avoids both pitfalls
and reconnects popular music with history. Lipsitz essentially identifies
popular music as being in a dialectical relationship with society and whilst
its commercialised forms can reinforce ruling ideologies it can also, in
16 P. GRANT

the words of Stuart Hall, ‘work transformations’ (Lipsitz 2001, p. 108).

Lipsitz’s ability to locate historical reference within popular music criti-
cism has important resonance for the current study. It provides a means
of analysis that locates a specific song within the history of popular music
while enabling interpretation of the song itself as an historical artefact.

THE NATURE OF MYTH

Myths simplify, exaggerate, dramatise or reinterpret events into a form
that serves as a symbolic statement about social order and reinforces
social cohesion and functional unity. They are the ‘social cement’ that
bonds groups together and builds walls between them and other groups
(Smith 1988, p. 2; Overing 1997, p. 7; Archard 1995, p. 475; Chernus
2012). Myths do not endure because of some ‘quirk’ or ‘error’ in
people’s interpretation of history but because of their utility for the
present: ‘for what they reflect about contemporary society, rather than
their historical accuracy’ (Wilson 2013, p. 21). Myths also comprise
a number of symbols—words, visual images or a combination of the
two—so that ‘one need not recite the whole myth to communicate
its full meaning and power’ (Chernus 2012). Thus a mere mention of
‘mud’, ‘trench’ or ‘machine gun’ can activate a person’s understanding
of the First World War.
It is never correct to say that people’s conception of the past is formed
of two opposing elements: facts and myth. There is always an element of
myth in any ‘factual’ account and, equally, myths have to contain some his-
torical reality even though that element may be quite superficial (Cohen
1969, p. 349; Tudor 1972, p. 139). Instead myths are used as a ‘lens
through which [people] see the world and judge what is true and false’
(Chernus 2012). This explains why myths ‘stay alive in the face of over-
whelming evidence to the contrary’, examples include the deterrent effect
of the death penalty or even belief in a supreme being (Chernus 2012;
Donohue and Wolfers 2006; Lamperti 2010; Chan and Oxley 2004).
However, the greater the gap between myth and historical facts ‘the more
likely it is that the myth will not survive. Some falsities are simply impos-
sibly hard to sustain’ (Archard 1995, p. 478). This is important for myths
of the First World War as it determines how those who accept the myth
deal with elements or ideas that do not ‘fit the myth’. The strong view in
Britain that the First World War was a futile waste of life presided over by
blood-thirsty, incompetent generals arose during the 1960s and had a close
 NATIONAL MYTH AND THE FIRST WORLD WAR 17

connection to the conflict in Vietnam and potential nuclear Armageddon

(Bond 2015, p. 23). Given this context, a myth about the horror and futil-
ity of war was a necessity for those opposing US or Soviet policy.
Whilst it is erroneous to see myths as simple lies or distortions there are
negative elements contained within them, as Roland Barthes expounded.
For Barthes the function of myth is to make dominant cultural and his-
torical values, attitudes and beliefs seem entirely ‘natural’, self-evident and
timeless. Crucially myths remove any role for people to construct their
own meanings, often referring back to stereotypes embedded in gender,
racial or class hierarchies (Barthes 1972). Even if someone knows a myth
is a distortion they may still be affected by it more than by the ‘facts’
(Archard 1995, p. 477). So we judge myth ‘the way we judge a poem or
a painting, by its power to move us emotionally; to challenge or reassure
us intellectually; to shape, reshape, or reaffirm the way we experience the
world’ (Chernus 2012).
Though Barthes did not use the example of popular music others have
noted the ability of popular music to present and reinterpret myth. In
discussing the creation of lyrics Antoine Hennion suggests that the best
way of describing how songs operate narratively is that they ‘bridge the
gap between current events and timeless myths’ (Hennion 1983, p. 194).
Previously Claude Levi-Strauss made the connection between the struc-
ture of myth and that of music more widely, ‘like myth, music is exchanged
and replayed continuously to provide allegories and metaphors for the
rest of life’ (quoted in Rojek 2011, p. 56). This suggests three possible
approaches artists, including popular musicians, can take to myth, how-
ever they are not exclusive, rather a continuum with one merging into the
other:

• Myth affirming: They use myth to reaffirm their view of the world—
they accept the myth as a ‘true reflection’.
• Myth shaping: They use myth as a ‘lens’ to understand the world—
they take myth as a starting point but do not view it as truth.
• Myth reshaping: They utilise myth as a stepping stone towards recon-
ceptualising the world which involves fundamentally challenging the
basis of the myth.

We encounter examples of all three in this study.

18 P. GRANT

THE FIRST WORLD WAR AND MYTH

Many writers have suggested that the First World War engendered a dis-
tinctive form of memory and that the myth of the War ‘supplied with
coherence by literary narratives, upgraded the status of national memory’
(Misztal 2003, p. 45. See also Benjamin 1968; Fussell 2000; Wohl 1979;
Eksteins 1989; Hynes 1990). More recently Bart Ziino has written that
‘private and detailed understanding of the [First World] war has been
increasingly populated with national myths developed and redeveloped
over the decades following the war’ (Ziino 2015, p. 6). But what is a
‘national myth’ in this context? Firstly, as has already been alluded to,
nations themselves are myths. They suggest that ‘mankind is naturally
divided into distinct nations, each with its peculiar character, and that
everyone must, again as a matter of nature, belong to a nation’ (Smith
1988, p. 1). Myths play a vital role in the construction of national iden-
tities and there can be no real ‘nation’ without its myths of origin and
descent (Archard 1995, p. 473; Smith 1988, p. 14). As part of this ‘cer-
emonies of remembrance come in: they tell tales of sacrifice for the greater
good’ and music plays a vital role in this process (Edkins 2006, p. 105).
But not everyone embraces every myth, ‘there is always vigorous discus-
sion and disagreement about those meanings and values’ and a great deal
of political debate is, ‘at the deepest level, debate about myths and/or the
meanings of myths’ (Chernus 2012). In Britain this was made very appar-
ent during the 2015 General Election campaign in the widely different
concepts of ‘Britain’ employed by David Cameron, Ed Miliband, Nigel
Farage and Nicola Sturgeon. This is why studying myths is important, as
such study has a practical political and social purpose.
Myths are also multivalent—they are capable of expressing different,
often conflicting meanings simultaneously. Myths of the First World
War can be strong, complex and deeply embedded and ‘the richer, more
potent, and more fundamental the myth, the more multivalent it is likely
to be’ (Chernus 2012). So myths of the First World War can be used
both to support and oppose other wars for example ‘as both a conserva-
tive and dissenting factor in the accounts of the development of the “War
on Terror”’ (Wilson 2014, p. 294). It is also true that defeats can be
as, or even more, crucial to a nation’s mythology as victories because, of
course, defeats must be avenged. This was precisely the danger that helped
lead to the genocides perpetrated by the Milošević regime in the former
Yugoslavia (Ray 2006, pp. 148–9).
Another random document with
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the Atlantic ocean, 2,000 feet in thickness, were elevated above the
waters, and became dry land.”
We have alluded to the undulating character of the downs, so “well
known,” as Mantell says, that “local details are unnecessary.” How
correct this is may be seen in the following drawing, which
represents a portion of Royston Heath.

All over this heath is found the “Royston crow,” during the winter
months. This fine bird migrates hither from Norway, to avoid its
severe winters, and is scientifically known as the “Hooded-crow,
corvus cornix.” On its first arrival, when it is in its best plumage, it is
comparatively tame, allowing the sportsman to approach very near;
but as the season advances, acquaintance with the gun makes it very
knowing and shy. It associates freely with the other crows, but its
nest has never yet been found in England. About March the hooded-
crow wholly disappears. The head, throat, and wings are black; the
back and breast a “clear smoke-grey.” Norman, the bird-stuffer of
this town, has always several fine specimens on hand.
As, in the case of the Carboniferous system, we ventured to say to
the reader that it was not all coal, so in the Cretaceous system, we
would remind him that it is not all chalk; but without going minutely
into the subdivisions which the chalk formation has received,
because this unpretending elementary treatise does not profess to
teach geology, but simply aims, as we have ventured again and again
to repeat, to infuse into the mind a desire of acquaintance with the
marvels and truths of this science, we will just indicate the leading
divisions and nomenclature of this deposit. First, there is the green
sand; that is, first, beginning at the bottom or lower part of the
formation: this may be well seen and studied in the neighbourhood
of Cambridge, where we have procured many of its characteristic
fossils, including several vertebræ and teeth of the otodus, a fish
allied to the shark family, such as are figured in the opposite
diagram.
 FOSSIL TEETH OF FISHES:

FROM UPPER GREEN SAND,

CAMBRIDGE.

1. OTODUS.
2. CARCHARIAS.
3. CORAX.
4. OXYRHINA.
5. NOTIDANUS.
6. LAMNA.
7. PTYCHODUS.
 FOSSILS FROM THE GAULT,
FOLKSTONE.

1. AMMONITE DENTATUS.
2. AM. LAUTUS.
3. AM. SPLENDENS.
4. AM. CRISTATUS.
5. AM. DENARIUS.
6. CATILLUS SULCATUS.

At Potton and Gamlingay in Bedfordshire, and in the

neighbourhood, this green sand is highly ferruginous, and the roads
and fields present that peculiarly dark-red colour which is first
singular and then wearisome to the eye. In the case of the Potton
beds, the red colour is caused by oxidization or rust of iron; in the
neighbourhood of Cambridge, &c., where there is the green sand,
this is owing to the influence of “chloritous silicate of iron.” Then we
have the galt or gault, a local term of which we cannot trace the
etymology. The gault, however, is not of great thickness, but is likely
to be the most interesting department of the Chalk to the beginner,
on account of the abundance and peculiar appearance of its fossils. A
ramble under the cliffs at Folkstone,[106] where the gault may be seen
in perfection, will amply repay any one for toil, dirt, and a few slips
and bruises. He will there find evidences of a prolific and prodigal
bestowment of life in the innumerable fragments of organic remains
every where observable; and if he be patient,—if he won’t go running
on from spot to spot, saying, as some do, “Oh, there’s nothing here;”
if he will just persevere in a minute examination of every spot where
organic remains may be detected, he will not come away without his
reward in ammonites, hamites, and other cephalopodous mollusks,
and most of them with that peculiar nacreous or mother-of-pearl
lustre upon them which renders the fossils of this period so beautiful
and attractive. Only we caution the explorer not to buy of the so-
called guides. At Dover and Folkstone the rogues have a knack of
getting a lump of gault, and sticking into it one or two common
pyrites, which are very abundant in the cliff, bits of shell, ammonites,
&c.; they then offer this conglomerate for sale, all rounded and
smooth, assuring you upon their “sacred honour,” the honour of men
who always draw upon their imagination for their facts, that they
would not ask so much for it, only on account of its excessive rarity.
As good economists always avoid cheap houses, and go to the best
shops, so let the young geologist always go to the best shop: let him
go to the cliff with his hammer, and work for himself. We picture a
few fossils from the gault, only regretting that it is out of the power of
our artist to convey their lustrous colours, as well as their curious
forms.
1. NATICA CANICULATA.

2.} VENTICRULITES.
3.}

4.} ROSTELLARIA MARGINATA.

5.}

6.}
7.} CATILLUS CRISPI.
8.}
 Then comes, lastly, the Chalk: that is, the white chalk, divided into
lower and upper; the lower being harder and mostly without flints,
and the upper characterised by layers and bands of flint, sometimes
nodular, as in Cambridgeshire, and sometimes flat almost as a
pancake, as in the neighbourhood of Woolwich.
Above are some of the most characteristic fossils of the Chalk. No.
1 is a pecten, or oyster, called the “five-ribbed,” or quinque costatus;
No. 2 is the plagiostoma spinosa, so called on account of its spines, a
shell found frequently in our chalk or lime-pits; No. 3 is the
intermediate hamite (Lat. hamus, a hook), “hamites intermedius;”
No. 4 is the spatangus cor-anguinum, a very common fossil echinus
in the chalk; No. 5 is the ananchytes ovata, found frequently in the
Brighton and Ramsgate cliffs; No. 6 is a scaphite (Gr. skaphē, a skiff
or boat); and the last is our old friend the belemnite, who has
survived so many of this earth’s changes, and now finds himself a
contemporary of the cretaceous inhabitants of the globe.
In many respects, the Chalk presents us with remarkable
anomalies: we have sand, the green sand, but unlike in colour and in
texture the sand of the old and new red sandstone, where we find it
compressed and hardened into solid and compact masses of stone;
we have clay, argillaceous beds such as the gault, but it is not clay
hard and pressed into slaty rocks, but soft and compressible; and we
have carbonate of lime, the chalk constituting the calcareous beds of
this formation; but where we have met with it before it has been hard
and solid limestone, and marble, not pliable and soft as in the
Cretaceous system; and yet apparently it is all the same material as
we have found in the earlier stages of the earth’s crust—the washings,
degradations, and deludations of older and harder rocks, along with
the secretions and remains of organized animals that once peopled
this ancient earth; thus affording us, on a large scale, another
illustration of the economy observable in all the works of God.

FOSSIL FISH FROM LEWES.

Having spoken of the fossil fishes of the Chalk, we here give

drawings of two procured from the neighbourhood of Lewes, the
famous fossil fishing-ground of the late Dr. Mantell; and it is due to
the name and memory of the Chalk historian and geologist, to inform
the reader that Dr. M. was the first who succeeded, by skilful removal
of the surrounding chalk, in procuring a perfect ichthyolite from the
cretaceous formation of England. The British Museum is now
enriched by Dr. Mantell’s collection of fossil fishes, that once so
much excited the admiration of Agassiz, when he saw them at
Brighton.

FOSSIL FISH (ICHTHYOLITE) FROM LEWES.

Here let us again advert to the Deluge theory, not because our own
minds are not satisfied on the point, but because theology and
science alike demand a true statement of the facts of the case. We
believe, as we said in a previous chapter, in the plenary inspiration of
nature, just as we believe that the Scriptures were given by
inspiration of God; and we are quite sure that both books, if they are
not misinterpreted, will declare the glory of God in one common
speech, and elevate the mind of man, to whom they speak, up to a
more adoring trust and a profounder reverence. With Dr. Hitchcock
we say, “It seems to me that the child can easily understand the
geological interpretation of the Bible and its reasons. Why, then,
should it not be taught to children, that they may not be liable to
distrust the whole Bible, when they come to the study of geology? I
rejoice, however, that the fears and prejudices of the pious and the
learned are so fast yielding to evidence; and I anticipate the period,
when on this subject the child will learn the same thing in the
Sabbath school and in the literary institution. Nay, I anticipate the
time as not distant when the high antiquity of the globe will be
regarded as no more opposed to the Bible, than the earth’s revolution
round the sun, and on its axis. Soon shall the horizon, where geology
and revelation meet, be cleared of every cloud, and present only an
unbroken and magnificent circle of truth.”[107] But to return; this
Deluge theory refers all existing fossils to “Noah’s flood,”—to that
violent diluvial action, the graphic account of which is in the book of
Genesis. Now, it is impossible to believe this if we look at a fossil:
look, for instance, at this terebratula, and observe how perfectly
uninjured it is, frail as is its shelly covering; or at this plagiostoma
spinosa, and mark how susceptible it is of injury, and yet that its
brittle spines are all unbroken; or at this inoceramus or catillus, and
observe its delicate flutings, still in exquisite preservation, without
fracture or distortion; or these specimens of echinites, the
ananchytes ovata, or the spatanguscor-anguinum, and see the
markings on the shell, the apertures of the mouth and stomach still
perfect; who can see all this and not come to the conclusion, that
these creatures, and thousands such as these, endured not only no
violence in death, such as a deluge would suppose, but that at death
they subsided quietly to the bottom of the sea, there to find a fitting
sepulchre of soft cretaceous matter prepared for them, which in
process of time was lifted up, to exhibit in a hard chalky bed their
forms of pristine beauty?
In the upper chalk every one has seen the layers of flint, and
marked their singular distribution, in layers; and here we would add,
that the existence of flint in chalk is one of those hard nuts which
geology has not yet cracked. The geologist, the chemist, and the
zoologist have all puzzled themselves in vain to find a truly
satisfactory origin for these nodules of siliceous matter. We have
heard it suggested that they may be coprolites; but no one who
examines the texture of a flint, can hold that theory, to say nothing of
the idea that the coprolites have been preserved, while the animal
remains have perished. We may sum up all we have to say about
flints in the following words, from that useful little book, Chambers’s
“Rudiments of Geology:”
“The formation of flint, within a mass so different in composition
as chalk, is still in some respects an unsolved problem in geology. It
occurs in nodular masses of very irregular forms and variable
magnitude; some of these not exceeding an inch, others more than a
yard in circumference. Although thickly distributed in horizontal
layers, they are never in contact with each other, each nodule being
completely enveloped by the chalk. Externally, they are composed of
a white cherty crust; internally, they are of a grey or black silex, and
often contain cavities lined with chalcedony and crystallized quartz.
When taken from the quarry they are brittle and full of moisture, but
soon dry, and assume their well-known hard and refractory qualities.
Flints, almost without exception, enclose remains of sponges,
alcyonia, echinida, and other marine organisms, the structures of
which are often preserved in the most delicate and beautiful manner.
In some specimens the organism has undergone decomposition, and
the space it occupied either left hollow, or partially filled with some
sparry incrustation. From these facts, it would seem that flints are as
much an aggregation of silex around some organized nucleus, as
septaria are aggregations of clay and carbonate of iron. This is now
the generally received opinion; and when it is remembered that the
organisms must have been deposited when the chalk was in a pulpy
state, there can be little difficulty in conceiving how the silex
dissolved through the mass would, by chemical affinity, attach itself
to the decaying organism. Chalk is composed of carbonate of lime,
with traces of clay, silex, and oxide of iron; flint, on the other hand,
consists of 98 per cent. of pure silex, with a trace of alumine, oxide of
iron, and lime. Silex is quite capable of solution: it occurs in the hot-
springs of Iceland and most thermal waters; has been found in a
pulpy state within basalt; forms the tabasheer found in the cavities
of the bamboo, and the thin pellicle or outer covering of canes, reeds,
grasses, &c.; and siliceous concretions are common in the fruits and
trees of the tropics. All these facts point to a very general diffusion of
silex in a state of solution; and whatever may have caused its
abundance in the waters during the deposition of the upper chalk,
there can be little doubt respecting the mode in which it has been
collected around the organic remains of these early seas.”
At Scratchell’s Bay in the Isle of Wight, it will be seen that the flints
are in a vertical position; and to the most casual observer the
perpendicular arrangement of these flints will supply the strongest
evidence of disturbance by upheaval from below. The bay in front,
called Scratchell’s Bay, is a small but romantic indentation in the
coast of the south side of the island, in which are the famous
Needles. In the face of the cliff is a noble archway between 200 and
300 feet high, which has been created by the constant action of water
eating and wearing away the lower beds; while the Needles
themselves are only isolated masses of chalk, separated or eroded
from the main land by the same erosive action. “To the late Sir Henry
Inglefield belongs the merit of having first observed and directed
attention to the highly interesting phenomena of vertical chalk
strata, occasioned by the disruption and elevation of the eocene and
cretaceous formations, which are so remarkably displayed in the Isle
of Wight, where the vertical position of the strata, and the shattered
condition of the flint nodules, thought still embedded in the solid
chalk, may be conveniently studied in the cliffs in the neighbourhood
of Scratchell’s Bay.”[108]
With the study of the Chalk formation, we close what has been
appropriately termed the “secondary period, or middle epoch of the
ancient world;” of which it has been well said, “In reviewing the
characters of the Cretaceous group, we have evidence that these
varied strata are the mineralized bed of an extensive ocean, which
abounded in the usual forms of marine organic life, as algæ, sponges,
corals, shells, crustacea, fishes, and reptiles. These forms are
specifically distinct from those which are discovered in the tertiary
strata; in many instances, the genus, in all the species, became
extinct with the close of the Cretaceous period. It affords a striking
illustration of creative power, that of the hundreds of species which
composed the Fauna and the Flora of the Cretaceous group, not one
species passed into the succeeding epoch.”[109]
Of that old ocean with its countless tenants we have already
spoken, and conclude by applying to it the well-known lines of
Montgomery, in his celebration of the coral insect in his “Pelican
Island:”—
Millions of millions here, from age to age,
With simplest skill, and toil unweariable,
No moment and no movement unimproved,
Laid line on line, on terrace, terrace spread,
To swell the heightening, brightening gradual mound,
By marvellous structure climbing towards the day.
Omnipotence wrought in them, with them, by them;
Hence what Omnipotence alone could do,
Worms did.
WALTONIAN AND MANTELLIAN FISHERMEN.
 CHAPTER XII.
THE TERTIARY SYSTEM.

“And God made the beast of the earth after his kind.”
Moses.

In our rapid sketch of the materials constituting the crust of the

earth, we first of all, in that imaginary section which we supposed to
have been laid bare to us, studied the characters of the hypogene
rocks,[110] that make up the Azoic period, in which, with the exception
of a few zoophytes, all nature was void of animal, life and possessed
only by the genius of dread silence. Rising higher, we surveyed the
Palæozoic or primary rocks, where the fishes of the Old Red
Sandstone convinced us of progress in the forms of life, and taught
us our first lesson in the ascending scale of those types of life with
which Palæontology has now made us familiar. Leaving this period at
the Carboniferous era, we entered upon the Mesozoic,[111] or
Secondary period, ushered in amidst strange convulsions that must
again and again have rendered the earth “without form and void;”
and here we found ourselves in company with the strange and
gigantic remains of a higher order of vertebrated animals, the
saurians, the crocodile-kings of a bygone period; and as we pondered
these hieroglyphics of past generations, our souls “were seized the
prisoners of amaze;” and now, in our upward ascent, leaving behind
us the scenes
“Where eldest Night
And Chaos, ancestors of nature, held
Eternal anarchy,”

we come to the Cainozoic,[112] or Tertiary Rocks, where other and

higher types of life are found. Huge mammals, beasts of prodigious
size, are now found inhabitants of the earth, the precursors of man—
reasoning, intelligent, responsible man, who is presently to make his
appearance on this great theatre of life, “made a little lower than the
angels,” to have dominion over the works of Jehovah’s power.
Sir H. de la Beche proposes, for tertiary, the term
“supercretaceous;” it is, however, of little consequence which term is
adopted, the meaning in each case being the same, that all the rocks
or strata lying above the chalk are to be considered as belonging to
the tertiary system or series. Confessedly, it is a dark period in the
history of those successive creations which have been engaging our
attention, for we can trace no near connexion between the secondary
or older, and tertiary or newer formations. That is to say—and the
bare statement appears so sufficient and final a refutation of what
has been termed the “development hypothesis,” now recognised as
contradictory to fact and to Scripture—that there are not known to
exist in any of these newer strata the same beings, or the descendants
of the same beings, that were found upon the earth at the
termination of the chalk deposit.
Nor is this all; not only are none of the old fossils found in any one
of the three divisions of this system, but we are introduced at once to
so many new ones, that their species and genera are almost endless;
and he is not only a geologist of mark, but a most singularly
accomplished geologist, who thoroughly understands their minute
subdivisions, and can appropriately classify the fossils of this most
fossiliferous era. To make the matter as simple as possible, let us add
that “the broad distinction between tertiary and secondary rocks is a
palæontological one. None of the secondary rocks contain any fossil
animals or plants of the same species as any of those living at the
present day. Every one of the tertiary groups do contain some fossil
animals or plants of the same species as those now living.”[113]
Having alluded to the threefold division of this series of rocks, we
shall proceed to notice them, dwelling a while upon each, and
showing the principle on which each is based, as originated and
enunciated by Lyell. Of the three divisions, the first is called Eocene
(ēōs, the dawn, and kainŏs, recent), by which term is represented the
oldest or lowest of this tripartite series. Then we have the Miocene
(meiōn, less, and kainŏs, recent)—a name, we think, not the most
appropriate, and likely to mislead the beginner, because really it
represents a series of beds, more and not less recent than the
Eocene; but the idea of the name is this (and it must be carefully
borne in mind), that although it is more recent than the series of
beds below, it is less recent than those above; it is nearer the “dawn”
of our present era than the Eocene, but not so near the dawn as the
Pliocene. This last term, the Pliocene (from pleiōn, more, and kainŏs,
recent), is applied to the newest of the beds of the tertiary series in
which there are found many more recent than extinct shells. The
Tertiary system or series, then, is divided into these three sections:
viz. 1. The older Tertiary or Eocene; 2. The middle Tertiary or
Miocene; and 3. The newer Tertiary or Pliocene.
We used a term just now, in quoting from Mr. Juke’s most useful
manual, which we will explain; we said, the “distinction between the
secondary and tertiary rocks is wholly a palæontological one;” that
is, it is a distinction founded not on the character of the rocks, but on
the character of the organic remains found in the rocks. “This
character,” says Sir Charles Lyell, “must be used as a criterion of the
age of a formation, or of the contemporaneous origin of two deposits
in different places, under very much the same restrictions as the test
of mineral composition.
“First, the same fossils may be traced over wide regions, if we
examine strata in the direction of their planes, although by no means
for indefinite distances.
“Secondly, while the same fossils prevail in a particular set of
strata for hundreds of miles in a horizontal direction, we seldom
meet with the same remains for many fathoms, and very rarely for
several hundred yards, in a vertical line, or a line transverse to the
strata. This fact has now been verified in almost all parts of the globe,
and has led to a conviction, that at successive periods of the past, the
same area of land and water has been inhabited by species of animals
and plants even more distinct than those which now people the
antipodes, or which now coexist in the Arctic, temperate, and
tropical zones. It appears that, from the remotest periods, there has
been ever a coming in of new organic forms, and an extinction of
those which pre-existed on the earth, some species having endured
for a longer, others for a shorter time; while none have ever
reappeared after once dying out. The law which has governed the
creation and extinction of species seems to be expressed in the verse
of the poet—
‘Nature made him, and then broke the die;’

and this circumstance it is which confers on fossils their highest

value as chronological tests, giving to each of them, in the eyes of the
geologist, that authority which belongs to contemporary medals in
history. The same cannot be said of each peculiar variety of rock; for
some of these, as red-marl and red sandstone for example, may occur
at once upon the top, bottom, and middle of the entire sedimentary
series; exhibiting in each position so perfect an identity of mineral
aspect, as to be undistinguishable. Such exact repetitions, however,
of the same mixtures of sediment, have not often been produced, at
distant periods, in precisely the same parts of the globe; and even
where this has happened, we are seldom in any danger of
confounding together the monuments of remote eras, when we have
studied their imbedded fossils and relative position.”[114]
Let us now briefly explain the very simple but satisfactory basis on
which this threefold division of the Tertiary rocks rests, and then
proceed to a brief explanation of each. The reader will already have
noted a statement on a preceding page, to which we shall be
pardoned, if, a second time, we ask attention to it. In imparting
elementary instruction on geology we have always found our classes
more or less puzzled by the tertiary system, on account of its
nomenclature and minute subdivisions, and we have learnt from
experience the importance of presenting this statement over and
over again. We have remarked that in the secondary rocks—that is,
up to the end of the chalk system—there are no organic remains
found precisely similar to any species existing at the present day; but
when we come to the tertiary rocks, although we find many
strangers, we find also a good many organic remains of the same
kind and character as the shells, that are now found on our shores. In
one part of the Tertiary the number of fossils that belongs to existing
genera is many, in another more, in another more still; and upon this
simple idea of positive, comparative, and superlative, the present
division is based. Taking the percentage principle as a guide, Sir
Charles Lyell and a distinguished French geologist, M. Deshayes,
have ascertained that in the lowest beds of this system there were
only 3½ per cent. of fossil shells similar to existing species, and this,
for “the sake of clearness and brevity,” says Sir Charles, “was called
the Eocene period, or the period of the dawn, the dawn of our
modern era so far as its testaceous fauna are concerned.” Rising
higher in the examination of these rocks, certain strata were found
containing 18 per cent. of fossil shells, similar to shells found now;
and to this was given the name of Miocene, the puzzling name
already spoken of, because it means less recent, whereas it is in
reality more recent, and is to be understood in relation to the series
below, and not to the series above. A step higher up in this system
revealed deposits of a coralline and craggy character, in which 41 per
cent. of fossil shells like those of the present era were found; and to
this the name of Pliocene, or more recent still, was given; and
latterly, in Sicily chiefly, a series of strata has been discovered,
referable to the Tertiary, in which 95 per cent. of recent species of
shells have been found, and to this series the name of Post-Pliocene,
or Pleistocene, has been given. Before our description of each of
these divisions, let us add, that “the organic remains of the system
constitute its most important and interesting feature. The fossils of
earlier periods presented little analogy, often no resemblance, to
existing plants and animals; here, however, the similitude is
frequently so complete, that the naturalist can scarcely point out a
distinction between them and living races. Geology thus unfolds a
beautiful gradation of being, from the corals, molluscs, and simple
crustacea of the grauwacke—the enamelled fishes, crinoidea, and
cryptogamic plants of the lower secondary—the chambered shells,
sauroid reptiles, and marsupial mammalia of the upper secondary—
up to the true dicotyledonous trees, birds, and gigantic quadrupeds
of the tertiary epoch. The student must not, however, suppose that
the fossils of this era bring him up to the present point of organic
nature, for thousands of species which then lived and flourished
became in their turn extinct, and were succeeded by others long
before man was placed on the earth as the head of animated
existence. Of Plants, few marine species have been detected; but the
fresh-water beds have yielded cycadeæ, coniferae, palms, willows,
elms, and other species, exhibiting the true dicotyledonous structure.
Nuts allied to those of the cocoa and other palms have been
discovered in the London clay; and seeds of the fresh-water
characeæ, or stoneworts, known by the name of gyrgonites (Gr.,
gyros, curved, and gonos, seed), are common in the same deposit. Of
the Radiata, Articulata, and Mollusca, so many belong to existing
genera, that this circumstance has suggested the classification of
tertiary rocks according to the number of recent species which they
contain.”—Chambers’ Outlines, p. 147.
Let us now begin the Eocene period. The most remarkable
formations of this period are the London and Hampshire basins. Of
the London basin we have already spoken in a previous chapter; a
few additional remarks will be sufficient. The diagrams 4 and 5, p.
25, will explain these tertiary deposits better than any verbal
explanation; and when it is remembered that this bed of clay is
probably a thousand feet in thickness, we get a passing illustration of
the folly of those puerile reports which a few years since were
industriously circulated about a coming earthquake in London. Poor,
uneducated people took up the alarm rather anxiously, never
dreaming of what any tyro in science would have told them—that
supposing there was a subterranean chimney on fire down below,
there was a wet blanket under their feet composed of a thousand feet
of sodden and solid clay, a blanket of the material they may see in the
deep cuttings of the Great Northern Railway in and about London,
that would most effectually have put out any fire, or checked the
progress of any earthquake, just as a cannon-ball is stopped dead by
a woolsack.
A run down the river Thames will take any one who has a day to
spare to the isle of Sheppey, where he will be amply rewarded by
seeing, on the north side of the island, an exposure of this formation
in the cliff laid bare to the height of 200 feet, and which pleasure trip
will be amply rewarded by the discovery in situ of the fossil tropical
plants, &c., that once flourished in the neighbourhood of our cold
and foggy London. “At the entrance of the Thames, the London clay
extends on both sides of the river, and is admirably exhibited in the
isle of Sheppey, which consists entirely of this stratum. The cliffs on
the north side of the island are upwards of 200 feet high, and are cut
down vertically by the action of the sea; they have long been
celebrated for the remarkable abundance and variety of the organic
remains obtained from them, amongst which, perhaps, the most
interesting are the fruits, berries, and woody seed-vessels of several
hundred species of plants. From the same locality there have also
been obtained the remains of upwards of fifty species of fish, and a
considerable number of crustaceans, and many other invertebrata;
besides some remarkable bones which have been described by
Professor Owen, and which indicate the former existence in this
island of large serpents, and of such birds as prey upon small reptiles
and mammalia. Many of these fossils, especially those of plants, are
very difficult to preserve, owing to the great tendency of the iron
pyrites, which enter largely into their composition, to effloresce and
be destroyed by exposure to the atmosphere.”[115]
Passing from the London basin to the Hampshire basin or Barton
beds, we shall first give a group of the shells found here; and we wish
our readers could look at them as they lie before us in their condition
of most exquisite preservation, so exquisite, that those who have
seen them have involuntarily and frequently exclaimed, “But these
can’t be fossils!” I know of no picture-painting of past history so
touching, and yet so true, as these lovely specimens of the shells of
the pre-Adamite condition of England in all their native simplicity.
To those who see in them shells, and only shells, why, in the name of
the prophet, give them figs, while we again remember Wordsworth’s
hero,—
“A primrose on the river brim,
A yellow primrose was to him,
And it was nothing more.”

To us they speak a wondrous story, replete with the knowledge that

maketh glad the heart of man, because it is purifying, elevating
knowledge; and though it does not teach the peculiar truths of
theology, and we heartily wish that geology had been allowed to tell
only its own tale of Creation—for here, as elsewhere,
“Nature, when unadorned,
Is then adorned the most”—

instead of being put to the rack, and made to suggest the special
truths of Revelation,[116] with which it has nothing to do;—although,
we say, it does not teach the peculiar and special truths for which a
Revelation was needed, it everywhere throws light on the boundless
treasures of wisdom and care and beneficent Providence of the God