Lillibullero

The first Irish Roman Catholic to serve as Lord Deputy of Ireland in nearly 200 years, Talbot quickly filled the army in Ireland with Catholic officers (hence "we will have commissions galore") and recruits, alarming the Protestants and raising the hopes of the Irish Catholic community for a restoration of their lands and political power ("by Christ and St Patrick, the nation's our own"). The Catholic resurgence created fears amongst Irish Protestants of a massacre, similar to that which had happened in the Irish Rebellion of 1641.

The song parodies the widespread Irish belief in prophecy ("there was an old prophecy found in a bog, that Ireland'd be ruled by an ass and a dog"). Talbot, as well as being a name, is a breed of hound or hunting dog. A common theme of such prophecies was that the foreigners would be driven out of Ireland in some decisive battle. See the Siege of Limerick for an example of these attitudes. The song's title and the words of the refrain have been interpreted as a garbled version of the Irish words Lile ba léir é, ba linn an lá, "Lilly was clear and ours was the day". The lily may be a reference to the fleur de lis of France, or to the most celebrated astrologer of the mid seventeenth century, William Lilly, who became well known for prophesy at this time and to whom could readily be attributed foreknowledge that a Catholic would be king of England.[7] Alternatively, the lyrics could mean, "Lilly is clear [about this], the day will be ours". It is also thought that "Lilli" is a familiar form of William, and that bullero comes from the Irish "Buaill Léir ó", which gives: "William defeated all that remained".

Professor Breandán Ó Buachalla has claimed that they are a garbled version of the Irish sentence "Leir o, Leir o, leir o, leiro, Lilli bu leir o: bu linn an la, " which he translates as "Manifest, manifest, manifest, manifest, Lilly will be manifest, the day will be ours" referring to a possible prophecy of an Irish victory by the astrologer William Lilly.[8]

Purcell's music provided the tune for the highwayman Macheath's satire on modern society in John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, which first premiered in 1728, using popular folk tunes for its score. Here, the lyrics are:

One of the best-known parodies of "Lillibullero" is the Ulster Protestant folk lyric called "Protestant Boys". The song is played by flute bands accompanying the Orange Order during Orange or band-only parades, which have been the subject of controversy during the Troubles in Northern Ireland.[9]

There are two versions of "Protestant Boys", both sung to the tune of "Lillibullero". They begin as follows:

"Nottingham Ale" is an English drinking song sung to the tune of "Lillibullero".

The historian Blackner relates that a person of the name Gunthorpe, who within memory of persons then living [1815] kept the PunchBowl public house in Peck Lane Nottingham, sent a barrel of ale of his own brewing as a present to his brother, an officer in the navy, who in return composed this poetic epistle. It appears to have been a popular song around the end of the 18th century and was one which Goldsmith enjoyed especially when sung by one of the comic singers who frequented one of his haunts in London.

It was sung at the launching ceremony of the Nottingham, an East Indiaman, on March 7, 1787, at the Clevey's yard Gravesend. The ship was 1152 tons and had a crew of 144 and was one of the largest and fastest ever built.

Yet another set of lyrics[10] set to the tune at the time of the American Civil War is attributed to the ballad scholar Francis J. Child, born in Boston in 1825. It is a satire on Jefferson Davis and the Confederacy, and perhaps refers to the Hampton Roads Conference.

In recent times, the melody and refrain of Lillibullero are frequently paired with lyrics from the ballad The Farmer's Curst Wife.[11] The lyrics tell the story of a ploughman's wife who is taken away to Hell by the Devil, but is subsequently returned to Earth due to her violent acts against demons.

Lyrics from "The Farmer's Curst Wife" were used in the version of "Lillibullero" recorded by Bellowhead in their 2012 album Broadside,[12] and in the version recorded by the band The City Waites in their 1976 self-titled album.

The 19th century nursery rhyme There Was An Old Woman Tossed Up in a Basket, published in the collection Mother Goose,[13] is sung to the tune of "Lillibulero".[14]

"Lillibullero" was adopted by the British Broadcasting Corporation's World War II programme Into Battle and became the unofficial march of the Commandos of the British Army. Since its association with the BBC's role in the war, various recordings of "Lillibullero" have been played by the BBC as an interval signal. These include a marching band and a symphony orchestra.[15]

During the 1970s a rousing recording by the band of HM Royal Marines used just before the BBC World Service News on the hour was replaced by a weaker and quieter version by a brass ensemble, on the grounds that the band record had worn out, however the Marines version was later reinstated.[16] The most recent recording, written by David Arnold and performed by a string orchestra, was until recently played on the World Service several times a day. A shortened version is currently sometimes played just before each hour before the news.[15]

A well-regarded argument for the persistence of Lillibullero as a signature tune of the BBC World Service was that its powerful and simple structure was an effective means of identifying the broadcaster. The engineers who selected it were unaware of its origins, though a BBC World Service history states that the choice of interval theme at the time was that of "the transmission engineers who found it particularly audible through short wave mush, and anyway [the BBC] knew it as a tune for the old English song "There was an old woman tossed up in a blanket, 20 times as high as the moon". Another likely reason for the particular choice of this tune during World War II is that its beginning bars sound the 'Victory V' rhythm (dit dit dit dah, repeated) i.e. the letter V in Morse code, which was used in various forms by the BBC in its home and foreign services."."[17]

The recently initiated BBC Persian TV service makes use of a re-mixed version of Lillibullero as the title theme for its music programmes. Both the music magazine and music documentaries[18] have cuts of the tune with Persian instrumental influence. It was also used for the BBC World Service Television service broadcast in Europe and Asia during the early 1990s.

Lillibullero is the (official) Regimental March of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (abbrev. REME). This Corps was established during the Second World War and so the BBC's official wartime use of Lillibullero described above may well have played a part in its selection by REME, but it seems more likely that the BBC's reliance on REME for its wartime development and coverage led to the BBC adopting the march about that time as a signature tune (as mentioned previously). This is borne out by the fact that the melody had long been in use in military music, and that the foundation of REME is inextricably associated with many of those regiments. Lillibullero is also the official March of the Corps of Royal Australian Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (abbrev. RAEME) together with "Boys in the Backroom".

Laurence Sterne's experimental and comic novel Tristram Shandy, prints the score to "Lillibullero" at the end of Chapter 17 in Book 9 after Tristram's uncle, Captain Toby Shandy, whistles the tune. A British Army veteran of the fighting in Ireland and the Low Countries during King William's reign, Toby whistles "Lillibullero" when he is offered any opinion or argument which would require passionate rebuttal or which he finds embarrassing or upsetting.[19]

In Sir Walter Scott's novel Waverley, the highland Chieftain Fergus Mac-Ivor sings a verse of "Lillibulero" during a dinner before he and his comrades prepare for battle on the side of the Pretender.[20]

One of the scoundrels in Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island (Chapter XVI) whistles the tune, whose title is mentioned four times.[21]

One of Kage Baker's principal characters of The Life of the World to Come, Alec, loves this tune and it is referenced by him several times. This is likely connected to his well-known love for Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island.[22]

Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle also makes mention of Lillibulero's use as anti-Catholic propaganda.

In the movie Barry Lyndon (1975) Lillibullero is heard near the start as Barry's regiment assembles at Swords Castle to embark for the Seven Years' War.

The tune is used in The Last Man Out and Raid on Rommel. The tune is also used during the title credits in the period adventure East of Sudan (1964).

In Frederick Forsyth's novel The Afghan, one of the protagonists, Terry Martin, has Lillibullero as his ringtone on his mobile phone.

Henry Purcell subsequently arranged the melody for a keyboard piece titled "A New Irish Tune". The composition was a contribution to a method book for virginals and harpsichords called Musick's Hand-Maid. "A New Irish Tune" was included in the Second Part of Musick's Hand-Maid, published by Henry Playford.[23]

A French version is known as the Marche du Prince d'Orange, and is attributed to Louis XIV's court composers Philidor the Elder and Jean-Baptiste Lully.

The basic melody of "Lillibulero" appears to have been adapted by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart for the theme of the first movement of his Piano Sonata No. 11 in A major, K. 331 (1783). Since then, other composers have written variations on the Mozartean theme in which the relationship to Lillibulero is made even clearer, for example, Max Reger's Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Mozart, Op. 132 (1914).