VE Day (victory in Europe) and the Generation.

by Slidin Fast 14 Replies latest jw friends

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  joey jojo

  I seem to remember the song “Waltzing Mathilda” from when I was a child - and that was way before 1980. Just sayin’.

  You might be thinking of the orginal poem written by Banjo Paterson from 1895, Its kind of the unofficial national anthem of Australia. The song is based on that poem.

  Interesting that you spelled it as Mathilda, with an h. Ive heard different things about what a Mathilda, or Matilda represents in the poem. Either a bundle of belongings that an itinerant worker would carry, or the other version is that Mathilda with an h is a slang German word for a type of coat.
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  Slidin Fast

  Hey, I’ve just listened to the song. It really says it all.
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  TonusOH

  It's been more than 100 years since Rutherford started with the "millions now living will never die" slogan. Even today, there are people predicting the end of the world, but the world stubbornly marches on.
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  NotFormer

  "I seem to remember the song “Waltzing Mathilda” from when I was a child - and that was way before 1980. Just sayin'"

  LHG, And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda isn't the original song by Banjo Patterson which is, as you rightly pointed out, over a hundred years old. Although it was older than 1980; I remember it being played at a school assembly in at least 1979.

  The above quoted song is about a bloke who goes off to the trenches* of WWI, gets his legs blown off and his reward is to be met, at his his arrival back in Sydney, by a band playing Waltzing Matilda. I assume that the song by Eric Bogle is meant to be a pacifist piece about the evils of war.

  *Gallipoli, specifically
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  Slidin Fast

  Just to add a nail to the original point. Today a candle will be lit in memory of the fallen. Who by? Winston Churchill’s

  great,

  great,

  grandson.

  of course that is from 1945, not 1914.