Another McDermott masterpiece

Canadian John McDermott is a professional singer well known for performing broadly traditional songs. His talent is to put appropriate feeling into what he sings. I have put up recently his version of "Scotland the Brave" and I do go back and watch it occasionally. And I think the song below is very well-done too. It is about an episode in Australian history but I think it is broadly intelligible.



It is an antiwar song so it might seem strange that I am putting it up. Is not anti-war a Leftist orientation? And I am after all a former Sergeant in the Australian army. But many military men are very skeptical of the need for war. They die in wars. But when there is a war on, they are usually keen to go and exercise the skills they have trained for. Even I volunteered for service in Vietnam in that war. But when it comes to the reasons for the war they are involved in they are often deeply skeptical, and particularly skeptical of the management of their war by the "Brass". The song above is an example of that latter attitude.

The song does inspire some recollections. Contarary to what the song predicts, the ANZAC day marches did not wither away. They are still going strong. I was watching a parade once in the company of JHM, my beautiful but demure girlfriend of the time. As we watched, the navy came marching along -- tall men in white uniforms. JHM really came alive at that. She greatly enjoyed that part of the parade. With big smiles she utterered expressions of admiration for those marchers -- not so demure at that point. Women have always liked men in uniform.