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Play the Game Music CD: Amusing Victorian and Edwardian Sporting Songs.
‘Play the Game’ is a fun CD which will appeal to the sports lover, music lover and history lover in equal measure. It contains 17 British and American songs, each one about a different sport, written between 1862 and 1913. Listeners are likely to be drawn to the songs which illustrate their favourite sports, and to historical curiosities such as “A Hunting Morning” written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes.
In his review of the CD in The Times, Robert Hands wrote “…the infectious joy of the melodies and the jolly (in every sense) lyrics give the lie to the notion that the Victorians never knew how to have fun”. It certainly is jolly, and contains some real gems such as: "I won her heart at billiards" and "Won't you come over and play croquet". When Sir Spencer Ponsonby-Fane penned his carol to "the joys of the gay cricket ground, with some jolly good fellows to share it," he would have had no idea of how changing times would give his words the camp edge that gives the songs their cheerful humour. Likewise with the composer of the "Eton Boating Song", who wrote "Swing, swing together with your backs between your knees". All of which makes this disc a complete joy, done as it is with po-faced eloquence, restraint and delicacy.
Track listing: The Eton Boating Song, Won't You Come Over and Play Croquet, The Cricketers Carol, Boxing Song, A Rugger Song, The Rival Blues, Caddie, Little Tommy Went A Fishing, Our Football Supper, Captain Webb The Champion Swimmer, A Game of Tennis, The Newmarket Coat, I Won Her Heart at Billiards, Mountaineer Song, Cycling Song, A Hunting Morning, The Glorious Twelfth |
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