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| In Gorodnya - to break through or retreat Vasily Vereshchagin (Source) |
Anyhoo, one of the Chanters mentioned this song by Mark Knopfler a while back (sorry I don't remember who, I suffer from CRS.¹) I've been meaning to post it here, with the lyrics. You folks know my fascination with Napoléon Bonaparte, this song, to me, is beautiful, and haunting. I almost feel as if I had been there.
Literally makes me tear up ...
Done With Bonaparte
Mark Knopfler
We've paid in hell since Moscow burned
As Cossacks tear us piece by piece
Our dead are strewn a hundred leagues
Though death would be a sweet release
And our Grande Armée is dressed in rags
A frozen, starving, beggar band
Like rats we steal each other's scraps
Fall to fighting hand to hand
Save my soul from evil, Lord
And heal this soldier's heart
I'll trust in thee to keep me, Lord
I'm done with Bonaparte
What dreams he made for us to dream
Spanish skies, Egyptian sands
The world was ours, we marched upon
Our little Corporal's command
And I lost an eye at Austerlitz
The sabre slash yet gives me pain
My one true love awaits me still
The flower of the Aquitaine
Save my soul from evil, Lord
And heal this soldier's heart
I'll trust in thee to keep me, Lord
I'm done with Bonaparte
I pray for her who prays for me
A safe return to my belle France
We prayed these wars would end all wars
In war, we know, is no romance
And I pray our child will never see
A little Corporal again
Point toward a foreign shore
Captivate the hearts of men
Save my soul from evil, Lord
And heal this soldier's heart
I'll trust in thee to keep me, Lord
I'm done with Bonaparte
Good stuff ...
¹ Can't Remember Shite
Indeed, what was it with corporals with the French and Germans? Lot of lives lost in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Nice tune to start the weekend off with Sarge.
ReplyDeleteAnd the beat goes on ...
DeleteExcellent Post, Sarge! Good Music, Good Message. Don't start anything you can't finish and win. Wish the people a little south of you and east of me would pay f'in attention to that message.
ReplyDeletejuvat
They don't have the requisite intelligence to even understand the message, let alone act on it.
DeleteOh, and I hope you feel better soon.
ReplyDeletejuvat
Drugs must be working, last night was the best sleep I've had in a fortnight.
DeleteDid you make and eat the kimchee chicken soup?
DeleteBeats a Zpack every time.
Michael at the dock.
No, cannot abide chicken soup, though I do like kimchi.
DeletePork noodle soup cooled with live culture kimchee (don't cook the kimchee) also works.
DeleteSoup for hydration and nutrition, kimchee to drive out demons, lol.
Michael
I'm just not a big soup guy, sorry.
DeleteGood piece of music. Thank you. And thanks for the lyrics. I listened to it once. And again. And couldn't make much sense of what he was saying. What is it with so many folk (?) singers and actors that they think diction and enunciation is beneath them?
ReplyDeleteBut it made me think. Bonaparte, in his quest to subdue all of Europe, or was is all of Europe's quest to destroy him, overturned the Old Order in Europe, like a plough turning a furrow, and planted the seeds that toppled monarchies and empires. Hundred Years War(s), Thirty Years War, some attempt at conquest in every generation. Sure, there were some smaller flare ups, until the War to End Wars, and it's child, WWII, but wars kept getting shorter.
Hope you beat whatever crud you have quickly.
The studio version is clearer, doing it live is harder. But yes, many singers seem to mumble the lyrics. (Just as many actors mumble their lines!)
DeleteOK, I'll chime in here as I'm the guy (or one of them) that suggested the music. Coupla things; Knopfler's a Scot, so you'll just have to deal with his "diction", and his brilliance as a songwriter and especially as a guitarist certainly compensate for any alleged pronunciation " issues".
DeleteThis version with the band he put together for that tour is my favorite. I'd always hoped to see Knopfler and Emmylou Harris together; alas I was occupied overseas during this tour, so the video will have to suffice.
Boat Guy
Oh, another Knopfler song to recommend; ",A Piper Till The End" written to honor his Uncle (Mother's Brother) KIA on D-Day.
DeleteBG
Oops! My mistake! Knopfler's Uncle Freddie was KIA in France in 1940. Twenty years old.
DeleteBG
BG #1 - Didn't know that Mark was a fellow Scot, I should have realized that!
DeleteBG #2 - Listening to "A Piper Till The End" now, the tears are welling up even as I type this.
DeleteBG #3 - May Uncle Freddie's memory live forever.
DeleteYea verily!
DeleteBG
👍
Deleteear infection - annoying at the very least - and it's (almost) always the side you sleep on.
ReplyDeleteFBS (feel better soon)
The drugs seem to be working. (And yes, it's the side I sleep on!)
DeleteYou know, if you were retired you wouldn't be exposed to all the germs from your coworkers... Just saying.
ReplyDeleteVery good song. So much hope placed on him and so much hope lost.
That first thought is constantly on my mind these days. Your last thought, pretty profound in my book.
DeleteI don't know...Hope....Russia? Egypt? What was the benefit of conquering either? Especially in the 1800's.
DeleteNational pride is usually an extremely expensive prize.
juvat
It was all about forcing the English to quit, without English gold the fight against Napoléon would have collapsed. They were the most implacable of France's enemies. Egypt was before the Empire, so that wasn't Napoléon's call. Russia? They refused to cease trade with Britain. Spain? That was the big drain, again the goal was to get the English to quit financing the monarchs of Europe in their desires to return to the status quo ante bellum.
DeleteSpain is what killed the Empire, Russia just pushed it over the brink. Perhaps the Emperor thought to bend all of Europe to his will, but, as a little kid might put it, "they started it."
Having Louis get a republican shave was the last straw, everything which followed was due to that.
There were, if I remember, issues from all the monarchies towards the French Republic. Cutting out France from trade, attacking French ships, seizing French property and such. All things that would have caused anyone else to go to war.
DeleteKind of like how the US embargo of Imperial Japan led to WWII. Yeah, Japan was nasty in China, but how exactly did that involve the US?
And, yes, Hope. Remember, France under the monarchy wasn't exactly firing on all cylinders. France during the Revolution was as much a hell as Russia during their revolution. People spying on each other, denouncing each other, denouncing other people for profit, seizure of personal property for distribution to 'The People' (which meant often to leaders and other power players.) Frenchmen outside of France that were favorable of the new governments were seen as supporting regicide and death to all nobility (even those in the very counties that the outside-of-France French were living in, and as a potential source of revolutionary fervor. Frenchmen living outside of France who supported the old regime or were not enthralled of the new rules and rulers were seen as potential sources of revolutionary fervor against the new revolutionaries.
DeleteSo, yes, Hope. Hope that sanity and the greatness of France would return to what it used to be. Hope that all the insanity would go away. Hope that family property would be returned.
Beans #1 - Precisely!
DeleteBeans #2 - Bingo!
DeleteBeans/Sarge,
DeleteAs I learned at Army Command and Staff...."Hope is not a Course of Action". Spoken during a Student briefing on his "Plan" for the exercise in response to an instructor's question of how some aspect of the plan was going to work. "Well, we hope it will" was the cause of the above response. Lot of truth in that statement. I'm also pretty certain that you both are correct in that being the reason.
juvat
Man proposes, God disposes ...
DeleteThe troops hope they survive.
I suspect there was a lot of praying applied to that hope also. "No atheists in foxholes" doncha' know!
Deletejuvat
Prayer is omnipresent when the bullets are flying.
DeleteNapoleon's legacy besides the stories & some sayings is the metric system and canned food .
ReplyDeleteNow don't blame the Emperor for the metric system. 😉
DeleteAlso, as I recall, much of Louisiana's legal code is based on the Code Napoléon. France still has that as well.
Ah, the metric system! Based on the mismeasurement of the distance from the Equator to the North Pole on the meridian that passes through Paris.
DeleteHahaha!
DeleteAt least canned food has been a benefit.
DeleteBG
Most definitely!
DeleteI think I have ICRS- Intermittent CRS. Sometimes all the synapsis are firing like a V-12 in an F-1 car, and other days, I can barely remember the name of my boss. I think poor sleep is the driving factor there.
ReplyDeleteDefinitely doesn't help. DAMHIK
DeleteMelatonin may be your answer. Start small dosage and work up to what works. Take like 15 minutes before you want to go to bed and it helps you sleep. It's a natural product and one the body produces so it's not bad nor toxic.
DeleteNope.
DeleteI was prescribed trazadone, which works ok, but not always. Sometimes I just wake up for no reason. Other times to offload fluids but I can't get back to sleep.
DeleteI won't use any artificial means to sleep, for various reasons.
Delete