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| Colonel Gods March | |
Artist: U.S. Navy Orchestra | |
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Colonel Bogey March is a popular military march composed in 1914 by British lieutenant Fredrick Rickets (1881–1945), conductor of the Royal Marines Ensemble in Plymouth . Since military personnel were not recommended at that time to perform work outside their official duties, Ricketts published The Colonel, like his other writings, under the pseudonym Kenneth Alford.
Musical record sales exceeded one million copies, and the march itself was subsequently used repeatedly in audio recordings and films and continues to be performed until now, being also the official march of the in Calgary .
History
A lot of satirical, sometimes indecent poems are put on the tune of the march.
The story includes a version of the text entitled “ ” (“Hitler has only one testicle ”), which gained popularity in 1939 , at the beginning of World War II :
- Hitler has only got one ball,
- Göring has two but very small,
- Himmler is somewhat sim'lar,
- But poor old Goebbels has no balls at all.
- Hitler has only one testicle ,
- Goering has two, but very small ones,
- Himmler ’s kind of
- And poor Goebbels is completely devoid of them.
However, there were many different variations of the text. So, in the “North African” version of the text, Field Marshal Rommel was mentioned; while British soldiers, respecting his military talents, attributed to him the presence of "four or five" testicles [1] .
New fame came to the march in 1957, when it was used in the film “ Bridge over the River Kwai ”. Initially, director David Lin wanted prisoners of war in one episode to sing the popular “ ” song during the Second World War to the music of one of the marches, but the copyright holders requested too much, and Lin stopped at “Colonel Bogey” . Realizing that indecent verses could not be voiced on the big screen, he changed the script: now the soldiers only whistled a tune. Composer Malcolm Arnold composed the counter-march “ River Kwai March ”, sounding in some episodes. [2]
Notes
- ↑ Greg Kelley, “Colonel Bogey's March through Folk and Popular Culture” in Warrior Ways: Explorations in Modern Military Folklore , Utah State University Press, 2012, p. 208
- ↑ Phillips, Gene D. Beyond the epic: the life & films of David Lean. - Lexington, Ky: University Press of Kentucky, 2006 .-- ISBN 0-8131-2415-8 . quote in google books