Burma, Kipling and Western Music: The Riff from Mandalay 9781138125087

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Burma, Kipling and Western Music

For decades, scholars have been trying to answer the question: how was colonial Burma perceived in and by the Western world, and how did people in countries like the United Kingdom and United States form their views? This book explores how Western perceptions of Burma were influenced by the popular music of the day. From the First Anglo–Burmese War of 1824–1826 until Burma regained its independence in 1948, more than 180 musical works with Burma-related themes were written in English-speaking countries, in addition to the many hymns composed in and about Burma by Christian missionaries. Servicemen posted to Burma added to the lexicon with marches and ditties, and after 1913 most movies about Burma had their own distinctive scores. Taking Rudyard Kipling’s 1890 ballad ‘Mandalay’ as a critical turning point, this book surveys all these works with emphasis on popular songs and show tunes, also looking at classical works, ballet scores, hymns, soldiers’ songs, sea shanties and film soundtracks. It examines how they influenced Western perceptions of Burma, and in turn reflected those views back to Western audiences. The book sheds new light not only on the West’s historical relationship with Burma, and the colonial music scene, but also Burma’s place in the development of popular music and the rise of the global music industry. In doing so, it makes an original contribution to the fields of musicology and Asian Studies. Andrew Selth is an Adjunct Associate Professor at Griffith University and the Australian National University. He has been studying international security issues and Asian affairs for over 40 years, as a diplomat, strategic intelligence analyst and research scholar. He has published six books, including Burma’s Armed Forces: Power Without Glory.

Routledge Research in Music For a full list of titles in this series, please visit www.routledge.com

5 Liveness in Modern Music Musicians, Technology, and the Perception of Performance Paul Sanden 6 Masculinity in Opera Gender, History, & New Musicology Edited by Philip Purvis 7 Music in Films on the Middle Ages Authenticity vs. Fantasy John Haines 8 Popular Music in a Digital Music Economy Problems and Practices for a Service Industry Tim J. Anderson 9 Music, Performance, and the Realities of Film Shared Concert Experiences in Screen Fiction Ben Winters 10 The Modern Percussion Revolution Journeys of the Progressive Artist Edited by Kevin Lewis and Gustavo Aguilar 11 Preserving Popular Music Heritage Do-it-Yourself, Do-it-Together Edited by Sarah Baker 12 Opera in a Multicultural World Coloniality, Culture, Performance Edited by Mary I. Ingraham, Joseph K. So and Roy Moodley 13 Current Directions in Ecomusicology Music, Culture, Nature Edited by Aaron S. Allen and Kevin Dawe 14 Burma, Kipling and Western Music The Riff from Mandalay Andrew Selth

Burma, Kipling and Western Music The Riff from Mandalay

Andrew Selth

First published 2017 by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 and by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2017 Taylor & Francis The right of Andrew Selth to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Selth, Andrew, author. Title: Burma, Kipling and western music: the riff from Mandalay / by Andrew Selth. Description: New York; London: Routledge, 2016. | Series: Routledge research in music; 14 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016026057 Subjects: LCSH: Music—19th century—History and criticism. | Music—20th century—History and criticism. | Music—Burmese influences. | Orientalism in music. | Burma—Songs and music—History and criticism. | Kipling, Rudyard, 1865–1936. Mandalay. Classification: LCC ML196 .S45 2016 | DDC 781.5/99—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016026057 ISBN: 978-1-138-12508-7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-64773-9 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by codeMantra

If a man were permitted to make all the ballads of a nation, he need not care who should make its laws. Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun (1655–1716) True music must repeat the thought and aspirations of the people and the time. George Gershwin (1898–1937) Strange how potent cheap music is. Noel Coward (1899–1973)

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Contents

ix xiii xv

Glossary Abbreviations Foreword G AV I N DO U G L AS

xvii

Acknowledgements Introduction

1

Scope of the study 2 Burma and names 3 Definitions and conventions 1

5

Setting the scene

9

The West and the ‘Orient’ 10 Burma and the popular imagination The West and ‘Burma Girls’ 21 2

17

Burma and Western music before ‘Mandalay’

35

Religious music 35 Secular music 51 Stage shows 59 3

Rudyard Kipling and ‘Mandalay’ On the road 73 The musical settings

4

72

78

Burma and Western music after ‘Mandalay’ Imitations and inspirations 91 Other Burma-related works 110

90

viii 5

Contents Patterns and particulars

125

Subjects and themes 125 Styles, types and rhymes 131 Race and religion 135 Burma and the Burmese 140 Women and sexism 143 6

Burma’s changing soundscape

157

Early colonial entertainments 157 Burma’s developing music scene 162 Music and the war years 172 7

And the band played on

202

Burma, Hollywood and film music 202 Western music in Burma after 1948 207 Aung San Suu Kyi, Kipling and music 212 8

Afterword

223

Appendix: Musical works with Burmese themes Bibliography

229 241

Newspaper stories

241

Articles and chapters

242

Monographs and books On-line sources Other sources Index

248

263 270 273

Glossary

Western musical terms1 A cappella Air Ballad Barcarolle Big band

Broadside

Cancion Catch Charleston Dirge Ditty Film score Film song

Literally, ‘in the church style’, i.e. sung without musical accompaniment A term used between the 16th and 19th centuries to describe a song or melody, but later applied to a variety of classical vocal and instrumental compositions A strophic narrative song, usually of a romantic or sentimental nature and often sung solo A piece of music said to be composed in the style of folk songs favoured by Venetian gondoliers A type of music ensemble originating in the US in the mid1920s and popular during the swing era, usually consisting of 15 to 25 musicians playing brass, rhythm and woodwind instruments. Also known as broadsheet, a single piece of inexpensive paper with words printed on one side, sometimes with a woodcut illustration, common between the 16th and 19th centuries Originally a popular genre of Spanish music that influenced Italian light opera and other song styles emphasising feelings and emotions A song in which two or more voices sing the same or similar melodies, but begin at different times, often to produce puns or humorous phrases A dance popular in the 1920s, performed to ragtime jazz music and characterised by a quadruple time rhythm A song or lament expressing mourning or grief A short, simple song or poem Music composed for use in a movie, either as incidental or background music, to help make up the soundtrack. A song composed specifically for use in a movie, often released separately as sheet music and/or a recording

x

Glossary

Folk song Foxtrot Glee Hymn Idyll Intermezzo Jazz

Jazz Age Jig Jive Lament Lyric March Masque Medley Music hall Musical comedy One-step

A traditional song which has evolved, often through oral transmission, and is widely felt to convey the ‘essence’ of a country, race or period A ballroom dance developed around 1914, performed to music in common time at about 30 to 32 bars a minute A type of part-song originating in eighteenth-century England, sung by three or more (usually male) unaccompanied voices A song of praise, joy or thanksgiving to a deity, usually written in metrical verse in lines of regular length A literary description in prose or verse of happy rural life, applied by extension to a musical composition of a peaceful, pastoral character A term occasionally used as the title of a movement, usually of a light character, contained within a larger work A style of music of African-American origin characterized by a strong but flexible rhythmic under-structure, typically involving solo and ensemble improvisations on basic tunes and chord patterns Popularly taken to be the period between the end of the First World War in 1918 and the beginning of the Great Depression in 1929 A type of lively folk tune and/or dance in compound metre A fast-paced form of swing dance developed in the US during the 1930s Any piece of music expressing grief, usually at the loss of a friend or famous person Usually the words of a song, especially used of popular twentieth-century song and musical comedy A composition in regularly accented, usually duple metre, appropriate to accompany military movements and processions A type of courtly entertainment dating from the 16th century, used to celebrate special events, consisting of dancing, speech and song A selection of pieces linked to form a single lightorchestral concert work Genre of theatrical entertainment popular in Britain during the 19th and early 20th centuries, featuring a variety of musical and other acts A play or film, usually having a light romantic story, that consists of dialogue interspersed with singing and dancing A free form ballroom dance popular at the beginning of the 20th century

Glossary Operetta Oriental

Polka Quickstep Reel Revue Rumba Riff Rhythm and Blues Screamer Shanty Shimmy Stanza Strathspey Swing Swing era Tango Two-step

xi

Light opera, ‘light’ in terms of both music and subject matter ‘Of the East’, used to describe the often imagined attributes of countries stretching from northern Africa and the ‘Middle East’ to ‘India beyond the Ganges’, i.e. the ‘Far East’ A genre of ballroom dance music which originated in central Europe in the middle of the 19th century Martial music for a march in quick time, also a ballroom dance in quadruple time dating from around 1927 A type of folk dance and/or folk tune A type of popular multi-act theatrical entertainment that combines music, dance and sketches (until 1907 usually written as ‘review’) A complex form of Afro-Cuban dance popular in the 1930s and 1940s In various popular music styles, a short melodic, rhythmic or chordal phrase, repeated over changing melodies A genre of popular African-American music that originated in the 1940s A colloquial term for a short upbeat march intended mainly for use in circuses A song sung by sailors during the 19th century, usually to accompany labour on board sailing vessels, hence ‘sea shanty’ A dance popular during the ‘jazz age’ in which the lower body is held relatively still, while the shoulders are shaken back and forth A unit within a larger poem, in popular vocal music typically referred to as a verse A type of dance tune, in simple quadruple time, named after a district of Scotland A form of music that developed in the US in the 1930s, characterised by a strong rhythm section, medium to fast tempos and lilting melodies Usually taken to be the period between 1935 and 1946, when big band music was most popular in the US and elsewhere A partner dance that originated in Latin America in the 1890s and became popular in Europe and America during the early 20th century A dance form popular before 1911, initially a variation on the waltz

xii

Glossary

Vaudeville Verse Waltz

Theatrical genre of variety entertainment popular in North America from the 1890s until the 1920s Generally considered to be a single line in a metrical composition, but also used to describe any division or grouping of words in such a work A ballroom dance developed in the 18th century, performed to music in triple time with a strong accent on the first beat

Burmese Musical Terms anyein pwe copy thachin hne kyi waing linkwin pattma patt waing pattala pwe saing waing sandaya saung gauk tayaw zat pwe

A live variety show, usually encompassing light music, dance, dialogue, dramatic skits and slapstick comedy ‘copy song’ double reed pipe, or oboe gong circle cymbals large drum drum circle bamboo xylophone A broad term covering a range of performative events, including festivals, live theatre, spirit propitiation ceremonies, rituals, offering events and parties traditional Burmese orchestra piano arched harp violin A traditional dance drama based on the Buddhist Jataka tales, but often including musical performances, dialogue and comedy routines

Note 1. The definitions of Western musical types given in this list rely heavily on Alison Latham (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), supplemented by various on-line sources. The explanation of Burmese terms draws on a variety of sources, including J.R. Brandon and Martin Banham, The Cambridge Guide to Asian Theatre (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 13–18; and Gavin Douglas, Music in Mainland Southeast Asia: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 39–54.

Abbreviations

ABMP AFRS AM BBC BBS BESA BMP CBI CD DVD ENSA FM HEIC HMV ICS INA KLM LM LP MGM MP POW R&B RPM RSO SEAC SEARC SLORC SPDC TV UK UNESCO US USO VD

American Baptist Mission Press Armed Forces Radio Service amplitude modulation British Broadcasting Corporation Burma Broadcasting Service Bengal Entertainment Services Association Burma Military Police China-Burma-India (Theatre) compact disc digital video (or versatile) disc Entertainments National Service Association frequency modulation Honourable East India Company His Master’s Voice Indian Civil Service Indian National Army Koninklijke Luchtvaart Maatschappij (Royal Dutch Airlines) long metre (or loud music) Long Play Metro Goldwyn Mayer Member of Parliament Prisoner of War rhythm and blues revolutions per minute Rangoon Symphony Orchestra South East Asia Command Southeast Asia Research Centre State Law and Order Restoration Council State Peace and Development Council television United Kingdom United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation United States (of America) United Service Organisations venereal disease

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Foreword Gavin Douglas

It is an honour to write a foreword to Andrew Selth’s examination of Burmainspired popular music. With dozens and dozens of examples, Andrew provides exciting insights on how Western conceptions and misconceptions of Burma were formed during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The mass production of sheet music and, later, of 78 rpm recordings and film, spread images and ideas of foreign cultures around the globe, making an indisputable impression on how these far-off places came to be understood. Rudyard Kipling’s poem ‘Mandalay’, its numerous musical settings and the countless songs that it inspired, provides a poignant jumping-off point for understanding this phenomenon. Drawn from Kipling’s three-day visit to Burma in 1890 (never reaching Mandalay) the poem had immeasurable influence on Western understandings of a country that was not well known in the English world. Books and news reports on Burma contained limited, often inaccurate information that Kipling’s ballad would supplement. This portrait of a country of golden pagodas populated by shy, reserved girls pining for their white men reappeared countless times in song, art and film, and constructed long-standing images of the Far East, Buddhism, Asian women, and colonial power that continue to this day. The poem and its descendants helped to create public perceptions of Burma and by extension European beliefs of colonial relations. Andrew Selth is one of the most prolific writers in the Burma studies community but he is best known in the arenas of foreign affairs and policy analysis. With his deep and highly regarded knowledge of political and military issues what would possibly compel him to write a book on music? As an ethnomusicologist trying to understand Burma’s musical traditions, I became familiar with Andrew’s work (particularly his comprehensive bibliographic work) early on in my efforts to understand the cultural and political terrain in which those traditions were found. Music, in Burma, and everywhere else, does not exist in a vacuum, but is embedded in the economic, political and religious lives of those who use it. Music has meaning, function and power only insofar as it connects to other social domains. Throughout this work Selth shows that attention to recurring images and themes informs how people come to conceive of a place and of a people. Music, songs, poetry, film and other mass-mediated culture lay a foundation for how people perceive, conceive and comprehend. This work on popular

xvi

Foreword

songs logically extends from Selth’s recent writing on Western cinematic depictions of Burma and the contributions they make (both positive and negative) to engagement with the country. Like cinema, song traditions plant vivid images in the minds of the populace that help mobilize engagement. Such work on expressive popular arts logically intersects with analysis of foreign relations at large. Perception informs policy. And as perceptions change so too do foreign relations. Burma, Kipling and Western Music connects humanities scholarship with social science work and will be welcomed by those interdisciplinary scholars whose work bridges between the arts, the humanities and the social sciences. For cultural historians it contributes to a growing body of work (in film, literature, photography) concerned with how Burma was viewed during the Victorian and Edwardian colonial eras. More broadly, it offers a multitude of examples for those who are interested in the construction, manipulation and dismantling of race, religion and gender stereotypes. Lastly, for the music aficionado and the historian, this book is a fun read. I found myself breaking from the narrative again and again to search down recordings of particular pieces. Some songs are insightfully moving, others silly and playful: some are evocative of a specific period of time and others have a strong historical persistence. The span of this study – from the first Anglo-Burmese war (1824) to Burma’s independence from Britain (1948) – encompasses a period of vast changes in the colonial relationship, in musical and popular taste and in the contexts for engagement with popular music. My congratulations and thanks to Andrew for capturing the echoes of these songs and for turning our attention to their influence. Gavin Douglas, Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology, Head, Department of Music Studies, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Acknowledgements

This book has been great fun to research and write. It has permitted me to set aside my usual academic preoccupations with foreign policy and security issues, pursue a range of personal interests (such as Rudyard Kipling, George Orwell and vintage music), and to relate them to Burma, a country that has fascinated me for more than 40 years. It has also given me the opportunity to shine a little light into several dark corners of Burmese history that are yet to be investigated closely by Western scholars. In all those ways, it has been an enjoyable personal journey. However, a project like this can never be undertaken alone and along the way I benefited from the help of many others, including several specialists in fields with which I was not familiar. I am grateful to them for their help. Not all can be named here, but there are some who deserve special mention. As he has been for so many Burma-watchers, and for so long, Sayagyi David Steinberg of Georgetown and Johns Hopkins universities was a wonderful source of inspiration, advice and practical support, and for this he has my gratitude. Thanks are also due to my old mate Kim Jackson, who read an early draft of the book and offered comments based on his encyclopaedic knowledge of popular Western music. Drawing on his own extensive collection and recordings on the Internet, he also prepared two CDs of Burma-related songs, to help bring to life some of the old sheet music I had collected over the past decade. Along the way, I benefited from the expertise and advice of Nick Cheesman, Chit Win, Gavin Douglas, Nicholas Farrelly, Charlotte Galloway, Ian Holliday, Charles Ipcar, Ward Keeler, Stephen McCarthy and Jim Saville. I am particularly indebted to Gavin Douglas for contributing a generous foreword to this book. I should also mention Catherine Raymond of the Burma Studies Centre at Northern Illinois University, with whom I discussed this project when it was still in its early stages. While I was researching this book, members of staff of the National Library of Australia in Canberra were attentive and helpful, as always. Their efforts to help me obtain copies of rare sheet music from other libraries, including some located overseas, were much appreciated. For their support in this and other Burma projects undertaken since I joined the Griffith Asia Institute in 2006, mention must also be made of Russell Trood, Leong Liew, Andrew O’Neil, Michael Wesley, Meegan Thorley, Kathy Bailey, Robyn

xviii Acknowledgements White, Natasha Vary, Belle Hammond and Christine Kowalski. I have also benefited from the assistance of the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, home of the Myanmar Research Centre at the Australian National University, in Canberra. As always, my greatest debt is to my wife Pattie, who has encouraged and supported my interest in all things Burmese for more than 30 years. Over the past two years, she has probably learned more about Burma’s musical manifestations, and listened to more Burma-related music, than she ever really cared to. I owe her much more than can be recorded here. Needless to say, any errors or omissions are my responsibility alone. Parts of this study were first presented at a seminar entitled ‘Kipling, “Mandalay” and Modern Burma (Myanmar)’, held at the Griffith Asia Institute in Brisbane on 20 March 2014. I wish to express my appreciation to all those who attended the seminar and made helpful suggestions for further research, particularly John Butcher. An article about the project subsequently appeared in the Griffith Asia Institute’s Newsletter.1 An early version of the third chapter, on the creation and musical adaption of Kipling’s ballad ‘Mandalay’, was accepted for publication in The Kipling Journal. The City University of Hong Kong’s Southeast Asia Research Centre (SEARC) posted a working paper online that explored similar themes.2 With a few small changes, this paper was later published as an article by the Journal of Burma Studies.3 I should like to acknowledge my debt to the editor of the The Kipling Journal and its contributors, in particular Brian Mattinson, whose data and advice were invaluable in the preparation of the working paper, articles and chapter. The SEARC also posted online a working paper based on the first chapter of the book.4 This was subsequently published as an article by the Journal of Research in Gender Studies.5 As might be expected, given the passage of time and the ephemeral nature of many of the artistic works surveyed in this book, it has been very difficult to identify, track down and seek permission from the holders of copyright on all the songs and theatrical works cited, where they are not already in the public domain. Every effort has been made to do so, however, and apologies are offered to any copyright holder whose work has inadvertently been used without the appropriate acknowledgement or clearances. Any person or institution who believes they are in that position is invited to contact the author or publishers, so that the necessary formalities can be completed. I should like to thank the following, from whom permissions have been received: the Taylor and Francis Group for the use of material in E.J. Harris, Theravada Buddhism and the British Encounter; Sears A. Eldridge for material cited in Captive Audiences/Captive Performers; Pen and Sword Books for material taken from Philip Stibbe, Return Via Rangoon; Sutton Publishing/The History Press, for material in To Stop A Rising Sun by Roy Humphreys; Curtis Brown Ltd for the use of ‘A Voyage’, poem copyright © W.H. Auden 1938; Felix Bloch Erben GmbH & Co. for permission to use Michael Feingold’s translations of Happy Days and The Rise and Fall of

Acknowledgements

xix

the City of Mahagonny by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill; Penguin Random House for use of a song reproduced in Aung San Suu Kyi’s Letters From Burma; the Random House Group Ltd and A.M. Heath and Co., for permission to reprint a poem taken from The Complete Works of George Orwell, edited by Peter Davison, © the Estate of the late Sonia Brownell Orwell, published by Secker and Warburg; and A.M. Heath and Co. for use of an unpublished poem by George Orwell entitled ‘The Lesser Evil’, copyright © George Orwell 1924, reprinted by permission of Bill Hamilton as the Literary Executor of the Estate of the late Sonia Brownell Orwell. From the Devirra Group, permission was granted to cite the lyrics of four songs, as follows: ‘When Buddha Smiles’, words by Arthur Freed and music by I.H. Brown, © 1921 Warner Bros. Inc.; ‘Let’s Take a Walk Around the Block’, words and music by Ira Gershwin, Harold Arlen and E.Y. Harburg, © 1934 New World Music Company Ltd; ‘Rollin’ Home’, words by Billy Hill and music by Peter de Rose, © 1934 Shapiro Bernstein  & Co., Inc.; and ‘Meet the Sun Half Way’, words by Johnny Burke and music by James Monaco, © 1940 Santly-Joy-Select. In addition, lyrics from the songs ‘Mad Dogs and Englishmen’, ‘I Wonder What Happened to Him’ and ‘I Like America’, all by Noel Coward, copyright © NC Aventales AG, have been reproduced by permission of Alan Brodie Representation Ltd (www. alanbrodie.com). Lyrics from ‘Calling Me Home Again’, by Vera Buck and Perceval Graves, copyright © 1935 by Boosey and Co. (London) Ltd, have been reproduced by permission of Boosey and Hawkes Music Publishers Ltd, print rights administered in Australia and New Zealand by Hal Leonard Australia Pty Ltd ABN 13 085 333 713 (www,halleonard.com. au, all rights reserved, unauthorised reproduction illegal). Also, the lyrics of ‘Moon Over Burma’, written and composed by Frank Loesser and Frederick Hollander in 1940, have been cited courtesy of the publisher, Sony/ATV Music Publishing Australia. Canberra May 2016

Notes 1. ‘On the Road to Mandalay’, Griffith Asia Institute Newsletter, Vol. 15, No. 2, Winter 2014, pp. 1–3, at http://www.griffith.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/ 0011/637760/Newsletter-Two-2014-web-version-2.1.pdf. 2. Andrew Selth, ‘Rudyard Kipling and “Mandalay”’, The Kipling Journal, No. 358, December 2014, pp. 47–58. See also Andrew Selth, Kipling, “Mandalay” and Burma in the Popular Imagination, Working Paper No. 161 (Hong Kong SAR: Southeast Asia Research Centre, City University of Hong Kong, January 2015), at http://www.cityu.edu.hk/searc/Resources/Paper/15011914_161%20-%20 WP%20-%20Dr%20Andrew%20Selth.pdf. 3. Andrew Selth, ‘Kipling, “Mandalay” and Burma in the Popular Imagination’, Journal of Burma Studies, Vol. 20, No. 1, June 2016, pp.105–48. 4. Andrew Selth, Orientalism, “Burma Girls” and Western Music, Working Paper No. 165 (Hong Kong SAR: Southeast Asia Research Centre, City University

xx Acknowledgements of Hong Kong, February 2015), at http://www.cityu.edu.hk/searc/Resources/ Paper/15022417_165%20-%20WP%20-%20Dr%20Andrew%20Selth.pdf. 5. Andrew Selth, ‘The Road to Mandalay: Orientalism, “Burma Girls” and Western Music’, Journal of Research in Gender Studies, Vol. 6, No. 1, 2016, at http://www.addletonacademicpublishers.com/contents-jrgs/738-volume-6-12016/2742-the-road-to-mandalay-orientalism-burma-girls-and-western-music.

Introduction

As a fledgling diplomat posted to the Australian embassy in Rangoon in the 1970s, I always felt uncomfortable when, at a party or dinner, some of my colleagues or their partners would break into a chorus of Rudyard Kipling’s ‘Mandalay’. My embarrassment was more acute if there were Burmese guests present, as it seemed to me in rather bad taste to be reciting (or, if the evening had been a convivial one, singing) a ballad that the locals could find patronising, if not offensive. Reflecting on this many years later, it struck me as remarkable that Kipling’s poem and its musical settings had made such an impact on the Western imagination that even now they are not only considered entertaining but, more to the point, are still seen as evocative of Burma. It has been more than 125 years since the ballad first appeared, but new versions of the song are being recorded. Also, despite all the changes that have taken place since, both in Burma and elsewhere, it is still being cited in connection with a wide range of artistic works.1 Despite the ballad’s familiarity, however, little is popularly known about Kipling’s short visit to Burma in 1889 and the work it inspired. A number of common beliefs about Kipling’s relationship with Burma, including that he once lived there, sailed on the Irrawaddy River and actually visited Mandalay, are incorrect.2 The grand hotel in Rangoon which in some sources claims him as an illustrious former guest was not opened until a decade after his sojourn in the city, which, according to Kipling, was so brief that it was ‘countable by hours’.3 Even less is known about the extraordinary impact that his ballad had on popular music over the 50 years following his visit, and how all the works it inspired indelibly coloured views of Burma and the Burmese in the Western world. These images were surprisingly persistent and many of them survive to the present day. Indeed, the role of Western music in shaping perceptions of the country and its people is a lacuna in modern Burma studies that demands closer attention. This book is a first attempt to try and fill that gap in our knowledge, and in the scholarly literature. All that said, it is important to understand what this study is, and what it is not.

2

Introduction

Scope of the study First, this book aims to identify relevant compositions and look at the way in which Burma has been portrayed in popular Western music between 1824 and 1948. This period stretches from the outbreak of the First AngloBurmese War through two more Anglo-Burmese wars and the Second World War to the declaration of Burma’s independence from Britain in January 1948.4 The study cites musical works about Burma, or which had some connection to Burma, as a way of illustrating different styles, subjects and themes. It also gives examples of other works to help provide snapshots of the different communities for whom music in and about Burma was in some way significant. However, the study does not claim to be either authoritative or exhaustive. Nor could it be so, without a great deal more research. It is likely that hundreds of musical works written during the period under review made reference to Burma, in one way or another. Despite my best efforts over several years, I doubt that I have managed to track them all down. Some have probably been lost forever. Second, Kipling’s ballad ‘Mandalay’ is identified as a key turning point, not only for the composition of popular music about Burma, but also for Western perceptions of the country and its people. To help support this contention, the history of the ballad is examined in some detail, and its influence tracked through the decades that followed its composition in 1890. A number of reasons are offered to help explain its remarkable impact over the years, but it is acknowledged that none completely account for the way in which Kipling’s brief stopover in Burma and subsequent ballad captured the popular imagination to the extent that it did. To explore this issue further would have required more time and space than was available here. To help readers in their own consideration of this mystery, however, references have been made to Kipling’s other writings and their relevance to Burma, not only in the Victorian and Edwardian eras, but during the Second World War as well. I have also included some comments on ‘Mandalay’’s current popularity and Kipling’s continuing relevance to developments in Burma.5 Third, this study is deliberately broad, rather than deep, in its coverage. While its focus is primarily on 180 or so musical works specifically related to Burma that were produced between 1824 and 1948, it also mentions other songs and tunes that were heard during that period, to put them into historical context. For example, while not ‘popular’ per se, early church music in Burma is also surveyed, to help set the scene. Classical music is not covered in any depth, although here too relevant works are mentioned, to provide a more rounded picture. Military music is also considered. However, this study is not about music as such. I am an historian by training, but not a cultural historian. Nor am I a musician, or a musicologist. Although it offers some broad observations on the subject, drawing where possible on the work of experts, this book does not examine the actual musical form and sound of any works mentioned. My primary sources are the lyrics, sheet music cover art and recordings of the period. Nor does it offer any new theories

Introduction

3

about the place of Burma-related songs and tunes in popular culture. Those important tasks await scholars with the appropriate qualifications. Fourth, to provide a wider historical and socio-cultural context, particularly the impact of technological changes in the entertainment industry and the globalisation of musical styles in the early 20th century, there is some discussion of the nature of Western music heard in Burma before and during the Second World War, and the role it played in the lives of both the foreign and local populations. As far as possible, I have drawn on first-hand accounts of these developments to convey the contemporary mood. However, this book is not intended to be a study of Western music in Burma, whether it be the music enjoyed by Europeans in the country before 1948 or the Western music adopted – and adapted – during the colonial period by Burmese musicians. Nor is it a study of Burma’s own music, either in its classical form or in its various modern manifestations. For information on those subjects, it is recommended that the reader consult authorities such as Gavin Douglas, Ward Keeler and Heather MacLachlan.6 Explored to its fullest extent, this subject is potentially vast. Even an introductory survey such as this risks straying into a host of other areas and academic disciplines. Apart from weighty topics such as the natures of imperialism and Orientalism, and their relevance to Burma, it raises a number of important questions to do with race, religion and gender during the Victorian and Edwardian eras. It also opens issues such as the evolution of popular music in the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, the impact of the West on Asian countries, and the way that such contacts were in turn reflected in fashions and tastes in the West. It is relevant to the globalisation of the music industry through records, tapes, radio and films, and the development of mass culture. There are also, of course, numerous links to the history of Burma and Greater India, including the effects of Christian missionary activity and British colonial rule on traditional Burmese society. While in some cases the subject of brief digressions, such matters can only be alluded to in a study such as this. However, extensive notes, a list of relevant musical works and a comprehensive bibliography have been provided to help guide anyone interested in following up these and related issues. It is hoped that, inspired perhaps by this initial effort, other Burma-watchers, cultural historians, gender experts and musicologists will undertake the more specialised studies that are required to give such matters their due.

Burma and names A note about names is required, partly to explain the various terms used but also to acknowledge the political sensitivity surrounding the use of certain titles. The historical name for the country in its own language is ‘Myanma’ (or ‘Myanmar’) although the name ‘Bama’, derived from the majority Bamar ethnic group, has enjoyed a long history. During the 18th and 19th

4

Introduction

centuries, the country was known to most English speaking peoples as ‘Burmah’, sometimes spelt ‘Bermah’ or ‘Birmah’. After the United Kingdom began to conquer and annex parts of the country in the early 19th century, the shorter spelling of ‘Burma’ was increasingly used. For example, the name ‘Lower Burma’ was adopted after the Second Anglo-Burmese War in 1852, and the Indian province of ‘British Burma’ was formally created in 1862.7 Even so, the old version of the English name remained common and could be found in newspaper stories and on official maps of the country as late as 1885, when Mandalay fell. After Upper Burma was annexed in 1886 ‘Burma’ increasingly became the norm, although some official bodies were still using ‘Burmah’ at the turn of the century.8 A few large commercial enterprises, such as the Bombay Burmah Trading Company (founded in 1863) and the Burmah Oil Company (established in 1886), kept the old name and use it still.9 When Burma regained its independence from the UK in 1948, ‘Myanmar’ was the name of the country used in the vernacular version of the new constitution, while ‘Burma’ was used in the English language version. The formal name of the country (in English) was the Union of Burma. Following a national referendum, a new constitution was adopted in 1974 and the name of the country was changed to the ‘Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma’. After the armed forces crushed a nation-wide pro-democracy uprising in September 1988, the official name was changed back to the ‘Union of Burma’. In July 1989, however, the new military government changed the country’s name once again, this time to the ‘Union of Myanmar’. At the same time, a number of other place names were changed to conform more closely to their original pronunciation in the Burmese language.10 In 2008, after another referendum and promulgation of a new national constitution, the country’s official name in English was changed yet again, this time to the ‘Republic of the Union of Myanmar’.11 Most countries, the United Nations and other major international organisations have accepted the latest names. A few governments and some opposition groups, however, still cling to the old forms, largely as a protest against the former military regime’s refusal to introduce a genuinely democratic system of government. They also claim to subscribe to the opposition movement’s stated belief that the country’s name can only be changed by popular mandate.12 In this study, the better-known names, for example ‘Burma’ instead of ‘Myanmar’, ‘Arakan’ instead of ‘Rakhine’, ‘Rangoon’ instead of ‘Yangon’, ‘Irrawaddy’ instead of ‘Ayeyarwady’, ‘Moulmein’ instead of ‘Mawlamyine’, and ‘Bassein’ rather than ‘Pathein’, have been retained both for editorial reasons and ease of recognition. They were also the names used during the colonial period. ‘Burmese’ has been employed as an adjective for the country and to denote both its population and national language. Quotations and references, however, have been given as they originally appeared. Also, formal titles introduced after 1989 have been cited in their current form. Such usage does not carry any political connotations.

Introduction

5

As Martin Smith has pointed out, ‘Burma is one of the most ethnically diverse countries in the world’.13 The current government officially recognises 135 different ethno-linguistic groups, divided into eight major ‘national races’. However, some authorities have identified many more. As noted above, the dominant ethnic group is the Bamar, or (in English) ‘Burmans’, which has long made up about two-thirds of the population and been concentrated in the central Irrawaddy basin. During the 19th century, however, the term ‘Burman’ (or ‘Birman’) was often used by foreigners to describe all local inhabitants (with the exception of those of Indian and Chinese extraction), regardless of their actual ethnicity. Outside of that historical usage, ‘Burman’ is used in this book only in reference to the Bamar ethnic group. The term ‘Eurasian’, to denote someone of mixed European and Asian parentage, or their descendants, was widely used in Burma until 1901. After that time, the term ‘Anglo-Indian’ gained ascendancy and was used in official documents, such as the 1911 national census. However, in this study ‘Eurasian’ is used in its original form to avoid confusion with the use of ‘Anglo-Indian’ during the 18th and early 19th centuries to describe British citizens who lived and worked in India (including Burma). With the framing of the Government of Burma Act in 1935, to prepare for Burma’s formal separation from India in 1937, the term ‘Anglo-Burman’ was officially adopted to describe someone of mixed European and Burmese heritage. However, it is not used here.14 Between the 16th and 19th centuries, Ava (or Inwa) was the capital of Burma four times, including for three periods under the Konbaung Dynasty (1752–1885).15 In 1859, the royal capital was moved 21 kilometres up the Irrawaddy River to Mandalay. Until then, the British recognised Ava as the seat of national power. During the 18th and 19th centuries Burma was often called the ‘Kingdom of Ava’, or simply ‘Ava’. After the UK dispatched troops to Mandalay and completed its three-stage conquest of Burma in 1886, the colonial port city of Rangoon was confirmed as the administrative capital of the country. It had been the capital of Lower Burma since 1852. Rangoon remains the commercial capital, but in October 2005 the military regime formally designated the newly built city of Naypyidaw (or Nay Pyi Taw), 320 kilometres north of Rangoon, as the seat of Burma’s government.

Definitions and conventions A few definitions and explanations are necessary to clarify some of the terms used and to set the broad parameters of the study. In this book, ‘the West’ or ‘the Western world’ is generally taken to mean the UK and its English-speaking colonies like Canada, Australia and New Zealand, as well as the US and the countries of Western Europe. It is acknowledged that this term, like its twin, ‘the East’ (or ‘the Orient’), reflect essentially outdated Eurocentric concepts that are open to challenge

6

Introduction

on various grounds. However, both labels, and derivatives like ‘the Far East’, have been retained for convenience. Also, they were commonly accepted between 1824 and 1948. Most of the period under review has been collectively described by historians and others as the Victorian and Edwardian ‘eras’. These names are derived from the reigns of the two British monarchs, Queen Victoria (who was on the throne from 1837–1901) and King Edward VII (who reigned from 1901–1910). However, it is widely accepted that the historical periods in question are loosely defined and extend beyond those dates.16 The First Anglo-Burmese War, for example, was fought in 1824–1826, when George  IV was king. From 1910 to 1936, George V was the king of the UK and the British dominions, and Emperor of India. After Edward VIII abdicated in December 1936, George VI took the throne and was king when Burma regained its independence in 1948. He reigned until 1952. There is no accepted definition of ‘popular music’, a term which can cover a number of musical genres having wide appeal. In this study, it is broadly applied to music that is ‘conceived for mass distribution to large and often socio-culturally heterogeneous groups of listeners’, and has been well received.17 This covers both instrumental and vocal works, produced either individually or as part of larger projects, such as musical comedies, operettas, ballets and classical concerts. Since the end of the 19th century, the popularity of particular songs and tunes has tended to be measured in terms of sales of sheet music and recordings. Such statistics can be very helpful, but it needs to be remembered that commercial indicators of that kind do not take into account more intangible factors such as the frequency of informal performances, for example in private homes, attendances at stage shows and the sizes of audiences for films and radio broadcasts. Also, during the period under review, the means by which music was distributed and appreciated underwent major changes. I have italicised the names of publications, movies, shows and major works such as operas and musical comedies that contain more than one ballad, song or instrumental piece. Individual poems, songs and tunes, however, have been identified by the use of quotation marks. For both larger and smaller works I have added the date of their composition or first performance, where known. This is in part to give a sense of historical time and to indicate changing tastes, but also to help differentiate between songs and tunes that have the same or similar titles. Where a work has no readily identifiable author or date of composition, then it is mentioned without either. This is the case, for example, with regard to some of the hymns and regimental marches noted in the first section of the study, which looks at Western music related to Burma before the publication of Kipling’s ballad ‘Mandalay’ in 1890. Where possible, the full details of Burma-related songs and tunes are given, including their place and date of first publication, recording or performance. However, in some cases the only sheet music or record that

Introduction

7

could be consulted was a reprint or a later version. Some musical works were republished in Australia, for example, after first being released in the UK or US. Other works are known only from recordings, for which sheet music does not seem to have survived or been made publicly available. Also, the details of some live performances have been very difficult to track down. All these problems have been acknowledged, where relevant. In citing specific compositions, I have followed the usual convention of listing the lyricist(s) first and the composer(s) of the music second. This should not be seen as implying any preference for one over the other, in examining the works under review. Indeed, the relative importance of the words and music often varied between works, and between different historical periods. Where contemporary sources have provided transliterations of Burmese phrases, or the names of Burmese hymns, songs or musical compositions, they have been cited verbatim. It should be noted, however, that even now there is no agreed system for the romanisation of words and phrases in Burmese which, to add to all the usual difficulties, is a tonal, pitch register and syllable-timed language. In most cases, the transliterations provided in books and articles appear to be attempts by various authors to render phonetically words and phrases they have overheard. Not all are accurate, by current standards. The same applies to words and phrases taken, or adapted, from other languages, such as Hindi and Urdu. It is recognised that not all conform to modern styles and conventions.

Notes 1. For example, ‘The Road to Mandalay’ was sung in ‘Rumpole and the Show Folk’, an episode of the Thames Television series Rumpole of the Bailey, starring Leo McKern (Series 2, Episode 3, 1979). It was based on the short story ‘Rumpole and the Show Folk’, in John Mortimer, The Trials of Rumpole (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979). See also the TV movie Road to Mandalay (1991), directed by Ken Russell; the song ‘The Road to Mandalay’, with words and music by Robbie Williams (London: EMI Music Publishing Ltd, 2001); Randle Mainwaring’s autobiographical book, On the Road to Mandalay (Barnsley: Pen and Sword, 2007); and John McGrath’s stage production, The Road to Mandalay: A Musical Play for Schools (Edinburgh: Fairplay Press, 2008). 2. See, for example, Emily Ford, ‘Burma holds its first global literary festival’, BBC News, 4 February 2013, at http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainmentarts-21322997; and Christopher Hart, ‘Pop goes Burma’s taboos, as girl band dyes its hair while Aung San Suu Kyi visits Britain’, The Telegraph (London, UK), 23 June 2012, at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/burmamyanmar/ 9351025/Pop-go-Burmas-taboos-as-girl-band-dyes-its-hair-while-Aung-SanSuu-Kyi-visits-Britain.html. 3. Rudyard Kipling, From Sea to Sea (New York: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1909), p. 208. See also Andrew Selth, ‘Burma and the Kipling mystique’, New Mandala, 31 March 2015, at http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2015/03/31/ burma-and-the-kipling-mystique/.

8

Introduction

4. During the Second World War, Burma was nominally independent after August 1943, but was effectively under Japanese control for the three years or so it was occupied. After Japan’s defeat in 1945, Burma fell under British military, and later civil, administration until it regained full independence in 1948. 5. For detailed and wide-ranging discussions of Kipling, his works and wider influence, see the website of The Kipling Society (founded in 1927) at http://www. kiplingsociety.co.uk/soc_fra.htm. 6. For studies of traditional Burmese music and musical instruments, see Gavin Douglas, ‘Myanmar (Burma)’, in John Shepherd, et al. (eds), Continuum Encyclopaedia of Popular Music of the World (London: Continuum Publishing Group, 2003), Vol. 5, pp. 196–202; Ward Keeler, ‘Burma’, in T.E. Miller and Sean Williams (eds), The Garland Handbook of Southeast Asian Music (New York: Routledge, 2008), pp. 199–221; and Douglas, Music in Mainland Southeast Asia. For an examination of more modern music in Burma, see Heather MacLachlan, Burma’s Pop Music Industry: Creators, Distributors, Censors (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2011). 7. After the First Anglo-Burmese War, Britain annexed the provinces of Assam, Arakan and Tenasserim. Arakan was administered by the Honourable East India Company (HEIC) as part of the Bengal Presidency but the British Commissioner in Tenasserim answered directly to the HEIC government in Calcutta. After the Second Anglo-Burmese War in 1852, Britain annexed Pegu province, and formally took possession of all ‘Lower Burma’. Assam never became part of British Burma. 8. For example, ‘Burma Police’ replaced ‘Burmah Police’ on police force accoutrements around 1901. 9. In some quarters, the old usage was employed well into the 20th century. See, for example, Leslie Shakespear, History of Upper Assam, Upper Burmah and North-Eastern Frontier (London: Macmillan and Co., 1914). 10. See, for example, D.I. Steinberg, Burma/Myanmar: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. xx–xxii. 11. Arguably, the name of the country did not formally change until March 2011, when the military regime was dissolved and a new government was formed according to the 2008 constitution. 12. See, for example, ‘Suu Kyi: It’s Burma, not Myanmar’, Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney, Australia), 23 November 2012, at http://www.smh.com.au/world/suukyi-its-burma-not-myanmar-20121123-29wlh.html. 13. Martin Smith, with Annie Allsebrook, Ethnic Groups in Burma: Development, Democracy and Human Rights (London: Anti-Slavery International, 1994), p. 17. 14. J.C. Koop, The Eurasian Population in Burma, Cultural Report Series No. 6 (New Haven: Yale University, 1960), pp. 1–2. 15. It was also the capital of the Kingdom of Ava, which ruled Upper Burma between 1365 and 1555. 16. See, for example, ‘Two Worlds’, History.blogspot, at http://twoworlds-history. blogspot.com.au/p/victorian-and-edwardian-whats.html. 17. Philip Tagg, ‘Analysing Popular Music: Theory, Method and Practice’, Popular Music, Vol. 2, No. 41, 1982, p. 41.

1

Setting the scene

Over the past 75 years or so, a growing number of scholars and commentators have tried to answer the questions: how was colonial Burma perceived in and by the Western world, how did people in countries like the United Kingdom (UK) and United States (US) form their views, and how were they manifested? As is often the case, historians led the way, not only by informing Western audiences about developments in Burma but also by describing how European contacts over the centuries gave rise to a wide range of myths and misconceptions.1 Other social scientists made useful contributions. In 1985, for example, Josef Silverstein discussed the portrayal of Burma in a number of novels by European and American authors.2 Clive Christie and Stephen Keck later surveyed the travel literature produced during the colonial period, and weighed its impact on Western perceptions of Burma.3 In 2002, Deborah Boyer searched through Victorian-era periodicals for references to Burma and its role in the British Empire.4 In 2009, this author examined the way in which Burma had been represented in Hollywood movies and how this might have influenced views of the country.5 Others have commented on the paintings of Burma and Burmese people produced by British artists during the colonial period.6 Engravings, photographs and picture postcards also influenced the way in which Burma was seen in the UK, US and elsewhere.7 To date, however, no one has looked in a systematic way at how Western views of colonial Burma were influenced by music, particularly popular music. Indeed, music has been absent from almost all overviews of the country.8 This is surprising, as during the 19th and early 20th centuries songs and tunes were powerful cultural vectors, highly influential in shaping not only attitudes to domestic developments but also perceptions of foreign places and events.9 As well as live performances, both in public and in private, broadsides and commercial sheet music were important means of conveying ideas about the countries and peoples that were being conquered as part of Britain’s second great burst of imperial expansion. The transmission process rapidly increased in scope and pace after the turn of the 20th century, encouraged by the development of gramophone records, commercial radio

10

Setting the scene

stations and ‘talking’ pictures. Music became an even more important vehicle for reflecting – and influencing – popular perceptions. This phenomenon has been recognised by cultural historians and musicologists in other fields, but so far its implications for Burma appear to have escaped their attention.10 One reason why Burma seems to have been overlooked as a discrete subject for analysis in this regard is that it was never seen as a noteworthy example of wider historical and socio-cultural trends. The 19th century was a time of far-reaching political, economic and social change. It was also a time of vigorous Western expansion into other parts of the world, including the so-called ‘Far East’. Even before popular music became a significant factor, and was recognised as such, vivid images of the ‘Orient’ had been formed in the West through novels, poems, paintings and operas. In all these and other mediums, such as fashion, considerable attention was given to the role of Oriental women and their (often imagined) attributes and characteristics. In some respects, they became emblematic of the West’s perceptions of, and approach to, foreign lands and people. Burma was not well known to Western populations, and so played a relatively minor part in all these processes. In its own way, however, it conformed to broader patterns. To understand these developments, it is helpful first to survey the way in which Western countries perceived the Orient during the imperial era and, secondly, to look more closely at how Burma (and Burmese women) played a role in the formation and demonstration of such views. Of particular interest in this regard is Burma’s relationship with the UK. For, not only did Britain lead the world in many ways during the Victorian and Edwardian eras, but it was one of the first to embrace the Orientalist paradigm. Of all Western countries, it also took the closest interest in Burma, which it conquered in three wars spanning almost the entire 19th century. The UK thus provides a useful lens through which to look at all these developments, and to set the scene for a more detailed examination of Burma-related music during the colonial period.

The West and the ‘Orient’ The 100 years between 1815 and 1914 have been described as the UK’s ‘imperial century’. During this period, most of which coincided with the reign of Queen Victoria, Britain consolidated its hold over India and acquired control over vast new territories in Africa, Southeast Asia and China.11 While driven as much by commercial imperatives as by political and strategic interests, this expansion was clothed in the rhetoric of a philanthropic mission. Influenced by social Darwinism – the application of biological concepts like ‘the survival of the fittest’ to entire societies – and emerging theories of eugenics, the British were convinced that they had a special role to bring peace, order and technology to the lesser races of the world. Different approaches were taken by the Conservative and Liberal

Setting the scene

11

Parties but, to quote a character in George Orwell’s 1934 novel Burmese Days, successive British governments saw themselves as ‘torchbearers upon the path of progress’.12 By 1881, Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli could claim with some justification that Britain had ‘stamped its diligent and methodic character on the century’.13 Britain’s profound sense of imperial destiny, and the support given to this notion by ‘white’ colonies like Australia, New Zealand and Canada, inspired songs such as ‘It’s the English-Speaking Race Against the World’. Made famous in the late 19th century by the renowned music hall performer Charles Godfrey, the song began: We’re brothers of the self-same race, Speakers of the self-same tongue, With the same brave hearts that feel no fears From fighting sires of a thousand years; Folks say, ‘What will Britain do? Will she rest with banners furled?’ No! No! No! When we go to meet the foe, It’s the English-speaking race against the world.14 The British believed that they had won what Cecil Rhodes called ‘the lottery of life’, and represented rationality, energy, cultural superiority and technical skills.15 Their colonial subjects, in Africa and Asia at least, were considered much less fortunate. They were invariably characterised as lawless, listless, undeveloped and unpredictable, sorely in need of the UK’s civilising presence. It was also believed that this role had the blessing of The Almighty for, as Rudyard Kipling wrote in ‘A Song of the English’ (1893), ‘He hath smote for us a pathway to the ends of all the earth’.16 Particularly after the evangelical revival of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, these views were appropriated by Christian missionary organisations, both in the UK and US. As Jeffrey Franklin has argued: On the frontlines of empire, missionaries in Burma or Ceylon recognised Buddhism as the primary competition and understood explicitly that British occupation was wedded to Christianizing those populations. The alignment between religion and empire meant that to question the superiority of the Christian faith was tantamount to questioning the God-given right of the British to govern Hindus, Muslims and Buddhists.17 Indeed, in the eyes of many at the time, missionaries acted as the ‘religious arm’ of colonialism. Some recent historians have been less charitable, describing them as the ‘ideological shock troops for colonial invasion’.18 As Brian Stanley has argued, neither claim rings entirely true,

12

Setting the scene

but  missionary organisations were happy to take advantage of the UK’s imperial expansion.19 They reasoned that the overthrow of pagan rulers in Asia and Africa, and the imposition of colonial rule, not only helped stamp out the worst iniquities of ‘native’ culture but also made it easier for missionaries to spread the Christian message to the local population. These intellectual and social currents were found not only at the elite level, in government, business and the armed forces, but also among the wider British public. Particularly in the second half of the 19th century, after the Crimean War (1853–1856) and Indian Mutiny (1857), they were reflected in popular culture. Crossing class lines, the ‘imperial ethos’ manifested itself in theatres, music halls, taverns, barracks and classrooms.20 This enthusiasm for overseas adventures, however, did not translate into a greater knowledge of foreign places and peoples. Indeed, one striking aspect of Victorian imperialism was the profound ignorance at home of the countries that were falling to the crown. The public was dependent for its understanding of events on an unreliable press and an entertainment industry that, both deliberately and incidentally, conveyed a distorted picture.21 In the case of Greater India (which then included Burma), for example, extreme views were possible due to ‘the paucity of its defenders and the utter ignorance of the British reading public’ beyond a small circle of specialists.22 These views conformed – and contributed – to a mindset that has come to be known as ‘Orientalism’. There is a long tradition of Western authors, musicians, artists and architects drawing on foreign countries and cultures for inspiration. Many writers on this subject have taken Edward Said’s controversial 1978 book Orientalism as a starting point.23 In a sweeping judgement that has since been challenged at several levels, Said wrote that ‘Orientalism is a Western style for dominating, restructuring and having authority over the Orient’.24 He suggested that, through many, often subtle, ways, the West had successfully established itself as the acceptable norm, while the ‘Orient’ (in his book, mainly the Middle East) was relegated to the status of the foreign ‘Other’. While relevant to the discussion that follows, it is not proposed to explore this complex subject here. However, to provide a broad framework for the later consideration of music related to Burma, and references in such works to ‘Burma girls’, it is worth briefly touching upon the impact of ‘the East’ on popular perceptions and the way that this affected Western music and the West’s portrayal of Asian women. For centuries, Western literature and art referred to what the poet William Wordsworth, among others, called ‘the gorgeous East’.25 While its geographical focus shifted over time, it was invariably portrayed as an exotic part of the world, the social customs, architecture, fauna and even climate of which were quite different from those ‘at home’. Fanciful visions of Oriental life were conveyed directly or indirectly in novels like William Thackeray’s Vanity Fair (1848), Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone (1868) and Anatole France’s Thaïs (1890). The opulence of the East was a common

Setting the scene

13

theme. For the narrator of Charles Dickens’ Dombey and Son (1848), for example, the prospect of ‘rich East India House’ in London spontaneously evoked visions of: precious stuff and stones, tigers, elephants, howdahs, hookahs, umbrellas, palm trees, palanquins, and gorgeous princes of brown complexion sitting on carpets, with their slippers very much turned up at the toes.26 Equally dramatic pictures were painted by poems like Percy Shelley’s ‘Ozymandias’ (1818) and Ralph Emerson’s ‘Indian Superstition’ (1821), in which ‘Dishonoured India clanks her sullen chain’.27 Edwin Arnold’s 1879 narrative poem The Light of Asia captivated Western audiences and created a picture of ‘that noble hero and reformer, Prince Gautama of India, the founder of Buddhism’, that endured for decades, influencing a generation or more of British writers.28 ‘Hindoo’ and ‘Mohammedan’ architectural motifs, such as vaulted roofs, ‘onion’ domes and ‘Moorish’ windows became fashionable throughout Europe.29 Initially, the West focussed its attentions on the ‘Near East’, notably Turkey, which had been a source of interest since the Ottoman invasions of the 17th century. During the 19th century, however, European authors and artists increasingly travelled to North Africa, the Middle East and the Far East, widening the geographical scope of their work. For example, French painters like Eugene Delacroix began by depicting scenes in Morocco and Algeria. Artists such as Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Henri Regnaut and Gustave Guillaumet followed. Europe’s long interest in Chinoiserie was joined in mid-century by Japonisme, which became an important influence on Western art. These trends were given a fillip by the expansion of the European powers, reflecting not only colonial conquests but also developments like the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, the dramatic growth in railways, the increasing number of steamships and, by the 1920s, the advent of inter-continental air travel.30 The Orient became more accessible and safer to visit, prompting greater middle- and upper-class tourism.31 It might be expected that a greater familiarity with Asian countries, including a degree of first-hand knowledge of their peoples and cultures, would lead to a better understanding of the region and more realistic representations in print and on canvas. Certainly, many paintings of the period conveyed remarkably evocative pictures of life in foreign climes.32 While their subject matter was usually limited to aspects of traditional culture, and local women, they were also quite accurate. Even so, as a general rule their educative value was slight. The aura of mystery and glamour – even decadence – surrounding Asia was remarkably persistent. This was in part because many visitors to the region were like Kipling’s ‘Globe-trotter’, ‘who “does” kingdoms in days and writes books upon them in weeks’.33 It was also because descriptions that catered to the curious and romantic tended

14

Setting the scene

to be more attractive (and doubtless more profitable to publishers and producers) than unvarnished factual accounts. This was particularly the case when supposedly Oriental beliefs, practices and styles were embraced by fashionable society. Throughout the mid to late Victorian era, for example, the Englishspeaking world was captivated by Asian mysticism and magic tricks which called up ‘a thousand thoughts and fancies associated with all that is weird and mysterious’.34 Among those happy to exploit the credulousness of Western audiences, by claiming special insights into arcane ‘Eastern’ knowledge, was a British illusionist named Isaiah Hughes. Active in the US around the mid-nineteenth century, he wore dark makeup and exotic clothes, styled himself ‘The Fakir of Ava, Chief of Staff of Conjurors to His Sublime Greatness the Nanka of Aristaphae’, and claimed to have come from Burma.35 Also, during the Edwardian era designers like Paul Poiret were quick to capitalise on the public’s continuing fascination with the East. Inspired in part by Leon Bakst’s exotic costumes for the Ballets Russes, Poiret promoted such Orientalist fashions as ‘lampshade’ tunics, ‘harem’ pants, turbans, jewelled slippers and parasols.36 They quickly became the rage in London, Paris and New York. Throughout the latter part of the 19th century there were occasional attempts to counter what one hard-headed rationalist described as ‘the romance clinging to all things oriental’.37 However, even among those not taken in by fake fakirs and shonky spiritualists, or attracted to sensuality and ornamentalism, the East remained a source of fascination and wonder. As Clive Christie has described, in the 1920s and 1930s Western literature about the ‘Far East’ was still ‘saturated with “exoticism” and “orientalism”’.38 Describing his voyage to China in 1937, for example, the poet W.H. Auden wrote: Slowly our Western culture in full pomp progresses Over the barren plains of the sea; somewhere ahead A septic East, odd fowl and flowers, odder dresses.39 Despite, or perhaps even because of, the writings of such ‘literary travellers’, there remained a profound ignorance of real life in Asia. This applied as much to the region’s admirers as to its detractors. Not everyone learnt, as did Aldous Huxley (who visited Burma in 1926), that ‘The philosophies, the civilisations which seem, at a distance, so superior to those current at home, all prove on closer inspection to be in their own way just as hopelessly imperfect’.40 The Orientalist strain in music followed the progress of European interest in and travel to the East. For example, Mozart’s Abduction from the Seraglio (1782) reflected Europe’s contacts with Turkey in the 17th century and prevailing myths about Middle Eastern sexual mores. Rossini’s opera The Italian Girl in Algiers (1813) and Verdi’s Aida (1871) were influenced

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by Europe’s increasing presence in and colonisation of North Africa, including Egypt. Camille Saint Saen’s opera Samson and Delilah (1877) exploited similar themes. While it has become a musical cliché, Albert Ketelbey’s ‘In a Persian Market’ (1920) still evokes an atmosphere of Middle Eastern mystery. During the latter part of the 19th century, attention moved further east and there was a renewed interest in musical representations of Asia, coinciding with various imperial ventures and the growing number of references to that part of the world in the popular press. For example, Bizet’s Pearl Fishers (1863) was set in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and Gilbert and Sullivan’s Mikado (1885) exploited a Japanese theme. Puccini’s Turandot (1926) was set in China.41 Perhaps more than most, Edward Elgar’s masque Crown of India (1912) exposed the imperialistic and Orientalist overtones of the music of the period.42 Mention must also be made of developments in popular entertainment, in particular the appearance of revues, musical comedies and comic operas. During the second half of the 19th century, music halls became enormously popular. By 1892, an estimated 14 million seats were sold annually in 35 music halls in London alone.43 The imperialist and Orientalist themes of acts at such venues not only catered to the insular outlook and provincial tastes of their largely working-class audiences, but they also reflected deeper undercurrents in British society. As one popular song went: Oriental eyes, Oriental moons, Oriental sighs, And oriental tunes, They simply get me going, I do things without knowing. Eastern perfume in the air, Oh! Let me live and give you there, That oriental kiss In an oriental way, One can never miss what one has never had, they say. I want it, want it! I won’t deny it! I’d sell my soul to try it, That’s why I’m strong for, That’s why I long for, Something O – O – Oriental!44 The depiction of foreigners in musical comedies and operettas tended to be a little more restrained, probably to appeal to more genteel audiences, but they still permitted the producers’ considerable licence.45 Not only did shows with Oriental themes lend themselves to exotic settings and splendid costumes, but because of the ‘foreignness’ of their subject matter they

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permitted scenes and the representation of ideas that were not otherwise acceptable in polite Victorian society. Oriental stereotypes such as cruel despots, depraved luxury and orgiastic rites were all popular fare, albeit presented as non-Christian practices to be abhorred. ‘Under cover of moral censure an otherwise inadmissible voyeurism could be indulged’.46 A key aspect of all these works was the way in which they depicted women. At first, plots tended to revolve around the abduction of Western women by Eastern potentates – so-called ‘Turkish captivity’ operas – but by the 19th century the focus had changed. Reflecting the racial ethic of the times, and doubtless the influence of the imperialist project, stage productions increasingly included stories of Western men winning the hearts of foreign girls. An obvious example is Puccini’s Madam Butterfly (1904). Also, as seen in operas like Bizet’s Carmen (1875) and Delibes’ Lakme (1883), the protagonist was often a European soldier who falls in love with a woman from the conquered country. He then leaves her, responding to the call of duty or for less honourable reasons.47 The fiery Carmen is a notable exception, but such women were usually described in terms that emphasised their childlike and stereotypical ‘feminine’ attributes. The Orient was a place of masculine dreams and desires, as suggested in the musical comedy A Chinese Honeymoon (1899): It was a truly happy land, I pictured in my dreams, Each household was a model, and Each husband reigned supreme. There wives ne’er raised a noisy din But wore a smile so bland, They lived to serve her husband in This truly happy land.48 If popular entertainment in Victorian Britain was any guide, ideal marriages were based on orderly, compliant females deferring to sexist and patriarchal husbands.49 There was always a hint, however, that there were attractions outside such relationships. In Said’s 1978 critique, ‘the orient was a place where one could look for sexual experience unobtainable in Europe’, and from an early date popular attitudes towards sex played an important part in establishing the parameters of the Orientalist scene.50 As Ian Buruma has written: Neither puritanism nor sensuality was ever unique to East or West, yet, on the whole, it is for the latter that Westerners have looked East. There has been a sensual, even erotic, element in encounters – imaginary or real – between East and West since the ancient Greeks. The European idea of the Orient as female, voluptuous, decadent, amoral – in short, as dangerously seductive – long predates the European empires in India and Southeast Asia.51

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The Orient was seen as a sexual playground, a view encouraged by personal accounts of life in the region, both published and unpublished. For example, one British army officer wrote in the 1840s that Asian women ‘understand in perfection all the arts and wiles of love, are capable of gratifying any tastes, and in face and figure they are unsurpassed by any women in the world’.52 This was contrasted with the reputedly moralistic and sexually inhibited women found in the West. Even popular fiction referred to ‘the luresome, caressing smile of the East’ and ‘the numerous and exotic vices which have sprung from the soil of the Orient’.53 In this wide-ranging and multi-layered discourse, conducted over many decades in the UK, US and elsewhere, Burma and the Burmese were rarely singled out for attention. However, when they were mentioned during this period, representations of the country and its peoples tended to conform to the same broad patterns.

Burma and the popular imagination European contacts with Burma began during the 16th and 17th centuries. In their ship’s logs and private journals, early explorers described a society and culture – indeed, several societies and cultures – that were quite different from any they had encountered before. Inevitably, they emphasised the sensational and shocking, such as Burma’s reputedly fabulous wealth and its inhabitants’ sexual freedom. For example, travellers never tired of describing Pegu’s shrines ‘filled with images of massy gold and gems’.54 There were also reports that Burmese women went about ‘in almost complete nudity to entice the men and to keep them away from sodomy’.55 Such stories were given wide circulation. As foreign contacts grew, and Burma came to be visited more often by traders, officials and missionaries, accounts grew in range and number. As a rule, they became more comprehensive and reflective, but many continued to promote outlandish ideas.56 As might be expected, European writings of all kinds increased during the 19th century, with the three-stage annexation of the country by the UK. Supplementing these works were engravings of Burmese personalities and scenes, which were used to illustrate newspapers and magazines on public sale in the UK and US. Also, in the second half of the 19th century, images of the country were increasingly provided by photographs. ‘Compared to older forms of visual representation, such as drawings, the young medium was widely heralded for its accuracy and seen as an ideal tool to make an “impartial” record of foreign cultures’.57 Of particular note were artists like Linneaus Tripe and Felice Beato. The latter opened a studio in Mandalay in 1894 and soon became ‘perhaps the best-known figure in Burma’.58 Beato is reputed to have introduced picture postcards to Burma, the production of which was quickly taken up by other local photographic firms, such as Watts and Skeen, Adolphe Klier and D.A. Ahuja.59 These cards found a ready market among tourists, expatriates and armchair travellers.

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Setting the scene Postcards not only linked empire and metropole, but served to re-export imperial ideology back to Britain in condensed but effective units of information that showed ‘typical’ scenes of the imperial encounter, which made for accelerated, if often vicarious, contact with other cultures.60

Picture postcards disclosed ‘how the British imagined and depicted the empire’.61 In doing so, they encouraged perceptions of Burma as a remote and beautiful country populated by curious peoples with distinctive cultures. In one way or another, these products touched upon almost every aspect of life in Burma, but they achieved little in terms of educating the Western world about the country and its inhabitants. Even after the First AngloBurmese War, and the annexation of parts of coastal Burma in 1826, it is unlikely that many people in the UK had even heard of it. If they had, it was probably only in connection with unusual phenomena like Burma’s ‘hairy families’, news of which caused a sensation throughout Western Europe, and later the United States.62 Another subject considered worthy of comment at the time was the spicy side dish known as ngapi, which some commentators considered ‘the rankest filth’, ‘perfectly unbearable to the European’.63 It was described by one British visitor to Burma at the turn of the century as ‘a horrid decoction of rotten fish pounded with chillies, garlic, and other condiments’.64 Yet another source of fascination was the ‘giraffe-neck’ Padaung women of eastern Burma who, like the country’s ‘hairy families’, were put on public display by circuses in the UK and US.65 As Jonathan Saha has observed, accounts of such unusual people and practices were ‘no doubt a way of portraying Burma as a strange and backward place’.66 This situation did not really change after the Second Anglo-Burmese War in 1852, and the annexation of Lower Burma in January 1853. This was due in large part to a lack of reporting on the country. As Deborah Boyer has noted, ‘In the early 1870s, Burma was considered an uneventful backwater, worthy of little attention in Britain’.67 Many in the UK (and US) saw it simply as part of India (which technically it was until 1937), and often confused the two places. There were descriptions of Burma in the memoirs of officials, missionaries and soldiers who had been posted there, but the readership of such works was small. Few members of the public bothered to seek out the articles found in specialist journals.68 In any case, the general mood was one of complacency. In 1860, one official described the ‘general character of the Burman’ as ‘naturally gay and careless’.69 ‘At all times’, wrote another observer in 1878, the Burmese ‘frankly yield to the superiority of the European’.70 As far as it went, the popular view was summed up in 1882 by the Indian Civil Service (ICS) officer George Scott, writing under the pseudonym ‘Shway Yoe’. To his mind, ‘the Burman is the most calm and contented of mortals’, with a ‘light heart and buoyant disposition’.71

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Around 1880, however, relations between the British government and the Burmese monarchy began to deteriorate. Stories about Burma in the popular press in the UK began to take on a much more critical tone. King Mindon (reigned 1853–1878) had been seen by most foreigners as a moderate and sensible reformer. However, his successor King Thibaw (reigned 1878–1885) was increasingly portrayed either as a fool and a weakling manipulated by his scheming and vicious wife, Queen Supayalat, or as a drunken and bloodthirsty tyrant who cared little for his country or people. Concerns in London were further raised when Mandalay opened negotiations with the French government, a ‘sly move’ in the eyes of the British, which threatened India and upset the balance of power in Southeast Asia.72 In both stories and editorials, newspapers like The Times and Pall Mall Gazette, periodicals like Punch and The Cornhill Magazine, and pictorial publications like The Graphic and The Illustrated London News began to lay the groundwork for a noble military venture that would not only protect British strategic and commercial interests in the region, but also free the Burmese people from the yoke of oppression. The Third Anglo-Burmese War of 1885 was covered by the British press in predictably ‘jingoistic’ terms, with the inevitable fanfare after the fall of Mandalay and subsequent exile of King Thibaw and his wife to India.73 To the conquerors, the benefits of British rule were felt to be obvious. According to one contemporary commentator: If riches and personal comfort, protection of property, just laws, incorruptible judges and rulers, are blessings as a set-off against Utopian dreams of freedom, then Jack Burman has a happy future.74 Another saw the new political order improving the character of the Burmese people: European civilisation will become engrafted on Oriental customs, and British energy will banish to some extent Burmese indolence. It cannot but be good for the Burmans to undergo the discipline of British rule.75 The Burmese themselves, however, were not as quick to embrace the blessings of a colonial administration as their conquerors expected. Before Mandalay fell, it had been supposed by British officials that ‘the prospects of the substitution of a strong and orderly government for the incompetent and cruel tyranny of their former ruler’ would be welcomed by the local population.76 It was not long, however, before this assumption was proven wrong. Newspapers and periodicals in the UK began to report on a drawn-out military campaign being waged to ‘pacify’ Upper Burma, mainly through a series of small-scale engagements against former members

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of Thibaw’s army, other nationalists and lawless elements.77 Also, as the British extended their reach further north and west, they encountered opposition from some of the ethnic minorities, usually described as ‘hill tribes’. These operations necessitated the deployment of additional army units from India and, in 1887, the creation of the Burma Military Police (BMP). This was a powerful paramilitary force that eventually took over primary responsibility for the province’s internal security.78 Those Burmese violently resisting the imposition of British rule were not accorded any political status, but were simply described as dacoits, or armed bandits.79 Initially, breathless accounts of British derring-do in far-off Burma were followed, with interest, by the wider public in the UK and elsewhere. The efforts of the soldiers and military policemen conducting counter-insurgency campaigns were reported in positive terms. Those men killed in clashes with the locals were extolled in the news media as heroes.80 As noted by Deborah Boyer, however: People tired quickly of the reports of violence in Burma, and by March 1886, Burma was rarely mentioned in the press. The articles that did appear again shifted their depictions of the Burmans towards the palatable.81 In 1887, the commander of military forces in Burma reported that ‘the country was gradually becoming quiet’. In part, he put this down to ‘the entire absence of fanaticism amongst the Burmese, and their cheerful, happy natures’.82 Burma was effectively under military rule, and remained so for most of the colonial period, but it came to be described as a kind of earthly ‘Arcadia’ with a gentle and generous population.83 By 1893, Burma was considered sufficiently settled and secure to permit a glittering state tour by the Viceroy of India, Lord Landsdowne. The country was also visited by a growing number of tourists and artists, several of whom published enthusiastic accounts of the UK’s picturesque new possession. At the end of the century one female traveller summarised the prevailing mood in glowing terms: Burma combines so much: the glory of the East; the mystery of the unknown, in its strange tribes and races as yet but half understood, even by those who have studied them most; the fascination of nature untamed; and the comfort of travelling under British rule.84 The people too were described in glowing, if rather patronising, terms. When the Prince of Wales (later George V) toured Burma in 1906, for example, the ‘real Burmese’ were described by a Calcutta-based journalist in his party as: the clean, happy-go-lucky aristocratic children of the land, content to leave the sordid pursuit of lucre to their more astute and prosaic

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competitors from East and West … It is an idyllic people, almost unreal in its delicate quaintness.85 Reminiscing about his career many years later, the historian (and former ICS member) G.E. Harvey recalled that: When I was sent to Burma in 1912 everyone congratulated me on being sent to the happiest and most charming people in India, laughing fairskinned Mongolians, quite unspoilt, quite unlike the sullen seditious Indians.86 By 1916, the Burmese were routinely being described in the West as ‘the happiest people on earth’.87 Doubtless prompted by the successful campaign waged by the army and military police after the fall of Mandalay, and the subsequent installation of British administration throughout the country, yet another observer wrote in the 1920s that ‘the Burman is adaptable and easily civilised’.88 This visitor envisaged a politically stable and prosperous province for years to come. Perhaps reflecting the debate over female emancipation in the West, but more likely the enduring preoccupations of Western men, one focus of the renewed attention being paid to Burma during the colonial period was its women. In the writings of both visitors to the country and commentators in Europe and the US, they were described in ways that helped plant in the popular imagination a picture that was both alluring and shocking.

The West and ‘Burma Girls’ During the 19th and early 20th centuries, there were three parallel narratives governing the perceived status and character of Burmese women. In the first, foreign observers saw them as independent and liberated, by contemporary standards. There were frequent comparisons with less tolerant cultures and approving references to the fact that in Buddhist Burma women did not have to submit to practices such as sati or purdah.89 For example, the American Baptist missionary Ann Judson wrote in 1823 that ‘the sexes have equally free intercourse as in Europe’.90 In 1878, Charles Forbes wrote that: Though the inferiority of the softer sex is a point that has never been disputed, in Burma women enjoy a much freer and higher position than elsewhere in the East; indeed, in some matters they have attained rights that their sisters in England are still seeking to obtain, or have only lately gained.91 George Scott (again writing as ‘Shway Yoe’) felt that ‘Burmese maidens … enjoy a freer and happier position than in any other Eastern country, and

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in some respects are better off even than women in England’.92 In 1894, an American traveller made a similar observation, after comparing Burmese women with those of her own country. She felt the former were ‘on as absolute an equality with men as nature will permit’.93 In the same vein, Harold Fielding Hall, a senior government official in Burma between 1887 and 1891, wrote an article for the Scientific American in 1895, which began: Nowhere under the sun has any nation accorded to its women such absolute freedom, such entire command of their lives and property, as have the Burmese. They stand in every way on an absolute equality with men, as far as law, as religion, and as custom are concerned.94 Expounding on this theme in a later book, Fielding Hall claimed that a Burmese woman, unlike her European or Indian counterparts, ‘has been bound by no ties’: In Burma she has been neither confined nor guided. In Europe and India for very long the idea was to make woman a hot-house plant, to see that no rough winds struck her, that no injuries overtook her. In Burma she has had to look out for herself: she has had freedom to come to grief as well as to come to strength.95 He felt that this experience made Burmese women stronger and more independent. They were also considered excellent business and household managers. Writing about Burmese wives, for example, George Scott stated that ‘she keeps the shop that is to be found in almost every house in the country towns, and usually makes far more money than the goodman himself’.96 In Burma, wrote another observer, ‘few husbands would dare to enter into any mercantile arrangements without the aid or advice of their wives’.97 Other foreign visitors commented on the dominant role that Burmese women played in the local markets and bazaars. In his short story ‘Georgie Porgie’ (1888), for example, Rudyard Kipling wrote that: No race, men say who know, produces such good wives and heads of households as the Burmese … When all our troops are back from Burma there will be a proverb in their mouths, ‘As thrifty as a Burmese wife’ … English ladies will wonder what it means.98 Burmese women were contrasted with ‘ornamental’ European women, who were described by some colonialists as ‘a useless, expensive misery’.99 Writing soon after the Second World War, the Australian correspondent Wilfred Burchett stated of Burmese women that ‘Throughout

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the East they are known for their shrewdness in business dealings, their independence, and the fact of their higher social status than any of their sisters in Asia’.100 As scholars like Chie Ikeya and Jessica Harriden have pointed out, the lot of women in Burma was in fact much more complicated, and the widespread perception of their ‘traditional’ high status was in part the result of self-serving misrepresentations by European colonialists and missionaries.101 Even so, foreign observers both during this period and since have generally agreed that, compared to their counterparts elsewhere, Burmese women enjoyed a ‘remarkable degree of independence’.102 One corollary of this perceived independence, however, and the apparent ease with which Burmese women could secure a divorce, was the implication of sexual availability, even licentiousness. For example, an 1826 guidebook entitled The Modern Traveller stated that: Unfortunately, however, for the perpetuity of conjugal felicity, in no country, perhaps, is the marriage contract regarded with so little respect, or maintained with so little propriety as in Birmah.103 Other Europeans described what they saw as evidence of the ingrained promiscuity of Burmese women. For example, in 1827 Thomas Trant wrote that ‘Chastity, in the sense we understand the word, is but little known’.104 W.H. Marshall opined in 1860 that the dress of Burmese women was ‘unbecoming and indecent’.105 A colonial doctor claimed in 1875 that Burma’s women were sufficiently ‘unchaste’ that ‘if not prostitutes’, they were ‘next door to it’.106 Gwendolen Trench Gascoigne was hinting at their sexual freedom when she wrote in 1896 that ‘Utterly unlike their miserable Mahomedan and Hindoo sisters, they enjoy absolute liberty – a liberty of which, if rumour prove true, they make ample use’.107 The painter Robert Kelly was reflecting a widely held belief that Burmese men were lazy and effeminate, and Burmese women free and easy, when he wrote in 1905 that the latter preferred ‘to mate with the more energetic males of other countries’.108 These views seem to have been widely held. They also maintained their currency over a long period. For example, one British character in Orwell’s Burmese Days, published in 1934, remarks to a compatriot that ‘These people’s sense of decency isn’t the same as ours’. Referring to a Burmese girl’s highly sexualised performance at a pwe (variety show) he adds: ‘One gets not to notice that kind of thing in this country’.109 The judgements implicit in this second narrative were applied to other social behaviours. For example, there was a widespread belief in the West that, according to Burmese custom, there was ‘nothing dishonourable or wrong’ in taking a woman as a mistress or ‘local wife’.110 Several seventeenth-century European visitors to the southern kingdoms of Arakan

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and Pegu had described the local custom of offering guests women for their amusement and comfort.111 After his visit to Burma in 1795, for example, the British envoy Michael Symes wrote that: The lower class of Burmans make no scruple of selling their daughters, and even their wives, to foreigners, who come to pass a temporary residence among them. It reflects no disgrace on any of the parties, and the woman is not dishonoured by the connection.112 Whether or not it was the local custom, colonial officials later posted to Burma did not find it difficult to recruit a local girl to act as a concubine. This was the subject of Rudyard Kipling’s short story ‘Georgie Porgie’, in which a British officer purchases a Burmese girl, but later returns to the UK to marry a European woman.113 In that story, the girl accepted her abandonment quietly, unlike the Burmese mistresses portrayed in Orwell’s Burmese Days and Pablo Neruda’s poem ‘Widower’s Tango’.114 During the 19th and early 20th centuries, cohabitation with local women was more common among Europeans in Burma than it was among the expatriate community in India. One ICS officer posted to Burma in 1898 estimated that 90 per cent of the British men there had local mistresses.115 A special school was founded in Rangoon to educate children with European fathers. Such a situation inevitably aroused some controversy.116 Groups like the London-based Association for Moral and Social Hygiene reported disapprovingly that ‘The general attitude of the Local [colonial] Government towards the concubinage of Europeans with Burmese women and girls has been one not only of leniency and condonation, but of positive friendliness’.117 Faced with persistent pressure from such groups, and their supporters in the British parliament, the colonial authorities issued four official notices to restrict the practice in Burma, but they were only partially successful.118 Perhaps it was this situation that prompted one expatriate to write in 1916 that, of all countries, Burma was ‘one of the most immoral in the world’.119 In the third narrative, Burmese females enjoyed a more positive image. They were described by most foreign observers as ‘on the whole, remarkably good-looking’, with ‘faultless figures’.120 According to the Burmese scholar Maung Htin Aung, ‘Even that proud conqueror of Ava, Lord Dufferin, although he was received with dark looks by the Burmese during his state visit to Mandalay early in 1886, wrote back to a friend in England, extolling the grace, charm and freedom of Burmese women’.121 A few years later, Robert Kelly wrote that ‘among the women and young girls I have seen many of extreme beauty’.122 Rudyard Kipling too felt that ‘seriously, the Burmese girls are very pretty’.123 In 1946, Wilfred Burchett described Burmese women as ‘slim, sprightly and beautiful, with a natural exquisite taste for dress and decoration’.124 At the same time, however, Burmese women were constantly patronised and infantilised. They were treated as though they (and the Burmese people

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more generally) were ‘immature and incomplete, and therefore in need of protection and control by a more historically adult people, which is how the British thought of and represented themselves’.125 While at one level their independence and managerial capabilities were acknowledged, Burmese women were repeatedly dismissed by officials, tourists and others as ‘happy, smiling, care-free little women’ and ‘grinning, good-humoured little maidens’.126 One observer felt that ‘a more cheery little body is not to be met with on earth’.127 Burmese ‘girls’ were also praised for their delicate charm and ‘winsome womanhood’.128 In 1907, a female visitor to Burma described them as ‘dear coquettish little things’.129 Six years later, a book published in London on the vexed subject of Western Men with Eastern Morals argued that, in Burma’s rural districts, ‘the maidens are as simple and sweet as wild flowers’.130 In 1921, an American missionary posted to Burma described its ‘dainty damsels’ and ‘little silken ladies’.131 George Scott felt that, unlike the women of some other Asian cultures, Burmese wives treated their husbands as comrades, not idols.132 Even so, the English-language literature of the time made frequent references to Burmese women in terms that emphasised their apparent submissiveness and willingness to cater to men’s needs and desires. For example, one study of ‘Oriental women’ written in 1915 stated: The Burmese wife makes no demands upon her lord and master; she is obedient, attendant to his every want, and never scolding and discontented. As far as material wants are concerned, the native woman of any Eastern country makes an ideal wife for the average European … he is always her lord, she is always his slave.133 To a greater or lesser degree, these sentiments were echoed by other observers, strengthening the view in the West that ‘Burma girls’ were invariably meek and obedient. As companions, they were often compared favourably to their British counterparts, who were implicitly described as cold and formal, and bound by rigid conventions.134 One traditionally-minded European visiting Burma in the 1890s went further, describing emancipated British women as the ‘shrieking, lecturing, struggling, unmannerly female, this terrible product of the nineteenth century’.135 These images were strengthened by pictorial representations of Burma and Burmese women by British artists such as Frederick Goodall, Robert Talbot Kelly, W.G. Burn Murdoch, A. Hugh Fisher, Gerald Kelly and James Raeburn Middleton.136 All except Goodall visited Burma, and for his painting ‘On the Road to Mandalay’ (1899) Goodall drew on the advice of people familiar with the country.137 Almost without exception, in oil paintings, watercolours and sketches, the works of these artists emphasised the slightness, natural elegance and beauty of their subjects, who were usually dressed in colourful traditional costumes and posed in exotic settings.138 Such portraits proved immensely popular. For example, a number of Gerald

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Kelly’s 20 or so iconic portraits of the Burmese ‘princess’ Sao Ohn Nyunt, painted in Britain during the 1930s, were made into limited edition prints and posters. Sales of the latter over the years have exceeded 50,000 copies, and some are still available.139 Revealingly, the writer Somerset Maugham said of Kelly’s Burma paintings that he had ‘given us the character of the East as we of our generation see it’.140 As more and more people visited Burma after its ‘pacification’, the country became a little better known, helped by the increasing flow of memoirs, travel books and (to a lesser extent) novels about the country.141 Juvenile literature too proved to be an effective means for the diffusion of ideas and attitudes.142 They were not uniform, but the main themes were surprisingly consistent, and conformed to well-established images of the country and its people. This included depictions of Burmese women. As Lucy Delap has argued, ‘Despite portrayals as “new” and “modern” womanhood, Burmese women were usually seen as ignorant, eroticised and physically “other”’.143 These views tapped into racial stereotypes regarding the sexual propensities of Asian women as well as other views prevalent at the time, for example that a tropical climate accentuated physical desires and made them harder to resist.144 All these images were tied to a re-emergence of wider Western interest in what Scott O’Connor and others called the ‘silken East’.145 Such an Orientalist picture catered to the fantasies of many white men at the time, but apparently it was also accepted as valid by many European and American women. It made all of them, and those who followed after them, highly receptive to romanticised images of exotic places far away, and sentimental odes to demure and love-struck Asian girls. As songwriters, composers and producers had discovered long before then, a potent means of exploiting such feelings and turning them into a profit was through music.

Notes 1. See, for example, Thant Myint-U, The Making of Modern Burma (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001); and Michael Charney, A History of Modern Burma (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). 2. Josef Silverstein, ‘Burma Through the Prism of Western Novels’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Vol. 16, No. 1, March 1985, pp. 129–40. Also useful is C.S. Braden, ‘The Novelist Discovers the Orient’, The Far Eastern Quarterly, Vol. 7, No. 2, February 1948, pp. 165–75. 3. C.J. Christie, ‘British Literary Travellers in Southeast Asia in an Era of Colonial Retreat’, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 28, No. 4, 1994, pp. 673–737; and Stephen Keck, ‘Picturesque Burma: British Travel Writing, 1880–1914’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Vol. 35, No. 3, October 2004, pp. 387–414. 4. D.D. Boyer, ‘Picturing the Other: Images of Burmans in Imperial Britain’, Victorian Periodicals Review, Vol. 35, No. 3, Fall 2002, pp. 214–26. 5. Andrew Selth, ‘Burma, Hollywood and the Politics of Entertainment’, Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies, Vol. 23, No. 3, June 2009, pp. 321–34.

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6. See, for example, Andrew Selth, Burma Watching: A Retrospective, Regional Outlook No. 39 (Brisbane: Griffith Asia Institute, Griffith University, 2012). 7. See, for example, Living Burmah: An Album of Thirty-six Views of the Country and its People (Rangoon: Whiteaway, Laidlaw and Co. Ltd, 1890?); and Scenes in Burma: An Album of 125 Views Depicting the Principal Features of Interest in Rangoon, Lower and Upper Burma, and the Shan States (Rangoon: Whiteaway, Laidlaw and Co. Ltd, 1900). Also useful is D.F. Rooney, ‘Early Postcards from Burma (Myanmar)’, Arts of Asia, Vol. 44, No. 3, May–June 2014, pp. 152–8. 8. Two early works that devoted some space to traditional Burmese music were Max Ferrars and Bertha Ferrars, Burma (London: Sampson Low, Marston and Co., 1900), pp. 210–1; and Paul Edmonds, Peacocks and Pagodas (New York: E.P. Dutton and Co., 1925), pp. 112–26. 9. Jeffrey Richards, Imperialism and Music: Britain 1876–1953 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001), p. 367. 10. See, for example, K.R. Moon, Yellowface: Creating the Chinese in American Popular Music and Performance, 1850s–1920s (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2005); and Thomas Walsh, Tin Pan Alley and the Philippines: American Songs of War and Love, 1898–1946 (Plymouth: Scarecrow Press, 2013). 11. It has been estimated that, by 1922, the British Empire covered almost a quarter of the Earth’s total land area, and controlled over 458 million people, or one-fifth of the world’s population at the time. Niall Ferguson, Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power (New York: Basic Books, 2003), p. 15. 12. George Orwell, Burmese Days (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1934), p. 36. See also Michael Mann, ‘“Torchbearers Upon the Path of Progress”: Britain’s Ideology of a “Moral and Material Progress” in India’, in Michael Mann and Harald Fischer-Tine (eds), Colonialism as Civilizing Mission: Cultural Ideology in British India (London: Anthem Press, 2004), pp. 1–26. 13. Benjamin Disraeli, Tancred, or The New Crusade (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1881), p. 148. 14. ‘It’s the English-Speaking Race Against the World’ (date unknown), cited in J.B. Booth, The Days We Knew (London: T. Werner Laurie, 1943), p. 39. See also Richards, Imperialism and Music, pp. 332–4. 15. The term ‘lottery of life’ later gave rise to the popular misquotation (often credited to Rudyard Kipling) ‘To be born an Englishman is to win first prize in the lottery of life’. For the original quote see W.T. Stead (ed), The Last Will and Testament of Cecil John Rhodes, with Elucidatory Notes (London: ‘Review of Reviews’ Office, 1902), p. 183. 16. Rudyard Kipling, ‘A Song of the English’ (1893), in Rudyard Kipling’s Verse: Definitive Edition (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1940), pp. 170–1. 17. J.J. Franklin, The Lotus and the Lion: Buddhism and the British Empire (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008), p. 4. 18. David Silverman, cited in E.E. Andrews, ‘Christian Missions and Colonial Empires Reconsidered: A Black Evangelist in West Africa, 1766–1816’, The Journal of Church and State, Vol. 51, No. 4, 2009, p. 664. 19. Brian Stanley, The Bible and the Flag: Protestant Mission and British Imperialism in the 19th and 20th Centuries (Nottingham: Apollos, 1990).

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Setting the scene

20. See, for example, J.M. MacKenzie (ed), Imperialism and Popular Culture (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1986). 21. See, for example, J.M. MacKenzie, Propaganda and Empire: The Manipulation of British Public Opinion, 1880–1960 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1984). 22. Michael Adas, Machines as the Measure of Men: Science, Technology, and Ideologies of Western Dominance (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989), p. 169. 23. See, for example, J.M. MacKenzie, Orientalism: History, Theory and the Arts (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995). 24. E.W. Said, Orientalism (London: Penguin, 2003), p. 3. 25. William Wordsworth, ‘On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic’ (1802), in A.T. Quiller-Couch (ed), The Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250–1900 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1912), p. 599. See also Frank Elias, The Gorgeous East: India, Burma, Ceylon and Siam (London: A. and C. Black, 1913). 26. Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son (London: Dent and Sons, 1960), p. 30. The Honourable East India Company received its royal charter from Queen Elizabeth I in 1600 and became a joint stock company in 1707. It was nationalised after the 1857 Indian Mutiny, when the British crown took over its Indian possessions, government machinery and armed forces. The company was dissolved in 1874. 27. K.W. Cameron (ed), Indian Superstition by Ralph Waldo Emerson (Hanover: Friends of the Dartmouth Library, 1954), p. 49. 28. Edwin Arnold, The Light of Asia, or The Great Renunciation, Being the life and Teaching of Gautama, Prince of India and Founder of Buddhism (London: Trubner and Co., 1879), p. ix. See also J.J. Franklin, ‘The Life of the Buddha in Victorian England’, ELH, Vol. 72, No. 4, 2005, pp. 941–74. 29. One notable example was the Royal Pavilion at Brighton, which was completed in 1822. It incorporated a range of Oriental styles, both externally and internally. 30. Between 1840 and 1870 the world’s merchant shipping rose from 10 to 16  million tons, and it doubled over the next 40 years. The world’s railway network expanded from about 200,000 kilometres in 1870 to over one million kilometres just before the First World War. KLM’s commercial air service to the East Indies was inaugurated in 1924. Imperial Airways’ regular service to Delhi began in 1929, and was extended to Singapore in 1930. Both the Dutch and British airlines made stopovers in Akyab (on Burma’s Arakan coast) and Rangoon. See, for example, Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Empire (London: Folio Society, 2005), p. 67. 31. The firm Thomas Cook and Son began publishing guidebooks in the 1840s and by the 1880s was arranging foreign tours. By 1888, the company had offices around the world. In 1894, it published India, Burma and Ceylon: Information for Travellers and Residents (London: Thomas Cook and Son, 1894). 32. See, for example, Roger Benjamin, Orientalism: Delacroix to Klee (Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales, 1997). 33. Kipling, From Sea to Sea, p. 3. 34. L.A. Weatherly, The Supernatural? With a Chapter on Oriental Magic, Spiritualism and Theosophy, by J.N. Maskelyne (London: J.W. Arrowsmith, 1891), pp. 155–6. See also Peter Lamont and Crispin Bates, ‘Conjuring Images of India in Nineteenth-Century Britain’, Social History, Vol. 32, No. 3, 2007, pp. 308–24.

Setting the scene

29

35. ‘The “Fakir of Ava” Dead’, The New York Times (New York, US), 25 May 1891. 36. See, for example, Palmer White, Poiret (London: Studio Vista, 1973), pp. 83–95. 37. J.N. Maskelyne, ‘Oriental Jugglery’, Leisure Hour, 1878, cited in Peter Lamont, The Rise of the Indian Rope Trick: The Biography of a Legend (London: Little Brown, 2004), p. 56. 38. Christie, ‘British Literary Travellers in Southeast Asia in an Era of Colonial Retreat’, p. 675. 39. ‘A Voyage’, in W.H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood, Journey to a War (London: Faber and Faber Ltd, 1973), p. 12. This is a revised version of the original 1939 poem. 40. Aldous Huxley, Jesting Pilate (London: Chatto and Windus, 1948), p. 214. 41. Richard Taruskin, The Oxford History of Western Music: Volume 3, The Nineteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 386ff. 42. Corissa Gould, ‘“An Inoffensive Thing”: Edward Elgar, The Crown of India and Empire’, in Martin Clayton and Bennett Zon (eds), Music and Orientalism in the British Empire, 1780s–1940s: Portrayal of the East (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), p. 148. 43. J.M. MacKenzie (ed), Popular Imperialism and the Military, 1850–1950 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992), p. 50. See also Brad Beaven, Visions of Empire: Patriotism, Popular Culture and the City, 1870–1939 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2012), p. 179–207. 44. ‘Something Oriental’, words by Clifford Grey and music by N.D. Ayer, in Bing Boys on Broadway, by Fred Thompson and H.M. Vernon (London: B. Feldman and Co., 1918). 45. See, for example, Michael Newbury, ‘Polite Gaiety: Cultural Hierarchy and Musical Comedy, 1893–1904’, The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, Vol. 4, No. 4, October 2005, pp. 381–407. 46. Taruskin, The Oxford History of Western Music, Vol. 3, p. 390. 47. This subject is explored in James Parakilas, ‘The Soldier and the Exotic: Operatic Variations on a Theme of Racial Encounter, Part 1’, The Opera Quarterly, Vol. 10, No. 2, 1994, pp. 33–56; and James Parakilas, ‘The Soldier and the Exotic: Operatic Variations on a Theme of Racial Encounter, Part 2’, The Opera Quarterly, Vol. 10, No. 3, 1994, pp. 43–69. 48. A Chinese Honeymoon: A Musical Comedy in Two Acts, words by George Dance and others, music by Howard Talbot and others (London: Hopwood and Crew, 1901). 49. Brian Singleton, Oscar Asche, Orientalism and British Musical Comedy (Westport: Praeger, 2004), p. 25. 50. Said, Orientalism, p. 190. See also Sheridan Prasso, The Asian Mystique: Dragon Ladies, Geisha Girls and Our Fantasies of the Exotic Orient (New York: Public Affairs, 2005). 51. Ian Buruma, The Missionary and the Libertine: Love and War in East and West (New York: Vintage Books, 2001), p. xvi. 52. Cited in Anton Gill, Ruling Passions: Sex, Race and Empire (London: BBC Books, 1995), p. 37. 53. Sax Rohmer, The Golden Scorpion (1919) and Sax Rohmer, The Yellow Claw (1915), cited in David Scott, ‘Rohmer’s “Orient” – Pulp Orientalism?’, Oriental Archive, Vol. 80, No. 3, 2012, p. 4, at http://www.d-scott.com/wp-content/ uploads/2013/09/rohmer-orientalism.pdf.

30

Setting the scene

54. G.E. Harvey, History of Burma: From the Earliest Times to 10 March 1824, The Beginning of the English Conquest (London: Frank Cass, 1967), p. 175. 55. Cited in D.F. Lach, Asia in the Making of Europe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965), Vol. 1, Bk.2, p. 554. 56. Andrew Selth, ‘Modern Burma Studies: A Survey of the Field’, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 44, No. 2, March 2010, pp. 401–40. 57. Anne Lacoste, Felice Beato: A Photographer on the Eastern Road (Los Angeles: The J. Paul Getty Museum, 2010), p. 5. Also relevant is Andrew Jarvis, ‘“The Myriad-Pencil of the Photographer”: Seeing, Mapping and Situating Burma in 1855’, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 45, No. 4, July 2011, pp. 791–823. 58. H. Fielding Hall, A People at School (London: Macmillan and Co., 1906), p. 47. Beato arrived in Burma in 1887, and initially operated from Rangoon. 59. N.F. Singer, Burmah: A Photographic Journey, 1855–1925 (Gartmore: Kiscadale, 1993), pp. 7–9. 60. Steven Patterson, ‘Postcards from the Raj’, Patterns of Prejudice, Vol. 40, No. 2, 2006, p. 143. 61. Patterson, ‘Postcards from the Raj’, p. 146. 62. A British delegation visiting the Burmese royal court in 1826 encountered an entertainer suffering from hypertrichosis (‘werewolf syndrome’), or an abnormal amount of body hair. Illustrations of this man and his family were subsequently published in magazines in the UK and France. In 1888, the family toured the US with P.T. Barnum’s circus. See John Crawfurd, Journal of an Embassy from the Governor-General of India to the Court of Ava, in the year 1827 (London: Henry Colburn, 1829), Vol. 1, p. 318; and J. Bondeson and A.E.W. Miles, ‘The hairy family of Burma: a four generation pedigree of congenital hypertrichosis lanuginosa’, Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, Vol. 89, July 1996, pp. 403–8. 63. C.J.F.S. Forbes, British Burma and its People, Being Sketches of Native Manners, Customs and Religions (London: John Murray, 1878), p. 83. 64. F.T. Pollok and W.S. Thom, Wild Sports of Burma and Assam (London: Hurst and Blackett, 1900), p. 14. Rudyard Kipling was told by a compatriot that ngapi was ‘fish pickled which ought to have been buried long ago’. Kipling, From Sea to Sea, p. 204. 65. Padaung women traditionally elongate their necks using brass rings. See ‘The “Champagne-Bottle” Neck: Brass-collared Padaung Women’, The Illustrated London News, 12 January 1935, p. 48. See also J.M. Davis, The Circus Age: Culture and Society Under the American Big Top (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), pp. 136–8; and H.Y. Bary, Interesting Facts and Illustrations of the Royal Padaung Giraffe-Neck Women from Burma (US: n.p., 1933), an American circus booklet in the author’s possession. 66. Jonathan Saha, ‘Condiments of Colonialism’, 27 September 2013, at http:// jonathansaha.wordpress.com/2013/09/27/condiments-of-colonialism/. 67. Boyer, ‘Picturing the Other’, p. 214. 68. As Douglas Peers has noted, there was a ‘staggering amount of information’ generated by military officers and surgeons based in India and Burma during the 19th century. However, their works tended to be published in newspapers and specialist journals, many of which were only produced in the colonies. See D.M. Peers, ‘Colonial Knowledge and the Military in India, 1780–1860’,

Setting the scene

69. 70. 71. 72.

73.

74. 75.

76. 77. 78.

79.

80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86.

31

The  Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, Vol. 33, No. 2, May 2005, pp. 157–80. W.H. Marshall, Four Years in Burmah, Vol. 1 (London: Charles J. Skeet, 1860), p. 125. Forbes, British Burma and its People, p. 44. J.G. Scott [Shway Yoe], The Burman: His Life and Notions (London: Macmillan and Co., 1910), p. 65. Mrs Ernest Hart, ‘Burma Past and Present’, in The British Empire Series, Volume 1: India, Ceylon, Straits Settlements, British North Borneo, Hong-Kong (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co., 1899), p. 256. This period is described in Thant Myint-U, The Making of Modern Burma, pp. 154–86. While its origins can be traced to the 17th century, the term ‘jingoistic’ derives from ‘War Song’ (1878) by G.W. Hunter, made famous by the music hall singer G.H. MacDermott. The ‘war’ to which it referred was the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878. E.C. Browne, The Coming of the Great Queen: A Narrative of the Acquisition of Burma (London: Harrison and Sons, 1888), p. 247. To be fair, this commentator was moved to add that ‘we should regret to see the Burmese type a thing of the past, and the unique Burmese personality lost in a British imitation’. Hart, ‘Burma Past and Present’, in The British Empire Series, Vol. 1, p. 268. Charles Crosthwaite, The Pacification of Burma (London: Frank Cass and Co., 1968), p. 13. See, for example, Crosthwaite, The Pacification of Burma, pp. 60–5. By the time Burma formally separated from India in 1937, the BMP had grown to nine battalions, easily outnumbering the regular army units based there. See Andrew Selth, Burma’s Police Forces: Continuities and Contradictions, Regional Outlook Paper No. 32 (Brisbane: Griffith Asia Institute, Griffith University, 2011). They achieved a certain notoriety in the process. For example, in the best-selling Fu Manchu crime novels, Burmese dacoits even made a brief appearance in London. See Sax Rohmer, The Mystery of Dr Fu-Manchu (London: Methuen, 1913), p. 21. See, for example, ‘The late Lieutenant Guy Palmer RE’, The Illustrated London News, 18 May 1889, p. 631. Palmer was killed by ‘a murderous shot’ while campaigning against the ‘hostile Chin tribes’ on Burma’s north-eastern border. Boyer, ‘Picturing the Other’, pp. 66 and 224. Field Marshall Lord Roberts of Kandahar, Forty-One Years in India: From Subaltern to Commander-in-Chief (London: Richard Bentley and Son, 1897), Vol. 2, p. 416. R. T. Kelly, Burma Painted and Described (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1905), p. 243. G.E. Mitton, A Bachelor Girl in Burma (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1907), p. 2. G.F. Abbott, Through India with The Prince (London: E. Arnold, 1906), p. 211. Cited in Alyssa Phillips, ‘Romance and Tragedy in Burmese History: A Reading of G.E. Harvey’s A History of Burma’, SOAS Bulletin of Burma Research, Vol. 3, No. 1, Spring 2005, p. 6.

32

Setting the scene

87. Arley Munson, Kipling’s India (London: Eveleigh Nash Company, 1916), p. 179. 88. R.G. Brown, Burma As I Saw It, 1889–1917, With a Chapter on Recent Events (London: Methuen and Co., 1926), p. 32. 89. See, for example, Kipling, From Sea to Sea, p. 206. Sati (or suttee) was the custom, outlawed in India by the British in 1829, which required widows to immolate themselves on their husband’s funeral pyre. Purdah, from the Persian for ‘curtain’, was the religious and social practice of female seclusion common among Muslim communities. This took the forms both of physical isolation and the adoption of clothes that concealed the female face and form. 90. J.D. Knowles, Memoir of Ann H. Judson, Missionary to Burmah (Boston: Gould and Lincoln, 1855), p. 111. Judson went on to say, however, that ‘they treat the women as an inferior order of beings’. 91. Forbes, British Burma and its People, p. 55. 92. Scott, The Burman, p. 52. 93. L.J. Miln, When We Were Strolling Players in the East (London: Osgood, McIlvaine and Co., 1894), pp. 93–4. 94. H. Fielding, ‘Burmese Women’, Scientific American Supplement, No. 1033, 19 October 1895, p. 16516. 95. H. Fielding Hall, The Soul of a People (London: Macmillan and Co., 1914), p. 173. 96. Scott, The Burman, p. 61. 97. Gwendolen Trench Gascoigne, Among Pagodas and Fair Ladies: An Account of a Tour Through Burma (London: A.D. Innes and Co., 1896), p. 43. 98. Rudyard Kipling, ‘Georgie Porgie’, in Life’s Handicap: Being Stories of Mine Own People (London: Macmillan and Co., 1891), pp. 331–2. 99. W.N. Willis, Western Men with Eastern Morals (London: Stanley Paul and Co., 1913), p. 196. 100. W.G. Burchett, Democracy With A Tommy-Gun (Melbourne: F.W. Cheshire, 1946), p. 28. 101. Chie Ikeya, ‘The “Traditional” High Status of Women in Burma’, The Journal of Burma Studies, Vol. 10, 2005/06, pp. 51–82. See also Jessica Harriden, The Authority of Influence: Women and Power in Burmese History (Copenhagen: NIAS Press, 2012). 102. Brown, Burma As I Saw It, p. 53. See also T.A. Trant, Two Years in Ava, from May 1824 to May 1826 (London: John Murray, 1827), pp. 208–9. 103. The Modern Traveller: A Popular Description Geographical, Historical and Topographical of the Various Countries of the Globe: Birmah, Siam and Anam (London: James Duncan, 1826), p. 89. 104. Trant, Two Years in Ava, pp. 219–20. 105. Marshall, Four Years in Burmah, Vol. 1, p. 116. 106. Cited in Philippa Levine, ‘“A Multitude of Unchaste Women”: Prostitution in the British Empire’, Journal of Women’s History, Vol. 15, No. 4, Winter 2004, p. 159. 107. Gascoigne, Among Pagodas and Fair Ladies, p. 43. 108. Kelly, Burma Painted and Described, p. 244. 109. Orwell, Burmese Days, p. 102. 110. Marshall, Four Years in Burmah, Vol. 1, pp. 123–4. 111. See, for example, William Dampier, A New Voyage Around the World etc. (London: James Knapton, 1698), p. 397. Also relevant is Anthony Reid,

Setting the scene

112. 113. 114.

115.

116. 117.

118. 119. 120. 121. 122. 123. 124. 125. 126. 127. 128. 129. 130. 131. 132.

33

Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, 1450–1680: Volume One, The Lands Below the Winds (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988), p. 155; and Lach, Asia in the Making of Europe, Vol. 1, Bk.2, pp. 554–5. Michael Symes, An Account of an Embassy to the Kingdom of Ava, Sent by the Governor-General of India in the Year 1795 (London: W. Bulmer and Co., 1800), p. 217. See also Forbes, British Burma and its People, p. 56. Kipling, ‘Georgie Porgie’, in Life’s Handicap, pp. 328–39. A Burmese mistress jilted by Pablo Neruda threatened him with a knife – and inspired ‘Tango del viudo’ (‘Widower’s Tango’) (1928). The poet was posted to Rangoon in 1927 as the Honorary Consul for Chile. Pablo Neruda, Memoirs, translated by Hardie St Martin (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1977), p. 87. See also James Ormerod, The Burmese Wife and Other Plays (London: Mitre Press, 1948). David Gilmour, The Ruling Caste: Imperial Lives in the Victorian Raj (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005), p. 285. See also Ronald Hyam, Empire and Sexuality: The British Experience (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1991), p. 108. See, for example, Willis, Western Men with Eastern Morals, in particular pp. 99–109 and pp. 127–44. Public Prostitution in Rangoon: Report to the Association for Social and Moral Hygiene on Brothel-keeping, Prostitution, Segregation and Immoral Conditions in Rangoon and other Towns and Stations in Burma (London: Association for Social and Moral Hygiene, 1916), p. 10. Kenneth Ballhatchet, Race, Sex and Class Under the Raj: Imperial Attitudes and Policies and their Critics, 1793–1905 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1980), pp. 144–59. See also Gill, Ruling Passions, p. 65. Cited in Penny Edwards, ‘Half-cast: Staging race in British Burma’, Postcolonial Studies, Vol. 5, No. 3, 2002, p. 285. C.T. Paske, Life and Travel in Lower Burmah: A Retrospect (London: W.H. Allen and Co., 1892), p. 45. Maung Htin Aung, ‘George Orwell and Burma’, Asian Affairs, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1970, p. 21. R.T. Kelly, Peeps at Many Lands: Burma (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1909), p. 18. Kipling, From Sea to Sea, p. 206. Burchett, Democracy With A Tommy-Gun, p. 28. Douglas Kerr, Eastern Figures: Orient and Empire in British Writing (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2008), p. 2. Elizabeth Cooper, The Harim and the Purdah: Studies of Oriental Women (London: T. Fisher Unwin Ltd, 1915), p. 198; and Kipling, From Sea to Sea, p. 205. Browne, The Coming of the Great Queen, p. 287. Gascoigne, Among Pagodas and Fair Ladies, p. 56. Mitton, A Bachelor Girl in Burma, p. 52. Willis, Western Men with Eastern Morals, p. 101. R.B. Thurber, In the Land of Pagodas (Nashville: Southern Publishing Association, 1921), p. 80. J.G. Scott, Burma: A Handbook of Practical Information (London: Daniel O’Connor, 1921), p. 77.

34

Setting the scene

133. 134. 135. 136.

Cooper, The Harim and the Purdah, p. 198. Cooper, The Harim and the Purdah, p. 197. Gascoigne, Among Pagodas and Fair Ladies, p. 56. See, for example, Kelly, Peeps at Many Lands: Burma; and A.H. Fisher, Through India and Burmah with Pen and Brush (London: T. Werner Laurie, 1911). These and other early Western painters of Burma, including Colesworthy Grant and W.H.Y. Titcomb, are discussed in Andrew Ranard, Burmese Painting: A Linear and Lateral History (Chiang Mai: Silkworm, 2009), pp. 47–69. One collaborator was Colonel Richard Temple, who held a number of appointments in Burma before and after the Third Anglo-Burmese War. Another adviser was Alice Hart, the author of Picturesque Burma, Past and Present (London: J.M. Dent, 1897). See Frederick Goodall, The Reminiscences of Frederick Goodall RA (London: The Walter Scott Publishing Co., 1902), pp. 392–3. See, for example, ‘A Burmese Beauty’ (1905) by R.T. Kelly; and ‘A Burmese Dancer’ (c.1920) by J.R. Middleton. Ma Thanegi, ‘Shan princess “returns” to Myanmar’, The Myanmar Times, 13 June 2011, at http://www.mmtimes.com/2011/timeout/579/timeout57901. html. Cited in Derek Hudson, For Love of Painting: The Life of Sir Gerald Kelly (London: Peter Davies, 1975), p. 36. According to a survey conducted in 1948, there were only eight novels relating to Burma published in English between 1917 and 1941. This compared with 224 for China, 100 for India, 44 for Japan, 11 for Borneo, Java and Sumatra, and 11 for Malaysia. See Braden, ‘The Novelist Discovers the Orient’, p. 167. Examples of juvenile literature include William Dalton, The White Elephant: Or the Hunters of Ava and the King of the Golden Foot (London: Griffith and Farran, 1860); G.A. Henty, On The Irrawaddy: A Story of the First Burmese War (London: Blackie and Son, 1897); C.R. Kenyon, The Dacoit’s Mine, or A Fight for Fortune (London: John Hogg, 1899); and H.C. Moore, Marching to Ava: A Story of the First Burmese War (London: Gall and Inglis, 1904). Some of these works demonstrated a surprising degree of knowledge about British policies and attitudes towards Burma. Lucy Delap, ‘Uneven Orientalisms: Burmese Women and the Feminist Imagination’, Gender and History, Vol. 24, No. 2, August 2012, p. 406. B.W. Andaya, ‘From Temporary Wife to Prostitute: Sexuality and Economic Change in Early Modern Southeast Asia’, Journal of Women’s History, Vol. 9, No. 4, Winter 1998, p. 21. Also relevant is Ian Littlewood, Sultry Climates: Travel and Sex (Boston: Da Capo, 2001). V.C. Scott O’Connor, The Silken East: A Record of Life and Travel in Burma (London: Hutchinson and Co., 1928), pp. 9–14.

137.

138. 139. 140. 141.

142.

143. 144.

145.

2

Burma and Western music before ‘Mandalay’

Given this background, it is perhaps not surprising that during the 19th century Burma was rarely associated in the public mind with Western music. There was one field, however, in which it was given close attention and where music composed and performed by Europeans made a mark in the country itself. This was largely the result of efforts made by Christian missionaries, who established a presence in Burma even before the British colonialists. Strictly speaking, religious compositions do not fall into the category of ‘popular’ music, but such was the outpouring of both original and translated hymns during this period and the early 20th century, that they cannot be ignored in a survey of this kind. Before the turn of the century, secular music specifically related to Burma was much less common. However, as the country became more familiar to Europeans and Americans, and was host to various military units, it gradually began to feature in popular songs and to be mentioned in stage productions of different kinds.

Religious music During the 19th century, religious music in the West was evolving and challenging established practices. Before then, music had played a large role in Christian services, with psalms and a range of other works sung by clergymen and church choirs, but active participation by members of the congregation was rare. By 1800, hymns were becoming common in various Dissenting churches, including the Congregationalists, Baptists, Methodists and Presbyterians. They were even being sung in some progressive Anglican parishes. However, the practice was still officially frowned upon by the Church of England authorities who only permitted non-metrical psalm chanting or the singing of metrical psalms.1 The church hierarchy was deeply troubled by what it considered to be the ‘manifestation of an unhealthy non-conformist “enthusiasm” or “fanaticism”’.2 The organised singing of religious songs in church by lay Anglicans only became established practice after the evangelical revival of the 1820s and 1830s. As if to make up for lost time, it was then embraced with enthusiasm, and by the 1860s hymns were an established part of religious services, at home and abroad.

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As both clergymen and other believers began to express their religious feelings through this new medium, the number of hymns soared. An estimated 400,000 original and translated works were written between 1837 and 1901.3 Also, most denominations compiled their own hymn books. For example, in 1861 Hymns Ancient and Modern was published, containing 273 songs drawn mainly from earlier Anglican collections. This book was astonishingly successful, selling over 4.5 million copies in its first seven years.4 As Jeffrey Richards has written, hymns soon became as much a part of the imaginative inner life of English-speaking peoples as any other musical form.5 Occasionally, Burma was mentioned in hymns composed for church services and evangelical activities. For example, Baptist missionaries leaving the US for Burma were sometimes farewelled with songs taken from The Psalmist, a popular and influential hymnal compiled by the American theologian Samuel Smith in 1843.6 While these works were usually of a general nature, there were occasionally specific references to ‘the barb’rous nation’ of Burma. For example, a hymn composed in 1818 by Thomas Baldwin and entitled ‘The Parting Scene’ read in part: See that youth with arms entwining, Hanging on her mother’s breast, Tears, and grief, and love combining, Still she cries, though much distress’d, ‘Go, my brother! Go! and make the Burman’s blest’ … [sic] While the gospel trump you’re sounding, May the Spirit seal the word; And thro’ sov’reign grace abounding, Burmans bow and own the Lord; Gaudma leaving, God alone shall be ador’d.7 Another farewell hymn composed with Burma (among other places) in mind was ‘The Christian’s Hope’. It was written by Amos Sutton, an English General Baptist missionary based at Orissa in India, during a visit he made to the UK in 1833. His trip home probably influenced his choice of accompanying music, which was the traditional folk tune used for Robert Burns’ 1788 poem ‘Auld Lang Syne’. One verse of the hymn went: From Burmah’s shores, from Afric’s strand, From India’s burning plain, From Europe, from Columbia’s land, We hope to meet again. It is the hope, the blissful hope, Which Jesus’ grace has given, The hope when days and years are passed, We all shall meet in heaven.8

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The hymn was very popular and a number of variations appeared over the years. Those published after 1850 do not always mention ‘Burmah’. However, the version containing the above lines was sung at several missionary meetings in the US during a visit there by Sutton in 1835. It was probably also sung by congregations in India and Burma, using Sutton’s own 1840 collection, Hymns Especially Designed for Divine Worship, which was reputed to be the first Protestant hymnal to be published in India.9 Possibly inspired by Sutton, the popular American poet and hymnist Lydia Sigourney, known as ‘the Sweet Singer of Hartford’, wrote a work in 1836 entitled ‘Parting Hymn of Missionaries to Burmah’. One verse summed up the prevailing mood: Brothers! Sisters! More than ever Seem our clinging heart-strings twin’d, As that hallow’d bond we sever, Which the hand of Nature join’d. But the cry of pagan anguish Thro’ our inmost hearts doth sound, Countless souls in misery languish We would haste to heal their wound. The last verse began: Burmah! We would soothe thy weeping, Take us to thy sultry breast, Where thy sainted dust is sleeping, Let us share a kindred rest.10 The efforts of pioneering Baptist missionary Adoniram Judson, who went to Burma in 1813, and later arrivals in the country, received considerable publicity back in the US. They inspired the ‘Burman Mission Hymn’, composed in 1836 by Lowell Mason to words by someone identified only as ‘W.C.R.’. It was dedicated to the American Baptist Board of Foreign Missions and set the scene in unequivocal terms: Shall we to this vast nation The word of life deny The tidings of salvation To sinners doomed to die?11 The hymn also enjoined all Baptist missionaries to ‘banish the gloom of heathen night’.12 It continued: From dark benighted Burmah, Where superstition reigns, There comes a plaintive murmur

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Burma and Western music before ‘Mandalay’ From souls in slavish chains; ‘Release us, O! release us From errors fatal sway, We long to hear of Jesus, To endless life the way.’13

While probably intended to be sung by Burmese converts, the hymn seems also to have been aimed at bolstering the morale of the missionaries themselves: Soon, soon this mighty nation, These millions of our race, Shall sweetly sing salvation, And praise redeeming grace; Their idols shall be broken, And righteousness prevail, The word that God hath spoken, Shall never, never fail!14 Judson returned to the US on a fund-raising mission in 1845. When this ‘venerated pioneer of American Missions to the East’ embarked for Burma again the following year he was farewelled with a hymn specially composed for the occasion by a Mrs A.M.O. Edmund.15 The first two verses ran: Fare ye well, o friends beloved! Speed ye on your mission high; Give to lands of gloomy error Living truths that never die. Tell, O tell them, Their redemption draweth nigh. Bear abroad the gospel standard, Till its folds triumphant wave, And the hosts of sin and darkness Find forevermore a grave: Till, victorious, Jesus reigns, who died to save.16 One spectator on the dock as Judson’s ship departed later wrote: ‘The voice of prayer, the sounds of music, hallowed by such a scene, who can ever forget?’17 According to Judson’s first wife Ann, the early American Baptist missionaries in Burma confidently predicted that ‘The churches of Jesus will soon supplant these idolatrous monuments, and the chanting of the devotees of Boodh will die away before the Christian hymn of praise’.18 It was some years, however, before Christian hymns became a major part of church services in Burma.

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In her book An Account of the American Baptist Mission to the Burman Empire, written in 1823, Ann Judson was rather dismissive of Burmese music and musical practices: When Burmans make offerings to the pagodas, they make a great noise with drums and musical instruments, that others may see how good they are.19 Another Baptist missionary was a little more considered, albeit still rather condescending, when he reported after a visit to Burma in 1836 that: The people may be said to be addicted to music, though few are skilful in producing it. The common street music is horrible; but among the great men I found several performers, who showed not only great skill but genuine taste.20 More to the point, the overwhelming majority of the population was Buddhist and they strongly resisted the idea of communal hymn singing. To them, ‘singing was not only foreign to all proper ideas of worship, but was one of those things interdicted by religious law and custom. It was intimately associated with theatrical performances’.21 Indeed, the seventh of the standard 10 Theravada Buddhist precepts, adopted by devout practitioners and all members of the sangha, or Buddhist monkhood, asserted that one should refrain from dancing, singing, music and the theatre.22 There were chants, accompanied by brass or wooden gongs, but there were no religious songs as such in either Pali or the vernacular languages.23 Despite these concerns, Adoniram Judson, his family and colleagues persisted in their efforts to engage the locals in sacred song. Judson wrote the first Christian hymn in the Burmese language in the early 1820s. It was entitled ‘Shwe pyi kaungin sonlo gyinle’, which acknowledged Burma’s claim to be the fabled ‘Golden Land’.24 The music was composed by fellow Baptist missionary Jonathan Wade, who arrived in Burma in 1823. While Judson tried to embody unspecified ‘Burman ideas of poetry’ in his work, the hymn essentially conformed to Western notions of melody and versification.25 It has been translated as: We shall taste the bliss of Heaven; We shall see the Saviour’s face, And in gladness without leaven Praise the riches of His grace. He will free us from all sorrow, Pain, old age, and death efface; There no anxious, dread tomorrow; Praise the riches of His grace!

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Burma and Western music before ‘Mandalay’ From the fount of love o’erflowing We shall drink and gladly face All His mercy here past knowing, Praise the riches of His grace. Radiant, sparkling, rainbow vieing We shall shine as sun in space, Jesus’ glory sharing, joying, Praise the riches of His grace!26

While it took some time to be accepted in Burma, this hymn remained in the Baptist repertoire. There are accounts of it being sung by Burmese Christians at a religious gathering in 1853.27 During his 40-year ministry in Burma, Judson also produced several English-language hymns. One was ‘Our Father, God, Who Art In Heaven’, a version of the Lord’s Prayer which he wrote in 1825, while imprisoned in Ava during the First Anglo-Burmese War. Another was the curiously named ‘Come, Holy Spirit, Dove Divine’, written by Judson around 1829.28 There were also a few baptismal hymns, including ‘Our Saviour Bowed Beneath the Wave’ (c.1829).29 Two of Judson’s hymns were included in James Winchell’s influential collection Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs, published in 1832. Both praised God for ‘sinners slain’.30 Baptist missionaries in Burma looked forward to the ‘glorious day’ when ‘among other heathen nations, Burmah, cruel, avaricious, idolatrous Burmah, will say to Jesus, “What have I any more to do with idols? Come thou, and reign over us”’.31 However, Judson was in Burma for six years before he baptised his first convert. Also, hymn singing remained unpopular and was effectively abandoned by the Baptists until more missionaries, some with better singing voices, arrived from the US in the 1830s. The representatives of other denominations working in Burma faced similar problems. Roman Catholic priests during this period made few references to hymn singing, even by European congregations. Anglican missionaries began to arrive in the country after the British annexation of Lower Burma in 1852.32 Under their guidance, communal hymn singing appears to have been attempted along similar lines to those in the UK, where the practice had by then gained wide acceptance. They were also influenced by church practice in British India, which the Honourable East India Company had opened up to Christian missionaries in 1813.33 The themes found in most of the hymns sung in Burma around this time would have been familiar to congregations in Europe and America. One work was the classic nineteenth century missionary hymn by Reginald Heber entitled ‘From Greenland’s Icy Mountains’. It was composed in 1820 for the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. Baptist missionaries leaving the US for Burma were known to favour this hymn, as it ‘seldom fails to awaken sensibility in relation to the heathen’.34 The first verse read: From Greenland’s icy mountains From India’s coral strand,

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Where Afric’s sunny fountains Roll down their golden sand; From many an ancient river, From many a palmy plain, They call us to deliver Their land from error’s chain.35 Heber was Bishop of Calcutta from 1823–1826, and is widely viewed as the creator of the modern church hymn book. Another work sung in Burma at this time was the missionary hymn ‘Millennial Dawn’, better known as ‘The Morning Light is Breaking’, which was written by Samuel Smith around 1832. It was inspired by an optimistic (if quite unrealistic) report sent by Adoniram Judson from Burma to the US in 1829.36 The morning light is breaking! The darkness disappears; The sons of earth are waking To penitential tears.37 The hymn was sung to various tunes, before irrevocably attaching itself to George Webb’s music for the popular parlour song ‘Tis Dawn, the Lark is Singing’ (1837). It was popular both at home and abroad, and was said to have ‘gone further and been more frequently sung than any other missionary hymn’.38 The story is told that around 1882 Samuel Smith went to Burma to see his son, who had gone there as a Baptist missionary in 1863. The elder Smith was able to hear his hymn sung by local converts in their own language. When the Burmese congregation heard that he was its author, they spontaneously broke into applause.39 Other hymns popular in Burma around this time were Thomas Baldwin’s classic ‘From Whence Doth This Union Arise’ (1793), Reginald Heber’s ‘Holy, Holy, Holy’, written in 1826, George Duffield’s ‘Stand up! Stand up for Jesus’ (1858) and ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’ (1871), with words by Sabine Baring-Gould and the tune by the renowned British musician Arthur Sullivan (of ‘Gilbert and Sullivan’ fame). All these songs were standards at UK and US church services and other religious meetings.40 A favourite of both military bands and church organists in Burma was ‘The Day Thou Gavest Lord, Is Ended’. It was written in 1870 by the Cheshire vicar John Ellerton, who was a co-editor of Hymns Ancient and Modern. It included the verse: As o’er each continent and island The dawn leads on another day, The voice of prayer is never silent Nor dies the strain of praise away.41

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‘Often labelled an “evening hymn”, it was originally intended as a missionary hymn, with imperial echoes in its text.’42 It was perhaps for this reason that Queen Victoria selected it for her Diamond Jubilee service. The official hymn composed for the occasion was the triumphalist ‘Oh King of Kings’, written by William Walsham How, the Bishop of Wakefield. It was set to music by the then Sir Arthur Sullivan. On Sunday, 20 June 1897, the hymn was sung in thousands of churches across the British Empire, including Burma, ‘Where England’s flag flies wide unfurled’.43 Just as an aside, in his book From Edinburgh to India and Burma, the Scottish explorer, travel writer and painter William Gordon Burn Murdock repeated a story that he had heard to the effect that Arthur Sullivan (who died in 1900) had once gone to Burma. According to Murdock’s informant, who was not identified, Sullivan paid a visit to the revered Mahamuni (or Arakan) Pagoda in Mandalay, where he took a close interest in some traditional harp music being played there, to the point of taking extensive notes.44 If this was in fact the case, it prompts speculation about the possible influence of the visit on Sullivan’s later work, which, in addition to 72 hymns, included numerous operettas, choral works, chamber pieces and items of incidental music. Sullivan was not immune to foreign influences. He had taken a close interest in Arabic music during a visit to Egypt in 1882, for example, and this had inspired some of his later works, notably the opera Rose of Persia (1899).45 Murdock’s story about a visit by Sullivan to Burma cannot be confirmed and, on balance, is unlikely to be true. This does not rule out the possibility, however, that Sullivan knew something about Burmese music. Another hymn worth a brief mention is ‘Rangoon’ (1900). The music was written by the Irish composer and music teacher Charles Wood, one of whose pupils was Ralph Vaughan Williams. The words were provided by the Scottish Episcopalian, Arnold Brooks. The hymn was created at the request of the Reverend E.C. Dawson, editor of the Edinburgh-based Foreign Mission Chronicle, and was published in that magazine in 1900. A slightly altered form of the hymn was included in Hymns Ancient and Modern in 1904. It began: Trumpet of God, sound high, Till the hearts of the heathen shake, And the souls that in slumber lie At the voice of the Lord awake. Till the fenced cities fall At the blast of the Gospel call, Trumpet of God, sound high!46 Apart from the title, which was sometimes replaced by the first line, the hymn did not specifically refer to Burma. However, it was clearly meant to be a vigorous call to arms for foreign missionaries in that part of the world.

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Some hymns had more of a local flavour. One rather wistful song employed by American Baptist missionaries in Ceylon at the time was doubtless well known to their counterparts in Burma, where converts were equally difficult to find:47 Buddha’s shrines are fast-forsaken, Crumbles many an Idol fane! Slumb’rers have begun to waken And to find all refuge vain; Demon worship And the Crescent soon must wane. But though superstition, wasting Melts like morning mist away, Still we mourn how few are hasting To the light of gospel day; Still too many Wand’rers are and go astray!48 Those few ethnic Burmans who converted to Christianity faced the opposition of influential pongyis (Buddhist monks) as well as the hostility of a deeply suspicious and predominantly Buddhist community. This prompted the following verses, included in a Burmese language hymn written by Judson’s second wife Sarah: When, like torrents, swiftly rushing, Foes arise in every place, Mocking, persecuting, crushing, Oh, defend us, God of grace! When the friends, that used to cherish, Drive us from our homes so dear, Parents send us forth to perish, Then, O God of Love, be near!49 Sarah Judson’s death during a sea voyage back to the US with her husband in 1845 inspired a hymn entitled ‘The Burial of Mrs Judson’, with words by Henry Washburn and music by Lyman Heath. It was adopted by both Baptists and Seventh Day Adventists, and was included in several hymn books published later that century. It was even released as sheet music in 1846 and for a period was a popular parlour song in the US.50 For completeness of the record, it is also worth noting that between 1887 and 1900 three American hymnals listed nine hymns between them that were meant to be sung to the tune ‘Burmah’, in ‘common metre (8.6.8.6)’. The composer is given simply as ‘Anonymous’. The hymnals included the Congregational Church Hymnal of 1887, the Baptist

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Church Hymnal of 1900 and the Congregational Hymnary of 1916. The hymns listed for use with this tune encompassed a wide historical period, and their authors came from a number of Dissenting churches, including the Methodists, Baptists and Quakers. The hymns included ‘Forever Here My Rest Shall Be’ (1740) by Charles Wesley, ‘God Moves in a Mysterious Way’ (1774) by William Cowper, ‘Beneath the Shadow of the Cross’ (1848) by William Longfellow and ‘All As God Wills, Who Wisely Heeds’ (1864) by John Whittier. Little else about this last tune is known, but it is assumed that it bore some relation to the country then widely known as ‘Burmah’. One possibility is that it was composed by a missionary posted there. Also, around 1909, the American church musician Thomas Mosley composed a hymn entitled ‘Burma L.M’. The title and provenance of this hymn too are something of a mystery. In musical parlance, ‘L.M.’ usually stands for ‘long metre’, or sometimes ‘loud music’. The work employed lyrics that seem to have been written by the 18th century Dissenting clergyman Philip Doddridge, but they bear no direct relation to Burma itself: To thee may each united house Morning and night present its vows; Our servants there, and rising race, Be taught Thy precepts and Thy grace.51 The hymn was included in a collection published in 1938 under the name Crimson Glory, but it was clearly distributed before then. One organisation believed to have adopted this hymn was the Presbyterian Indo-Burma Pioneer Mission, which, after 1929, worked with Christian converts along the India-Burma border. Little else about it is known. One explanation for these mysteries may be simply that Burma was becoming better known as a target for Christian proselytisation and, as missionary efforts expanded, the country inspired hymn writers and composers back in the UK and US. As the years passed, the Roman Catholic, Baptist and Anglican missionaries established in Burma were joined by Methodists and Lutherans. They were followed in turn by Presbyterians and others. The first Salvation Army missionaries arrived in 1915. For all their efforts, converts from Buddhism remained rare. However, among the predominantly animist ‘hill tribes’ living around Burma’s periphery and in the Irrawaddy Delta, Christianity took a firm hold. By 1852, the Baptists alone could count 16,000 ethnic Karen converts.52 After the fall of Mandalay in 1885, Western and converted Burmese missionaries were also active among the Chin, Kachin and Shan peoples, who were concentrated in Burma’s west, north and northeast respectively.53 The animists among these ethnic groups did not feel any qualms about communal singing and hymns quickly became an established and accepted

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part of their religious services.54 As early as 1839 one Baptist missionary could write to a family member back home in the US: Sabbath morning … Now they are singing. It does sound sweet to my ear, a Christian congregation in a heathen land, singing the praises of the living and true God.55 The way that Christian missionaries in Burma approached religious music during the colonial period, however, was not static. To a surprising degree, given the conservatism of many missionary organisations back in the UK and US, it evolved to meet local circumstances. There were also some differences in approach between denominations, and between target groups. At first, most hymns imported from the UK and US paid little heed to local culture and customs. Indeed, for many years, ‘native’ populations in places like Burma were widely portrayed either as ignorant savages or as wicked sinners waiting to be rescued. Without any conscious sense of irony, Christian missionaries stood before wooden crucifixes and stone crosses and sang Reginald Heber’s memorable lines: In vain with lavish kindness The gifts of God are strown, The heathen, in his blindness, Bows down to wood and stone.56 That said, many missionaries made an effort to understand – if not endorse – Burmese society and culture. Indeed, missionaries from all denominations soon came to realise that progress in spreading the Christian word and attracting converts depended on making certain accommodations to local circumstances. The Baptists were early advocates of this approach. ‘Learning the Burmese language and being immersed in Burman culture were critical components in providing a contextually appropriate Christian witness. The Judsons eventually excelled at both’.57 Foremost among these demands was the need to offer prayers and hymns in the native languages, leading to the composition of hundreds of new musical works. By the mid-19th century, many of the hymns being sung in Burma were translations or adaptions of works found in Europe and the US. There were also a large number of original compositions, written in the local languages. For example, before her death at Moulmein in 1843, the Baptist Caroline Simons wrote 22 hymns, which were reputed to be the best in the Burmese language.58 James Haswell, who served in Burma from 1859 to his death in 1877, contributed another 19 hymns to the collection. As a fluent Burmese speaker, he was able to give his works ‘much of the sonorous, stately movement which characterises the religious language of the people’.59 Harriet Phinney wrote more than 40 hymns and songs, which were published in

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1932 as Hymns of the Heavenly Way.60 She also adapted many Englishlanguage works. After her death in 1938, an obituary published in the US stated that ‘Many fine translations of old hymns in the Burmese Hymn Book much valued by the Burmans, are the product of her pen’.61 An important factor in the spread of religious music in Burma was the American Baptist Mission Press (ABMP), which was established in Rangoon in 1816 by George Hough, a trained printer. Operations were interrupted by the First Anglo-Burmese War, but in 1830 the press was re-established by Cephas Bennett in Moulmein, which was the headquarters of the new British colonial administration.62 In 1843, the ABMP launched the first Burmese language newspaper, called the Dhamma Thadinsa, or Religious Herald. It was issued monthly.63 From 1837 to 1855, a second press was operated by the Karen Baptist Mission at Tavoy, but after the Second Anglo-Burmese War all printing operations were consolidated and moved to Rangoon. Until 1870, the ABMP ‘was responsible for nearly all book printing in Burma’.64 Even after that date, it remained a leader in the field. In 1904, it moved into a large building in central Rangoon, from whence it undertook a wide range of religious, educational and commercial printing projects. In 1910, it was described as ‘one of the best equipped mission presses in the world’.65 By the turn of the century, the ABMP had produced 181 religious titles, including a number of hymn books.66 Also, copies of individual hymns were printed as broadsheets and distributed to congregations and members of the public. These were for all denominations.67 For example, a volume of songs by the American gospel singer and composer Ira D. Sankey, popularly known as ‘The Sweet Singer of Methodism’, was translated into Burmese and published by the ABMP in 1886.68 In later years, both the American Baptist and American Methodist Episcopal missions used a collection of hymns in Burmese jointly edited by Frank Phinney and B.M. Jones, entitled Hymns of Praise.69 Baptist missionaries also wrote or translated a large number of hymns in the ‘Peguan’ (Mon), Sgaw Karen, Pyo Karen and Shan languages. For example, one hymn book in Sgaw Karen first compiled in the mid-1880s contained 442 hymns.70 Another collection contained 87 hymns written in Shan. Hymns were later translated into the languages of the Chin and Kachin peoples. The ABMP also printed the Wesleyan Methodist Church and School Hymn Book in 1915.71 To the Methodists, hymn singing was important, and went beyond religious ritual. As Michael Leigh has written, ‘Many a missionary ambition had been fired by stirring hymns in the old Methodist Hymn Book – hymns with imperialist undertones that conflated patriotic duty with Christian devotion. The words conjured images of “alien lands afar”’.72 A Methodist hymn well known to Baptists in Burma was Charles Wesley’s 1749 work ‘See, Jesus, Thy disciples see’.73 Another Methodist hymn translated into Burmese was ‘Jesus Loves Me, This I Know / For the Bible Tells Me So’, written by Anna Warner and William Bradbury in 1862.74 The first Seventh Day Adventist church in Burma was organised in 1907,

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and later produced a volume of hymns translated into Burmese.75 After the arrival of Salvation Army missionaries in 1915, the ABMP produced a collection of hymns in Burmese entitled Salvation Army Songs.76 The Salvation Army also produced a 125-page songbook in the Karen language.77 Roman Catholic priests had been active in Burma since the 17th century. They ministered mainly to the small European and Eurasian communities, largely to avoid alienating local Buddhists and provoking the authorities. As opportunities permitted, however, they conducted missionary work among the wider population. They do not seem to have placed as high a priority on communal hymn singing as their later Protestant counterparts, but from an early date church music played an important role in efforts to convert and educate the Burmese population.78 Catholic prayer books had been printed in Burmese by the Press of the Propaganda de Fide in Rome as early as 1776, but it was not until the 19th century, when they set up a small printing press in Moulmein, that Catholic missionaries began producing local language hymn books.79 The press later moved to Rangoon, probably after the British declared the town the capital of Lower Burma in 1852. Nor should the English-language speaking community be forgotten. In 1901, there were 18,334 Europeans and Eurasians in Burma, 8,875 of who claimed to be Anglicans.80 Most sang from the pews but some were recruited for church choirs,81 and occasionally they were assisted by children from local mission schools.82 They used hymnals that were common in the UK and other colonial possessions, notably India. One was Hymns Ancient and Modern, which was continually being revised and reissued.83 More Anglo-Catholic parishes seem to have favoured the 1906 English Hymnal, which claimed to be ‘a collection of the best hymns in the English language’. It was offered to ‘all broad-minded men’ on the basis that ‘in Christian song Churches have forgotten their quarrels and men have lost their limitations’.84 The section entitled ‘Home and Foreign Missions’ began with Heber’s hymn ‘From Greenland’s Icy Mountains’. Other works called to the ‘armies of the living God’ to take up their appointed posts ‘where hallowed footsteps never trod’.85 Thanks in part to their directness, and focus on personal themes rather than theological issues like the incarnation and resurrection, gospel songs also tended to be popular. One favourite work among European Christians in Burma was Sacred Songs and Solos and Gospel Hymns (1875) by the celebrated American revivalists Ira Sankey and Dwight Moody, among others.86 During the second half of the 19th century, as missionaries extended their reach in Burma and constructed more substantial churches and schools, they installed bellows (wind driven) pipe organs to provide incidental music and accompany hymns at religious services. Most of these instruments were imported from the UK, but some were shipped from America.87 Those installed in Christian cathedrals in the main population centres like Rangoon and Mandalay were quite substantial.88 It was not lost on the missionaries and colonial officials alike that, even after the Industrial

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Revolution, large pipe organs were notable examples of sophisticated modern technology that, both in terms of size and sound, were likely to impress the local population. During the 1930s, even a few European music lovers, feeling starved of other forms of public entertainment in Burma, attended church services simply to listen to the organ music.89 At other church services, like the one described in Orwell’s Burmese Days, congregations sang hymns to a harmonium or piano.90 Over the years, the humid weather, insect infestations and the high cost of upkeep took their toll on the pipe organs in Burma. Also, during the Second World War Christian churches suffered in other ways. Some were damaged by aerial bombs. The Anglican Holy Trinity Cathedral in Rangoon was used by the Japanese as a brewery. It is widely believed that this cathedral’s pipe organ was destroyed during the war, but it seems to have become unserviceable well before then, as an electric Hammond organ had already been ordered as a replacement. Made in 1935, the Hammond was sent by ship from the US, but did not reach Burma before the outbreak of war, and the country’s occupation by the Japanese. The organ was offloaded in Madras where it was purchased by a local school.91 After the war, a new Hammond organ was installed in the cathedral, where it survived until the 1970s. It would appear that, by then, all the original bellows pipe organs in Burma’s Christian churches had deteriorated to the extent that they were no longer workable, and had been removed.92 They were usually replaced by small electrically driven organs. For example, thanks to a wealthy parishioner, St Mary’s (Roman Catholic) Cathedral in Rangoon now uses a modern Yamaha electronic organ. Music was always an integral part of Salvation Army religious services and proselytising efforts. In India, sometimes to the consternation of the British authorities, this extended to ‘arranging their pious songs in the style of traditional Indian music and playing them with Indian instruments’.93 It is not known if this practice was ever followed by the Salvation Army in Burma. However, given the relatively late arrival of the Salvation Army, and the conservatism of the European community in Burma by that time, it seems unlikely. It became an issue with local Christians after Burma’s Independence in 1948, but there does not appear to have been any inclination during the colonial period to incorporate indigenous Burmese instruments into church services. Indeed, aesthetic tastes aside, traditional music was considered by most missionaries to be part of local ‘pagan’ cultures that was best kept at a distance. For their part, converts in Burma did not oppose the imposition of European music and song ‘if they had accepted, at that time at least, that anything from their religious past was sinful’.94 A glimpse into the role of Western religious music in British Burma is afforded by Anne Carter’s memoir Bewitched by Burma, which describes the life of an Anglican clergyman and his family in Upper Burma during the 1920s. Carter’s aunt played the pipe organ in Mandalay’s Christ Church Cathedral.

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On trips with her brother to minister to British officials and converts in the Shan States, she played hymns ‘on whatever was available, be it a tiny American organ, perhaps, or a harmonium’.95 In the cathedral itself, hymns were a regular part of services. Most were sung in English, such as ‘Thine For Ever’ (1847) by Mary Fawler Maude and ‘O Perfect Love’ (1883) by Dorothy Gurney. However, some hymns were sung in Burmese, to music composed by a Burmese member of the clergy. Others were sung in Tamil, for the benefit of Christians from the local Indian community. Despite this polyglot treatment, in Carter’s view at services ‘the hymns were the great feature, and they really were very fine’.96 Such experiences seem to have been shared by other Christians, in other parts of the province. Hymn singing led to some interesting local practices. For example, Anglican services ‘in the jungle’ (that is, outside the main population centres) around the turn of the century were usually conducted in Burmese.97 The singing was described thus: The hymns used are translations from English ones, and are sung to the ordinary tunes; but it is difficult to prevent the Burmese from slightly modifying the music, especially if it contains semitones, so as to make it correspond to their own ideas.98 As Leigh has noted, in the Lushai Hills Wesleyan hymns were seen by the locals as an opportunity to indulge in uninhibited dancing, to the surprise of any missionaries present.99 With the arrival of hymns in the Chin Hills, four-part singing became popular, and in some cases the religious verses were replaced with secular love lyrics for use in courting.100 Even when Chin Christians lacked hymn books they still found ways to sing: As the people gathered, someone would start a hymn and ‘line out the words’, that is, call out the words line by line in time with the music.101 Kachin converts apparently had a tendency to sing extremely loudly. One Columban Father recalled conducting a Christmas service in the 1930s: The volume was tremendous. If the loudness was any indication of sincerity, the Lord must have been pleased. … The congregation stayed on to sing Christmas hymns. The airs were so familiar, but how strange the words to my ears.102 The Karen in particular gained a reputation for their musical talents. In the opinion of one nineteenth-century visitor to Burma: In musical taste and skill they excel all the other orientals with whom I became acquainted, although their instruments are few and rude. Young and old practise vocal music on all occasions, and the psalmody

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Burma and Western music before ‘Mandalay’ of the disciples is truly delightful. Every word in the language ending in a vowel, renders their versification peculiarly soft.103

The biographer of two American Baptist missionaries wrote in 1891 that ‘While the Burmese had no conception of song, the Karens were noted for it’.104 Charles Campagnac, a prominent Eurasian lawyer who became Mayor of Rangoon during the 1930s, made a similar observation: Another remarkable thing about the Karens is their love of music and their capacity for learning European music. They have beautiful voices and can sing in perfect harmony. It is customary for Karen Christians to sing hymns during their family prayers and I have frequently heard, when passing at eventide through a Karen village, well known hymns being sung in perfect tune by the inmates of the huts.105 Even now, Karen choirs and congregations in Burma have a well-deserved reputation for the quality of their singing, not only of hymns but also other Western-style songs.106 In another use of music, Baptist groups took brass bands with them on visits to rural districts, to attract villagers to religious meetings.107 Such a rosy vision of church music and its redemptive powers was not shared by everyone in Burma at the time. Eric Blair (better known as the author and social commentator George Orwell) was posted to the country between 1922 and 1927, as an officer in the Indian Imperial Police.108 He later wrote a poem in which he was highly critical of the missionaries and their religious songs. He described how he was walking down a street, probably in Mandalay, past a Christian church: Without, the weary doves were calling, The sun burned on the banks of mud; Within, old maids were caterwauling A dismal tale of thorns and blood. I thought of all the church bells ringing In towns that Christian folks were in; I heard the godly maidens singing; I turned into the house of sin … A later verse reads: The days went by like dead leaves falling And parson’s week came around again. Once more devout old maids were bawling Their ugly rhymes of death and pain.109

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Orwell did not dislike religious music as such. Indeed, he confessed to an enjoyment of hymns, which he told a biographer in 1948 that he had ‘always been meaning to write something about’.110 However, Orwell developed an antipathy to organised religion, and not only to Christianity. He also held strong views about the Buddhism that he encountered in Burma.111

Secular music It can be assumed that the secular songs heard in Burma during this early period included the many ballads, traditional airs and shanties that were known to the Britons and other foreigners who lived and worked there. To a large extent, they would have reflected social and cultural developments in the UK, where there was a renewed interest in traditional folk music and the songs of the ‘working classes’. Also, from the 1850s, the popularity of the music halls began to influence the kinds of works heard in the colonies. For example, one popular English ballad known to Britons abroad sang of ‘Jack and Tom’, who were ‘going to seek their fortunes ayont the wide sea / Far, far away frae their oan countrie!’ Unfortunately, ‘Poor Jack, he died on a far foreign shore / And Tom, he was never, never heard of more!’112 Others included such songs as ‘The Lass That Loves a Sailor’, ‘Private Tommy Atkins’, and ‘Here’s to the Grog’.113 One rare composition, which referred specifically to Burma, was ‘General Campbell’, named after Major General Sir Archibald Campbell, the commander of British forces during the First Anglo-Burmese War. Probably written not long after that war ended in 1826, the song began: It was in the month of April, upon the fourteenth day, This expedition did embark to cross the raging sea; Our fleet being well prepared, our anchors we did weigh, To sail against the Burmese to shew them British play. … We left the roads of Madras upon the sixteenth day; Each man being well prepared, and eager for the fray, Our squadron form’d a brilliant line to shew a grand half-moon With British colours flying, we sailed against Rangoon. After nine verses, the song finished with a flourish: Now Rangoon we have taken, let us drink unto our king; May all his loyal subjects fresh laurels to him bring, Likewise to General Campbell, who commanded on that day, And pull’d their saucy peacock down, on the eleventh day of May.114 The song (sometimes described as a shanty) was jointly published as a broadside with ‘William and Nancy’s Parting’, probably around 1827. The

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latter ballad, which was made famous many years later by John Wesley Harding, called on ‘all you pretty maidens / That ‘have a mind to go, / Along with your true love, / To face your daring foe’.115 The original tunes of both songs appear to have been lost. In a different vein was a song composed in 1845 by John Baker, for words of unknown authorship. Entitled ‘The Burman Lover’ and made famous by a family group known as ‘The Bakers of New Hampshire’, it demonstrated little familiarity with Burma but suggests that the country was becoming better known in the US. Oh! come with me in my little canoe, Where the sea is calm and the sky is blue, Oh! come with me for I long to go To isles where the mango apples grow.116 For his lover, the singer promised to rove ‘the jungle depths’, bind the tiger’s cub with a chain, and ‘pierce the cocoa’s cup for its wine’.117 The song was given a fresh arrangement by Louis Tripp in 1853.118 Also, a famous American vocalist of the time, Ossian Dodge, wrote another tune for these words, and called it ‘Ossian’s Serenade’. Arranged for the guitar, the latter song became popular during the American Civil War (1861–1865).119 Not all the songs composed by Western missionaries in Burma were religious in nature. One, entitled ‘A Mound is in the Graveyard’ or ‘The Missionary Mother’s Lament’, was written by Adoniram Judson’s third wife, Emily, who before her marriage in 1846 and travel to Burma was a literary figure of some note in the US.120 The song was written in 1851 for a missionary friend, on the death of her 13-month-old boy. After three verses sympathising with the mother’s loss, it proclaimed that the child ‘has put on robes of glory … and he fingers golden harp-strings’.121 The song was clearly written from the heart, Emily Judson having lost a son in similar circumstances only the year before. Another Burma-related piece produced during this early period was ‘The Maid of Mandalay; or Nam Le Voo’ composed in 1896 by the British traveller John MacGregor. As he recounted in his book Through the Buffer State, he wrote the song for publication in the newly created Mandalay Herald newspaper. Its main aim was to wean Burmese women and children from the unsightly practice, remarked upon by Rudyard Kipling a few years earlier, of smoking a ‘whackin’ white cheroot’:122 Oh, darling dear, I wish you would Throw that cheroot far out of view, It surely cannot do you good, And ill becomes your beauty too; But all she said was: Nam le voo. …

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Your slender fingers might entwine Some fairer ware than what they do, Or might be even clasped in mine, If that cigar afar you threw; But all she said was: Nam le voo. … Oh, maiden mine, so fresh and fair, With laughing eyes so bright and blue, And lovely locks of raven hair, Your mouth is like a chimney flue; But all she said was: Nam le voo.123 This theme was pursued for 13 verses. ‘Nam le voo’ was MacGregor’s transliteration of na me lei bu, the Burmese for ‘I do not understand you’, which he claimed were ‘the very first words that a stranger learns after landing in the country’.124 While MacGregor described his work as a song, it does not appear ever to have been put to music. Most of the Europeans who went to Burma during this period were not missionaries, civil servants or tourists, but soldiers and sailors of the conquering British and Indian armed forces.125 By the beginning of the 19th  century, most line regiments had recruited or trained bands, which were  usually supported by a levy on the officers.126 They played at ceremonies, on marches, on social occasions and, if some contemporary accounts are true, even during a few battles.127 ‘Bands also played when the troops moved through inhabited areas, to sustain the loyal and cow the disaffected, actual or potential’.128 At a different level, servicemen drew on a rich inventory of songs deriving from the oral sub-culture of the professional armed forces. They rarely relied on published sources, but passed them on by word of mouth and hand-written copies of lyrics. Most made use of simple, well-known tunes that could be remembered easily and did not require any great skill to reproduce.129 Some, like sea shanties, were originally work songs, but most were intended for recreational use and to express emotions of different kinds about service life. As Lewis Winstock has described in his exhaustively researched book Songs and Music of the Redcoats, during the Victorian era this repertoire received injections of fresh material from conflicts such as the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815), the Crimean War (1853–1856), the Indian Mutiny (1857), the Anglo-Zulu War (1879), the First Boer War (1880–1881) and the Second Boer War (1899–1902). There were also numerous ‘small wars’, counter-insurgency campaigns and ‘police actions’ waged in British possessions, including Burma and India proper. Indeed, despite covering almost the entire period known as the ‘Pax Britannica’, there was scarcely a year in Queen Victoria’s long reign when British military forces were not fighting somewhere in the world. That activity was reflected in the songs sung by servicemen rotated through Burma and the tunes played by military musicians

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who were posted there. In addition, the three Anglo-Burmese Wars themselves generated a number of new compositions. In 1824, the force invading Burma was made up mainly of British Army units and others from the army of the Honourable East India Company, which controlled India at the time. All were accompanied by musicians, if not bands. For example, before embarking for Burma the Madras European Regiment marched to the quay ‘with the drum and fife at their head, playing “The British Grenadiers”’ (1706?), which was unofficially regarded as the march of the British Army.130 According to Frederick Doveton of the same unit, at different times during the Burma campaign military bands played regimental airs.131 In addition to ‘The British Grenadiers’, these included ‘Blue Bonnets over the Border’ (1745?), ‘Over the Hills and Far Away’ (1706?) ‘and others of this stamp, mostly set to a quick step, together with the favourite marches of the several royal regiments that from time to time had served in India’.132 Among the latter was the 13th (1st Somersetshire) Light Infantry, which later adopted ‘Prince Albert’s March’ (1843?), and the 41st Regiment of Foot (the ‘Welsh Regiment’), whose march was ‘Ap Shenkin’ (1808). Doveton noted that military music did not flourish in India (and by implication Burma), although ‘bands, there are of course, in abundance’.133 Bandsmen were constantly being posted away, getting ill or dying. It was difficult to find suitable replacements from among the locals, who were deemed ‘slow in adapting their ear to European strains’. Doveton also suggested that ‘they seem not to possess that strength of lungs necessary for filling our wind instruments’.134 Similar complaints were heard from other British soldiers and officials, few of whom had much time for traditional Indian and Burmese music. One ventured the opinion that ‘The Indian affects the tom-tom and the squeaking Indian fife, a predilection which may possibly account for the origin of Asiatic cholera’.135 Thomas Trant anticipated the views of many colonialists when he wrote in 1827 that Burmese music was ‘very discordant, although occasionally a few rather pleasing notes might be distinguished’.136 ‘Real music’ was considered to be ‘too refined and complicated for nerves accustomed throughout generations to coarser measures in harmony’.137 This appears to be why an effort was made to recruit military bandsmen in Burma and India proper who were Europeans or of European descent.138 During the First Anglo-Burmese War, diseases like malaria and cholera proved more deadly than the Burmese defenders.139 This problem also complicated later campaigns in Burma and, as suggested by Kipling’s 1896 poem ‘Cholera Camp’, continued to trouble the colonial authorities well into the 20th century.140 It gave added significance to the so-called ‘Calcutta Cholera Song’, which was composed by a member of the Bengal Civil Service named William Thompson in 1835: Betrayed by the country that bore us, Betrayed by the country we find, All the best men have gone before us

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And only the dull left behind. Stand to your glasses steady This world is full of lies, Here’s a toast to the dead already And here’s to the next man to die.141 There are several versions of this song, published under different names, including ‘Stand to Your Glasses’, ‘A World Full Of Lies’ and ‘Here’s To The Last To Die’. Another is ‘The Revel’, with words adapted by the Irish poet Bartholomew Dowling.142 At least one version was well known to the soldiers and sailors deployed to Burma. It was popular not just because of its relevance to the risks posed by disease but also because it could be applied to the other hazards of active military service. As Winstock has noted, there is little reference to music during the Second Anglo-Burmese war, fought in 1852.143 However, in his account of the campaign William Laurie of the Madras Artillery noted that, on the voyage to Burma from India, the officers enjoyed ‘a good evening’s entertainment from the men, in the way of singing and dancing’.144 When the British fleet arrived at the Burmese port city of Martaban, on the Salween River, two tunes were played, the Irish folk song ‘St Patrick’s Day’ and ‘The British Bayoneteers’. Both were regimental marches. The latter probably dates back to the War of 1812 and is played to the same music as ‘The British Grenadiers’. According to Laurie, ‘this music on the waters had fine effect’.145 When the Governor-General of India, Lord Amherst, arrived in Burma after the fighting was over he was met by a guard of honour which included the band of the 18th Royal Irish Regiment of Foot, whose signature tune was the 18th century air ‘Garryowen’. During the Governor-General’s tour of inspection, other regimental bands played.146 As Laurie noted, the tour provided a ‘temporary relief from our rather monotonous life at Rangoon. Music too, welcome music, was now to be heard’.147 During the Third Anglo-Burmese War in 1885, the army units deployed were once again accompanied by their bands. In a show of strength, they played as the invading forces marched into Mandalay to demand King Thibaw’s surrender.148 By this stage, regimental bands were more regulated and better trained, a result in large part of the opening of a School of Military Music at Kneller Hall in Twickenham, West London, in 1857. Also, in 1883 the War Office in London had introduced a regulation requiring all quicksteps to be registered, in theory at least giving greater structure and formality to the use of music by regimental bands. At the same time, music was recognised as an invaluable factor in maintaining morale. As described by celebrated bandmaster John Mackenzie-Rogan, who was posted to Burma with the Royal West Surrey Regiment (the ‘Queen’s Regiment’) from 1886–1888, the troops which remained after the fall of Mandalay were entertained by bands ‘at every opportunity’. For some units, this was almost nightly.149

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As the Third Anglo-Burmese War lasted barely one month, it was too short to generate any new songs and tunes. However, the band of the Queen’s Regiment added a version of the Burmese tune ‘Kayah Than’ to its repertoire. Translated as ‘The Sound of the Trumpet’, and sometimes referred to as Burma’s national anthem, this tune had already been published in the UK. A version recorded by W.G. St Clair was reproduced in Scott’s 1882 book The Burman, with the notation that ‘The tune was originally composed to the words of a song in honour of the accession of King Thibaw, but words on all manner of subjects have been written to it since’.150 Mackenzie-Rogan arranged it for military bands. In 1900, this ‘national air’ was included in a medley for brass band composed by Jacob Kappey, entitled ‘Under the British Flag: Fantasia on Songs and Dances of Great Britain and Her Colonies’.151 It included extracts from works representing the UK, Canada, Hong Kong, Burma, East India, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. In 1929, Mackenzie-Rogan did something very similar, weaving ‘Kayah Than’ into a ‘Grand Patriotic Fantasia’, which incorporated tunes and themes representing 13 constituent parts of the Empire. It was performed at the 1931 Festival of Empire and Remembrance in London.152 While he was still posted to Burma, Mackenzie-Rogan also noted down and adapted some other traditional airs. They remain unidentified, but one of them may have been a work mentioned by Winstock in his book.153 Even before Kipling wrote his famous ballad, the British soldiers occupying Burma appear to have made an impression on some Burmese girls, as another local song learnt by the troops at the time was ‘Tekien, tekien me me no songolah’. This has been translated by Winstock as ‘My benefactor why are you leaving?’, but this title bears little relation to the actual Burmese (as far as it can be deciphered). ‘Master, master, don’t forget me, will we meet again’ is probably closer to the song’s original title.154 For obvious reasons, a favourite song of British soldiers posted abroad during this period was ‘Over the Hills and Far Away’ (1706?). One of the best-known versions was popular during the American War of Independence, and included the lines: Over the hills and o’er the Main, To Flanders, Portugal and Spain, The queen/king commands and we’ll obey And go over the Hills and far away.155 Other popular songs of the time were Robbie Burns’ ‘John Barleycorn’ (1782), ‘The Rakes of Mallow’ (1780s), ‘Men of Harlech’ (1830?) and ‘Love Farewell’. The latter was a stirring call to arms which began: Hark! I hear the Colonel crying ‘March, brave boys, there’s no denying, Colours flying, drums are beating

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March, brave boys, there’s no retreating!’ Love, farewell. The original version of this song was probably written during the Peninsula War (1807–1814).156 Two other favourites mentioned in Mackenzie-Rogan’s memoirs had a nautical flavour. They were ‘Sailing’ (1880) by Godfrey Marks and ‘Our Jack’s Come Home Today’ (1883?) by W.J. Devers. A number of military units posted to Burma before and after the fall of Mandalay began their lives as regiments of the Honourable East India Company. They were absorbed into the royal army in 1861, following the British government’s formal takeover of India in the wake of the Indian Mutiny. Some of these regiments had not only adopted European marches but also tunes that reflected their Indian backgrounds. The Royal Munster Fusiliers, for example, formerly the Bengal (European) Fusiliers, had taken ‘Won’t You Come Home to Bom-Bombay’ as one of its quicksteps.157 Despite enquiries to the unit’s historians and the National Army Museum in London, it has not been possible to track down a copy of this work, or to discover if it had any lyrics. The similarity to the song ‘Won’t You Come Back to Bombombay’, made popular by the Edwardian-era music hall performer Victoria Monks, appears to be coincidental.158 Throughout this period, all Scottish (‘kilted’) regiments posted to Burma had pipe bands, which played traditional marches, strathspeys, jigs and reels. Many of these works would be familiar to audiences today. They included the popular Highland tune ‘Cabar Feidh’ (1715?), the quickstep ‘Baile Inneraora’ or ‘The Campbells Are Coming’ (1715?) and Robbie Burns’ air (played as a march) ‘Scots Wha Hae (Wi Wallace Bled)’ (1793). One new work which appears to have been written around this time was ‘The 1st Burma Rifles’ Quickstep’ (1892?). Little is known about this march, but it was probably written by Alexander McLeod of the 26th Camerons, who died in 1903.159 Around 1906, it was included in David Glen’s comprehensive collection of music for the Great Highland bagpipe.160 Confusingly, the 1st Burma Rifles was not formed as a discrete unit of the Indian Army until 1917. However, the regiment took the name of an unrelated earlier unit, the 10th Regiment (1st Burma Rifles) Madras Infantry (later known as the 10th Gurkha Rifles), which was formed in Maymyo (now Pyin Oo Lwin) in 1892. It was most likely for this earlier unit that McLeod wrote his march. Among the troops used to hunt down dacoits and resistance fighters in Burma after the fall of Mandalay was a member of the Rifle Brigade named D. May. This soldier volunteered for the newly formed Mounted Infantry.161 He subsequently described his experiences in a song, which deserves quoting in full: I crave your notice for a time, pray listen to my song, It is about the gallant corps to which we now belong.

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Burma and Western music before ‘Mandalay’ We had to serve in Burma for months, it might have been years, They dished us out with breeches, coats, bandooks and bandoliers. Then come along my hearties, together we will ride, Together we will conquer, together we will die. We ride o’er hills, we ride o’er vales, We have no foolish fear. For free from care are those who bear Bandooks and bandoliers. All mounted upon Burmese tats to the jungles off we go, Some sturdy steeds are found too fast and others far too slow, The friendly villagers depart and quickly run with fear, When they see us ride, and by our side, bandooks and bandoliers. Then come along, etc. The fierce dacoit is a creature strange, his life is doubtless gay, He does no work and spends his time in boozing and in play. When The Mounted scour his jungle haunts he flees away in fear, When the bullet flies and the look-out spies bandooks and bandoliers. Then come along, etc. Now I must bid you all goodnight, I can no longer stay, For fear a runner might come in to summon us away By shouting ‘damiah sheethe!’ It may be far or near, Away we ride and bear with pride bandooks and bandoliers. Then come along, etc.162

‘Bandook’ (or bundook) was soldier’s slang for a rifle, derived from the Hindi term for a gun (originally a musket or matchlock). A ‘tat’, short for tattoo, is a native-bred pony. ‘Damiah sheethe’ (or, more accurately, damya si de) is a transliteration of the Burmese for ‘there are dacoits’, or ‘dacoits are here’. Perhaps the best-known tune which the British army acquired in India was ‘Zachmi dil’ (sometimes written as ‘Zakh Midil’), or ‘The Wounded Heart’, a Pathan song of homosexual love. It began: There’s a boy across the river, With a bottom like a peach, But alas – I cannot swim.163 The work dates from the Second Anglo-Afghan War (1870–1880) and was first arranged for military bands by John Mackenzie-Rogan.164 It was adopted by several units in both the British and Indian armies as their regimental quick step, and was played by both brass and pipe bands. One was

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the 8th King’s (Liverpool) Regiment, a battalion of which fought in the Third Anglo-Burmese War. In later years, perhaps out of deference to more delicate sensibilities, the tune was usually known under the title ‘The Pathan War March’.165 There was also a rich store of ditties, drinking songs and bawdy ballads sung in military canteens, taverns and brothels across the province.166 Many derived from the home country and earlier military campaigns, but there were others with more of a local provenance. As Winstock notes: Obscene songs were mostly in the Anglo-Indian argot that Kipling occasionally used in his ballads, and the most famous was a minatory epic which described in minute detail the fate of the unwary soldier who ventured too deep into the Indian labyrinths. Its title could be translated, Watch out when you’re in the bazaar.167 The warning related mainly to the dangers of venereal disease (VD), which was a serious problem for the armed forces in India (including Burma) during the 19th century, and beyond. Indeed, according to Philippa Devine, ‘VD rates were higher in the British than in any of the continental European armies, and in 1859 infection rates for British troops in India rose to a staggering 359 per 1,000 of hospital admissions’.168 So serious was the problem that the British authorities established officially sponsored brothels in India and Burma.

Stage shows During this period, Burma also featured in a few stage productions in the UK and US. One by John Amherst entitled The Burmese War: or, Our Victories in the East (also subtitled A Grand Naval and Military Melo-Drama in Three Acts) was written shortly after the 1824–1826 conflict.169 It appears to have followed roughly the same format as Amherst’s earlier, and very popular, military melodrama The Battle of Waterloo (1824). Staged at Astley’s Royal Amphitheatre in London in 1826, The First Burmese War described Burma as ‘a land of treachery’ where even ‘the wind and waves of the Birman land are not to be trusted’.170 The show appears to have included some ‘battle songs’ and incidental music. Generally speaking, however, before the capture of Mandalay there were few references to Burma in popular musical entertainments. One rare exception was Alladin, a ballet staged in Manchester in 1875, which starred the celebrated Menzeli sisters from Germany.171 It featured a ‘processional’ that listed four entrees, one of which was entitled ‘Burmese Birds of Paradise’. The events leading up to the Third Anglo-Burmese War gave Burma a much higher public profile. For example, Deborah Boyer felt that a cartoon in a November 1885 issue of Punch, depicting a woman chasing a purse snatcher, and calling out ‘Man, delay’, showed that ‘knowledge of

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the Upper Burma capital was becoming dispersed’.172 Although it occurred much later, the same claim can be made about the Scottish folk poet William McGonagall’s ‘elevation’ to the rank of ‘Grand Knight of the Holy Order of the White Elephant, Burmah’.173 In any case, after Mandalay fell in December 1885, and the forces there became engaged in a drawn-out counterinsurgency campaign, Burma achieved an even greater degree of public recognition, mainly as a remote and dangerous place where British soldiers could display their courage and loyalty. These developments gave rise to a number of plays and revues, some of which featured musical numbers, apparently with Burmese themes. For example, a five-act ‘comedy drama’ by Robert Buchanan entitled The Blue Bells of Scotland opened at the Novelty Theatre in London in September 1887. It included a ‘Burmah Act’, in which the hero pursued the seducer of his sister (‘a lovely girl of good but decayed family’) to Burma, where the latter’s regiment had been posted.174 The two men fight, but eventually join forces to repel an attack by dacoits.175 As one review stated at the time, the production was ‘not free from disturbing improbabilities’, but generally speaking it was a popular success.176 It included a number of songs, although it is not clear how many – if any – were directly related to Burma. In 1892, the impresario George Edwardes staged a musical called Round the Town at the Empire Theatre of Varieties in London’s Leicester Square. The original score by Leopold Wenzel incorporated a number of ‘familiar and illustrative airs’. Towards the end of the show, the players were shown attending a ballet (at the Empire Theatre, not surprisingly) entitled Daughters of the Empire. This ballet within a ballet featured dancers representing different parts of the empire, one of which was Burma.177 The following year, Edwardes produced The Girl I Left Behind Me, described by the cultural historian Jeffrey Richards as ‘a balletic version of the typical Drury Lane melodrama’: A young gentleman, ruined by gambling on the horses, enlists in a Highland regiment and sails for Burma. There he distinguishes himself in the fighting and wins the Victoria Cross. The girl who loves him, and remained true despite her father’s disapproval and the rejected advances of the villain, is united with him in the wedding finale.178 The ballet included five tableaux, with music by Leopold Wenzel and choreography by Katti Lanner. One tableau was entitled ‘Grand Fete in Burmah’, in which a group of children augmented the corps de ballet.179 The production was heavily criticised by moral crusaders from the National Vigilance Association – known to the local press as ‘Prudes on the Prowl’ – who claimed that the show was staged ‘for the express purpose of displaying the bodies of women to the utmost extent’.180 Burma featured briefly in another of Edwardes’ imperial ballets, in 1902. Entitled Our Crown, the production included two scenes and 12 tableaux.

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One tableau depicted Britain’s colonial possessions contributing resources towards a new crown for King Edward VII, whose coronation took place that year. Burma was called upon by the Spirit of Commerce to provide rubies, a clear reference to the province’s fabled gem mines at Mogok, which had been seized by the British after the Third Anglo-Burmese War.181 There was also a ‘song or two’ in the ambitious melodrama Burmah, written by Augustus Harris and Henry Pettitt. It included a ‘very stirring’ battle scene, in which a small band of British soldiers is attacked by 50 ‘half clad’ ‘dusky warriors’, who herald their approach with ‘weird war songs’.182 The attack is eventually repelled by the soldiers, who enjoy the advantage of superior firepower, so effectively described in Hilaire Belloc’s memorable couplet: Whatever happens we have got The Maxim Gun, and they have not.183 Burmah ran for a year at London’s Drury Lane Theatre (under the title A Life of Pleasure) before crossing the Atlantic. It opened at the Boston Theatre in September 1895 before transferring in January 1896 to the American Theatre, New York. The final scene, set in a cathedral, required a large pipe organ. The play also featured a ‘choir of madrigal boys’.184 It is not known precisely what songs were included in the play, but as only one act out of five was set in Burma, it is unlikely that many compositions were directly related to the country itself. Even counting these theatrical productions (and setting aside the many hymns produced by Christian missionaries and their supporters), popular songs and tunes with specific Burma-related themes during this early period were few and far between. As a rule, the country barely figured in European and American music before 1890, when Burma and its people were thrust into the popular consciousness by Rudyard Kipling’s poem ‘Mandalay’. From that time on, few references could be made to Burma without his ballad consciously or unconsciously being brought to mind.

Notes 1. Tim Dowley, Christian Music: A Global History (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2011), p. 167. 2. Maurice Frost (ed), Historical Companion to Hymns Ancient and Modern (London: William Clowes and Son, 1962), p. 103. 3. Richards, Imperialism and Music, p. 367. 4. Hymns Ancient and Modern (London: Novello and Co., 1861). See also Dowley, Christian Music, p. 170. 5. Richards, Imperialism and Music, p. 367. 6. D.W. Music and P.A. Richardson, ‘I Will Sing the Wondrous Story’: A History of Baptist Hymnody in North America (Macon: Mercer University Press, 2008), p. 210.

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7. Thomas Baldwin, ‘The Parting Scene: Lines written on the sailing of Messrs Wheelock and Colman for India, from Boston, Nov. 16, 1817’, in Daniel Chessman, Memoir of Rev. Thomas Baldwin DD (Boston: True and Greene, 1826), Appendix, pp. 10–12. ‘Gaudma’ was described as ‘the name of the Burman idol’. 8. I.M. Allen, The Triennial Baptist Register, No. 2, Issue 2, 1836 (Philadelphia: Baptist General Tract Society, 1836), p. 48. Sutton is known to have composed over 179 hymns, many in Indian languages. 9. Amos Sutton, Hymns Especially Designed for Divine Worship, Public Social and Private, Selected from Various Authors (Calcutta: Orissa Mission Press, 1840). 10. L.H. Sigourney, ‘Parting Hymn of Missionaries to Burmah’, in Zinzendorff: And Other Poems (New York: Leavitt, Lord and Co., 1836), p. 239. Sigourney also wrote a poem about Baptist missionaries in Burma, entitled ‘On Reading the Memoirs of Mrs Judson’. 11. ‘Burman Mission Hymn: Dedicated to American Baptist Board of Foreign Missions’, words by W.C.R., music by Lowell Mason (New York: Hewitt and Jaques, 1836). See also ‘Burman Mission Hymn’, at https://jscholarship.library. jhu.edu/handle/1774.2/5204?show=full. 12. ‘Burman Mission Hymn’ (1836). 13. ‘Burman Mission Hymn’ (1836). 14. ‘Burman Mission Hymn’ (1836). 15. John Dowling (ed), The Judson Offering, Intended as a Token of Christian Sympathy with the Living and a Memento of Christian Perfection for the Dead (New York: L. Colby and Company, 1847), p. iii. 16. A.M.O. Edmund, ‘Farewell to the Missionaries’ (1846), in Dowling (ed), The Judson Offering, p. 284 and pp. 287–8. 17. Dowling (ed), The Judson Offering, p. 284. 18. A.H. Judson, An Account of the American Baptist Mission to the Burman Empire: In a Series of Letters, Addressed to a Gentleman in London (London: Joseph Butterworth and Son, 1823), p. 224. 19. Judson, An Account of the American Baptist Mission to the Burman Empire, p. 181. 20. Howard Malcolm, Travels in the Burman Empire (Edinburgh: William and Robert Chambers, 1840), p. 63. 21. H.S. Burrage, Baptist Hymn Writers and Their Hymns (Portland: Brown Thurston and Co., 1888), p. 593. On Theravada Buddhism’s precepts forbidding engagement with music, see Douglas, Music in Mainland Southeast Asia, p. 29. 22. Lay Therevada Buddhists usually subscribe to five or, in certain circumstances, eight precepts. Ordained monks follow ten precepts, as part of the 227 rules of the Patimokkha code of monastic discipline. 23. While no longer commonly spoken in Burma, Pali is the liturgical language of Theravada Buddhism. 24. This is the transliteration used by Baptists at the time. The Burmese have long claimed that Burma was the ‘Suvarnabhumi’, or ‘Golden Land’ mentioned in ancient sources. They still refer to their country as Shwe daw pyi, or ‘The Golden Land’, a name that has been picked up by modern authors and tourist companies. 25. Burrage, Baptist Hymn Writers and Their Hymns, p. 597.

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26. This translation of the hymn was included in The Judson Centennial Celebrations in Burma (Rangoon: American Baptist Mission Press, 1914), p. 41. 27. W.N. Wyeth, The Wades: Jonathan Wade, D.D., Deborah B.L. Wade: A Memorial (Philadelphia: The Author, 1891), p. 194. 28. In some nineteenth-century hymn books the first line of this song was changed to ‘Come, Holy Spirit, Guest Divine’. It is not to be confused with a number of later hymns, which began ‘Come, Holy Spirit, Love Divine’. 29. John Julian (ed), A Dictionary of Hymnology (London: John Murray, 1907), p. 609. See also Burrage, Baptist Hymn Writers and Their Hymns, pp. 271–2. 30. J.M. Winchell, An Arrangement of the Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs of the Rev. Isaac Watts D.D., to which is added a Supplement of more than Three Hundred Hymns from the Best Authors (Boston: James Loring, and Gould, Kendall and Lincoln, 1832), hymn nos. 508 and 511. 31. Judson, An Account of the American Baptist Mission to the Burman Empire, p. 27. 32. Anglican chaplains accompanied the British officials and military forces posted to Burma before 1852, but they were there only to minister to the expatriate community. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel sent its first missionaries to Burma in 1857. 33. The HEIC believed that missionary activity in India would alienate the locals and, more importantly, interrupt trade. Adoniram Judson, for example, was denied a licence to preach there when he arrived in Calcutta in 1812, forcing him to travel on to Burma, where he became one of the first resident Christian missionaries. Stanley, The Bible and the Flag, pp. 98–104. 34. ‘Burman Mission’, The American Baptist Magazine, Vol. 10 (Boston: Lincoln and Edmands, 1830), pp. 271–3. 35. M.E. Gibson, Anglophone Poetry in Colonial India: 1780–1913: A Critical Anthology (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2011), pp. 82–4. 36. Clint Bonner, ‘A Hymn is Born’, Southeast Missourian (Cape Girardeau, US), 4 January 1957. 37. Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth, The Story of the Hymns and Tunes (New York: American Tract Society, 1906), pp. 179–82. 38. Brown and Butterworth, The Story of the Hymns and Tunes, p. 180. 39. Brown and Butterworth, The Story of the Hymns and Tunes, p. 180. 40. The words for ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’ were written in 1865, but the music was not composed until 1871. 41. Sister Katherine, Towards the Land of the Rising Sun, or Four Years in Burma (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1900), p. 80. 42. Dowley, Christian Music, p. 171. 43. ‘Oh King of Kings’, words by W.W. How and music by Arthur Sullivan (1897). See also Greg King, Twilight of Splendour: The Court of Queen Victoria During Her Diamond Jubilee Year (Hoboken: John Wiley and Sons, 2007), p. 265. 44. W.G.B. Murdoch, From Edinburgh to India and Burma (New York: George Routledge and Sons, 1924), p. 284. Murdoch went to Burma in 1906, accompanying the Prince and Princess of Wales. 45. Arthur Jacobs, Arthur Sullivan: A Victorian Musician (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), p. 164. 46. Hymns Ancient and Modern (London: W. Clowes, 1904), pp. 828–9. In the US, the hymn was included in several hymnals, including H.B. Turner and

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47.

48. 49. 50. 51.

52.

53.

54. 55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65.

Burma and Western music before ‘Mandalay’ W.F. Biddle (eds), Church Hymns and Tunes (New York: A.S. Barnes and Co., 1906), hymn no. 606. By 1822, there were still only 18 baptized members in Judson’s church. See N.A. Finn, ‘“Until All Burma Worships the Eternal God”: Adoniram Judson, the Missionary, 1812–50’, in J.G. Duesing (ed), Adoniram Judson: A Bicentennial Appreciation of the Pioneer American Missionary (Nashville: B&H Publishing Group, 2012), pp. 82 and 84. See also L.B. Hughes, The Evangel in Burma, Being a Review for the Quarter Century 1900–1925 of the Work of the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society in Burma (Rangoon: American Baptist Mission Press, 1926). E.J. Harris, Theravada Buddhism and the British Encounter: Religious, Missionary and Colonial Experience in Nineteenth Century Sri Lanka (London: Routledge, 2006), p. 60. Cited in Burrage, Baptist Hymn Writers and Their Hymns, p. 595. ‘The Burial of Mrs Judson at St Helena, Sep. 1, 1845’, words by H.S. Washburn and music by Lyman Heath (Boston: Oliver Ditson, 1846). See also Brown and Butterworth, The Story of the Hymns and Tunes, pp. 246–7. ‘Burma L.M.’, words by Philip Doddridge and music by T.B. Mosley (1909?), in W.L. Higgins (ed), Crimson Glory: Our 1939 Book for Church, Sunday Schools and Conventions (Dalton: The A.J. Showalter Company, 1938), hymn no. 75. J.R. Case, An Unpredictable Gospel: American Evangelicals and World Christianity, 1812–1920 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), p. 23. At the high point of Baptist missionary activity in Burma, around 1880, there were 12 separate missions, all around the country. See W.H. Brackney, Historical Dictionary of the Baptists (Plymouth: Scarecrow Press, 2009), p. 111. See, for example, W.C.B. Purser, Christian Missions in Burma (London: Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, 1911); and Jorg Schendel, ‘Christian Missionaries in Upper Burma, 1853–85’, South East Asia Research, Vol. 7, No. 1, March 1999. See, for example, Hymns for Public and Social Worship (Maulmain: American Baptist Mission Press, 1839 and 1848) (in Burmese). The Judson Centennial Celebrations in Burma, p. 24. Gibson, Anglophone Poetry in Colonial India, pp. 83–4. Finn, ‘“Until All Burma Worships the Eternal God”’, p. 81. Burrage, Baptist Hymn Writers and Their Hymns, p. 594. Burrage, Baptist Hymn Writers and Their Hymns, p. 595. H.E. Phinney, Hymns of the Heavenly Way (Rangoon: American Baptist Missionary Press, 1932) (in Burmese). Cited in J.W. Swift, Hattie: A Woman’s Mission to Burma (San Geronimo: Half Meadow Press, 2003), p. 384. Centennial Celebration of the Founding of the American Baptist Mission Press, Rangoon, Burma (Rangoon: American Baptist Missionary Press, 1916?). ‘Chronology of the Press in Burma’, The Irrawaddy, 1 May 2004, at http:// www2.irrawaddy.org/research_show.php?art_id=3533. Anna Allott, Patricia Herbert and John Okell, ‘Burma’, in Patricia Herbert and A.C. Milner (eds), Southeast Asia: Languages and Literatures: A Select Guide (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1989), p. 9. W. Armstrong, ‘The American Baptist Mission’, in Arnold Wright (ed), Twentieth Century Impressions of Burma: Its History, People, Commerce,

Burma and Western music before ‘Mandalay’

66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72.

73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86.

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Industries, and Resources (London: Lloyds Greater Britain Publishing Co. Ltd, 1910), p. 120. Hughes, The Evangel in Burma, p. 189. See also Hymns for Public and Social Worship. See, for example, R.L. Howard, Baptists in Burma (Philadelphia: Judson Press, 1931), pp. 34–9. I.D. Sankey, Sacred Songs and Solos, with standard hymns combined (London: Morgan and Scott, 1880) and (Rangoon: American Baptist Mission Press, 1886, 1904 and 1914) (in Burmese). F.D. Phinney and B.M. Jones (eds), Hymns of Praise (Rangoon: American Baptist Missionary Press, 1920) (in Burmese). E.N. Harris, Sgaw Karen Hymn and Tune Book (Rangoon: American Baptist Mission Press, 1914). Wesleyan Methodist Church and School Hymn Book (Rangoon: American Baptist Mission Press, 1915). M.D. Leigh, Conflict, Politics and Proselytism: Methodist Missionaries in Colonial and Postcolonial Upper Burma, 1887–1988 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2011), pp. 1–2. See also Methodist Hymn Book (London: Methodist Conference Office, 1933). See, for example, J.H. Linsley and G.F. Davis, Select Hymns Adapted to the Devotional Exercises of the Baptist Denomination (Hartford: Canfield and Robins, 1837), p. 243. The music was written by John Black. The lyrics first appeared as a poem in a novel by Warner in 1860. With a few adaptions, they were set to music by Bradbury in 1862, to become one of the most popular Christian hymns of all time. Christian Songs Selected from Christ in Song (Rangoon: Seventh Day Adventist Book Depot, 1938). Salvation Army Songs (Rangoon: American Baptist Mission Press, 1920) (in Burmese). Salvation Army Songs (Rangoon: Salvation Army Headquarters for Burma, 1929). See, for example, Vivian Ba, ‘The Beginnings of Western Education in Burma: The Catholic effort’, Journal of the Burma Research Society, Vol. 47, No. 2, 1964, p. 291. P.A. Bigandet, An Outline of the History of the Catholic Burmese Mission, From the Year 1720 to 1887 (Rangoon: Hanthawaddy Press, 1887), p. 42. Purser, Christian Missions in Burma, p. 138. See, for example, C.P. Mills, A Strange War (Gloucester: Alan Sutton, 1988), p. 44. See, for example, Anne Carter, Bewitched by Burma: A Unique Insight into Burma’s Complex Past (Kibworth Beauchamp: Matador, 2012), pp. 72 and 106. The collection was revised in 1875, 1889, 1904 and 1916, and a number of editions have appeared since. The English Hymnal with Tunes (London: Humphrey Milford and Oxford University Press, 1906), p. 3. The English Hymnal with Tunes, hymn no. 549, p. 712. First published in 1875, Sacred Songs and Solos went through several editions. It was reputed to have the largest circulation of any evangelical hymn book ever published.

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87. Stephen Banfield, ‘Towards a History of Music in the British Empire: Three Export Studies’, in Kate Darien-Smith, Patricia Grimshaw and Stuart Macintyre (eds), Britishness Abroad: Transnational Movements and Imperial Cultures (Carlton: Melbourne University Press, 2007), pp. 63–89. 88. In Rangoon, a Roman Catholic church was built in 1859, but was replaced by St Mary’s Cathedral in 1911. An Anglican church was built in 1865, but it was replaced by Holy Trinity Cathedral in 1894. An organ was installed in the Anglican pro-cathedral in 1880. Both of the cathedrals had pipe organs. 89. J.F. Cady, ‘Our Burma Experience of 1935–1938’, in J.P. Ferguson (ed), Contributions to Asian Studies, Volume 16, Essays on Burma (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1981), p. 149. 90. Orwell, Burmese Days, p. 96. 91. J.W. Mirza, An Assyrian Dream: The Mirza Family Story (Bloomington: Xlibris Corporation, 2012), p. 51. 92. The records detailing the pipe organs installed in these churches, their manufacturers and the dates of their instalment, appear to have been lost, probably during the war. Interviews with Anglican and Roman Catholic clergymen, Rangoon, March 2015. Also, interview with a former Burmese church organist, Canberra, April 2015. 93. See, for example, Solveig Smith, By Love Compelled: The Salvation Army’s One Hundred Years in India and Adjacent Lands (London: Salvationist Publications and Supplies, 1981), particularly pp. 118–28. See also Harald Fischer-Tine, ‘Reclaiming Savages in “Darkest England” and “Darkest India”: The Salvation Army as Transnational Agent of the Civilizing Mission’, in C.A. Watt and Michael Mann (eds), Civilizing Missions in Colonial and Postcolonial South Asia: From Improvement to Development (London: Anthem, 2012), p. 159, n.115. By 1914, the Salvation Army boasted 1,674 brass bands in 56 countries. 94. Elizabeth Koepping, ‘India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma/Myanmar’, in P.C. Phan (ed), Christianities in Asia (Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), p. 33. 95. Carter, Bewitched by Burma, p. 56. 96. Carter, Bewitched by Burma, p. 114. 97. Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, The Book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church, According to the Use of the Church of England (Rangoon: The Church Press, 1889) (in Burmese and English). 98. Purser, Christian Missions in Burma, p. 213. 99. Leigh, Conflict, Politics and Proselytism, p. 164. 100. Shepherd, et al., Continuum Encyclopaedia of Popular Music of the World, Vol. 5, p. 203. 101. R.G. Johnson, On The Back Road to Mandalay (Maitland: Xulon Press, 2007), p. 79. 102. Cited in Edward Fischer, Mission in Burma: The Columban Fathers’ Forty-three Years in Kachin Country (New York: Seabury Press, 1980), p. 27. 103. Howard Malcolm, Travels in Hindustan and China (Edinburgh: William and Robert Chambers, 1840) p. 60. 104. Wyeth, The Wades, p. 89. 105. C.H. Campagnac, The Autobiography of a Wanderer in England and Burma (Raleigh: Sandra L. Carney and Lulu Enterprises, 2010), p. 351.

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106. See, for example, Eva-Maria Munck, ‘A Singing People: Choir singing among the Karen people in Northern Thailand and Burma’, at http://www.diva-portal. org/smash/get/diva2:613048/FULLTEXT01.pdf. 107. Maung Shwe Wa, Burma Baptist Chronicle (Rangoon: University Press, 1963), pp. 247–8. 108. Blair adopted the pen-name George Orwell in 1933, on publication of his memoir Down and Out in Paris and London. The Indian Imperial Police was the unofficial name given to the cadre of executive level officers (Assistant District Superintendent and above) that was recruited in the UK after 1893, and appointed to command India’s provincial police forces, including the Burma Police. 109. George Orwell, ‘The Lesser Evil’ (unpublished, 1928–9?), at http://digitool-b. lib.ucl.ac.uk:8881/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=1044813&local_base= GEN01. ‘Parson’s week’ was a 13-day period off duty including just one Sunday. 110. Peter Davison, ‘Orwell – religion and ethical values’, The Orwell Prize, at http://theorwellprize.co.uk/george-orwell/about-orwell/peter-davison-orwellreligion-and-ethical-values/. 111. See, for example, George Orwell, ‘Shooting an Elephant’, in Inside the Whale and Other Essays (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966), pp. 91–9. 112. ‘Jack and Tom’, in Robert Bell (ed), Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of the Peasantry of England (London: Parker and Son, 1857), pp. 195–6. 113. See, for example, ‘Folk Music of England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales and America’, at http://www.contemplator.com/england/. 114. The king was George IV, who reigned from 1820 to 1830. The Burmese flag was a fighting peacock. See ‘General Campbell’ (1827?), English Ballads, at http://digital. nls.uk/english-ballads/pageturner.cfm?id=74892286&mode=transcription. 115. ‘William and Nancy’s Parting’ (1830?), English Ballads, at http://digital.nls. uk/english-ballads/pageturner.cfm?id=74892286&mode=transcription. This ballad was included on John Wesley Harding’s 2009 album Trad Arr Jones. 116. ‘The Burman Lover’, words and music by John C. Baker, in First Set of Songs and Glees: The Bakers of New Hampshire (Boston: Keith’s Music Publishing House, 1845). 117. ‘The Burman Lover’ (1845). 118. ‘The Burman Lover’, music by John C. Baker, arranged by Louis Tripp (Louisville: G.W. Brainard and Co., 1853). 119. ‘Ossian’s Serenade, favourably known also as the Burman Lover or the Little Canoe, arranged for the guitar by Jenny Lines’, music by Ossian Dodge (Boston: Oliver Ditson, 1852). 120. See, for example, Etsuko Taketani, U.S. Women Writers and the Discourses of Colonialism, 1825–1861 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2003), pp. 125–49. 121. ‘A Mound is in the Graveyard, or The Missionary-Mother’s Lament, written by Mrs Judson addressed to a missionary friend in Burmah, on the death of her little boy thirteen months old, in which allusion is made to the previous death of his little brother’, words by E.C. Judson and music by I.B. Woodbury (Boston: G.P. Reed and Co., 1851). 122. Rudyard Kipling, ‘Mandalay’, in Rudyard Kipling’s Verse: Definitive Edition, pp. 418–20. 123. John MacGregor, Through the Buffer State: A Record of Recent Travels Through Borneo, Siam and Cambodia (London: F.V. White, 1896), pp. 280–2.

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124. MacGregor, Through the Buffer State, p. 280. 125. Military operations in Burma were initially conducted by units of the HEIC’s own army (some of which consisted entirely of Europeans) and, after India formally became a crown colony in 1858, by units of the (British) Indian Army. Throughout this entire period, these local forces fought alongside units drawn from the UK-based royal armed forces. It is difficult to estimate the number of sailors in Burma at any one time, but the number was usually quite low. In 1859, for example, there were only 2000 – 2,500 seamen under arms in all of northern India and Burma. See Harald Fischer-Tine, Low and Licentious Europeans: Race, Class and ‘White Subalternity’ in Colonial India (Hyderabad: Orient Black Swan, 2009), p. 99. 126. Bands were treated differently from drums and bugles, which had been used for centuries to transmit signals on the battlefield. See Trevor Herbert and Helen Barlow, Music and the British Military in the Long Nineteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 5–8 and 241. 127. The historical record shows that, on a number of occasions, a bagpiper played during a battle to inspire the troops, but there are few verified instances of bands actually playing during conflicts, if only for the reason that bandsmen usually doubled as medical orderlies. See Herbert and Barlow, Music and the British Military in the Long Nineteenth Century, pp. 245–6. 128. Lewis Winstock, Songs & Music of the Redcoats: A History of the War Music of the British Army, 1642–1902 (London: Leo Cooper, 1970), p. 178. 129. Les Cleveland, Dark Laughter: War in Song and Popular Culture (Westport: Praeger, 1994). See also Les Cleveland, ‘Soldiers’ Songs: The Folklore of the Powerless’, New York Folklore, Vol. 11, 1985, at http://faculty.buffalostate. edu/fishlm/folksongs/les01.htm. 130. John Butler, With the Madras European Regiment in Burma: The Experiences of an Officer of the Honourable East India Company’s Army during the First Anglo-Burmese War, 1824–1826 (Driffield: Leonaur, 2007), pp. 13–14. 131. Butler calls his unit the Madras European Regiment, while Doveton calls it the Madras European Fusiliers. These are both later titles for what in 1824 was known as the HEIC’s European Regiment. See H.L. Wickes, Regiments of Foot: A Historical Record of all the Foot Regiments of the British Army (Reading: Osprey, 1974), p. 143. 132. F.B. Doveton, Reminiscences of the Burmese War in 1824–5–6 (London: Allan and Co., 1852), pp. 222–3. 133. Doveton, Reminiscences of the Burmese War in 1824–5–6, p. 222. 134. Doveton, Reminiscences of the Burmese War in 1824–5–6, p. 222. 135. Marshall, Four Years in Burmah, Vol. 2, pp. 18–19. 136. Trant, Two Years in Ava, p. 215. 137. Paske, Life and Travel in Lower Burmah, p. 62. 138. Herbert and Barlow, Music and the British Military in the Long Nineteenth Century, p. 265. 139. George Bruce, The Burma Wars, 1824–1886 (London: Hart-Davis, MacGibbon, 1973), pp. 57ff. 140. Rudyard Kipling, ‘Cholera Camp’, in Kipling, Rudyard Kipling’s Verse: Definitive Edition, pp. 440–1. See also J.L. Richell, Disease and Demography in Colonial Burma (Copenhagen: NIAS Press, 2006). 141. W.F. Thompson, ‘Indian Revelry’, The Bengal Annual (Calcutta: Samuel Smith and Co., 1835), pp. 123–5. See also Winstock, Songs & Music of the Redcoats, pp. 186–7.

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142. One version of the song became famous when it was sung in the 1938 Warner Brothers movie Dawn Patrol, starring Basil Rathbone, Errol Flynn and David Niven. The music, by Alfred Domett, was reputedly an 1834 adaption of a dirge by Ludwig van Beethoven. 143. Winstock, Songs & Music of the Redcoats, p. 214. 144. W.F.B. Laurie, The Second Burmese War: A Narrative of the Operations at Rangoon in 1852 (London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1853), p. 51. 145. Laurie, The Second Burmese War, p. 55. 146. Henry Godwin, The Burmese War: Letters and Papers Written in 1852–53 (Uckfield: Naval and Military Press, 2004), p. 22. William Amherst, Lord Amherst, was Governor-General of India from 1823 to 1828. 147. Laurie, The Second Burmese War, p. 202. 148. Browne, The Coming of the Great Queen, p. 174. See also Sudha Shah, The King in Exile: The Fall of the Royal Family of Burma (New Delhi: Harper Collins, 2012), p. 73. 149. John Mackenzie-Rogan, Fifty Years of Army Music (London: Methuen and Co. Ltd, 1926), pp. 102–3. See also Richards, Imperialism and Music, pp. 416ff. 150. Scott [Shway Yoe], The Burman, pp. 321–5. The tune was released separately as ‘Kayah Than (Sound of the Trumpet)’, by W.G. St Clair (London: Boosey, 1887). The title has also been written ‘Kaya-Than’. 151. ‘Under the British Flag: Fantasia on Songs and Dances of Great Britain and Her Colonies’, music by J.A. Kappey (London: Boosey and Company, 1900). The fantasia opened with ‘God Save the Queen’ and closed with ‘Rule Britannia’. 152. ‘Festival of Empire: Grand Patriotic Fantasia’, music by John MackenzieRogan (London: Boosey and Company, 1929). See also Richards, Imperialism and Music, p. 162. 153. Mackenzie-Rogan, Fifty Years of Army Music, p. 103. See also Jeffrey, Imperialism and Music, p. 418. 154. Trant, Two Years in Ava, pp. 218–21. See also Winstock, Songs & Music of the Redcoats, p. 213. I am indebted to Nick Cheesman and Chit Win for their help in identifying and translating this song title. 155. ‘Over the Hills and Far Away’, at http://www.musicanet.org/robokopp/english/ harknowt.htm. 156. Hence its use in the 1990s ITV television series Sharpe’s War, based on the best-selling books by Bernard Cornwell. See ‘Love Farewell’, Sharpe’s Songs, at http://sharpecompendium.net/songs/. An audio CD entitled Over the Hills and Far Away: The Music of Sharpe was released by Virgin Records in 1996. 157. The Royal Munster Fusiliers was formed in 1881 from the 101st Regiment of Foot (Royal Bengal Fusiliers) and the 104th Regiment of Foot (Bengal Fusiliers). 158. ‘Won’t You Come Back to Bombombay’, words by Harry Castling and A.J. Mills, music by C.W. Murphy (London: B. Feldman and Co., 1905). 159. C.A. Malcolm, The Piper in Peace and War (London: John Murray, 1927), pp. 258–9. 160. ‘The 1st Burma Rifles’ Quickstep’, music by A. McLeod, in David Glen (ed), David Glen’s Collection of Highland Bagpipe Music (Edinburgh: David Glen and Sons, 1906?), Book 11, p. 18. Glen cites the composer of this march simply as A. McLeod, which leaves open the (faint) possibility that it was not Alexander McLeod but someone else with the same surname and first initial. A  different source names the composer as Pipe Major Donald McLeod, but this seems to be incorrect.

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161. Small mounted infantry units had been employed in South Africa, Egypt and the Sudan, but in 1886 they were still relatively new to the British and Indian armies. In Burma, mounted on hardy ‘Shan’ ponies (about 12–13 hands high), they proved very effective in hunting down ‘dacoits’. See ‘Fort William’, ‘The 1st Battalion in Burma, 1886–1889’, in The Rifle Brigade Chronicle for 1894 (London: R.H. Porter, 1895), pp. 50–79; Crosthwaite, The Pacification of Burma, pp. 17 and 65; and ‘The Fighting in Upper Burma’, The Graphic, 4 December 1886, p. 589. 162. The title and date of this song are unknown, but are probably ‘The Mounted Infantry’ (1887). See Winstock, Songs & Music of the Redcoats, p. 215. A similarly light-hearted view is portrayed in ‘Volunteering for the Mounted Infantry in Burma’, The Graphic, 18 December 1886, p. 653. 163. Winstock, Songs & Music of the Redcoats, pp. 205–6. 164. ‘Introduction’, Bands, Drums and Music of The Queens Royal Surrey Regiment, its Forebears and Successors, at http://www.queensroyalsurreys.org.uk/ new_music/01.shtml. 165. See, however, John Masters, Bugles and a Tiger: A Personal Adventure (London: Michael Joseph, 1956), pp. 212–3. 166. See, for example, George Speight (ed), Bawdy Songs of the Early Music Hall (Newton Abbott: David and Charles, 1995). 167. Winstock, Songs & Music of the Redcoats, p. 213. 168. Philippa Levine, Prostitution, Race and Politics: Policing Venereal Disease in the British Empire (New York: Routledge, 2003), p. 44. See also Richell, Disease and Demography in Colonial Burma, pp. 113–4. 169. J.H. Amherst, The Burmese War: A Grand Naval and Military Melo-Drama in Three Acts (London: J. Duncombe, 1826). 170. J.S. Bratton, et al., Acts of Supremacy: The British Empire and the Stage, 1790–1930 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1991), p. 129. 171. Ann Barzel, ‘Elizabetta Menzeli’, Dance Chronicle, Vol. 19, No. 3, 1996, p. 279. 172. Boyer, ‘Picturing the Other’, pp. 217–8. 173. While ostensibly from King Thibaw, this was an entirely bogus decoration bestowed upon McGonagall by a group of Edinburgh students in 1894, in response to his wonderfully bad poetry. See Hamish Henderson, ‘William McGonagall and the Folk Scene’, McGonagall Online, at http://www. mcgonagall-online.org.uk/articles/william-mcgonagall-and-the-folk-scene. 174. Cecil Howard, ‘The Blue Bells of Scotland’, The Theatre, 1 October 1887, pp. 219–21. 175. See, for example, ‘Robert Williams Buchanan: Theatre Reviews: 20. The Blue Bells of Scotland (1887)’, at http://www.robertbuchanan.co.uk/html/bluebells. html. 176. ‘Novelty Theatre’, The Times (London, UK), 13 September 1887. 177. Richards, Imperialism and Music, p. 258. 178. Richards, Imperialism and Music, pp. 258–9. This British musical is not to be confused with an ‘American drama’ of the same name by David Belasco and Franklin Fyles, which by a remarkable coincidence was staged in the Empire Theatre, New York, also in 1893. 179. Joseph Donohue, Fantasies of Empire: The Empire Theatre of Varieties and the Licensing Controversy of 1894 (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2005), p. 47.

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180. Donohue, Fantasies of Empire, p. 69. 181. Richards, Imperialism and Music, p. 260. See also S.K. Samuels, Burma Ruby: A History of Mogok’s Rubies from Antiquity to the Present (Tucson: SKS Enterprises, 2003), pp. 75–90. 182. ‘“Burmah” at the American’, New York Times (New York, US), 29 January 1896, at http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=F00916FE3F5F1 B738DDDA00A94D9405B8685F0D3. 183. H.B. [Hilaire Belloc] and B.T.B., The Modern Traveller (London: Edward Arnold, 1898), p. 41. The couplet has sometimes been amended to refer to the Gatling Gun, a hand-cranked weapon invented in 1862, 22 years before the fully automatic Maxim machine gun appeared. When Burmah was produced in the US, both Maxim and Gatling guns were wheeled onto the stage to help repel the native attack. See ‘Boston’s New Productions: “The Widow Jones”, “The Globe-Trotter” and “Burmah”, The New York Times (New  York), 3 September 1895, at http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9A03E3 DE113DE433A25750C0A96F9C94649ED7CF. 184. Eugene Tomkins and Quincy Kilby, The History of the Boston Theatre, 1854–1901 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1908), pp. 429–32.

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Rudyard Kipling and ‘Mandalay’

It is difficult to overestimate the impact on popular perceptions of Burma – indeed, of the ‘Far East’ more generally – of Rudyard Kipling’s poem ‘Mandalay’. It first appeared in the literary weekly The Scots Observer on 21 June 1890.1 It was subsequently included in the collection Barrack-Room Ballads and Other Verses, which was published in London in 1892.2 Given its importance, the poem deserves citing in full: By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin’ eastward to the sea, There’s a Burma girl a-settin’, and I know she thinks o’ me; For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say: ‘Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay!’ Come you back to Mandalay, Where the old Flotilla lay: Can’t you ’ear their paddles chunkin’ from Rangoon to Mandalay? On the road to Mandalay, Where the flyin’-fishes play, An’ the dawn comes up like thunder outer China ’crost the Bay! ’Er petticoat was yaller an’ ’er little cap was green, An’ ’er name was Supi-yaw-lat – jes’ the same as Theebaw’s Queen, An’ I seed her first a-smokin’ of a whackin’ white cheroot, An’ a-wastin’ Christian kisses on an ’eathen idol’s foot: Bloomin’ idol made o’ mud – Wot they called the great Gawd Budd – Plucky lot she cared for idols when I kissed ’er where she stud! On the road to Mandalay … etc. When the mist was on the rice-fields an’ the sun was droppin’ slow, She’d git ’er little banjo an’ she’d sing ‘Kulla-lo-lo!’3 With ’er arm upon my shoulder an’ ’er cheek agin my cheek We useter watch the steamers an’ the hathis pilin’ teak.4 Elephants a-pilin’ teak. In the sludgy, squdgy creek, Where the silence ’ung that ’eavy you was ’arf afraid to speak!

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On the road to Mandalay … etc. But that’s all shove be’ind me – long ago an’ fur away, An’ there ain’t no ’busses runnin’ from the Bank to Mandalay; An’ I’m learnin’ ’ere in London what the ten-year soldier tells: ‘If you’ve ’eard the East a’callin’, you won’t never ’eed naught else’. No! you won’t ’eed nothin’ else But them spicy garlic smells, An’ the sunshine an’ the palm trees an’ the tinkly temple-bells; On the road to Mandalay … etc. I am sick o’ wastin’ leather on these gritty pavin’-stones, An’ the blasted Henglish drizzle wakes the fever in my bones; Tho’ I walks with fifty ’ousemaids outer Chelsea to the Strand, An’ they talks a lot of lovin’, but wot do they understand? Beefy face an’ grubby ’and – Law! Wot do they understand? I’ve a neater, sweeter maiden in a cleaner, greener land! On the road to Mandalay … etc. Ship me somewheres east of Suez, where the best is like the worst, Where there aren’t no Ten Commandments an’ a man can raise a thirst; For the temple-bells are callin’, an’ it’s there that I would be – By the old Moulmein Pagoda, looking lazy at the sea: On the road to Mandalay, Where the old Flotilla lay, With our sick beneath the awnings when we went to Mandalay! On the road to Mandalay, Where the flyin’-fishes play, An’ the dawn comes up like thunder outer China ’crost the Bay!5 In the years that followed, the poem was reproduced in most collections of Kipling’s works. It became well known in the UK and US, but was also familiar to many further afield, particularly in Britain’s English-speaking dominions and colonies. It not only inspired dozens of adaptions and imitations, both in verse and music, but it helped shape Western images of Burma and Burmese society in ways that still resonate today.6

On the road The history of the poem has been well documented. In March 1889, aged 23 and relieved of his responsibilities to the Allahabad newspaper The Pioneer, Kipling set off from Calcutta for London, via Rangoon, Hong Kong, Yokohama and San Francisco. Although at the time the ‘pacification’ of Burma was far from complete, Mandalay had fallen to British arms and

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the Burmese king had been exiled to India. On 1 January 1886, the rump of his domain was formally annexed by the UK and added to the Indian province of British Burma, which had been created in 1862 after the two earlier Anglo-Burmese wars. Kipling was familiar with all these developments. Indeed, one biographer has suggested that his early collection Departmental Ditties (1886) was put together at the urging of British soldiers, railway men and civil servants in Burma.7 Also, he had already written at least three short stories and three ‘newspaper verses’ which specifically referred to Burma. The stories were ‘The Taking of Lungtungpen’ (1887), ‘Georgie Porgie’ (1888) and ‘A Conference of the Powers’ (1890).8 The verses were ‘A Nightmare of Names’ (1886), ‘The Grave of the Hundred Dead’ (1888) and The Ballad of Boh Da Thone (1888).9 Kipling’s one and only visit to Burma was brief, but it made a profound impression. After an overnight stay in Rangoon, where he visited the ‘beautiful winking wonder’ of the Shwedagon Pagoda, he made an unscheduled stopover at the southern town of Moulmein.10 There he went to see ‘a large white pagoda surrounded by scores of little pagodas’. As described by Kipling years later: I should better remember what that pagoda was like had I not fallen deeply and irrevocably in love with a Burmese girl at the foot of the first flight of steps … Leaving this far too lovely maiden, I went up the steps only a few yards, and, turning me around, looked upon a view of water, island, broad river, fair grazing ground, and belted wood that made me rejoice that I was alive … Far above my head there was a faint tinkle, as of golden bells, and a talking of the breezes in the tops of the toddy-palms.11 When Kipling visited Moulmein there were 78 pagodas in the city and suburbs. It is not known which one he visited but popular tradition favours the 46-metre high Kyaikthalan Pagoda, on the ridge overlooking the harbour. According to contemporary accounts, the view from the pagoda was ‘unsurpassed in all Burma’.12 Kipling arrived back in the UK in October 1889 and took rooms in Villiers Street, which ran between The Strand and The Embankment, in central London. Not long afterwards, he wrote ‘Mandalay’, a poem of six stanzas in which a former British soldier, discharged from military service and working in a London bank, reviews his experiences during the recent Burma campaign. He expresses his longing for a young Burmese girl, who is described as waiting in idyllic surroundings for her sweetheart to return.13 Although some modern works have claimed that Kipling was inspired to write this poem during his brief visit to Rangoon, his experiences in Moulmein seem much more likely to have sparked his muse.14 The poem, with its timeless themes of idealised romance, cultural fusion and exotic locales, was in large part a reaction to Kipling’s new life in the

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UK, which he found in stark contrast to sunlit India. As he wrote in the poem ‘In Partibus’, in 1889: The sky, a greasy soup-tureen Shuts down atop my brow. Yes, I have sighed for London town And I have got it now: And half of it is fog and filth, And half is fog and row.15 This sombre mood informed ‘Mandalay’, which reflected Kipling’s nostalgia for ‘a cleaner, greener land’, ‘somewheres East of Suez’, where he could escape the gloomy weather.16 He was also reacting to the condescension of the local literati (whom he dismissed as ‘long-haired things / in velvet collar rolls’) and the strictures of Victorian morality.17 It is also worth bearing in mind that, after an unhappy childhood in the UK, separated from his family, his six or so years as an adult in India were the happiest of his life, to that date.18 Academic observers have dissected Kipling’s poem and come up with some interesting interpretations. Sharon Hamilton, for example, has suggested that the passivity of ‘the Burma girl’ symbolises not only the accepting nature of all Burmese women but also the country’s weakness in the face of the UK’s imperial power. The girl is described as ‘lookin’’, and ‘a’settin’, as she ‘thinks’ of the British soldier. She waits and waits, apparently no longer caring for the Buddhist philosophy to which she once subscribed. Her other actions, like ‘a-smokin’’ and ‘a-wastin’’ kisses, have negative connotations, but end when the British soldier arrives on the scene. The sequence of events outlined, in which the soldier first ‘see’d her’, then ‘kissed ’er’ is seen to correspond neatly with ‘the dynamics of imperialism: he came, he saw, he conquered’.19 The girl’s later position ‘With ’er arm upon [his] shoulder an’ ’er cheek agin [his] cheek’, confirms the transfer of her loyalty. Nor does Hamilton see the choice of the girl’s name as a coincidence. It is Supayalat, ‘jes’ the same as Theebaw’s Queen’. Winning the Burmese girl is thus seen to mirror the UK’s overthrow of the Burmese monarchy five years earlier. It is debateable whether any of Kipling’s contemporaries, or indeed many people since, saw the ballad in such esoteric terms, but even so it met with an enthusiastic reception. Disseminated through both the printed word and recordings of various kinds, it had an extraordinary impact on the popular imagination throughout the English-speaking world.20 To that point, the duration of British colonial rule in Burma had been relatively short – barely 65 years from the first Anglo-Burmese War and the annexation of much of the country’s coastal territory. Also, the European presence there was always quite small compared with India. As already noted, the country itself was little known or understood back in the UK.

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There were books and news reports, but the information provided by these sources tended to be limited and not very accurate. According to one Old Burma Hand, as late as the 1930s few people in the UK even knew of the country’s existence. As he saw the situation: Up to the war Burma was an almost unknown area on the map of the Empire. Just part of India.21 The American historian John Christian has suggested that, ‘except for Kipling’s famous song’, Thibaw and Supayalat ‘would have been almost forgotten’. He felt ‘They were after all but tinsel rulers of an unstable throne’.22 Even allowing for a certain degree of exaggeration on the part of both these writers, there was clearly a gap in the mind of the Western public that Kipling’s ballad soon filled. At the same time, ‘Mandalay’ attracted a range of criticisms. Reflecting the contemporary mood in the UK and elsewhere in the Western world, few were aimed at the poem’s implicitly imperialist, Orientalist, sexist and racist content.23 There were concerns in some circles, however, about Kipling’s vernacular style and innovative use of colloquialisms. He was dubbed by one critic ‘the poet of the cuss word an’ the swear’.24 Another accused him of resorting to ‘the vocabulary of the London Hooligan’.25 Yet Kipling claimed to be using what William Wordsworth had described 90 years earlier, in a preface to Lyrical Ballads (1798), as ‘the real language of men’.26 Indeed, the entire collection of Barrack-Room Ballads was a conscious attempt by Kipling to convey the feelings of the common soldier on a range of issues, in part by mimicking his vocabulary and accent.27 Even so, reservations were expressed about what the committee for the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature (which Kipling was awarded) described as his ‘somewhat coarse’ language.28 Other criticisms of ‘Mandalay’ were aimed at the poem’s factual errors and what was seen by some of Kipling’s detractors as his faulty sense of geography.29 With regard to the latter, a particular problem arose over the first line of the poem, which described the ‘Burma girl’ as ‘lookin’ eastward to the sea’.30 Yet, as some readers were quick to point out, Moulmein is not only some 61 kilometres inland, on the Salween River, but the sea lies to the west of the town, not the east. Also, it would make more sense for the girl to be looking westwards towards India, where her ‘British soldier’ was probably once stationed. According to the Kipling Society’s extensive website, Rudyard Kipling answered this pedantry by changing the first line of the poem to match a similar line in the last stanza, which referred to the girl ‘lookin’ lazy at the sea’. Even so, the original wording continued to appear in published collections for some years.31 Thomas Pinney opted for ‘eastward’ in 2013, when editing the authoritative three-volume Cambridge Edition of the Poems of Rudyard Kipling.32 Suggestions that the amendment was made by American composer Oliver (Oley) Speaks, to suit his 1907

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musical rendition of the poem, are incorrect.33 In fact, early printings of his setting faithfully reproduced Kipling’s first line. Questions were also raised over the last line of the chorus, which read: ‘An’ the dawn comes up like thunder outer China ’crost the Bay!’ As Kipling later acknowledged, in response to critics who discovered that Moulmein ‘did not command any view of any sun rising across the Bay of Bengal’, the town ‘is not on the road to anywhere’. Indeed, Mandalay is about 800 kilometres to the north of Moulmein, in central Burma. Yet, as Kipling wrote: Had I opened the chorus of the song with ‘Oh’ instead of ‘On the road’ etc., it might have shown that the song was a sort of general mix-up of the singer’s Far-Eastern memories against a background of the Bay of Bengal seen at dawn from a troop-ship taking him there. But ‘On’ in this case was more singable than ‘Oh’. That simple explanation may stand as a warning.34 As Kipling explained, when the soldier speaks of the road to Mandalay in the chorus, he is referring figuratively to his ‘golden path to romance’.35 Despite Kipling’s explicit warning not to read the poem too literally, some aficionados have come up with ingenious explanations for the poem’s geographical anomalies. For example, one has suggested that, if the British soldier was in India he may not be able to see China across the Bay of Bengal, but he could look at the greater (Indo) China Peninsula, which included Burma.36 Another has claimed that Kipling was referring to a village named ‘China’, reportedly situated to the west of Moulmein, near Rangoon.37 In 1981, an Australian contributor to the Kipling Journal who was familiar with the country put forward the novel theory that the ‘old Moulmein Pagoda’ to which the poem referred was in fact the Botataung Pagoda in Rangoon, which had a slight connection with the southern town. Being situated beside the Rangoon (or Hlaing) River, which is a tributary of the Irrawaddy River, he felt this pagoda had a stronger claim to be ‘on the road to Mandalay’.38 Also, Rangoon was the home port of the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company (the ‘old Flotilla’ mentioned in the poem). The ballad contained a number of other factual errors, which over the years, critics have been happy to point out. For example, Burmese devotees do not kiss the feet of Buddha statues, as described by Kipling. Nor do they customarily call him ‘Buddha’, let alone ‘the great Gawd Budd’. Their usual practice is to speak in broad honorifics, such as ‘Ashin Paya’, or to acknowledge the various incarnations of the Buddha represented on pagoda platforms.39 It is considered disrespectful to refer to him directly by name. By the end of the 19th century, the banjo had become very popular in Western countries but it was an instrument unknown to traditional Burmese culture. Also, Burmese women did not wear petticoats, or caps. David Gilmour has even suggested that they avoided yellow clothes, as it was considered to be too close to the colour of the robes worn by Buddhist

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monks.40 This is stretching a point, as Burmese women of all classes and occupations have always been quite comfortable wearing yellow clothes, as the photographic record readily attests.41 In any case, Burmese pongyis customarily wear maroon or ochre robes (unlike Theravada Buddhist monks in Thailand, Laos and Sri Lanka, who wear saffron robes). All that said, if poetic licence is discounted in favour of a strict adherence to the facts, then Gilmour is justified in calling Kipling’s ‘Mandalay’ ‘a poem of great charm and striking inaccuracy’.42

The musical settings Although Kipling claimed to be unmusical, he was ‘acutely sensitive to metrical form’ and was often found to be ‘singing a new poem’.43 Kay Robinson, the editor of the Civil and Military Gazette from 1886, felt that he always wrote his poems ‘not only to music but as music’. Robinson said that ‘Kipling always conceived his verses that way – as a tune, often a remarkably musical and, to me, novel tune’.44 Kipling was also familiar with most popular music styles and, as the poet T.S. Eliot wrote, he ‘had at least the inspiration and refreshment of the living music hall’.45 Indeed, in late 1889 Kipling wrote a short story entitled ‘My Great and Only’ which was based on his frequent visits to, and obvious affection for, London’s music halls, two wellknown examples of which were situated near his Charing Cross boarding house.46 In this story, Kipling defended the music hall song as a popular art form, despite the fact that in London ‘the gentleman … by virtue of his position preached or ordained that music-halls were vulgar, if not improper’.47 ‘Mandalay’ was consciously written in a way that drew on Britain’s tradition of popular ballads and encouraged a musical setting. As Kipling recounted in his autobiography, Something of Myself, ‘I wrote a song called “Mandalay” which, tacked to a tune with a swing, made one of the waltzes of that distant age’.48 This was presumably a reference to Gerard Cobb’s 1892 musical setting of the poem, which was adapted by Bewicke Beverley the following year to create a ‘Mandalay Waltz’.49 It quickly became something of a hit in Victorian society. Kipling continued: The inhabitants of the United States … ‘Panamaed’ that song (this was before copyright), set it to their own tunes, and sang it in their own national voices.50 By the turn of the century, there were six different musical versions of the poem, not counting Beverley’s waltz. These were by Gerard Cobb (1892), Arthur Thayer (1892), Henry Trevannion (1898), Walter Damrosch (1898), Walter Hedgcock (1899), and Arthur Whiting (1900).51 All but Cobb and Hedgcock were Americans. In addition, the Australian composer Percy Grainger wrote a score based on ‘Mandalay’ in 1898, but it was never published.52 Nor does this list include an arrangement of Cobb’s ‘Mandalay’,

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described as a ‘musical kindergarten sketch’, by the prolific composer Charles Rawlings (published under the pseudonym Theo Bonheur) in 1892.53 By Brian Mattinson’s latest count, there are now at least 24 different musical settings of ‘Mandalay’, all but six of them produced before 1948.54 One notable version was that published in 1907 by the American singer and composer Oley Speaks.55 Others were by Dyneley Prince in 1903, Henry Handel Richardson in 1908, Charles Willeby in 1911 and Charles Maskell in 1932.56 Of those settings with lyrics, most included only the first, second and last two verses of Kipling’s poem, plus the chorus. Sometimes, only three verses were sung. Settings have also embraced a wide range of styles. As time passed, the song was reshaped and rearranged as new musical genres appeared. Jazz, ragtime, big band and swing versions were produced. More modern treatments have included classic pop, folk and even country styles. In 1975, for example, the English folk singer Peter Bellamy gave the ballad a completely new treatment by adapting it to the old shanty and convict broadside tune ‘Ten Thousand Miles Away’ (1840s). There have also been French, Danish, German and Russian versions.57 At first, the musical settings were not particularly exotic. Cobb’s was essentially a waltz, as demonstrated by Beverley’s popular adaptation. Speaks, however, joined an insistent rhythm to ominous harmonies for the verse sections and exotically coloured the references to palm trees and temple bells.58 This created a different sound and mood entirely. Others followed, giving their own interpretations. As Brian Mattinson has observed: Comparisons are interesting and in the case of ‘Mandalay’ there will be personal preference for emphasis on the rugged British ‘Tommy’ (Oley Speaks 1907), the tinkly temple bells (Charles Willeby 1911), the seductive little banjo (Walter Hedgcock 1899) or for contemporary folk style (Peter Bellamy).59 The latter gave greater emphasis to the pathos and underlying bitterness of the original poem than most other versions.60 In his 1937 novel Serenade, the author James Cain declared his preference for Walter Damrosch’s setting. To him, it was: a little tone poem all by itself, a piece of real music, with all the verses in it except the bad one, about the housemaids, and each verse a little different from the others.61 This version was felt to be ‘in a different class from the Speaks Mandalay, or the Prince Mandalay, or any of the other bar-room Mandalays’.62 Despite Cain’s rather dismissive comments, Oley Speaks’ setting of ‘On the Road to Mandalay’ is easily the best known, sales of the sheet music passing the million copies mark.63 Recorded by Victor in 1922, it became the signature song of the American baritone Reinald Werrenrath.

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It was further popularised by the Australian singer Peter Dawson, who first recorded it in 1935. He was a passionate admirer of Kipling’s works and also made recordings of the Willeby, Hedgcock and Cobb settings, in 1910, 1929 and 1937 respectively.64 During the 1940s, Dawson devised what he called a ‘potpourri’ or ‘scena’, in which he sang parts of all four musical versions. While dismissed by one critic as ‘merely a hotch-potch’, others saw it as a seamless rendition of the entire poem.65 After the Second World War, it became a popular feature of Dawson’s concerts in Europe and Australia. His voice was not what it used to be, but Dawson was still singing it in 1951, when he was 69 years old.66 In addition to its simple lyrics, catchy rhythm and romantic theme, there were other reasons why ‘Mandalay’ and its musical settings became so popular. Publication of the poem followed a resurgence of interest in folk songs and ballads in Britain, including the use of vernacular language. It also appeared at a time when the ‘previously oft-despised and feared “common soldier” increasingly became an object of concern and reform’.67 Until Cobb’s musical settings of Kipling’s Barrack-Room Ballads in the early 1890s, ‘there was an immense gulf between the fighting man as depicted in drawing-room ballads and the British Army soldier (for whom, in reality, there was widespread contempt both among the bourgeoisie and his own commanding officers)’.68 Helping to bridge this gulf were the music halls. In glorifying ‘Tommy Atkins’, their song lists represented the soldier in all his forms, from the noble and romantic to the earthy and libidinous. ‘Mandalay’ benefited from all these developments. As a result of all this attention, ‘Mandalay’ became irrevocably associated in the public mind – in Western countries at least – with Burma. As the historian Godfrey Harvey once wrote, ‘Kipling makes Burma the daughter, hailed England the mother’.69 In 1928, Cobb’s setting of the poem was broadcast over British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) radio as part of a special feature celebrating different parts of the British Empire.70 The tune was chosen to represent the Indian province of British Burma, which was accorded equal status with dominions and full-fledged colonies. Also, in addition to those already mentioned, recitations of the poem and its musical settings were performed and, in many case recorded, by dozens of other artists, among them such well-known entertainers as Nelson Eddy, Bing Crosby, Robert Howe, Lawrence Tibbett, Robert Easton, Leonard Warren, Owen Brannigan, Ian Wallace, Christopher Underwood, Frank Sinatra and Frankie Laine.71 It is perhaps also worth mentioning that, after the birth of ‘talking’ pictures in 1927, several versions of ‘On the Road to Mandalay’ were captured on film. This was a mixed blessing. The sound quality was often poor and some of the artists involved paid scant attention to questions of historical or cultural accuracy. In 1932, for example, a Pathe Pictorial short featured ‘the celebrated bass singer’ Robert Easton performing ‘On the Road to Mandalay’. Cut into footage of Easton (dressed formally in white tie and tails, and standing in a parlour by a grand piano) were scenes of rural life in Burma. However, the film also included staged shots of an unconvincing

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‘Eastern beauty’ smoking a curious looking ‘cheroot’ and kissing a cheap Chinese-style ceramic Buddha statuette.72 Other artists were guilty of similar gaffes. Film clips of Leonard Warren’s 1952 operatic rendition of the song show him in evening dress, standing in front of what appears to be a Thai temple scene.73 Frank Sinatra’s controversial swing version, which referred to ‘crazy bells’, ‘Burma broads’ and ‘cats’ who can raise a thirst, was replaced by another song on some of his records after objections were raised by the Kipling family. A filmed version is still available on YouTube.74 Familiarity with Kipling’s ballad, if not its reputation, was also enhanced by the fact that it lent itself easily to parody and adaptation. An early example, sung by British soldiers during the 1896–1898 campaign against the Mahdist state in the Sudan, was ‘A Ballad of the Expeditionary Force’. Its first verse went: By the old Soudani Railway, looking southward from the sea, There’s a camel sits a’swearin’ – and, worse luck, belongs to me: I hate the shadeless palm-tree, but the telegraphs they say, ‘Get you on, you ’Gippy soldier, get you on to Dongolay.’ Get you on to Dongolay, Where the buck stern-wheelers play: Can’t you hear their insides gruntin’ from Cairo to Dongolay? On the road to Dongolay! Where you don’t get foreign pay, And the sand bungs up your eyelids the livelong blessed day.75 As noted in the Pall Mall Gazette at the time, ‘the tune is, of course, that of Mr Rudyard Kipling’s “On the Road to Mandalay”’ (although it is not clear precisely which ‘tune’ the paper was referring to).76 There were other versions, with different words. One, entitled ‘On the Road to Dongolay’, began: On the Road to Dongolay, Where the dying camels lay, And the sun comes down like hellfire, And grows hotter day by day.77 Dongola was a city on the Upper Nile River. It was also the name of the surrounding province, where General Herbert Kitchener defeated a Mahdist force in 1896. An imitation of another kind was a broadside poem written by Lawrence Harris about the great San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906, in which about 3,000 people died and over 80 per cent of the city was destroyed. The poem included the memorable verse: Put me somewhere west of East Street where there’s nothing left but dust, Where the lads are all a’hustlin’ and where everything’s gone bust,

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Rudyard Kipling and ‘Mandalay’ Where the buildings that are standin’ sort of blink and blindly stare At the damnedest finest ruins ever gazed on anywhere.78

Being written to the rhythm of Kipling’s ballad, the poem could also be sung to one of its musical settings. Perhaps the best-known spoof of the poem was by the British music hall comedian Billy Bennett, who was popular during the 1920s and 1930s. Billed as ‘almost a gentleman’, he specialised in parodies of well-known Victorian dramatic monologues and poems. In fact, he performed two versions of ‘Mandalay’, the first of which began: By an old whitewashed pagoda Looking Eastwards towards the West There’s a Burma girl, from Bermondsey Sits in a sparrow’s nest. She’s as pretty as a picture Though she’s lost one eye, they say Through the Black Hole of Calcutta Perhaps the keyhole of Bombay.79 The second version proceeded along similar lines, and included the verses: On the Road to Mandalay, where you’ll see the fried fish play. They bring their own chips with them when it’s early closing day. There’s Ghurkas doing mazurkas with baboons inside their bunks, There’s kangaroos with carpet bags and elephants with trunks, And fat men dump their ‘ombongpong’ inside their Clapham Juncs On The Road to Mandalay … There’s a farm on the horizon, looking eastwards to Siam, We could have some ham and eggs there, if they had some eggs and ham They’ve only got one hen, they call her ‘Mandy’ by the way, They found out she’s a cock – that’s why they can’t make Mandy lay.80 Bennett always appeared on stage in dishevelled evening dress. In the US around the same time, the African-American baritone George Dewey Washington also performed as a ‘gentleman tramp’, in a tattered suit. He made Oley Speaks’ setting of ‘Mandalay’ his vaudeville signature tune, but sang it in a conventional manner. During the 1930s and 1940s, an exaggerated version of ‘On The Road to Mandalay’ was made famous by the American radio comedian Jerry Colonna, who worked closely with Bob Hope.81 Despite, or perhaps because of, its enormous appeal, ‘Mandalay’ continued to attract controversy. On Rudyard Kipling’s death in 1936, for example, George Orwell claimed that his popularity was ‘essentially middle class’ and that ‘Mandalay’ was ‘something worse than a jingle’.82 This charge was

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summarily dismissed by T.S. Eliot, among others.83 The author and critic Osbert Sitwell opined in 1943 that ‘only a hairbreadth divides the poem from hopeless vulgarity’.84 Reflecting postcolonial evaluations of Kipling and his works, more modern authors have registered different concerns. In 1970, for example, Charles Carrington observed that: Of Burma, Kipling knew nothing at first-hand, until he called in a sea-going liner at Rangoon and Moulmein for a few days in 1889. Accordingly, we find his Burmese pieces somewhat remote and romantic.85 Another of Kipling’s biographers, the British historian Charles Allen, suggested in 2009 that ‘Mandalay’ had not aged well and now sounded ‘almost maudlin’.86 The American scholar Thomas Pinney has called ‘On The Road to Mandalay’ the ‘most notorious’ of Kipling’s musical settings.87 Yet even Orwell, a trenchant critic of Kipling, imperialism, the British colonial presence in Burma and indeed of Mandalay city itself, confessed that he was ‘seduced’ by Kipling’s work.88 Despite his rather dismissive remarks about ‘Mandalay’ after the poet’s death, he once told the British author and critic Malcolm Muggeridge that it was his favourite poem, if not ‘the most beautiful poem in the English language’.89 Sitwell too conceded that ‘some kind of spiritual Bovril, as well as the energy of the writing, enables you to derive comfort and sustenance from it’.90 This may help account for the fact that, over the years, the poem has continued to ‘stay by one’, as Orwell once put it. Set to music, it has been sung ‘wherever songs are sung’.91 This is thanks to what T.S. Eliot called Kipling’s ‘consummate gift of word, phrase and rhythm’, linked to what the British literary scholar Bonamy Dobree has described as ‘rousing, singable tunes’.92 In his essay ‘Tradition and the Individual Talent’, T.S. Eliot spoke of how, when a new literary work appeared, every existing work was somehow modified by it and the whole scene subtly rearranged.93 He was speaking purely of literature, and his comment can be applied to Kipling’s oeuvre, but the poem ‘Mandalay’ did this in another sense too. Despite all the critical comments that have appeared over the past 125 years or so, both the poem and its musical settings have been enormously influential. The poem irrevocably altered public perceptions of Burma, and by extension Western notions of the ‘Far East’. In different ways, and to different degrees, its musical settings coloured almost all the popular songs and tunes about Asia that followed. As a survey of Burma-related songs and tunes over the next 60 years shows, Kipling’s images became fixed firmly in people’s minds and inspired dozens of composers and lyricists in the UK, the US and elsewhere.

Notes 1. ‘Barrack-Room Ballads’, No. 10, The Scots Observer, 21 June 1890, p. 124. 2. Rudyard Kipling, Barrack-Room Ballads and Other Verses (London: Methuen, 1892), pp. 50–3.

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3. This phrase is usually taken to mean ‘hullo stranger’, kala being a common Burmese term for foreigners at the time. It is still used in this sense, but has acquired negative connotations. See, for example ‘Mandalay’, Kipling Society, at http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/rg_mandalay1.htm. 4. Hathi is the Hindi word for elephant. 5. Kipling, Barrack-Room Ballads and Other Verses, pp. 50–3. 6. See, for example, Selth, Burma Watching: A Retrospective. 7. A.P. Cooper, ‘Rudyard Kipling – A Biographical Sketch’, in Around the World With Kipling (New York: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1926), p. 27. 8. ‘A Conference of the Powers’ was first published in The Pioneer on 23 and 24 May 1890, but was probably written earlier. ‘The Taking of Lungtunpen’ appeared in The Civil and Military Gazette in April 1887. ‘Georgie Porgie’ first appeared in The Week’s News in November 1888. 9. ‘A Nightmare of Names’ was published in The Civil and Military Gazette in December 1886 and ‘The Grave of the Hundred Dead’ was published in The Week’s News in January 1888. ‘The Ballad of Boh Da Thone’ was published in Barrack-Room Ballads and Other Verses, but also dates from 1888. See G.H. Webb, ‘Kipling’s Burma: A literary and historical review’, Asian Affairs, Vol. 15, No. 2, June 1984, pp. 163–78; and Andrew Rutherford (ed), Early Verse by Rudyard Kipling, 1879–1889: Unpublished, Uncollected and Rarely Collected Poems (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986). 10. Kipling, From Sea to Sea, p. 203. 11. Kipling, From Sea to Sea, pp. 203–4. 12. R.R. Langham-Carter, Old Moulmein (875–1880) (Moulmein: Moulmein Press, 1947), pp. 33–6. See also A Handbook for Travellers in India, Burma and Ceylon (London: John Murray, 1918), pp. 639–42; and O’Connor, The Silken East, pp. 274ff. 13. Kipling, ‘Mandalay’, Rudyard Kipling’s Verse: Definitive Edition, pp. 418–20. 14. For example, referring to the exclusive Pegu Club in Rangoon, one best-selling guidebook states that ‘it’s believed that Rudyard Kipling was inspired to write his poem Mandalay after spending a night here’. Simon Richmond, et al., Myanmar (Burma), 12th edition (Melbourne: Lonely Planet, 2014), p. 46. 15. Rudyard Kipling, ‘In Partibus’ (1889), in Rutherford, Early Verse by Rudyard Kipling, pp. 470–2. See also Andrew Lycett (ed), Kipling Abroad: Traffics and Discoveries from Burma to Brazil (London: I.B. Taurus, 2010), pp. 152–4. ‘In Partibus’ is an abbreviation of the Latin tag ‘in partibus infidelium’, meaning ‘in the lands of the unbelievers’. 16. Kipling, ‘Mandalay’, Rudyard Kipling’s Verse: Definitive Edition, p. 419. 17. Kipling, ‘In Partibus’, in Rutherford, Early Verse, p. 472. Kipling’s prickly relationship with Britain’s Aesthetic Movement is discussed in W.B. Dillingham, Rudyard Kipling: Hell and Heroism (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), pp. 23–6. 18. Although born in Bombay in 1865, Kipling was sent back to the UK for schooling when he was five years old. He did not return to India until he was nearly 17 and remained there until he turned 23. 19. Sharon Hamilton, ‘Musicology as Propaganda in Victorian Theory and Practice’, Mosaic, Vol. 31, No. 2, June 1998, pp. 35ff. 20. For example, Victor recorded ‘On the Road to Mandalay’ ten times between 1900 and 1929. The first was a recitation by George Broderick, the last a

Rudyard Kipling and ‘Mandalay’

21. 22. 23. 24.

25.

26.

27. 28. 29. 30. 31.

32. 33. 34. 35. 36.

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version by the Associated Glee Clubs of America. See ‘Rudyard Kipling (author)’, Victor: Encyclopaedic Discography of Victor Recordings, at http:// archive.is/v6LlJ. This  list does not include the recording of a recitation by Dan Quinn issued by Edison in 1899. D.J. Steffen, From Edison to Marconi: The First Thirty Years of Recorded Music (Jefferson: McFarland and Co., 2005), p. 197. A.A. Lawson, Life in the Burmese Jungle (Lewes: The Book Guild Ltd, 1983), pp. 1 and 47. J.L. Christian, ‘Thebaw: Last King of Burma’, The Far Eastern Quarterly, Vol. 3, No. 4, August 1944, p. 309. See, for example, Hamilton, ‘Musicology as Propaganda in Victorian Theory and Practice’. The author of this line, Edgar Wallace, did not mean it unkindly, but others were less charitable. R.H. MacDonald, The Language of Empire: Myths and Metaphors of Popular Imperialism, 1880–1918 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994), p. 148. Robert Buchanan, ‘The Voice of the “Hooligan”’, Contemporary Review, Vol.  76, December 1899, pp. 774–89. Referring to Barrack-Room Ballads, Buchanan wrote that ‘the best of them is a ballad called ‘Mandalay’ … which certainly possesses a real melody and a certain pathos’ (pp. 779–80). See also R.L. Green (ed), Rudyard Kipling: The Critical Heritage (London: Routledge, 2000), pp. 233–49. William Wordsworth, ‘Preface to Lyrical Ballads’, in R.L. Brett and A.R. Jones (eds), Wordsworth and Coleridge: Lyrical Ballads: The Text of the 1798 Edition with Additional 1800 Poems and Prefaces (London: Methuen and Co., 1963), pp. 235ff. See also Austin Asche, ‘The Long Trail, and Those Who Followed It’, The Kipling Journal, No. 295, September 2000, pp. 16–30. Simon Dentith, Epic and Empire in Nineteenth Century Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 163–8. ‘Award Ceremony Speech’, 10 December 1907, Nobelpriz.org, at http://www. nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1907/press.html. See, for example, H., ‘Mr Kipling’s Accuracy’, Literature, Vol. 6, 6 January 1900, p. 26. Kipling, ‘Mandalay’, Rudyard Kipling’s Verse: Definitive Edition, pp. 418–20. John McGivering and John Radcliffe, ‘Mandalay’, The New Reader’s Guide to the Works of Rudyard Kipling, at http://www.kipling.org.uk/rg_mandalay1.htm#kipling. Rudyard Kipling’s Verse: Inclusive Edition, 1885–1932 (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1933) and Rudyard Kipling’s Verse: Definitive Edition (1940) both use ‘lookin’ lazy’, rather than ‘lookin’ eastward’. Also, personal communications with Brian Mattinson, December 2013 and January 2014. Thomas Pinney (ed), The Cambridge Edition of the Poems of Rudyard Kipling, 3 volumes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), Vol. 1, pp. 207–9. ‘Kipling’s “Mandalay” – geographical puzzle’, Glind’s Diversions, at http:// glind.customer.netspace.net.au/bengal.html. Kipling, From Sea to Sea, pp. 203–4. Kipling, From Sea to Sea, p. 204. See, for example, George Engle, ‘The Geography of “Mandalay”’, The Kipling Journal, No. 272, September 1994, pp. 51–3.

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37. ‘News and Notes’, The Kipling Journal, No. 49, April 1939, p. 6. 38. L.A. Crozier, ‘The Pagoda’, The Kipling Journal, No. 219, September 1981, pp.  18–30. Crozier was an engineer who managed a mine in Upper Burma before and after the Second World War. 39. In the Theravada tradition, 27 Buddhas are named in the Buddhavamsa before the Gautama Buddha. 40. Gilmour, The Ruling Caste, p. 285. 41. See, for example, the vintage picture postcards depicting Burmese women reproduced in Singer, Burmah: A Photographic Journey, pp. 70–9; and Images of Mother Loved by the People: Daw Aung San Suu Kyi’s World Famous Speeches and Historic Words, translated by Nay Win San, photography by Kyaw Soe Naing (Yangon?: Book Street Publishing House, 2003). 42. Gilmour, The Ruling Caste, p. 285. 43. Thomas Pinney, ‘Kipling, (Joseph) Rudyard’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, at http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/printable/34334. See also Norman Page, A Kipling Companion (London: Macmillan, 1984), p. 180. 44. W.T. Stead, ‘Kipling as an Indian Journalist’, Review of Reviews: An International Magazine, Vol. 14, December 1896, p. 83. See also Brian Mattinson, ‘Kipling and Music’, at http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/rg_music1.htm. 45. T.S. Eliot, A Choice of Kipling’s Verse, with an Essay on Rudyard Kipling (London: Faber and Faber, 1941), p. 10. See also Colin MacInnes, ‘Kipling and the Music Halls’, in John Gross (ed), The Age of Kipling (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1972), pp. 58–61; and Michael Halliwell, ‘Rudyard Kipling’s Barrack-Room Ballads’, When the Empire Calls, Audio CD (Sydney: ABC Classics, 2005), p. 5. 46. ‘My Great and Only’ was first published in the Civil and Military Gazette on 11 and 13 January 1890. See Rutherford, Early Verse by Rudyard Kipling, pp. 473–5. 47. Rudyard Kipling, ‘My Great and Only’, in Abaft the Funnel (New York: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1909), p. 262. 48. Rudyard Kipling, Something of Myself and Other Autobiographical Writings (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977), pp. 165–6. 49. Bewicke Beverley, ‘Mandalay Waltz’ (London: Charles Sheard and Co., 1893). According to the original sheet music, this piece was ‘constructed on themes mainly taken from the Song “Mandalay” by Gerard F. Cobb, No. 2 of a Set of “Barrack-Room Ballads” (Rudyard Kipling) published by Sheard & Co.’. See also B.E. Smythies, ‘Musical Settings of “Mandalay”’, The Kipling Journal, No. 258, June 1991, pp. 34–5. 50. Kipling, Something of Myself, pp. 165–6. ‘Panamaed’ is presumably a reference to the United States’ heavy-handed appropriation of sovereign rights to the Panama Canal, in 1904. The US International Copyright Act was passed in 1891. 51. These were ‘Mandalay, No. 2 of a set of Barrack-Room Ballads’, words by Rudyard Kipling, music by Gerard F. Cobb (London: Herman Darewski Music Publishing Co., 1892); ‘Mandalay’, in Three Songs by Arthur W. Thayer (Boston: H.B. Stevens and Co., 1892); ‘On The Road to Mandalay: A  Barrack-Room Ballad’, words by Rudyard Kipling and music by Henry Trevannion (Milwaukee: Joseph Flanner, 1898); ‘Mandalay’, in Songs by Walter Damrosch (Cincinnati: The John Church Company, 1897); ‘On The Road to Mandalay: Rudyard Kipling’s

Rudyard Kipling and ‘Mandalay’

52.

53. 54. 55. 56.

57.

58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63.

64.

65.

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Celebrated “Barrack-Room Ballad”’, music by Walter Hedgcock (London: Charles Sheard and Co., incorporating Herman Darewski Music Publishing Co., 1899); and ‘Mandalay’, in Rudyard Kipling’s Barrack-Room Ballads Set to Music, music by Arthur Whiting (New York: G. Schirmer Inc., 1900). The manuscript is held by the Grainger Museum at the University of Melbourne in Australia. Personal correspondence with Brian Mattinson, 30 December 2013. See also Kay Dreyfus, Percy Grainger’s Kipling Settings: A Study of the Manuscript Sources (Nedlands: University of Western Australia, 1980), p. 24. ‘Mandalay: Musical Kindergarten Sketch’, by Theo Bonheur (London: Charles Sheard and Co., 1892). Brian Mattinson, ‘The Musical Settings of Kipling’s Verse’, The New Reader’s Guide to the Works of Rudyard Kipling, at http://www.kipling.org.uk/settings1. htm. ‘On the Road to Mandalay’, words by Rudyard Kipling and music by Oley Speaks (Cincinnati: The John Church Company, 1907). ‘On The Road to Mandalay’, words by Rudyard Kipling and music by Dyneley Prince (New York: G. Schirmer Inc., 1903): ‘Mandalay’, words by Rudyard Kipling and music by Henry Handel Richardson [Ethel Richardson] (1908), in Bruce Steele and Richard Divall (eds), Songs by Henry Handel Richardson for Voice and Piano (Sydney: Currency Press, 2000), pp. 28–9; ‘Mandalay’, lyrics by Rudyard Kipling and music by Charles Willeby (Cincinnati: The John Church Company, 1911); and ‘On the Road to Mandalay: Song’, words by Rudyard Kipling, music by Charles H. Maskell (Philadelphia: Morris Music Co., 1932). The Danish version was translated by Kai Frus Moller and set to the music of Erling Winkel in 1942. A choral version was written by the German composer Harald Genzmer in 1963, with the lyrics translated by Otto Sachs. The Russian version was translated by E. Polonskaya and sung by Vera Matveeva. D.B. Scott, The Singing Bourgeois: Songs of the Victorian Drawing Room and Parlour (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001), pp. 177–8. Mattinson, ‘Kipling and Music’. See, for example, Peter Bellamy, ‘Mandalay’, at http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=FKOXJ9VwWtU; and Peter Bellamy Sings the Barrack-Room Ballads of Rudyard Kipling, Audio CD (Fellside, 2012). J.M. Cain, Serenade (London: Penguin, 1953), p. 148. Cain, Serenade, p. 148. Arthur Peterson, ‘Of Oley Speaks and “Mandalay”’, Toldedo Blade (Toledo, US), 1 September 1948, at http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1350& dat=19480830&id=itMpAAAAIBAJ&sjid=CQAEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5212, 2145307. Russell Smith and Peter Burgis, Peter Dawson: The World’s Most Popular Baritone, with Complete Song Title Discography (Sydney: Currency Press, 2001), p. 322. See also ‘On the Road to Mandalay – Peter Dawson’, YouTube, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5_M9kTBmug. Smith and Burgis, Peter Dawson, p. 264. See also Fidelio, ‘A Veteran’s Success: Audience Acclaims Peter Dawson’, The West Australian (Perth, Australia), 17  March 1949. The medley was called ‘Mandalay Potpourri’ when recorded by His Master’s Voice (HMV) in Sydney in 1945, but its name had changed to ‘Mandalay Scena’ when broadcast over Australian radio in 1954, and re-recorded by HMV in 1955.

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Rudyard Kipling and ‘Mandalay’

66. See ‘Peter Dawson – Mandalay Scena (On the Road to Mandalay)’, YouTube, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2N6dvVyfLbc. 67. MacKenzie, Popular Imperialism and the Military, pp. 50 and 58. 68. Scott, The Singing Bourgeois, p. 172. 69. Phillips, ‘Romance and Tragedy in Burmese History’, p. 6. 70. Richards, Imperialism and Music, p. 171. 71. Smythies, ‘Musical Settings of “Mandalay”’. 72. ‘Robert Easton in “Mandalay”’, Pathe Pictorial, 1932, at http://www. britishpathe.com/video/robert-easton-in-mandalay. 73. Leonard Warren, ‘On The Road to Mandalay (1952)’, YouTube, at http://www. youtube.com/watch?v=7IXTsXTRMvo. 74. Frank Sinatra, ‘On The Road to Mandalay’, YouTube, at http://www.youtube. com/watch?v=j5HFVo7KmaA. Sinatra’s version was released on his 1958 album Come Fly with Me but was removed after the Kipling family complained about changes made to the lyrics. Mandalay was also mentioned in ‘Anytime, Anywhere’, which was included on Sinatra’s album Look To Your Heart (1959). See ‘On The Road to Mandalay’, Steyn Online, 23 March 2015, at http://www. steynonline.com/6870/on-the-road-to-mandalay. 75. ‘Road to Dongolay’, The Press (Canterbury, New Zealand), 31 July 1896, at http:// paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&d=CHP18960731.2.16. 76. ‘Road to Dongolay’, The Press, 31 July 1896. 77. Rory MacLaren, Canadians on the Nile, 1882–1898: Being the Adventures of the Voyageurs on the Khartoum Relief Expedition and Other Exploits (Vancouver: University of British Columbia, 1978), pp. 142ff. 78. L.W. Harris, The Damnedest Finest Ruins: After Kipling’s ‘On The Road to Mandalay’ (San Francisco: A.B. Pierson, 1906). 79. Billy Bennett, ‘Mandalay (1)’, Make Em Laugh, at http://monologues.co.uk/003/ Mandalay.htm. See also ‘Mandalay’ (Bennett) Comic Music Hall Monologue by Billy Bennett, YouTube, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6PoWwalOdY. He was also recorded by Columbia on 78 rpm record, with orchestral backing. 80. Billy Bennett, ‘Mandalay (2)’, Make Em Laugh, at http://monologues.co.uk/003/ Mandalay_2.htm. The slang term ‘ombongpong’, current before the Second World War, had several meanings, none of which are very clear. However, most seem to have been related to obesity, or to specific parts of the body, such as the chest, stomach or posterior. 81. ‘Jerry Colonna – Road to Mandalay’, YouTube, at https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=gfaji34hccc. 82. George Orwell, ‘On Kipling’s Death’, in Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus (eds), The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, Volume 1, An Age Like This, 1920–1940 (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968), p. 183. 83. Eliot, A Choice of Kipling’s Verse, p. 6. 84. Osbert Sitwell, ‘Vulgarity in Literature: Modern Manifestations’, Times Literary Supplement, 11 September 1943, p. 438. 85. Charles Carrington, Rudyard Kipling: His Life and Work (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970), p. 143. 86. Charles Allen, Kipling Sahib: India and the Making of Rudyard Kipling (London: Abacus, 2009), p. 307. 87. Thomas Pinney, ‘On Collecting Kipling’, in D.A. Richards (ed), Rudyard Kipling: The Books I Leave Behind (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), p. 15.

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88. See, for example, Michael Shelden, Orwell: The Authorised Biography (New York: Harper Collins, 1991), pp. 79–112. In his novel about Burma, Orwell described Mandalay as a most disagreeable place famous for five products all beginning with ‘P’, namely pagodas, pariah dogs, priests, pigs and prostitutes. Orwell, Burmese Days, p. 237. 89. Malcolm Muggeridge, ‘A Knight of the Woeful Countenance’, in Miriam Gross (ed), The World of George Orwell (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1971), p. 171. See also John Rodden, George Orwell: The Politics of Literary Reputation (Somerset: Transaction, 2002), p. 125. 90. Sitwell, ‘Vulgarity in Literature’. Bovril is a meat extract used for hot drinks and as flavouring in food. 91. Orwell, ‘On Kipling’s Death’, p. 183, and ‘Road to Mandalay’, The Land (Sydney, Australia), 28 September 1928. 92. Eliot, A Choice of Kipling’s Verse, p. 11, and Bonamy Dobree, Rudyard Kipling: Realist and Fabulist (London: Oxford University Press, 1967), p. 212. 93. T.S. Eliot, Selected Essays (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1950), pp. 3–11. See also Douglas Kerr, ‘Orwell, Kipling, and Empire’, The Orwell Prize, at http://theorwellprize.co.uk/george-orwell/about-orwell/douglas-kerr-orwellkipling-and-empire/.

4

Burma and Western music after ‘Mandalay’

Not only was Kipling’s poem very popular, both in verse and as a song, but it spawned a large number of similar musical works. At first, they tended to follow Kipling’s lead fairly closely, even to the extent of copying his lyrics. However, later songwriters and composers were content to exploit the Western public’s attraction to the image of a lovelorn Asian girl waiting for her European sweetheart in an exotic place far away. While Kipling’s ballad initially inspired a number of soldiers’ songs, works were also written for music halls and other theatrical venues.1 Some were included in collections of ‘parlour’ or drawing room songs. A few were by amateurs. By 1918, however, and the birth of the so-called jazz age, Kipling’s ‘Burma Girl’ had become a familiar figure in popular songs written by professionals in the US and UK for much larger audiences. Burma even began to feature in ballets, classical musical works and advertising jingles. In various ways, these trends influenced and were in turn influenced by developments in the music industry, in particular communications technology. Before Kipling’s poem was written, music outlets were either traditional publishers or local printers who produced sheet music along with books, magazines and stationery. Broadsides and musical scores were sold in their own shops or by travelling salesmen. Gradually, however, professional music publishers began to appear.2 Also, during the 19th century, efforts were made to make sheet music more appealing, utilising colour lithography and other new printing techniques.3 Publishers commissioned original artwork, reflecting popular styles. Later, many covers featured a combination of graphic art and photography.4 Individual artists or prominent personalities – the ‘celebrities’ of the day – were shown on the covers of particular songs, both to promote sales and to encourage well-known performers to include the song in their repertoires.5 ‘Occasionally, famous illustrators of books, magazines and posters created sheet music artwork or allowed their previous work to be used as cover art’.6 By the early 20th century, illustrated covers were highly developed and a significant factor in the sale of sheet music to the public. Many a mediocre piece of music was sold because of its attractive packaging. At the same time, recording devices and techniques were becoming more sophisticated. This permitted a much wider range of musical works to be recorded and marketed. In 1877, the phonograph, with its cylindrical records, was invented by Thomas Edison. The first flat discs appeared ten

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years later, just before publication of ‘Mandalay’. With the creation of companies like Gramophone in 1897 and Victor in 1901, records could reach a mass market. By 1910, the gramophone and its flat records had become the preferred machine and playback device.7 While technical problems initially limited the kind of compositions that were suitable for reproduction, this created a strong demand for new songs and tunes.8 The development of radio was another important factor. Enrico Caruso made the first live broadcast from New York’s Metropolitan Opera House in 1910 and the first commercial AM radio station began operations in 1921.9 The spread of popular music was given another boost with the birth of cinemas in 1913. During the silent era, producers often hired a songwriter to compose a theme song with the same title as the movie. With the release of the first feature-length ‘talking’ picture – a musical – in 1927, the demand for original works increased dramatically, as did music sales.10 It is in this context that the composition of Burma-related songs and tunes, most of them inspired in some way by Kipling’s poem and its musical settings, needs to be considered. While a chronological survey of such works reveals a number of trends in popular songs, it also demonstrates that certain key themes underwent little change. Indeed, songwriters depended on audiences to know and understand the references to Burma that were being made in titles, lyrics and on the covers of sheet music.

Imitations and inspirations At first, ‘Mandalay’ appeared under its own name. Indeed, so familiar did it become that one American publisher released an adaptation of Henry Trevannion’s 1898 setting of the ballad as a two-step dance tune, simply entitled ‘The Mandalay’.11 However, it was soon much better known by the title of its most famous musical versions, namely ‘On the Road to Mandalay’. It was not long before there appeared a host of other songs and tunes with similar titles and themes. At first, these songs used some or all of Kipling’s words but, as demonstrated by different versions of ‘On the Road to Dongolay’ (1896), his ballad soon attracted new lyrics. For example, there were at least half a dozen ‘soldiers’ songs’, produced during the 1898 Spanish-American War and the Philippine-American War of 1899–1902, which drew directly on Kipling’s original and were sung to the tune of ‘On the Road to Mandalay’. These included spin-offs such as ‘Down by Manila Bay’, ‘Manila Way’, ‘By Old Fort San Felipe’ and ‘On the Road to Old Luzon’. All have been nominally dated 1904, but they could have been composed a little earlier or later.12 One song entitled ‘At Naiac’ (1904) barely made any changes to the original lyrics, as seen by the first two verses: By the moss-grown church of Naiac, lookin’ lazy at the sea, There’s a gugu girl a-sitting and I know she longs for me, The wind blows through the palm trees and I think I hear her say Come you back you Yankee soldier, come you back to me today.

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Burma and Western music after ‘Mandalay’ Her petticoat is yellow, her camisa it is green, And her nombre is Teresa, my chocolate-coloured Queen, I saw her first a’smoking of an overgrown cheroot, And a’wasting dainty kisses that should be a soldier’s loot’.13

The word ‘gugu’ (or ‘goo-goo’), a derogatory term applied to local women by American soldiers in the Philippines during this period, is thought to derive from ‘gugo’, a local tree the bark of which Filipinas used to wash their hair, in lieu of shampoo.14 There is a second, longer version of this song, which is less romantic. After some racially disparaging and uncomplimentary comments about a ‘gugu girl’, whose ‘hair is thin and scraggy and sometimes full of fleas’, the narrator sings: But I’ve left it all behind me, Thank the Lord, I’m miles away, And back in God’s own country, and there I intend to stay, And I’m learning in my old home, what all the wise folk say, ‘When you hear the East a’calling, you had better stay away’. No more have I the ‘dhobie’, nor the awful ‘prickly heat’, I walk out of an evening, with a maiden bright and sweet, Just give me one good Yankee girl, one I can call my own, And gugu dames are welcome to the man who wrote the poem.15 ‘Dhobie’ is a reference to ‘dhobie itch’, a fungal infection of the groin common in the tropics.16 The ‘man who wrote the poem’ is clearly a reference to Rudyard Kipling, who the American soldier singing the song seems to feel has an overly romantic view of Asia and Asian women. ‘Down by Old Manila Bay’ voices one of the American forces’ complaints about the local inhabitants, who were deemed to have profited from the war without exposing themselves to any danger: Down by old Manila bay, where if I could have my say, The boys who fought and bled and starved would have a little sway, And the fuzzy old amigos wouldn’t scoop in all the pay, Down by old Manila bay.17 ‘O’er The Sea, Manila Way’ (1904) was composed by a woman named Rose Kidd Beere, and takes a more kindly view. It began: By the curved Luneta seawall, facing outward from the lea There’s a dark-eyed maiden waiting and I know she thinks of me; For a transport’s in the harbour, and she sighs as she would say, Come, my ’Mericano soldier; Come you back Manila way.18

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Another ‘soldiers’ song’ heard in the Philippines during this period was ‘Where I Would Be’ (1904). It too followed the lines of ‘Mandalay’, and began: There is something in the spring time in them spicy garlic smells, In the jungle and the rice-field, in the twilight of the dells; That is calling, calling, calling, and it’s there where I would be, On the beach at Paranague lookin’ lazy at the sea.19 The debt owed to Kipling’s poem by all these songs is obvious. It is not clear which musical setting is meant when ‘On the Road to Mandalay’ is cited as the tune, but in his detailed study of Tin Pan Alley and the Philippines Thomas Walsh suggested that at least two settings were well known to the US Volunteers. One was the 1898 version by Henry Trevannion and the other was the version by Oley Speaks. Most of the sheet music of Trevannion’s version which was sold in the US at the time featured a cover photograph of Brigadier General Charles King, the multi-talented commander of the US Eighth Army Corps in the Philippines, in full uniform.20 This may have simply been clever advertising, but it suggests that Trevannion’s was the preferred setting.21 Certainly, it was used to accompany Beere’s ‘O’er The Sea, Manila Way’ (1904). In any case, as it did not appear until 1907, Speaks’ version would have been released too late to be adopted by many of the US soldiers posted to the Philippines during this period. Burma also began to feature in musical entertainments of other kinds, including plays, variety shows and musical comedies. Some compositions made direct or indirect references to Kipling’s poem. For example, a show called The Blue Moon, first produced at London’s Lyric Theatre in 1905, had as its storyline an ‘Oriental singing girl’ and her Royal Navy lover encountering all sorts of obstacles on their path to wedded bliss. The show featured a song entitled ‘Burmah Girl’, which included the lines: Throughout the world I’ve been or seen Girls of each sort and kind, But not one have I met as yet With qualities so defined. The Irish girl, the Scottish lass, delightful in their way, And English girls, forgive me please, but I am bound to say: Burmah, Burmah, Burmah girl You stand alone of all I have known, With your smiles and roguish wiles, How can a man be firm, ah! …22 Earlier in the show, the ‘Burmah girl’ had sung ‘I’m a little maid, / Dark, demure and dreamy’.23 However, she was in fact the daughter of an English

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aristocrat who had been kidnapped as a child. This tried and tested theatrical device cleared the way for the hero to marry his sweetheart without shocking his parents, and polite society. After The Blue Moon opened in Australia in 1907 one reviewer quoted the playbill, which revealed the show’s debt to Kipling’s ‘Mandalay’: … ‘a dainty production, with its scenes set in the silken East, bringing with it the breath of flowers and spices and the beauty of Oriental magnificence’ … There is a sensation right through the bright comedy of ‘the sunshine and the palm trees and the tinkly temple bells on the road to Mandalay’, and there is a plentiful supply of the lovely Burmah girls, who are described as sitting by the ‘old Moulmein pagoda’.24 In a similar vein was a song by Roderic Penfield and Hans Scherber entitled ‘My Maid of Mandalay’ (1907), which also followed the Kipling story closely. The singer pines for ‘My little girl in green’ who ‘lifted up her teardimmed eyes to look a last goodbye’. The palm trees trembled in the breeze, The temple bells rang out, Their music floated far across the water of the bay; She said her heart was mine, all mine, The temple bells tolled on, I wonder if they’re tolling for my maid of Mandalay.25 It is unlikely that the small bells on ‘the old pagoda tall’ did more than tinkle, but the meaning of the lyrics – and the allusion to Kipling’s poem – were still clear. In 1909, one theatrical production gave close attention to Burmese themes. It was entitled The Pagoda of Flowers: A Burmese Story in Song and featured the music of Amy Woodforde-Finden, who was already well known to British audiences as the composer of the ‘Kashmiri Song’ (1902).26 The Pagoda of Flowers told the story of Ma Noo, a Burmese girl trying to win back her sweetheart, Oo Ma La, who had become a Buddhist monk. He in turn had to wrestle with his conscience and decide whether to pursue his religious vocation or return to secular life, and his lover: The city glows with lanterns bright, And gay musicians greet the night; Whilst whisp’ring voices from above Proclaim the carnival of love. God keep my thoughts on holy things, God grant thy peace devotion brings, That so full merit I obtain Nirvana’s blessed rest to gain.27

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Faced with the prospect of the rejected and distraught Ma Noo committing suicide, however, Oo Ma La relents: Nay, live, Ma Noo, for see! Afar the beggars bowl I fling! For thou to me Art dearer than my soul. Live! Live, Ma Noo, for love, Of prayer I make an end, And, reckless of the God above, My saffron robes I rend!28 Woodforde-Finden lived in India for several years as the wife of an Indian Army surgeon, and the production demonstrated some knowledge of Burma. The eponymous ‘pagoda’ is clearly the Shwedagon in Rangoon. The song’s invocations to ‘God’ and the references to the monk’s ‘soul’ show little understanding of Theravada Buddhism or Burmese culture. To be charitable, however, it could be that the lyricist included these references to make the story more accessible to Western audiences. This production appears to have inspired a work arranged for brass band by Sydney Herbert, entitled ‘The Pagoda of Flowers: Burmese Suite’. It was published by the London firm Boosey and Hawkes in 1926.29 Also in 1909, a musical comedy in three acts called Mr Lode of Koal opened at the Majestic Theatre in New York, starring the famous African-American vaudeville comic Bert Williams. The music was by Williams and J. Rosamond Johnson. The book and lyrics were written by Jesse Shipp and Alex Rogers. According to a study of the music of the period, the setting of the show was ‘mythical rather than “black”’.30 It was a farce about a kidnapped king (played by Williams), and included a song entitled ‘In Far Off Mandalay’, with music by Al Johns and lyrics by Alex Rogers. It began: Whener’e I close my eyes I dream … In far off Mandalay my dreammate waits for me.31 Little else about this particular work is known, except that it was considered ‘exotic’, and opened with ‘a kind of moody drumming accompaniment’.32 It has been described by one jazz historian as a ‘Broadway hit’.33 However, Mr  Lode of Koal was a commercial failure, and the reference is likely to have been to another song with a similar title. In June 1906, it was announced in the San Francisco newspapers that a New York firm had undertaken to finance a comic opera in two acts entitled The Maid of Mandalay.34 It was to be written by Joseph Blethen with music composed by Harry Girard (also known as Victor Kemp). The duo took time off to collaborate on another musical comedy, called The Alaskan, in 1907, but work continued on the first contract. The Maid of Mandalay

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eventually opened at the Majestic Theatre in Los Angeles in 1910 with a cast of more than 100 men and women.35 Little is known about this production, but the actual Burmese content seems to have been quite limited. The show appears to have taken its name from a song with a similar title, but the other numbers covered a wide range of subjects.36 For example, one song written by A.C. Luttman was entitled ‘My Wife Has Gone to Visit Her Relations’. The large chorus line was dressed at different times as ‘Hawaiian natives in simple flower-trimmed garments’ and American ‘sailor lads and lassies’.37 In 1910 two Britons, J.W.J. Alves and R.C.J. Swinhoe, produced a collection entitled Four Songs of Burma.38 It included ‘The Cold Weather’, ‘The Well’, ‘The River’ and ‘Ma Lay Lay’. Unusually, both contributors brought first-hand experience of Burma to the project. Captain, later Major John Alves was an officer with the Indian Army’s 93rd Burma Infantry, who appears to have been stationed in Burma during the period 1909–1913. A keen musician and amateur photographer, he was later posted to India, where he died in 1918.39 Rodway Swinhoe was even more familiar with Burma, where he worked as a lawyer and government official from 1888 until his death in 1927. He was considered an ‘expert in matters Burmese’, and was popularly known as ‘the Father of the Mandalay Bar’.40 One of his many accomplishments was to design the botanical gardens in Maymyo. According to Richard Rhodes James, Swinhoe’s grandson and a Second World War Burma veteran: A man of wide culture, he made a considerable impression both on the small colony of British and on the Burmese, for whose way of life he had a deep appreciation.41 In addition to his diverse musical efforts, Swinhoe wrote a humorous Incomplete Guide to Burma and a book of poems. He also contributed a number of poems to a book of photographs of Burma, which was published in Rangoon around 1925.42 Some of these poems also served as the lyrics to his songs. The first collection of songs by this pair appears to have been well received, as it was followed in 1911 by another composition, entitled ‘The Golden Land of Burma’. Once again, Swinhoe wrote the words and Alves the music. It pays homage to Kipling’s ballad, with passing references to the ‘greener, cleaner land’, to hathis piling timber and flying fishes playing.43 Even more so, however, it reflects the obvious deep affection that the two Britons had for the country where ‘The sun is always shining hard, / and milk and honey flow’. Burma’s ‘fair maids’ get several honourable mentions, as in the verse: Venus Aphrodite was a beauty in her day, She enter’d for the Paris stakes and bore the prize away, But she couldn’t hold a candle to a Burma minkalay In the golden land of Burma.44

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A ‘minkalay’ (or mingale) is a young Burmese woman. This song was published in Rangoon by the music publisher Misquith, but only one copy (now in the British Library) appears to have survived. In 1912, the duo produced Songs of Burma (Second Set). This included five works, entitled in turn ‘Lullaby’, ‘The Loom’, ‘Rubies’, ‘Sunrise’ and ‘The Maiden and the Buddh’.45 The latter is of particular interest for its reference to foreigners and their penchant for ‘collecting’ Burmese artefacts and memorabilia, in this case a Buddha statue. It reads, in part: One morning, ere the Palm-groves had caught the beams of day, An early English traveller came down from Mandalay; He had studied Eastern culture in the esoteric line, So he stole that little image from his dusty little shrine! With face all newly polish’d and freshly painted hair, That little brazen image now looks out on Russell Square; While in the distant Jungle, beneath the flick’ring shade, The Champak flings its blossoms down to crown the sleeping maid.46 Both collections by Alves and Swinhoe made references to daily life in Burma and cited Burmese songs. According to the pair, the Burmese people sing all day ‘in a language you can never understand’.47 A few of the songs in these collections incorporated Burmese phrases into the lyrics, to add local colour. No English translations were provided, which must have made for some interesting renditions, Burmese being notoriously difficult to pronounce correctly. Not surprisingly, all ten songs seem to have been composed and written in a European style. ‘The Loom’ (1912) was in fact taken from ‘a Burmese operetta’. This was The Cat’s Eye, a stage production with words provided by Swinhoe and music by Alves. It does not appear ever to have been performed outside Burma but in the country itself ‘there was enough amateur talent for the operetta to be staged more than once’.48 The work was based on Kublai Khan’s invasion of Burma in 1277, and drew its inspiration from the early nineteenth-century historical document Hmannan Maha Yazawindawgyi, known in English as The Glass Palace Chronicle.49 The operetta featured a narrative piece called ‘The Cat’s Eye Song’, which began: In glorious days that long have flown When Kings of Burma ruled their own, The people reaped where they had sown And all was peace and paddy When suddenly from far Yunnan With sword and drum, the Chinaman Intent on slaughter, overran The banks of Irrawaddy.50

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The date of the operetta is unknown, but it was most likely written around 1911. No copy appears to have been lodged in any major Western libraries. Swinhoe must have liked ‘The Loom’, however, as it was used again as a poem in an illustrated booklet published around 1925 called Pictures from Lotus Land.51 In 1913, Alves and Swinhoe extended their reach even further and wrote a comic opera in two acts entitled A Palace Plot, or, The Maiden Aunt’s Revenge.52 Set in Mandalay during the late Konbaung dynasty, it incorporated a number of familiar stage devices, such as scheming courtiers, cases of mistaken identity, forbidden loves and magical charms, all presented in a Western theatrical format. The opera is characterised overall by a sympathetic treatment of Burma. Even some of its less attractive customs (such as executing rival members of the royal family by having elephants trample them to death inside red velvet sacks) were used to comic effect.53 There were also occasional jibes at Western culture, as in this song: There’s a gloomy land they tell me Far behind the golden West Where they take their pleasures sadly And their shopping like the rest Where you mustn’t chaff a damsel Never bargain for a kiss But remove your hat politely And address her just like this – Fine weather to-day Miss Brown Everyone seems to be out of Town May be just the weekend merely, O! d’you think so? No, not really. And that’s the way they shop in Merry England.54 It is not known how many performances of the opera were held, or how it was received. However, it is unlikely to have been staged outside Burma. Only one copy of the lyrics (without music) appears to have survived, now held by the British Library in London. Another ‘Burmese comic opera’ was produced in 1912, and opened at Wahlom Park Theatre in Massachusetts that July. This was The Moon Maiden: A Burmese Operetta, the book and lyrics of which were written by George E. Stoddard, with music provided by Charles Berton.55 This work was based on a traditional Burmese story in which a princess was born under a certain star, prior to an eclipse, and thus became known as a ‘moon maiden’. The show consisted of 26 songs, performed in two acts and three scenes. They included the numbers ‘Maiden Fair’, ‘Cupid Holds the Key’, ‘Hope On, Dear Heart’, ‘Just For You’, ‘Pansies and Poppies’, ‘Say You’ll Be My Own, Dear’, ‘Until the End I’ll Love But You’, ‘Forever’ and ‘Childhood Days’. One reviewer wrote that ‘the music, while light, was pleasing’.56

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When the show toured the US, it was considered noteworthy that ‘the names of the characters are actual Burmese names’.57 One notable work that appeared in 1913 was the song ‘I’m On My Way to Mandalay’, with lyrics by A.L. Bryan and music by Fred Fisher. These two were already well known for producing the best-selling ‘Peg O’ My Heart’ (1913) and a number of other popular songs. ‘I’m On My Way to Mandalay’ (1913) was also a hit in the US, despite its now familiar theme and rather banal lyrics: All night long, by the sea, by the sea, by the sea, Her love song Rings for me, rings for me, rings for me, All the world will seem just a lovely dream And I’ll never stray far from Mandalay.58 Mandalay is described as a ‘Land of Love’ where the ‘waving trees kiss the ocean breeze’. These lines show little knowledge of Burmese geography, but this does not seem to have been a concern. Fisher was later reported by Billboard magazine to have said that ‘song writing is a question of sounds, not sense. If you create new sounds you make money. If you can’t get new sounds, you must write with passion’.59 ‘I’m On My Way to Mandalay’ created something of a sensation the following year, when it was performed in a spirited fashion by the eight-member New Orleans Ragtime Band at a boxing match in Los Angeles. As recorded by the Los Angeles Tribune and a number of other US newspapers: The coloured players despise anything else than ragtime, and their interpretation is so suited to the spirit of that musical excrescence that when they play Mandalay one really believes ‘Mandalay to be an island far away’, and almost hears the Mandalasiatic tomcats carolling on the cornices of the pagodas.60 In addition to commenting on the band’s qualities (and supposed racial characteristics), the story seems to make a barely veiled allusion to the inaccuracy of Bryan’s lyrics, Mandalay not being an island, or even a city on an island. Another Burma-related stage production around this time was The Road to Mandalay. It was a musical comedy in two acts, set in Rangoon. There were 21 performances, staged over two weeks in 1916 at the Park Theatre in New York. The music was by Oreste Vesella, the book was by William H. Post and the lyrics were provided by William McKenna.61 One number in the show was yet another take on ‘The Road to Mandalay’, but it was unusual for openly acknowledging the ubiquity – and popularity – of Burma-related songs: Everybody knows the way to Mandalay today For it’s lined with tender sighs,

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The show also included the songs ‘Alone’, ‘Ocean of Dreams’, ‘Firefly’, ‘Shadows’ and ‘Love That’s Never Been Told’.63 None of them made specific mention of Burma, but simply dwelt on themes of love and loss. The same year, a musical revue called The Bing Boys Are Here opened at the Alhambra Theatre in London. The formula was so successful that a number of other shows followed, using the same format but with slightly different names, such as The Bing Boys on Broadway and The Bing Girls Are Here. These companies went on tour, and shows were staged overseas, including in Australia. Song lists varied from one place to another but the Australian production, staged in 1918, included a number called ‘In Mandalay’ by Clifford Grey and Nat Ayer. It too closely mirrored the sentiments behind Kipling’s poem: Far, far away in Mandalay, Where the eastern breezes blow, I heard a song strummed all day long, It’s the oldest song I know. Of a little Burmese maiden Of a man who went away In Mandalay so lonely, She sits there day by day.64 As an aside, the show also featured a song called ‘The Kipling Walk’ (1916) that capitalised on Kipling’s Just So Stories, first published in 1902.65 Also in 1916, a musical revue in two acts called The Show of Wonders opened at the Winter Garden Theatre on Broadway. The book and lyrics were by Harold Atteridge. The music was composed by Sigmund Romberg (later known for his operettas The Student Prince (1924) and The Desert Song (1926)), Otto Motzan and Herman Timberg. It included 30 musical numbers, one of which was entitled ‘A Burmese Ballet’. The song, described by one musical historian as ‘exotic’, opened the second act, and appears to have been sung by the entire ensemble, including a ‘slave girl’ named Sanchea.66 It was notable for the performance of Marilyn Miller, who went on to achieve fame in the Ziegfeld Follies. The show ran for a creditable 209 performances, but the reviews were mixed. Variety magazine described it as ‘just a middling entertainment’. With specific reference to the Burmese number, it noted that ‘The biggest scene, a ballet, does a flop’.67 Another song in this genre, ‘When the Mission Bells Were Ringing, Down in Burma by the Sea’ (1916), also shows evidence of having been influenced by Kipling’s poem: Far away in Burma, and very near the sea, There’s a Burma maiden, I know she thinks of me,

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When the Mission Bells ring out I know they’re telling her Of tender sighs and love-lit eyes, In the good old days that were.68 At least, in this song, the sound of the (capitalised) mission bells is described more accurately. In 1917, a song about Mandalay was included in the popular American stage show Dew-Drop Inn. In just a few lines, it managed to touch on almost all the standard references: I seem to see through the embers One who remembers me, Way out in Burmah it’s calling Over the falling sea. I seem to hear again That Oriental strain, Like a heart that’s breaking, When it sobs for harmony. Mandalay, how I love to dream of Mandalay, ’Neath the ray of that great pagoda moon I love to croon That eastern tune. Mandalay, where the temple music seems to say, ‘Come walk the road with me to Mandalay’.69 Other variety shows around this time also included Burma-related numbers. For example, Shuffle Along was staged in the UK in 1923. It claimed to present the best numbers from contemporary musical comedies and revues.70 One work included was a foxtrot song called ‘Rose of Burmah’, with words by Percy Edgar and music by Lawrence Emlyn. Little else about it is known.71 Between the end of the First World War in 1918 and the start of the Great Depression in 1929, there was a boom in the sales of sheet music and gramophone records. This was the so-called ‘jazz age’, or ‘Roaring Twenties’, when much of the popular entertainment ‘both suggested and reinforced the popular view of an expansive, mythical Orient as a liminal place of leisure, luxury and sensuality’.72 Songwriters and composers churned out hundreds of songs and tunes on such themes, inspired in part by silent films such as D.W. Griffith’s Broken Blossoms (1919) and The Sheik (1921), starring Rudolph Valentino.73 The surge of interest in the East was also inspired by the discovery in 1922 of the tomb of the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun (immortalised in popular song as ‘Old King Tut’).74 These trends were particularly noticeable in the US but also occurred in the UK, France and elsewhere. The period saw the composition of at least 65 songs and melodies that focussed on or were directly related in some way to Burma. One popular work released during this period was ‘Burmah Moon’ (1919), written by Gitz Rice, a Canadian who became famous during the

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First World War for his patriotic songs. He was even credited with writing the popular wartime ditty ‘Mademoiselle from Armentieres, Parlez-vous?’75 ‘Burmah Moon’ made the usual references to a Burmese girl waiting for her lover to return (from Siam, in this case), and was accompanied by the full panoply of Oriental props, such as temple bells, ‘images of gold and ivory’, ‘a flaming Eastern sky’, and ‘Oriental incense’.76 In 1919, the song was recorded twice, once by jazz pianist Willie (‘Mr Fingers’) Eckstein and the Strand Trio for His Master’s Voice (HMV), and again by the singer and actor Sam Ash for Okeh Records. During and after the war, Rice toured Canada and the US. The American humourist S.J. Perelman recalled seeing him in a vaudeville theatre on Rhode Island in 1916, on the same bill as the Marx Brothers. Rice was declaiming Kipling’s ballad ‘Mandalay’, ‘through a pharynx swollen with emotion and coryza’.77 For reasons that are not readily apparent, Gitz Rice seems to have been fascinated by Burma. In 1920, he wrote a piano solo called ‘In Old Rangoon’.78 It does not appear to have made much of an impression on the public. However, it was revived (and given lyrics) six years later when Rice helped stage a musical revue called Nic Nax of 1926 at the Cort Theatre in New York. Rice performed in the show and shared credits for the music with Werner Janssen. Other lyrics were supplied by Paul Porter. The show included Rice’s song ‘Burmah Moon’ (1919). Another number on the program was ‘Rangoon Wedding’. While no one was listed as either the composer or lyricist of this particular work, Rice was probably both. The show encountered a range of problems – in addition to being described as ‘amateurish’ by one critic – and only lasted 13 performances.79 ‘Burmah Moon’ has survived, but the numbers ‘In Old Rangoon’ and ‘Rangoon Wedding’ appear to have sunk without a trace. Around the same time, there was another interesting development. Following his successful setting of Kipling’s ‘Mandalay’ in 1898, Walter Damrosch’s star had continued to rise. By 1918, he was a successful composer and musical director. That year, his orchestra gave a series of concerts in Carnegie Hall and at the Academy of Music for the Symphony Society of New York. The program included a classical version of the ‘Burmese air’ Kayah Than, (translated on this occasion as ‘Sound the Trumpet’) which was described as a ‘Burmese Court Dance of Greeting’.80 Also on the program was a composition by C. Gilbert entitled ‘A Burmese Boat’. Little is known about this work, except that it was used to back a performance by Roshanara and her modern dancers, in which two girls simulated the rowing of a boat.81 Roshanara was the daughter of a British army officer, whose real name was Olive Craddock. She claimed to have studied in India, and toured the UK and US performing ‘characteristic dances of Burma, India and Ceylon’.82 They were certainly exotic and occasionally innovative. However, as one scholar has drily noted, ‘many of her dances were impressionistic rather than authentic’.83

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A song which appeared soon after these events was ‘My Rose of Mandalay’ (1919), by McKinley Music’s prolific song-writing duo of Harold Frost and Frank Klickmann. It seems to have started life as a song about lovers meeting in an Arabian desert (the pair published a work called ‘Oasis’ the same year) that was later adapted to cash in on the popularity of Burma-related themes.84 Apart from a profound ignorance of the country, there seems no other explanation for lyrics such as: When the desert moon is bright, Then my caravan moves softly through the night Back to mystic Mandalay.85 It was not unusual for lyrics and even tunes to be recycled in this way, although greater allowance was usually made for the change in countries and climates. Something like this also seems to have occurred with regard to Frank Magine and Henry Cohen’s song ‘Hindu Moon’ (1919). Despite its distinctly Indian title and sheet music cover art, the song’s lyrics referred only to Burma. Once again, the story closely followed Kipling’s poem: In the days of old they say On the road to Mandalay Lived a little Burmese maiden Heart love laden, Then a British soldier came Playing gaily love’s old game …86 The absent soldier even promises to ‘come back from old Rangoon’. The same phenomenon can be seen with ‘My Song of India’ (1921), published a couple of years later. Despite its title, and references to caravans of camels, it was yet another call for an absent lover to return to Burma, ‘out in that sweet orient’, where ‘the flying fishes bathe and palm trees sway’. The chorus began: ‘Singing songs of India and dear old Mandalay’.87 Technically speaking, it could be argued that until 1937, when it became a crown colony in its own right, Burma was indeed a part of ‘British India’, so the Indian theme was still accurate. However, in Burma the ‘idols of clay’ mentioned in ‘Hindu Moon’ were more likely to be Buddhist than Hindu. Also, songs referring to Mandalay usually conjured up images of Burma, not India proper. The most likely explanation is that the titles of both songs were considered catchy, referred to a country that was more familiar than Burma, and were used simply to meet the public’s demand for songs about the mysterious orient. This was a demand that songwriters, composers and bandleaders in the US and UK were happy to meet. That said, Burma was becoming much better known, and was clearly saleable. This probably

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accounts for the fact that around this time several revues and musical comedies took the title of the one Burma-related song in the program as the name of the entire show. In 1916, the popular American song-writing duo of Harry Flanagan and Earl Burtnett produced a song called ‘There’s a Burmah Girl A-Calling (in Burmah by the Sea)’. It too echoed Kipling’s poem, with only slight variations: Where the Bay of Bengal’s rolling, Down on India’s sunny strand There’s a Burmah girl so sweet to see, Strolling there she waits for me; Her heart’s been ever yearning since the day I went away, Longing for my returning To the land where the palm trees sway.88 Songs about Burma seemed to follow Earl Burtnett around. In 1918, he joined Art Hickman’s touring musical company. Some time between  September 1919 and July 1920, the orchestra recorded ‘Burmese Belles’ (1919), composed by Patricia Platzman, and ‘Rose of Mandalay’ (1919) by Herbert Claar, both for the Columbia Gramophone Company.89 In 1924, Burtnett composed a song called ‘Mandalay’ with bandleaders Abe Lyman and Gus Arnheim. Burtnett and Art Hickman’s Orchestra recorded it with Victor the same year, closely followed by Al Jolson, who recorded it with Lyman’s California Orchestra for Brunswick Records.90 The song also paid homage to Kipling’s poem: Strolling beneath the oriental moon Each night you’ll find me for very soon I’ll sail away to Mandalay Where the charms of someone’s arms are calling me.91 In 1926, Burtnett recorded the Oley Speaks setting of ‘On the Road to Mandalay’ for Columbia.92 It can be assumed that all these songs were later played by Burtnett’s own orchestra, which he formed in 1929 and, from the early 1930s, was based at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles.93 Illustrated sheet music of ‘Mandalay’ (1924) produced around this time pictured the orchestra of the passenger liner USS Leviathan which, under the direction of Nelson Maples, recorded a number of works for Victor in 1923 and 1924.94 It appears that this enormously popular ‘foxtrot ballad’ by Burtnett, Lyman and Arnheim was played on board the liner during Atlantic crossings and cruises. Almost all these works were composed and published in the US, mainly New York, which by that stage had come to dominate the popular music

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industry. Far fewer were written in the UK, but it continued to provide a good market for Burma-related songs. One British song produced in 1923 was ‘Down in Old Rangoon’, with words by Win Ewart and music by Charles Prentice. The song’s simple rhyme dwelt on the usual theme: Down in old Rangoon ’Neath the shining moon Sings a maiden fair, Clear in the evening air. Sad and lone is she, Singing to her boy o’er the sea.95 It is noteworthy for being one of the few musical works of the period that specifically mentioned the administrative and commercial capital of the colonial regime, which was built by the British after the Second AngloBurmese War.96 Perhaps songwriters shared the view of the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore, who in 1916 noted that Rangoon ‘has not grown like a tree from the soil of the country … there is no recognition of Burma in this seeing … the city is an abstraction’.97 Judging by the output of popular songs about Rangoon released over the past 50 years, this attitude is no longer widely held.98 However, at the time, as a purely foreign creation populated mainly by Europeans, Indians and Chinese, the city did not lend itself easily to romantic ballads about ‘Burma girls’, or evoke the same associations as the old royal capital.99 Also worthy of brief mention is Burmah Rubies: A Cycle of Four Eastern Songs (1923), with lyrics by Percy Edgar and music composed by Mark Strong.100 Included in this collection were ‘Burmah Rubies’, ‘The Forest Temple’, ‘My Bamboo Flower’ and ‘The Dacoit’s Song’. No copies of the title song, or the suggestive ‘Dacoit’s Song’, seem to have survived. The sheet music was reprinted at least once, and the US copyright was renewed in 1948 and 1950, but the only one of the four songs to achieve any recognition seems to have been ‘My Bamboo Flower’. It made barely a passing reference to anything Asian: Spirit art thou from Brahma’s garden? Nay! For thy warm lips cling to mine, While eyes so tender droop in surrender, Twin stars where youth and love combine.101 Despite the subtitle of the collection, it appears that none of its tunes could claim any particularly ‘Eastern’ characteristics. Strong and Edgar composed a number of other songs together, notably ‘I’m Getting Better Every Day’ (1922), but none made any attempt to reflect Burmese life.102

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The mainstream continued to be represented by songs like ‘Moonlight in Mandalay’ (1925) by Herscher, Naylor and Fay. It was released by Victor Records in 1926 starring Edwin J. McEnelly’s orchestra, and with vocals by Lewis James: Oh take me back to Mandalay, My land of dreams; Where palm trees sway and moon beams play On silv’ry streams With lips aflame, oh let me claim The heart I stole away.103 Another in this vein was ‘By An Old Pagoda’ (1938), written by Jimmy Kennedy to music by Hugh Williams (whose real name was Wilhelm Grosz). The pair had already collaborated on such hits as ‘Isle of Capri’ (1934), ‘Red Sails in the Sunset’ (1935) and ‘Harbour Lights’ (1937).104 ‘By An Old Pagoda’ (1938) also seems to have been a commercial success. It dwelt on the now familiar theme of a European man meeting a ‘goddess of brown’ in the ‘Land where the temples rise / Under the Burmese skies’. This time, however, the man expressed few regrets at having to leave his Burma girl behind: We parted in Mandalay The East and the West Perhaps it was best By an old pagoda.105 This seems to be a veiled reference to Kipling’s poem ‘The Ballad of East and West’ (1889), which opens with the words ‘Oh East is East and West is West / and never the twain shall meet’.106 As was so often the case, these lines were misinterpreted to mean that the peoples of two cultures are essentially incompatible – quite the opposite of what Kipling actually intended.107 There were also a number of songs in this genre that were not the product of Tin Pan Alley, but were original works by bandleaders and amateur songwriters. One was ‘Burma Girl’ (1930) by Charlie Lawrence.108 He played the alto saxophone with Paul Howard’s Quality Serenaders, a group based in the Los Angeles area in 1929 and 1930. The song was recorded for Victor in 1930 by jazz master Lionel Hampton, who started his career as a drummer with the same band. In addition, Kipling’s ‘Mandalay’ was put to music by the California heiress Anita Baldwin. This work does not appear to have attracted much attention, although Baldwin applied for and received copyright for the work in 1927. It does not seem to have survived as a published score, although it is advertised on later covers of the sheet music for Baldwin’s song ‘The Fond Dove and his Lady Love’ (1900).109 A manuscript copy of Baldwin’s ‘Mandalay’ (1927) is held by the Braun Research Library in Los Angeles.

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Straying somewhat from the populist approach of Tin Pan Alley was the eccentric British composer Joseph (or Josef) Holbrooke, whose music was described by one anonymous critic as ‘original, virile, colourful, richly varied and voluminous’.110 During the 1920s, Holbrooke produced a number of works with a Burmese theme. They included his ‘Piano Concerto No. 2, L’Orient, Op.100’ (1920–1928), a work of three movements one of which was ‘Burmese Dance’ (1928). Its origins are not clear, but it appears that this part of the larger work was originally described as a Burmese fantasy, called ‘Sacrifice of Water Buffaloes’, and identified as Opus 81. Holbrooke also composed a piece for brass band entitled ‘In Mandalay’ (part of Suite, Op.85), and there was a solo piano work entitled ‘Rangoon Rice Carriers’, probably written around 1930. Little else is known about this last piece, but Piccadilly recorded Holbrooke playing it, on a 78 rpm 10-inch disc, soon after its composition.111 Claims that it was later modified by Holbrooke to become the ‘Javanese Pepper Dance’ in his second piano concerto do not seem to be correct.112 Another colourful personality with an interest in Burma was Evan Marsden, a pseudonym for the conductor and entertainer Eric Pechotsch. He also composed under the names Eric Mareo, Guy Franklyn and Edgar Martell.113 Australian-born, Marsden was active in Europe until 1930, when he moved back to Australia and, in 1933, continued on to New Zealand. There he was the conductor of an orchestra before being imprisoned for murdering his wife.114 He specialised in exotic-themed descriptive suites, covering a wide range of countries. For example, five of his instrumental pieces were collected under the title ‘A Musician in Many Lands: Impressions of Travel’ (1927).115 The cover illustration of the sheet music was a watercolour of the twelfth-century Ananda Pagoda, in the ancient Burmese city of Pagan, by the British landscape painter and poster designer John Littlejohns.116 None of the five works in this collection were about Burma, but Marsden probably went there at some stage. In 1928, he published ‘Burmese Chant’, which seems to have been favoured by violin students as a show piece.117 Around the same time, the American composer Henry Eichheim produced two works with Burmese themes. He was a keen student of Oriental music and, between 1915 and 1935, made five extensive tours of the ‘Far East’ to record themes and songs from the musical performances he heard. In Burma, he visited religious sites in Rangoon and Mandalay, and made extensive notes on Burma’s pwe variety musical entertainments. Inspired by all these experiences, Eichheim began a series of works with Asian themes, starting with his ‘Oriental Impressions Suite’ (1922). Other classical compositions had specific Chinese, Korean, Burmese and Indonesian motifs. Also, before his death in 1942, he acquired an extensive collection of traditional musical instruments, including a number purchased during his visits to Burma. In 1926, Eichheim wrote the music for A Burmese Pwe: An Impression of Burma, a dance drama produced by Irene Lewisohn at the Neighbourhood

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Playhouse in New York. It was inspired by Burmese music and included among the instrumentation for this work was a number of traditional instruments. They included the pattala (bamboo xylophone), kyi waing (gong circle), patma (large drum), linkwin (cymbals) and a large gong named Mahati Thada Ganda, ‘the low sweet sound’.118 According to one enthusiastic account, the ballet made a dramatic statement: The naïve simplicity of the Burmese pwe … with its exotic sophistication, conjured a fairytale world. For it was as limpid and lilting in a pictorial sense as the colourful score composed for it by Henry Eichheim … That the beguiling mood of a Burmese ritual could be conveyed by young Americans had never really seemed probable.119 The following year, Eichheim reworked the ballet into a one movement orchestral suite entitled ‘Burma’ (or ‘Burma Sketch’). It incorporated more than 30 percussion instruments, usually listed on programs simply as ‘special bells and discs’. Because so many traditional instruments were required, performances of this suite were difficult to arrange, but it was played by several major US orchestras. These included the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Frederick Stock and, in 1927, the Philadelphia Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski.120 In 1929, it was performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, where from 1891 to 1912 Eichheim had been a member of the violin section. The work received mixed reviews, one critic writing of the Philadelphia Orchestra performance: Mr Stokowski not long ago drove away a score or so of staid Philadelphians from the Academy of Music by playing Henry Eichheim’s Burma, a piece utilising native percussion instruments imported for the occasion. The barbaric abandon of this piece was the nearest thing to jazz I have heard from a concert hall, yet in other respects there was no similarity.121 Like Eichheim, Stokowski felt that ‘the oriental music that is played in theatres and motion pictures is merely poor imitations and not genuine’. Both were determined to change that, if they could.122 There were also a few European contributions to the genre. In 1920, the enfant terrible of German music, Paul Hindemith, wrote a one-act ‘burlesque opera’ called Nusch Nuschi. It was first presented in Stuttgart in 1921. The story ‘originated around 1904 in a stage work subtitled “A Play for Burmese Marionettes” by the Munich author Franz Blei’.123 The plot revolved around a Burmese puppet emperor who is cuckolded by all four of his wives on the same night by the same man. Hindemith’s opera was set in Burma and drew some inspiration from that country’s artistic traditions, but it owed more to the Frankfurt school of post-war expressionism,

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and broader currents of anti-Wagnerian satire, than to anything known to Burmese culture. Also, its ‘sexualised buffoonery and ridicule’ was in stark contrast to the idealised romances of most Burma-related shows of the time, and its atonality set it apart from the catchy tunes that were coming out of New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and London.124 After the resounding success of their Threepenny Opera (1928), Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht collaborated with writer Elisabeth Hauptmann to produce Happy End, a three-act musical comedy. It was hastily put together and produced in Berlin in 1929. The plot, about a female Salvation Army officer who falls in love with a gangster, was taken in part from George Bernard Shaw’s play Major Barbara (1905).125 The show included ‘The Mandalay Song’ (‘Der Song von Mandalay’), a fast-paced piece about the only prostitute on ‘Mandalay Island’. In Michael Feingold’s lively translation it began: Mother Goddam’s dive in Mandalay, Seven rotten boards out on the bay. Goddam, go tell that girl to get her ass in gear, There’s fifteen guys already lined up along the pier, Watches in their hands and shouting, ‘Hey! Is there just one girl in Mandalay?’126 This song is followed in the same act by another entitled ‘Surabaya Johnny’, in which the lead female character sings: I had just turned sixteen that season When you came up from Burma to stay And you told me I ought to travel with you You were sure it would be okay.127 Happy End was a commercial failure, but a few of its songs (such as ‘Surabaya Johnny’) were well received. The show was later revived with slightly different translations and in 1977 enjoyed a profitable run on Broadway. It is not known whether Brecht deliberately chose to paint a strikingly different portrait of Burmese women than that usually associated with the gentle ‘maids’ of Mandalay. Given his penchant for challenging the status quo, however, it is a real possibility. Kurt Weill considered ‘The Mandalay Song’ one of his best pieces.128 A slightly revised version appeared in a bordello scene in Weill and Brecht’s musical production Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. The song was used to demonstrate that love does not last forever (and to urge those ahead in the line to hurry up). When the opera was first performed in Leipzig in 1930, the song was cut on the advice of Weill’s publisher, who was concerned about the work’s aggressive satire. Even so, the opera prompted a storm of protest on moral, religious and political grounds, which was probably

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what the authors intended.129 In 1988, the ‘Mandalay Song’, along with ‘Surabaya Johnny’, was included in a celebration of Kurt Weill’s music entitled Stranger Here Myself, staged at the Public Theatre in New York. All the songs in the show were sung by the soprano Angelina Reaux. In 2015, Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny was broadcast live to cinemas by the Royal Opera in London. ‘The Mandalay Song’ was a highlight of the program. Another composition that challenged the usual trend was ‘Calling Me Home Again’, by Vera Buck and Perceval Graves, published in 1935. It included four verses, each of which was focussed on a different British colony, namely Burma, Canada, Australia and South Africa. The stanza on Burma depicted a homesick British character who longed ‘For the days gone by / And the London fog and rain’. It continued: In a tropic sun I’m toiling, I’m weary of Mandalay, You talk about the heat, it’s boiling, I reckon I earn my pay. When I tire of the mournful ringing Of pagoda bells, why, then, In my bungalow on my radio I’m waiting for old Big Ben.130 In a number of ways, the song harks back to Kipling’s poem ‘In Partibus’ (1889), in which the author complained about London’s cold and foggy weather, and longed for the sunnier climes of the Far East. In this case, however, the sentiment was reversed. Such songs stand out as aberrations from the usually reliable, and doubtless profitable, formula of demure Burmese girls waiting for their lovers in tropical places, surrounded by all the paraphernalia of Oriental civilisation. A subordinate theme was European men longing to return to the halcyon days of guilt-free embraces with pliant Asian girls in a permissive culture and warm climate. By the early 20th century, however, those images had become firmly cemented in the West’s popular imagination and were hard to shift. So familiar were they, in fact, that they could be alluded to, or hinted at, in other musical works, confident in the knowledge that the audience would easily recognise and understand their significance.

Other Burma-related works Once it became well known to Western audiences, largely as a result of Kipling’s poem, Burma began to feature in the lyrics of musical works that were not directly related to that country, or even to ‘the Far East’. One early example of Burma’s newfound fashionability was Sidney Jones’ ‘Chinese musical comedy’ San Toy, or The Emperor’s Own, which opened in London

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in 1899. It included a song called ‘The One in the World’, which made a passing reference to a Burmese ‘maiden’: A many maidens sweet and tender And fair there are beneath the sun, But just to claim his life’s surrender For ev’ry man there is but one! It doesn’t matter what her nation, She may be British or Burmese; It doesn’t matter what her station, Love doesn’t reckon by degrees.131 Also, in 1905, the song ‘My Fillipino Belle’ (sic), composed as part of the American musical comedy Mama’s Papa, implicitly acknowledged the popularity of Kipling’s ‘Mandalay’ and its musical settings: In the Philippines, still in her teens, A choc’late coloured gal, By a dusky coon each afternoon Was wooed and strange to tell, He hung around her bamboo home, A list’ning to his culled lady play, Upon a mandoline alone A Fillipino mandalay.132 There is a clear assumption that, even in the US, everyone in the audience was familiar with Kipling’s ballad, and would know what the last line meant. There were other brief mentions, or passing allusions to Burma. In 1906, for example, the love song ‘Kaloolah’ by John Glover-Kind, Ben Fielding and A. Togwell began ‘Down in Burmah’s sunny distant land’.133 It is possible that it continued in this vein but the song appears to have been lost, and cannot be checked. In 1920, a musical comedy called Yes Uncle opened at the Theatre Royal in Adelaide, South Australia. It included a song called ‘In an Oriental Garden’, the chorus of which began with the lines: In a garden far away On the shore of Mandalay …134 There the singer had left his (presumably Burmese) girl to wait for his return. The operetta L’Amour Masque by the French composer Andre Messager, first performed in Paris in 1923, featured as one of its main characters a Burmese ‘nobleman’ called the Maharajah of Hounk. In Act Two, he sang a ‘Chant Birman’, which consisted largely of mellifluous gobbledygook.135 In 1927, the American song ‘Singapore Sorrows’ began: ‘There’s an old town way down below Mandalay’.136

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The Broadway show Blackberries of 1932, a so-called ‘sepia musical review’ featuring an all African-American cast, included a song called ‘Burma Lou’.137 The music and lyrics were by Tom Peluso and Donald Heywood. It is not clear whether this song was referring to the actual country, however, as by this time ‘Burma’ was occasionally used as a nickname or even a personal name in the US. The inclusion on the playbill of an entry for ‘Burma/ Zulu maids’ suggests that the song was about Burma, and was supported by a chorus line of sorts. Many productions of this kind came and went very quickly, but this two-act revue lasted for a respectable 24 performances, staged over three weeks at the Liberty Theatre in New York. In 1934, a song called ‘Let’s Take a Walk Around the Block’ was introduced in a Broadway musical called Life Begins at 8:40, starring Bert Lahr and Ray Bolger. The words were written by Ira Gershwin and E.Y. Harburg, and the music was composed by Harold Arlen. It included the lines: Onward, to Cathay, Then to Mandalay Then Vladivostok! Where Bolsheviks flock!138 In some later versions of this song, such as the one sung by Ella Fitzgerald in 1961, the last two lines of the verse reads ‘Boom on to Bangkok / P’r’aps Vladivostok’. Even though it referred to a sailor making his way back to the US from various foreign ports, the song ‘Rollin’ Home’ (1934), opened with the line ‘Fare thee well, Singapore, Mandalay and the China shore’.139 The song was made famous by the British bandleader and crooner Al Bowlly, who recorded it for Decca in 1934 with Lew Stone and his band. Some musical references to Burma were found outside the mainstream entertainment world. From the mid-nineteenth century onwards, European and American clipper ships routinely made the run to Asia. Rangoon being a common port of call, usually to offload passengers and general cargo, and to take on board rice and timber, it sometimes figured in the sea shanties of the day. Even after the so-called Golden Age of Sail (1850–1900) had ended, Burma or one of its cities was occasionally mentioned in this regard. In 1915, for example, the Marblehead Historical Society in the US published a list of sea captains who had plied their trade from Marblehead in Massachusetts, and the ships in which they sailed. At the beginning of this slim volume was a shanty entitled ‘The Old Clipper Days’, written by Julian Cutler. The first two verses read: The old Clipper days were jolly, when we sailed the Seven Seas, And the house-flags of our merchant ships were whipped by every breeze; It was good-by to your mother and the pretty girls on shore, For we’re off around the howling Horn, bound down to Singapore.

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We romped the rushing trade-winds, and we raced the big monsoon; We carried reeling royals from Manila to Rangoon; We were chased by Malay pirates from Natura to Penang And we drove her scuppers under to outsail the cut-throat gang.140 The second line of the second verse should read ‘reefing royals’, royals being the small sails flown immediately above the topgallants on square-rigged sailing ships. This gives quite a different reading than ‘reeling royals’ being carried from the Philippines to Burma.141 The Historical Society’s booklet is 100 years old, but the song itself seems to have an even earlier provenance, having been taken from a ‘Boston Transcript’. The clipper trade with Burma was also well known to the prolific British poet and author Cicely Fox Smith, who specialised in works about ships and seafarers. A number of her poems formed the basis of shanties. For example, Rangoon was mentioned in the musical adaptation of ‘News in Daly’s Bar’ (1920), which included the verse: And never a tale goes round the ports from Riga to Rangoon, And never a seaman’s yarn is spun in a water-front saloon, But the sailormen to Daly’s Bar they bring it late or soon.142 Her poem ‘Follow the Sea’ (1922) was also set to music, and included the lines: What is it keeps a chap rollin’ around All his life long from the Skaw to the Sound? Samplin’ the weathers from Hull to Rangoon – Doldrums an’ westerlies, Trade an’ typhoon –143 At least four other ‘sea songs’ by Cicely Fox Smith refer to Burma. ‘Poor Old Ship’ (1918), ‘Coastwise’ (1921) and ‘The Queen’s Ships’ (1953) all mention Rangoon. ‘An Ocean Tramp’ (1900) speaks of ‘drowsy Mandalay’.144 The latter poem has recently been set to music, but none of the others have yet been given this level of attention.145 Smith’s poem (and later song) ‘By The Old Pagoda Anchorage’ (1926) is sometimes linked to Kipling’s ballad ‘Mandalay’, which she greatly admired. However, the poem refers to the anchorage at Mawei, near Fuzhou, in China.146 Better known than all these brief nods to Burma, however, is the reference to the country and its colonial capital that is found in Noel Coward’s satirical song ‘Mad Dogs and Englishmen’. It was first performed in 1931 by Beatrice Lillie, in The Third Little Show at the Music Box Theatre in New York. The fourth verse went: Mad dogs and Englishmen Go out in the midday sun.

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The song later became a signature feature of Noel Coward’s cabaret act. While not exclusively about Burma, it is now perhaps as well known as some musical settings of Kipling’s ‘Mandalay’.148 In that regard, it is worth noting that Coward referred to Burma on two other occasions. In his song ‘I Like America’ (1949), the lead character (a sailor well acquainted with the world) jokes that he had ‘exploded the myth / Of those flying fith / On the Road to Mandalay’. The female chorus responds, ‘we’ll never mith / those blasted fith / on the road to Mandalay’.149 The same year, Coward was recorded by Columbia reciting Ogden Nash’s comic lyrics to Camille Saint Saens’ ‘Carnival of the Animals’ (1886). The verse on birds includes the lines: The skylark sings a roundelay The crow sings ‘The Road to Mandalay’.150 The ubiquity of Kipling’s poem, and related songs, made it a familiar reference that could easily be recognised, even by children.151 There was a strong consistency – at times even uniformity – in these songs, including those in which the songwriters consciously tried to avoid the usual musical clichés and hackneyed rhymes. Among them, however, there were a few anomalies that deserve a brief mention. For example, Burma featured in one ‘coon song’, a genre of US musical compositions enormously popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that graphically demonstrated a racist and stereotypical view of African-Americans.152 Not many were linked to Asian themes – despite one called ‘The Oriental Coon’ (1899) – but there was a song called ‘Mandy From Mandalay’ (1899).153 It was subtitled ‘A Black Man’s Burden: A Long Way After Kipling’. The lyrics were written from the point of view of an African-American who had ‘just got off de boat from Mandalay’, where he ‘won de first original real cannibal … [She was] half coon, the other half is Indian’.154 The singer, one of ‘dese coons a’winnin’ yaller gals’, says that a chaplain married him to Mandy, but before that he ‘found de chief and bought her up’. Now ‘She’s mine because I loves her and paid cash for her’. It is difficult to know where to start criticising this song. One can at least note the ignorance of Burma that it reveals although, as noted above, the practice of ‘buying’ a local wife was not unknown. During the short ‘Mexican War’ of 1914, during which the US Navy occupied the port of Veracruz, a special ‘patriotic’ version of Fisher and Bryan’s ‘I’m On My Way to Mandalay’ (1913) was produced, with new

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lyrics. Instead of being ‘sentimental for my Oriental love, so sweet and gentle’ the singer tells his audience that: I want to go to Mexico Beneath the Stars and Stripes to fight the foe, Just say goodbye, don’t ask me why, Can’t you hear the bugles blow?155 The instruction in the third line seems to refer to the hazy reasons for the invasion. Also, during the First World War musical versions of some Kipling ballads, including ‘Mandalay’, were included in collections of patriotic songs meant to celebrate the contribution of the British armed forces and to promote the right patriotic spirit among the civilian population.156 They invariably glorified ‘Tommy Atkins’ (to whom Barrack-Room Ballads was jointly dedicated) and his Royal Naval counterpart, ‘Jack Tar’.157 None of these works should be confused with compositions that seem to have a Burma connection, but were in fact written for reasons completely unrelated to the country or its people. There were, for example, a number of tunes composed for the Delaware Hudson Steamship Company of New York, to be played on board its 945-ton triple-decker ferry the S.S. Mandalay.158 These included the ‘march song’ ‘Mandalay’ (1914), ‘Dancing on the Mandalay’ (1919) and ‘Mandalay, Moonlight and You’ (1930).159 The first included the lines: Ev’ry one is happy, bright and gay For they’re sailing on the Mandalay.160 Ironically, this song was played by the ship’s band as passengers were being rescued, after the S.S. Mandalay had been struck by a cruise ship in heavy fog in 1938.161 There was even a song entitled ‘Mandalay: The Isle of a Thousand Palms’ (1926), which was related to an ambitious real estate development in Florida.162 Doubtless with an eye to prospective investors, and assuming a high level of familiarity with Kipling’s poem, it was advertised as being ‘On the Gulf, on the Bay – on the Road to Mandalay’. A chronological survey such as this can only give a broad understanding of the number, type and development – or lack thereof – of the songs and tunes related to Burma, which were produced between 1824 and 1939. To gain a better understanding of their range, nature and impact, a more analytical approach is necessary.

Notes 1. See Kipling, Something of Myself, pp. 62–4; and Hamilton, ‘Musicology as Propaganda in Victorian Theory and Practice’, pp. 35–6. 2. One of the first was the London firm Chappell and Company, which opened its doors to publish and sell sheet music (and musical instruments) in 1810.

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3. Ronald Pearsall, Victorian Sheet Music Covers (Newton Abbot: David and Charles, 1972), pp. 9–24. 4. A good example is ‘The Rudyard Kipling Waltzes’, music by L.J. Monico (New York: E.T. Paull Music Co., 1898), which incorporates a photograph of the author in the decorative cover artwork. 5. For example, the sheet music of ‘Mandalay: Fox Trot Ballad’ by Earl Burtnett, Abe Lyman and Gus Arnheim (New York: Jerome H. Remick and Co., 1924), featured a portrait of, and personal endorsement from, Charlie Chaplin. It is perhaps relevant that, in 1925, Chaplin conducted Lyman’s California Orchestra when it recorded ‘Sing a Song’ (1925) and ‘With You, Dear, In Bombay’ (1925). Both works had been written by the movie star with the help of Lyman and Arnheim. See Abe Lyman (1899–1957), at http://www. redhotjazz.com/lyman.html. 6. D.A. Jasen, Tin Pan Alley: The Composers, the Songs, the Performers and their Times (New York: Donald I. Fine Inc., 1988), p. xix. 7. Steffen, From Edison to Marconi. 8. These early recordings were limited to mid-range, moderate volumed instruments, with no pronounced bass notes. This dictated the types of ensembles that could be recorded. For example, symphonic music was ruled out for many years. Personal communication with Gavin Douglas, October 2014. 9. One reason for the rapid development of commercial radio was that large record producing companies like the Columbia Phonograph Corporation wanted to use it to sell more records – hence the birth of the Columbia Broadcasting System in 1927. 10. This was The Jazz Singer, produced by Warner Brothers and starring Al Jolson. 11. ‘The Mandalay: Two Step’, adapted from ‘The Road to Mandalay’, music by Henry Trevannion (Milwaukee: Joseph Flanner, 1899). 12. Walsh, Tin Pan Alley and the Philippines, p. 177. 13. ‘At Naiac’, in Historical Sketch, Constitution and Register of the Military Order of the Carabao, Together with Songs That Have Been Sung at ‘Wallows’ in Various Places (Washington, DC: W.F. Roberts, 1914), pp. 142–3. 14. This word eventually morphed into the all-purpose term ‘gook’, which American troops used to describe Asians from the Second World War right through to the wars in Korea and Vietnam. See David Halberstam, The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War (New York: Hyperion, 2007), p. 110. 15. ‘At Naiac (Another version)’, in Historical Sketch, Constitution and Register of the Military Order of the Carabao, pp. 144–5. 16. The name derives from dhobi, the Hindi term for a washerman. It was used throughout colonial India and, as seen from this song, elsewhere in the region. ‘Dhobi itch’ (or tinea cruris) was so named because of a common but erroneous belief that the infection was communicated by clothes from the wash. 17. ‘Down By Old Manila Bay’, in Historical Sketch, Constitution and Register of the Military Order of the Carabao, pp. 159–60. 18. Cited in Walsh, Tin Pan Alley and the Philippines, p. 186. 19. Cited in Walsh, Tin Pan Alley and the Philippines, p. 176. 20. In addition to being the only American serviceman to serve in five wars, over a 70-year period, King wrote or edited over 60 books, as well as hundreds of articles and short stories.

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21. Trevannion, ‘On the Road to Mandalay’ (1898). Sheet music of ‘The Mandalay’, produced by the same publisher, also featured a photograph of Charles King on the front cover. 22. ‘Burmah Girl’, words and music by Paul A. Rubens, in The Blue Moon, by Howard Talbot and P.A. Rubens (New York: Chappell and Co., Ltd, 1905). 23. ‘Little Blue Moon’, words by Percy Greenbank and music by Howard Talbot, in The Blue Moon, by Howard Talbot and P.A. Rubens (New York: Chappell and Co., 1905). 24. ‘Amusements: Theatre Royal’, The Advertiser (Adelaide, Australia), 2 September 1907. 25. ‘My Maid of Mandalay’, words by Roderic Penfield and music by Hans Scherber (New York: Maurice Shapiro, 1907). 26. The Pagoda of Flowers: A Burmese Story in Song, words by Frederick J. Fraser and music by Amy Woodforde-Findon, arranged by Sydney Baynes (London: Boosey and Co., 1907). See also ‘Kashmiri Song’, in Four Indian Love Lyrics, words by Laurence Hope and music by Amy Woodforde-Finden (London: Boosey and Co., 1902). 27. ‘Love Scene from The Pagoda of Flowers: A Burmese Story in Song’, words by Frederick J. Fraser and music by Amy Woodforde-Findon (London: Boosey and Co., 1909). 28. ‘Love Scene from The Pagoda of Flowers’ (1909). 29. ‘The Pagoda of Flowers: Burmese Suite’, music by Sydney Herbert (London: Boosey and Hawkes, 1926). 30. Tim Brooks, Lost Sounds: Blacks and the Birth of the Recording Industry, 1890–1919 (Baltimore: University of Illinois Press, 2004), p. 122. 31. ‘In Far Off Mandalay’, WorldCat, at http://www.worldcat.org/title/in-far-offmandalay/oclc/499181092 32. ‘In Far Off Mandalay’, words by Alex Rogers and music by Al Johns (Chicago: Will Rossiter, 1909). See also Lawrence Gushee, Pioneers of Jazz: The Story of the Creole Band (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), pp. 91–2. 33. Daniel Hardie, Exploring Early Jazz: The Origins and Evolution of the New Orleans Style (San Jose: Writers Club Press, 2002), pp. 104–5. 34. ‘Nordica and Alice Neilson to Sing Alternate Nights’, San Francisco Call (San Francisco, US), 26 June 1906. 35. ‘Clippings’, Los Angeles Herald (Los Angeles, US), 23 May 1909. 36. ‘The Maid of Mandalay’, words by Joseph Blethen and music by Harry Girard (San Francisco: n.p., 1910?). 37. ‘Music Notes’, Los Angeles Herald (Los Angeles, US), 23 August 1910. 38. Four Songs of Burma, words by R.C.J. Swinhoe and music by J.W.J. Alves (London: Boosey and Co., 1910). 39. The 93rd Burma Infantry was based in Burma until 1913, when it was deployed to Barrackpore in India. Under the pseudonym ‘Myauk’, Alves later published a book of cartoons about military life, entitled The Indian Army ABC: Being a record of some of those depressing events that occur in the daily life of every Officer of the Indian Army (Calcutta: Thacker and Spink, 1915). 40. F.T. Jesse, The Lacquer Lady (London: Virago, 1979), p. 8. 41. R.R. James, The Road From Mandalay: A Journey in the Shadow of the East (Milton Keynes: AuthorHouse, 2007), p. 5.

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42. R.C.J. Swinhoe, The Incomplete Guide to Burma (Rangoon: Rangoon Times Press, 1925?) and R.C.J. Swinhoe, Rhymes From Roundabout (Rangoon: Rangoon Times Press, 1925). 43. Alves and Swinhoe seem deliberately to have reversed the word order of Kipling’s ‘cleaner, greener land’. 44. ‘The Golden Land of Burma’, words by R.C.J. Swinhoe and music by J.W.J. Alves, (Rangoon: Misquith Ltd, 1911). 45. Songs of Burma (Second Set), words by R.C.J. Swinhoe and music by J.W.J. Alves (London: Boosey and Co., 1912). 46. ‘The Maiden and the Buddh’, words by R.C.J. Swinhoe and music by J.W.J. Alves, in Songs of Burma (Second Set), (1912). 47. ‘The Golden Land of Burma’ (1911). 48. ‘Tunes From The Past: Songs of Swinhoe’, The Guardian, Vol. 7, No. 1, January 1960, p. 8. 49. The Glass Palace Chronicle of the Kings of Burma, translated by Pe Maung Tin and G.H. Luce (London: Oxford University Press, 1923). 50. ‘The Cat’s Eye Song’, in ‘Tunes From The Past’, p. 9. 51. F.M. Muriel and R.C.J. Swinhoe, Pictures from Lotus Land (Rangoon: Rowe and Co., 1925?). 52. An Entirely New and Original Burmese Comic Opera in Two Acts, Entitled A Palace Plot, or, The Maiden Aunt’s Revenge, words by R.C.J. Swinhoe and music by J.W.J. Alves (Mandalay: Upper Burma Advertiser Press, 1913). 53. This practice was reportedly based on the prohibition against shedding royal blood in public. It was also said to save Buddhist monarchs from the loss of merit that would inevitably accompany a direct execution. See, for example, John Badgley, ‘Burmese Communist Schisms’, in J.W. Lewis (ed), Peasant Rebellion and Communist Revolution in Asia (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1974), p. 166; and Gascoigne, Among Pagodas and Fair Ladies, p. 155. 54. A Palace Plot, or, The Maiden Aunt’s Revenge (1913). 55. The Moon Maiden: A Burmese Operetta, book and lyrics by George L. Stoddard, music by Charles Berton (New York: M. Witmark and Sons, 1913). 56. ‘Reviews of the Week: New Comic Opera “The Moon Maiden”’, The New York Dramatic Mirror (New York, US), 31 July 1912, at http://fultonhistory. com/Newspaper%2010/New%20York%20NY%20Dramatic%20Mirror/ New%20York%20NY%20Dramatic%20Mirror%201912%20Jan-Feb%20 1913%20Grayscale/New%20York%20NY%20Dramatic%20Mirror%20 1912%20Jan-Feb%201913%20Grayscale%20-%201177.pdf 57. The Scranton Truth (Scranton, US), 11 October 1913, at http://www.newspapers. com/newspage/50218829/ 58. ‘I’m On My Way to Mandalay’, words by A.L. Bryan and music by Fred Fisher [Fred Fischer] (New York: Leo Feist Inc., 1913). There were several different arrangements of this song. 59. Jack Burton, ‘Fred Fisher’, The Honour Roll of Popular Songwriters: No. 13, Billboard, 19 March 1949, p. 46. Fisher’s first big hit, selling an estimated 3,000,000 copies in sheet music alone, was ‘If the Man in the Moon Were a Coon’ (Chicago: Will Rossiter, 1905). 60. The Tribune (Los Angeles, US), cited in Gushee, Pioneers of Jazz, p. 99. 61. The Road to Mandalay: A Comic Opera in Two Acts, lyrics by William McKenna, music by Oreste Vesella and book by W.H. Post (New York: M. Whitmark and Sons, 1916).

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62. ‘The Road to Mandalay’, in The Road to Mandalay: A Comic Opera in Two Acts (1916). 63. See The Frances G. Spencer Collection of American Popular Music, at http:// contentdm.baylor.edu/cdm/search/collection/fa-spnc/searchterm/mandalay/ order/nosort 64. ‘In Mandalay’, in The Bing Boys on Broadway, words by Clifford Grey and music by N.D. Ayer (Melbourne: Chappell and Co. Ltd, 1918). See also ‘In Mandalay’, in The Bing Boys on Broadway, words by Clifford Grey and music by N.D. Ayer (London: B. Feldman and Co., 1918). 65. ‘The Kipling Walk’, in The Bing Boys on Broadway, words by Clifford Grey and music by N.D. Ayer (London: B. Feldman and Co., 1916). 66. ‘The Show of Wonders’, Internet Broadway Database, at http://ibdb.com/ production.php?id=8463. See also G.M. Bordman, American Musical Theatre: A Chronicle (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 367. 67. ‘Show of Wonders’, Variety, 3 November 1916, p. 16. 68. ‘When The Mission Bells Were Ringing, Down in Burma by the Sea’, words by Al Dubin and music by Gustav Benkhart (Philadelphia: Emmett J. Welch, 1916). 69. ‘Mandalay’, in Dew Drop Inn, words by J.E. Hazzard and Percival Knight, music by A.B. Sloane (New York: Leo Feist, 1917). 70. This show is not to be confused with the famous African-American musical revue of the same name, first staged on Broadway in 1921. 71. ‘Rose of Burmah’, words by Percy Edgar and music by Lawrence Emlyn (London: St Giles Publishing Co. Ltd, 1923). 72. C.M. Scheelar, ‘The Use of Nostalgia in Tribal Fusion Dance’, in C.E. McDonald and Barbara Sellers-Young (eds), Belly Dance Around the World: New Communities, Performance and Identity (Jefferson: MacFarland and Company, 2013), p. 127. 73. For an overview of this output, see Jasen, Tin Pan Alley. As he points out (p. xv), the name was initially applied to the music district of New York, but in time ‘Tin Pan Alley’ became a generic term for all publishers of popular American sheet music, regardless of their geographical locations. 74. ‘Old King Tut’, words by William Jerome and music by Harry Von Tilzer (New York: Harry Von Tilzer Music Co., 1923). 75. ‘Biographies: Lieutenant Gitz Rice’, Library and Archives Canada, at http:// www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/gramophone/028011-1027-e.html 76. ‘Burmah Moon’, words and music by Gitz Rice (New York: Henry Burr Music Corporation, 1919). 77. ‘I’ll Always Call You Schnorrer, My African Explorer’, in S.J. Perelman, The Most of S.J. Perelman (London: Eyre Methuen, 1978), pp. 624–5. 78. ‘In Old Rangoon’, music by Gitz Rice (New York: G. Ricordi and Co., 1920). 79. Bordman, American Musical Theatre, p. 469. 80. ‘Roshanara to Dance with Symphony Society’, Brooklyn Life (New York, US), 9 March 1918, at http://bklyn.newspapers.com/image/83207057/ 81. ‘Feast of Music in Three Concerts’, The Sun (New York, US), 10 March 1918, at http://fultonhistory.com/newspaper%209/New%20York%20NY%20Sun/ New%20York%20NY%20Sun%201918%20%20Grayscale/New%20 York%20NY%20Sun%201918%20%20Grayscale%20-%200479.pdf 82. ‘Roshanara’, The New York Call (New York, US), 4 January 1920, at http:// fultonhistory.com/Newspaper%2014/New%20York%20NY%20Evening%20

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83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89.

90. 91. 92. 93. 94.

95. 96.

97. 98.

99.

Burma and Western music after ‘Mandalay’ Express/New%20York%20NY%20Evening%20Express%201869/New%20 York%20NY%20Evening%20Express%201869%20-%200035.pdf Deborah Jowitt, Time and the Dancing Image (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), p. 147. ‘Oasis: A Desert Romance’, words by Harold G. Frost and music by F. Henri Klickman (Chicago: Frank K. Root and Co., 1919). ‘My Rose of Mandalay’, words by Harold G. Frost and music by F. Henri Klickman (Chicago: McKinley Music Co., 1919). ‘Hindu Moon’, words by Lucille Palmer, music by Frank Magine and H.R. Cohen (Chicago: Will Rossiter, 1919). ‘My Song of India’, words and music by Harley Rosso and H.L. Alfred (St Paul: McClune Music Co., 1921). ‘There’s a Burmah Girl A-Calling (In Burmah by the Sea)’, words by Harry Flanagan and music by Earl Burnett (New York: A.J. Stasny Music, 1916). ‘Burmese Belles’, music by Patricia Platzman, recorded by Art Hickman and his Orchestra (New York: Columbia Gramophone Co., 1919). This work is sometimes incorrectly referred to as ‘Burmese Bells’. It is not be confused with ‘Burmese Bells’ (1919), a one-step by Eugene Platzman. See also ‘Rose of Mandalay’, words by Ballard MacDonald and music by Herbert Claar (New York: Shapiro, Bernstein and Co., 1919), recorded by Art Hickman and his Orchestra (New York: Columbia Gramophone Co., 1919). ‘Al Jolson, Abe Lyman Orch. – Mandalay (1924)’, at https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=Qa6gL2Jc1ac ‘Mandalay: Fox Trot Ballad’ (1924). ‘On The Road to Mandalay’, Columbia 787D (1926). See, for example, ‘Earl Burtnett and his LA Biltmore Orchestra – On The Road to Mandalay’, YouTube, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izi7dQVNTw0 See ‘SS Leviathan (1914–1934)’, Vintage America, at http://www.vintage-america. com/ss-leviathan/. The orchestra was the inspiration for the New Leviathan Oriental Foxtrot Orchestra, formed in 1972 to play authentic orchestrations of American music popular between the 1890s and 1930s. ‘Down in Old Rangoon’, words by Wyn Ewart and music by Charles Prentice (London: Chappell and Co., 1923). When it was attacked during the First Anglo-Burmese War, Rangoon (or ‘Yangon’) was a small village at the base of the revered Shwedagon Pagoda. After the second war, and the annexation of Lower Burma in 1852, a decision was taken to build a new city along European lines. See B.R. Pearn, A History of Rangoon (Rangoon: American Baptist Mission Press, 1939); and O.H.K. Spate and L.W. Trueblood, ‘Rangoon: A Study in Urban Geography’, Geographical Review, Vol. 32, No. 1, January 1942, pp. 56–73. Tagore made an exception for the Shwedagon Pagoda. See Rabindranath Tagore, Japane-Parashye: In Japan and Persia (Calcutta: Granthalay, 1940), p. 14 and pp. 17–25. More recent compositions include ‘Rangoon’ (1957), ‘Rain in Rangoon’ (1959), ‘Tune From Rangoon’ (1959), ‘Rangoon Moon’ (1984), ‘Home on the Rangoon’ (2000), ‘Third River Rangoon’ (2011) and ‘Queen of Rangoon’ (2012). In 1921, 55 per cent of Rangoon’s residents were from South Asia. Charney, A History of Modern Burma, p. 23.

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100. Burmah Rubies: A Cycle of Four Eastern Songs, words by Percy Edgar and music by Mark Strong (London: Boosey and Co., 1923). Mark Strong was the pseudonym of John Lewis Harris. 101. ‘My Bamboo Flower’, from Burmah Rubies, words by Percy Edgar and music by Mark Strong [J.L. Harris] (London: Boosey and Co., 1921). 102. ‘I’m Getting Better Every Day’, words by Percy Edgar and music by Mark Strong (London: Cecil Lennox and Co., 1922). 103. ‘Moonlight in Mandalay’, words by Marty Fay and music by Lou Herscher and Elmer Naylor (New York: Jack Mills Inc., 1925). See also Encyclopaedic Discography of Victor Recordings, at http://victor.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/ matrix/detail/800008924/BVE-34686-Moonlight_in_Mandalay. 104. Kennedy wrote over 2000 songs, many of which were hits in the UK and US. In addition to these songs he is perhaps best known for such classics as ‘We’re Going to Hang Out the Washing on the Siegfried Line’ (1939) and ‘The Hokey Cokey’ (1942). 105. ‘By An Old Pagoda’, words by Jimmy Kennedy and music by Hugh Williams (London: Peter Maurice Music Co., 1938). 106. Rudyard Kipling, ‘The Ballad of East and West’ (1889), Rudyard Kipling’s Verse: Definitive Edition, pp. 234–8. 107. Charles Carrington once observed that ‘No lines of Kipling’s have been more freely quoted, and more often misquoted in exactly the opposite sense to that which Kipling gave them’. Carrington, Rudyard Kipling, p. 180. 108. ‘Burma Girl’, music by Charlie Lawrence (1930), recorded by Paul Howard and the Quality Serenaders (Hollywood: Victor Records, 1930). 109. ‘The Fond Dove and His Lady Love’, words and music by Anita Baldwin (San Francisco: Helen Merrell, 1900). 110. Miniature Essays: Josef Holbrooke (London: J. and W. Chester, 1924), p. 9. 111. ‘Rangoon Rice Carriers’ was released by Piccadilly as part of its red label series of records (catalogue no. 5078), which were on sale between March 1930 and January 1931. The piece was re-released on CD by Symposium Records in 1994, as part of a collection of Holbrooke’s early orchestral and popular music. 112. See, for example, ‘Customer Reviews’, Amazon.com.uk, at http://www. amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/B0058JDBWC 113. At other times he called himself Garry Foster, Leo Varney, Eric Dolman and Eric Curtis. 114. Charles Ferrall and Rebecca Ellis, The Trials of Eric Mareo (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2002), pp. 64–74. 115. ‘A Musician in Many Lands: Impressions of Travel’, music by Evan Marsden (London: J.H. Larway, 1927). Included were ‘Cingalese Melody’, ‘Hungarian Czardas’, ‘Maid of Athens’, ‘Fair Land of Poland’ and ‘Plymouth Sound’. 116. Pagan was the capital of the Kingdom of Pagan, in central Burma, between the 9th and 13th centuries. 117. ‘Burmese Chant’, music by Evan Marsden (London: Joseph Henry Larway, 1928). 118. Hsu, D.M., The Henry Eichheim Collection of Oriental Instruments: A Western Musician Discovers a New World of Sound (Santa Barbara: University Art Museum, University of California, Santa Barbara, 1984), pp. 17–18. 119. A.L. Crowley, Neighbourhood Playhouse: Leaves from a Theatre Scrapbook (New York: Theatre Arts Books, 1959), pp. 152–8 and 223.

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120. ‘Henry Eichheim’, in Claire Reis (ed), American Composers: A Record of Works Written between 1912 and 1932 (New York: Society for Contemporary Music, 1932), p. 43. 121. G.W. Howgate, ‘Jazz Forum, October 1928’, in Karl Koenig (ed), Jazz in Print (1859–1929): An Anthology of Selected Early Readings in Jazz History, (Hillsdale: Pendragon Press, 2002) p. 548. 122. Madelin Leof, ‘Stokowski to Travel to Orient to Obtain Eastern Music Ideas’, Pittsburgh Times (?), 24 November 1927, reproduced in ‘Leopold Stokowski – Philadelphia Orchestra Recordings of 1927 – Part 1’, at http://www.stokowski. org/1927%20Electrical%20Recordings%20Stokowski.htm 123. Joel Haney, ‘Slaying the Wagnerian Monster: Hindemith, Das Nusch-Nuschi, and Musical Germanness after the Great War’, The Journal of Musicology, Vol. 25, No. 4, Fall 2008, p. 340. 124. Haney, ‘Slaying the Wagnerian Monster’, p. 340. Nazi Propaganda Minister Josef Goebbels is reported to have called Hindemith a ‘standard-bearer of decay’ and an ‘atonal noise-maker’. See ‘Campaign Against Hindemith’, at http://www. hindemith.info/en/life-work/biography/1933-1939/leben/the-hindemith-case/ 125. The play was later adapted by Damon Runyon for the short story which eventually became the hit musical Guys and Dolls (1950). 126. Happy End, words by Bertolt Brecht and music by Kurt Weill (1929), translated by Michael Feingold (Vienna: Universal Edition, 1958), pp. 68–74. 127. Brecht and Weill, Happy End, pp. 75–87. 128. Rachel Beaumont, ‘Mahagonny Musical Highlight: The Mandalay Song’, Royal Opera House, 10 March 2015, at http://www.roh.org.uk/news/ mahagonny-musical-highlight-the-mandalay-song 129. See, for example, Rise and Fall of the City of Mahogonny, The Kurt Weill Foundation for Music, at http://www.kwf.org/current-news/28-weill-works/ weill-works/114-a8main 130. ‘Calling Me Home Again’, words by Perceval Graves and music by Vera Buck (New York: Boosey and Co., 1935). 131. San Toy, or The Emperor’s Own: A Chinese Musical Comedy, book by Edward Morton, lyrics by Harry Greenbank and Adnan Ross, music by Sidney Jones (London: Keith Prowse and Co., 1899). 132. ‘My Fillipino Belle’, words by Joseph Hart and music by A.B. Sloane (New York: J.W. Stern and Co., 1905), cited in Walsh, Tin Pan Alley and the Philippines, pp. 191–2. This spelling of ‘Fillipino’ and ‘mandalay’ occurs in the original. 133. ‘Kaloolah’, words by Ben Fielding and A. Togwell, music by John Glover-Kind (London: Francis, Day and Hunter, 1906). This song is not to be confused with ‘Kaloolah’, words by W.B. Cavanah and music by John Braham (Boston: John P. Perry and Co., 1875). Both appear to make reference to African-Americans. 134. ‘In An Oriental Garden’, in Yes Uncle, words by Gus Kahn and Bud De Sylva, music by Nathan Goldstein (Sydney: D. Davis and Co., 1920). 135. ‘Chant Birman’, words and music by Andre Messager (Paris: Francis Salabert, 1923). 136. ‘Singapore Sorrows’, words and music by Jack Le Soir and Ray Doll (New York: Broadway Music Corporation, 1927).

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137. Jerry Dismond, ‘Blackberries of 1932 May Be a Broadway Hit’, The Afro-American (US), 16 April 1932, at http://news.google.com/newspapers? nid=2211&dat=19320416&id=uExGAAAAIBAJ&sjid=f-UMAAAAIBAJ& pg=1323,3194127 138. ‘Let’s Take a Walk Around the Block’, in Life Begins at 8:40, words by Ira Gershwin and E.Y. Harburg, music by Harold Arlen (New York: Harms Inc., 1934). 139. ‘Rollin’ Home’, words by Billy Hill and music by Peter De Rose (New York: Shapiro, Bernstein and Co., 1934). 140. ‘The Old Clipper Days’, words by J.S. Cutler, in Old Marblehead Sea Captains and the Ships in Which They Sailed (Marblehead: Marblehead Historical Society, 1915), p. 4. 141. The misprint is corrected in a later version. See ‘The Old Clipper Days’, words by J.S. Cutler, music by M.L. Jordan (New York: G. Schirmer Inc., 1933). To ‘reef’ a sail is to reduce the surface area exposed to the wind. 142. ‘News in Daly’s Bar’, in C.F. Smith, Ships and Folks (London: Elkin Mathews, 1920), p. 28. Over 80 of Smith’s more than 640 poems have been set to music. See Charles Ipcar and James Saville (eds), The Complete Poetry of Cicely Fox Smith (New London: Little Red Tree Publishing, 2012). 143. C.F. Smith, ‘Follow the Sea’, in Sea Songs and Ballads, 1917–22 (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1924), pp. 20–1. The poem was first published in Punch, 24 May 1922, p. 410. 144. ‘An Ocean Tramp’, in Cecily Fox Smith, Men of Men (London: Sampson Low, Marston and Co., 1900), pp. 102–4. 145. Personal communications with James Saville and Charles Ipcar, October 2014. 146. See Charles Ipcar (ed), Sea Songs of Cicely Fox Smith (Richmond: The Author, 2010). 147. ‘Mad Dogs and Englishmen’, words and music by Noel Coward (London: Chappell and Co., Ltd, 1932). 148. Coward was always concerned that the phrase about mad dogs and Englishmen going out in the midday sun was not entirely his own, as references had been made to this phenomenon as early as 1835. See Cole Lesley, The Life of Noel Coward (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978), p. 175. 149. ‘I Like America’, words and music by Noel Coward (London: Chappell and Co., Ltd, 1949). The song was used in Coward’s 1950 musical Ace of Clubs. The ‘flying fith’ was a humorous reference to the ‘flying fish’ mentioned in Kipling’s famous ballad. 150. ‘Carnival of the Animals’, music by Camille Saint Saens (1886), lyrics by Ogden Nash (1949), music conducted by Andre Kostelanetz, verses recited by Noel Coward (Columbia Masterworks, 1949). 151. In the Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM) movie The Wizard of Oz (1939), the Cowardly Lion asks ‘What makes the dawn come up like THUNDER? – Courage’, another clear reference to Kipling’s ballad. ‘The Cowardly Lion on Courage’, American Rhetoric: Movie Speech, at http://www.americanrhetoric. com/MovieSpeeches/moviespeechthewizardofozcourage.html 152. See, for example, J.H. Dormon, ‘Shaping the Popular Image of PostReconstruction American Blacks: The “Coon Song” Phenomenon of the Gilded Age’, American Quarterly, Vol. 40, No. 4, December 1988, pp. 450–71.

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153. ‘The Oriental Coon’, words and music by Ed Rogers (New York: Jos. W. Stern and Co., 1899). 154. ‘Mandy, from Mandalay: “A Black Man’s Burden”, A Long Way After Kipling’, words by W.H. Ford and music by J.W. Bratton (New York: M. Witmark and Sons, 1899). 155. ‘I’m On My Way to Mandalay (Including Patriotic Version)’, words by A.L. Bryan and music by Fred Fisher [Fred Fischer] (New York: Leo Feist Inc., 1914?). 156. See, for example, ‘Mandalay’, words by Rudyard Kipling and music by Gerald F. Cobb, in Stanley Gordon, Jack and Tommy’s Favourite Patriotic Tunes (London: Charles Sheard and Co., 1914). 157. Barrack-Room Ballads was dedicated to Kipling’s brother-in-law, Wolcott Balestier (who died in 1891) and to ‘T.A.’. To the latter, Kipling wrote: ‘I have made for you a song, / And it may be right or wrong, / But only you can tell me if it’s true’. Kipling, Barrack-Room Ballads and Other Verses, p. 2. 158. Built in 1889, the ferry was originally named the Express, but it was rechristened the Mandalay in 1914. 159. ‘Mandalay (March Song), dedicated to S.S. Mandalay’, words and music by Mabel Besthoff (New York: Delaware-Hudson Steamship Co., 1914); ‘Dancing on the Mandalay’, words and music by Lee David (New York: Delaware Hudson Steamship Company, 1919); and ‘Mandalay, Moonlight and You’, music by Lee David (New York: Delaware-Hudson Steamship Company, 1930). 160. Besthoff, ‘Mandalay (March Song)’ (1914). 161. P.D. Boyd, Atlantic Highlands: From Lenape Camps to Bayside Town (Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2004), p. 121. Mabel Besthoff’s composition is incorrectly identified as ‘Dancing on the Mandalay’. 162. ‘Mandalay: Isle of a Thousand Palms’, words and music by F.W. Salley (Tampa: Booster Record and Publishing Co., 1926).

5

Patterns and particulars

This study aims to explore the size and scope of a field that, if examined more closely by specialists, could throw greater light on a neglected aspect of modern Burma studies. It does not claim to be an analytical study in itself, or to propose any new musicological theories. However, to appreciate better the Western music produced between 1824 and 1948 that relates in some way to Burma, it is worth looking at it a little more closely, to see if any patterns can be identified in the 180 or so compositions surveyed. By drawing where possible on the original sheet music, and noting the specific features that have been emphasised in the cover artwork and lyrics, it is possible to devise a number of categories into which this music can be divided, and briefly discussed. The methodology is still imperfect, in that it omits any analysis of the sound of the music, its compositional style, orchestration and aesthetic characteristics. However, this approach at least permits generalisations that are somewhat less impressionistic than might otherwise be the case.

Subjects and themes To the extent that the musical works listed in the appendix represent the bulk of the Burma-related compositions produced between 1824 and 1948, two patterns are immediately apparent. In terms of sheer output, there appears to have been a burst of enthusiasm for Burma-related songs immediately after publication of Kipling’s ‘Mandalay’, more than equivalent in number to the entire secular repertoire between 1824 and 1890. The pace of production slowed down after the first decade of the 20th century, but picked up noticeably after the First World War. This was probably due in large part to the higher demand for musical entertainment of all kinds, both in public and in private, during the jazz age. It also reflected the advent of more sophisticated recording and distribution technologies, notably records and radios, and the development of global markets.1 As explained in the next chapter, there was another increase in the output of Burma-related works (of all kinds) during the Second World War. The titles of popular songs usually reflected universal themes, such as love and longing, but they were also in response to a number of key

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external prompts. In the period after 1890, secular musical works almost always referred to Mandalay – doubtless influenced by Kipling’s enormously popular ballad. However, as the years passed there was a growing number of works that cited Burma (or ‘Burmah’) in their titles. This seems to have been a result of wider interest in the country, which was increasingly mentioned in the popular press, as well as featuring more often in songs and movies. After 1937, popular interest in Burma stemmed mainly from the publicity given to the Burma Road to China and the drawn-out military campaign in the China-Burma-India (CBI) Theatre during the Second World War, which in various ways brought Burma home to millions of people in the West. Rangoon was mentioned in song titles too – usually during the 1920s – but not nearly as often as Mandalay, which acquired a special place in the public imagination. Religious and martial music needs to be judged against different criteria but, in terms of specific subjects and themes, the popular Western songs and tunes surveyed show a surprising consistency. To a greater or lesser extent, most of these works in some way follow the story outlined in Kipling’s 1890 ballad. Even those that consciously take a different approach, help underline the seminal nature of Kipling’s work. Within those broad parameters, however, there were some differences. In the vast majority of songs, the lyrics attempted to capture the feelings of a European or American civil servant or soldier who is yearning for the renewal of his relationship with a girl left behind in Burma, by implication after a long liaison. In a slight variation, the ‘Burma girl’ herself is the subject, and describes her feelings as she awaits her lover’s expected return. Burma is painted in glowing terms. There were, however, a few songs that consciously reversed these sentiments. For example, Act One of The Blue Moon opened with a number ironically entitled ‘You’d Better Come to Burmah’: Blazin’ Burmah’s over warm, Reptiles squirm and insects swarm; Lotus eatin’ ain’t our form; Oh to seek the Springland! Oh, for English leaf and loam! Oh, to sail across the foam! Oh, if we were going home! Oh, to be in England!2 Broadly similar sentiments were expressed in ‘Calling Me Home Again’ (1935) and ‘By An Old Pagoda’ (1938). The mediums employed for works about Burma rarely allowed for any elaboration of these ‘paradigmatic plots’, to use a term Ralph Locke has applied to Orientalist operas.3 Few songs took more than four minutes to sing and most were much shorter. Lawrence Tibbett’s operatic rendition of ‘On the Road to Mandalay’ (1907), for example, was longer than most

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versions, at 4:54 minutes. Peter Dawson sang the same setting of Kipling’s ballad in 3:23 minutes.4 Al Jolson’s version of ‘Mandalay’ (1924) lasted 3:04 minutes.5 Bing Crosby sang ‘Rose of Mandalay’ (1928) in only 2:25 minutes.6 In these circumstances, no song could tell a very sophisticated story, or delve very deeply into matters of the heart. To a certain extent, the same could be said of instrumental numbers. For example, played by Art Hickman’s orchestra, ‘Burmese Belles’ (1919) by Patricia Platzman lasted 3:11 minutes.7 It took about the same time to play Cedric Lamont’s piano solo ‘Little Mandalay Princess’ (1924).8 ‘Moonlight in Mandalay’ (1925) lasted 3:16 minutes.9 Preston Jackson and his Uptown Band played ‘Yearning for Mandalay’ (1926) in only 3:01 minutes.10 Even some classical pieces were very short. Joseph Holbrooke’s ‘Rangoon Rice Carriers’ (1930?), for example, lasted only 3:23 minutes. Before the introduction of Long Play (or ‘LP’) records by Columbia in 1948, the duration of one side of a 10-inch (25 cm) 78 rpm record was usually about 3:30 minutes, which imposed other limitations. There were also 12-inch (30 cm) discs lasting four to five minutes, but these were less common. Occasionally, longer songs were divided into two parts, so that they could be recorded on both sides of a 78 rpm disc. Even longer compositions like Henry Eichheim’s orchestra suite ‘Burma’ (1927), which lasted 15 minutes, had to be spread over several discs, hence the creation of booklike ‘albums’. The early vinyl 33.3 rpm LP records usually lasted 22 minutes, and held as much music as six of the heavy, fragile shellac 78 rpm records that had dominated the market for half a century. It is also relevant that three or four minutes was about the length of time that social dancers could be expected to perform a lively two-step or foxtrot without tiring. While they faced fewer constraints in terms of time and physical space, the Burma-related stage shows of the period suffered from similar shortcomings. In general, the plots were slight and the themes universal. There were occasional attempts, such as The Pagoda of Flowers and A Palace Plot, but few productions realistically tried to explore any aspects of Burmese culture and society. If mentioned at all, such matters were usually raised to provide a little local colour, and to act as a backdrop to stories that were, in the main, familiar to Western audiences.11 The exceptions to this rule, such as Weill and Brecht’s show Happy End, seem to have been conscious efforts to break the mould and shock those attending the show. While Roshanara and the Denishawn Dancers, among others, tried to incorporate Eastern themes into their numbers, ballets suffered from similar limitations. For example, Burmese Pwe and most other Oriental dances performed in the West around this time relied ‘more on conventions of costume and setting than on faithfully adapted movement for their effectiveness’.12 In songs, variety shows and larger productions, artists and producers unashamedly catered to the popular taste for the exotic. In the artwork of sheet music and the lyrics of songs there were repeated references to temples, coconut or toddy palm trees, Buddha statues, pagodas and ‘Eastern’

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sunsets. Other Oriental motifs cropped up over and over again, capitalising on broad understandings in the West regarding their symbolism. For example, in keeping with Kipling’s poem, bells frequently featured in Burma-related songs, although their varied tinkling, tolling, ringing and calling suggested a wide range of types and sizes, from small brass wind instruments on Buddhist pagodas to large iron ‘vesper bells’ or ‘mission bells’ mounted in church towers.13 Their message, however, was more secular than religious: When the Mission Bells ring out I know they’re telling her Of tender sighs and love-lit eyes, In the good old days that were.14 The same theme was picked by ‘Burmah Bells’ (1922), in which ‘temple bells will be ringing / Happiness they’ll be bringing’. In this instance, they led to ‘a wedding tune’.15 Another song referred to Burma as the ‘land of Temple Bells’.16 Other songs about temple bells produced in the UK and US around this time also owed something to Kipling’s ballad, even if it was not specifically mentioned.17 Their creators were probably unaware of the fact, but all these songs were reflecting a curious reality. Church bells were important to Christian missionaries in Burma, and not just to call the faithful to prayer. Giordano Nanni has suggested that, next to the Bible, they were ‘one of the most symbolic and powerful instruments at the missionaries’ disposal’. Indeed, they were seen by some missionaries as the ‘divine icon of God’s work’.18 Occasionally, lotus flowers rated a mention in songs, not only for their well-established Oriental associations – they featured in Greek and Egyptian mythology as well as Asian stories – but also as recognisable symbols of (among other things) decadence and luxury.19 For example, the opening chorus of The Blue Moon began: If not on labour over sweet, The lotos you would rather eat, You’d better come to Burmah; A land which we can recommend, In laziness to far transcend The rest of Terra firma! …20 As one British member of the ICS wrote in 1907, Burma was widely regarded at the time as ‘the Egypt of Asia; the land of lotus-eating calm, the land where it is always afternoon and never the hour to work’.21 In another song, the European singer refers to a young Burmese woman as his ‘little lotus lady’.22 Lotus flowers were also closely associated with Buddhism, both in its iconography and its scriptures, thus providing an obvious symbolic link to Burma.

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Another flower that was often mentioned in the titles and lyrics of Burmarelated songs was the rose. Examples were discovered by plant-hunters and studied by colonial botanists from the 1880s, but they are not usually considered native to Burma.23 Even so, the rose was a potent symbol, long favoured by songwriters. As the horticultural historian Jennifer Potter has written: No other flower comes close in western culture for the sheer variety of ‘meanings’ people give to the rose, although there is an intriguing difference between the western rose and the eastern lotus. In the West, the rose slowly accumulated meanings as it developed into a flower of great beauty while in the East, the lotus played a part from the very beginning in the creation myths that sought to explain how the world began.24 In songs about Burma, the rose was most often used to denote love, beauty and feminine purity. This is seen, for example, in songs like ‘My Rose of Mandalay’ (1919) and ‘Rose of Mandalay’ (1919). In ‘Rose of Mandalay: Foxtrot Song’ (1928), the eponymous Burma girl is described as wearing a rose in her hair.25 In The Pagoda of Flowers, Ma Noo’s lover met her ‘under the star-flower tree’ with ‘a rose in his hand’.26 Particularly during the jazz age, moonlight was another device much favoured by songwriters. It has denoted many things over the years, but in connection to Burma it was used primarily to convey mystery, serenity, longing and femininity. Typical were lines like: Moon, your beams are shining, Down thro’ the glade Where once we stray’d Mandalay Moon, I’m always pining, Always I’m longing for my Mandalay maid.27 In both cover art and lyrics, the moon was usually reflected off a river, a lagoon or the ocean, ‘on silv’ry streams’, to create a romantic mood or to guide lovers.28 Hence the ubiquity of songs such as ‘Burmah Moon’ (1919), ‘Mandalay (Where the Moonbeams Play)’(1920), ‘Mandalay Moon’ (1924), ‘Moonlight in Mandalay’ (1925), ‘Mandalay, Moonlight and You’ (1930) and ‘Moon Over Burma’ (1940).29 Such works were given added allure, if not credibility, by the testimony of artists who visited the country and expressed the view that ‘there is nothing more beautiful than the Burma moonlight’.30 While some of these tropes can be traced back to Kipling’s poem, it needs to be kept in mind that, by the early 20th century, such themes were being freely applied by Western music makers to other Oriental places as well. Songs depicted demure maidens from countries stretching from North Africa to Japan, all waiting for European men to return. At other times,

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such figures were the subject of fond male memories. Such storylines can be found in works as diverse as ‘Karama (A Japanese Romance)’ (1914), ‘Siam’ (1915), ‘My Little China Doll’ (1917), ‘Hindustan’ (1918), ‘Singapoo’ (1919) and ‘Manila Bay’ (1921).31 By the time Charlie Chaplin wrote ‘With You, Dear, in Bombay’ in 1923, the scenes described and sentiments expressed had become rather tired clichés: Where golden palms are swaying, ’Mid perfumed breezes playing, My thoughts are straying night and day. Where mystic waters gleaming Beneath the starlight beaming, I’m always dreaming of Bombay.32 The refrain of this song included the line ‘Oriental nights I love most of all’, a sentiment that would already be well known to anyone familiar with contemporary songs about the East, including Burma. Indeed, songwriters of the period often reused lyrics, simply changing the title and setting of their works, without making allowance for the different geographies, climates and cultures of other Oriental countries. Hence the references to Burma in songs clearly set in North Africa, with their allusions to camels and oases, or in songs with ‘Indian’ labels, such as ‘Hindu Moon’ (1919) and ‘My Song of India’ (1921). At times, even the artwork failed to catch up. The lyrics of ‘Hindu Moon’, for example, were entirely about Burma, but the cover of the sheet music depicted an elephant, complete with turbaned mahout (uzi, in Burmese) and bearded rajah, seated in what appears to be a howdah. Arguably, this could be a representation of a Burmese scene, except for the fact that the cover also shows a woman wearing an Indian sari. The cover of the sheet music for ‘My Rose of Mandalay’ (1919) depicted what could be a Biblical scene, with a woman in a hijab carrying a pot on her head through a grove of palm trees, surrounded by a flock of fat-tailed sheep.33 The key point here is not that Western men conquered and later pined for girls from a wide range of ‘Eastern’ countries. The songs were not meant to be taken literally. Rather, they described a dream, a fantasy. The idea of an attractive and submissive girl in an exotic foreign land, who could fulfil the singer’s every desire, was a purely generic one. It was nicely captured in the song ‘Something Oriental’ (1918): I’ve a feeling that’s sentimental, I love ev’rything that’s oriental. I always long for something new. What it is, I simply can’t express it, Do you think that you could ever guess it? If you could would you show me what to do?

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I’d just like to spend a happy hour, I’d just love to crush an Eastern flower, And watch the petals gently fall. Oriental love I must discover, I just crave an oriental lover. Eastern love, it never ends at all.34 The actual geographical location of the place and the nationality of the woman were essentially irrelevant. For example, a collection of songs released in 1912 under the title Songs of the Orient encompassed African deserts, Levantine cypress trees, Arabian bazaars and Indian nautch (dancing) girls. Another inclusion was ‘The Bells of Burmah’ (1912).35 It referred to crimson dawns, purple nights, mystic moonlight, lotus flowers, palm trees, sweet bells, songs of love and ‘wonderful visions’. All these references were used to create an atmosphere of exoticism and romance. They could have been used equally effectively in other songs in the collection, with the same result. The British musicologist Derek Scott has described this phenomenon as the ‘interchangeability of signifiers’, in this case classic symbols of the Orient.36

Styles, types and rhymes As Hugh Cunningham once wrote, historians tend to forget that songs had tunes as well as words.37 A knowledge of the actual sound of the music is necessary for a full understanding of both genres and individual works. Besides, even if the subject matter was unfashionable and the lyrics banal, a catchy tune could still ensure that a song survived and became popular. The following discussion acknowledges these issues but, in the absence of such sources, attempts simply to put ‘the music’ into a broader context. Between them, the Burma-related works surveyed embrace a wide range of musical styles, covering the full spectrum of popular tastes. Most had lyrics but some were purely instrumental numbers. The bulk consisted of individual pieces, meant to be played or sung alone, or in musical variety shows, but others formed part of larger productions, such as The Blue Moon, The Pagoda of Flowers and Happy End. Many were written as dance tunes. Indeed, most of these works reflected changing dance styles, with the waltz, the one-step and later variations, such as the two-step and so-called ‘animal dances’, specifically named on the sheet music. Burma-related music seems to have catered less for vigorous dances like the Shimmy and the Charleston, perhaps because they did not lend themselves easily to sentimental songs about men or women pining for lost lovers. After the foxtrot became the staple of the social dance repertoire, there was a high demand for swing and jazz numbers with Burma-related titles, both with and without lyrics. There was also a small number of works that could be described as ‘classical’ or ‘semi-classical’, like Eichheim’s ‘Burma Suite’ (1927) and Holbrooke’s ‘Rangoon Rice Carriers’ (1930?).

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As Martin Clayton and Bennett Zon have argued, musicians have tried for centuries to devise different techniques and styles, either to tap into Oriental music or to convey the Oriental nature of their subjects.38 A wide range of sounds and styles, created through the use of particular musical instruments and arrangements, has been used to denote cultural difference, and to appeal to popular conceptions of exotic and foreign places. A long list of ‘Orientalist devices’ compiled by the musicologist Derek Scott includes whole tones, augmented seconds and fourths, arabesques and ornamented lines, sliding or sinuous chromaticism, trills and dissonant grace notes, rapid scale passages, abrupt juxtapositions of romantic, lyrical tunes and busy energetic passages, complex or irregular rhythms, drones and pedal points, harp arpeggios and glissandi, and percussion (especially the use of gongs, wood blocks, tom-toms, tambourines and triangles).39 It is possible that the occasional employment of a ukulele in Burma-related songs was another musical sign, in this case of the ‘banjo’ referred to in Kipling’s ‘Mandalay’. To the untrained ear, however, there was nothing distinctive or particularly ‘Burmese’ about most of the Western music produced during the colonial period. With a few exceptions, like Mackenzie-Rogan’s adaption of Burmese airs and Eichheim’s experiments with Burmese instruments, ‘popular’ music was by its very nature geared to contemporary Western tastes. Even when musicians referred to those broader conventions which governed Oriental music, they applied them across the board to all songs and tunes. For example: the ‘Japanese’ music of Hedgcock’s drawing room ballad ‘The Mousmee’ [1893] was found by the singer Franklin Clive to be eminently suited to the words of Kipling’s ‘On The Road to Mandalay’, its ‘oriental’ character being sufficient for either Burma or Japan.40 As Scott went on to observe, ‘Oriental music is not a poor imitation of another cultural practice: Its purpose is not to imitate but to represent’.41 It is worth noting too that, from the end of the 19th century, the term ‘Oriental’ was used to cover a wide range of works. A survey of popular music produced during the period reveals numerous songs and tunes with titles like ‘Oriental Echoes’ (1895), ‘My Oriental Rosebud’ (1918), ‘Oriental Memories’ (1919), ‘Oriental Rose’ (1922) and ‘Oriental Love Dreams’ (1924). Subtitles too ran the full gamut of labels such as ‘oriental intermezzo’, ‘oriental lullaby’, ‘oriental episode’, ‘oriental novelty’, ‘oriental foxtrot’, ‘oriental phantasy’, ‘oriental serenade’ and ‘oriental rag’. Other works were subtitled ‘A Song of the Orient’, ‘A Song of the East’, or something similar. These tags were applied to a wide range of compositions, including a number of songs about Burma, for example ‘Mandalay Moon (Oriental Fox-Trot Song)’ (1924), ‘Little Mandalay Princess (Oriental Idyll)’ (1924)

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and ‘Burma (Oriental Fox-Trot)’ (1927).42 All these descriptions seem to have been very loosely applied, as regards the type of music, but they added an element of exoticism, indicated the intended uses of such works and presumably helped to promote sales to a public looking for something out of the ordinary. Particularly during the Victorian era, when there was an extraordinary enthusiasm for music making and concert life, there was always an amateur element producing songs and tunes, usually for private performances. Some of those prompted to try their hand at composing or writing songs about Burma were more gifted than others. The wide embrace of jazz after 1918, however, complicated the lives of both the wordsmiths and performers. Jazz was not only more difficult to play but it often lacked easy verses and choruses to sing. This led to a greater reliance on professional musicians and singers, who were better able to manage jazz’s more complex rhythms. There were also changes brought about by developments in communications technology. Initially, songs about Burma that were performed in public required a loud vocal style, so that they could be projected over distances, even if that was simply to the back of a theatre. ‘On The Road to Mandalay’ invariably received this bullish treatment. However, as the technology improved, notably after 1924 when the advent of electric recording saw recording horns replaced by microphones, ‘crooners’ like Bing Crosby could adopt a softer and more personal style, and sing songs that gave a greater sense of intimacy.43 Of those Burma-related compositions with words, few had sophisticated lyrics. The sentiments expressed, usually in the first person, were invariably trite and rather predictable. Most would be considered patronising and sexist today, but they were not unusual for the time, and were generally in keeping with Tin Pan Alley’s simple and formulaic ditties. The  fact that so many songs were popular with the general public – otherwise they would not have been produced in such large numbers and over such a long time – suggests that they appealed to both men and women. These works embraced a wide variety of rhymes. In the first verse of ‘Mandalay’, for example, Kipling employed AABBBBBBBB, but he changed it slightly in some other verses to alter the emphasis given to certain themes. The rhymes followed in the other songs under review were usually much simpler. Most common was AABB and ABAB, as found, for example, in Alves and Swinhoe’s Four Songs of Burmah (1910). Some even used the pattern AAAA, as in: While desert moonbeams play To guide me on my way, There’ll be a joyful wedding day When I get back to you, my Rose of Mandalay!44

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Other lyricists used AABBCC, as in ‘Down in Old Rangoon’ (1923). Occasionally, the rhyme was a little more complicated. For example, in their contribution to the genre Clifford Grey and Nat Ayer used ABCB: Far, far away in Mandalay, Where the eastern breezes blow, I heard a song strumm’d all day long, It’s the oldest song I know.45 The opening chorus of The Blue Moon employed a more complex AABCCB rhyme. Other songs that formed part of musical comedies or operettas, however, were written in blank verse, with no identifiable rhyme. This was the case, for example, with ‘My Maid of Mandalay’ (1907). As can be seen from the works surveyed, songwriters were quick to take advantage of the large number of words in the English language which rhymed with ‘Mandalay’. Hence the frequency in lyrics of ‘say’, ‘day’, ‘bay’, ‘stay’, ‘pray’, ‘away’, even ‘hooray’. Some were quite basic. For example, ‘I’m On My Way To Mandalay’ (1913) begins: One I love, far away, far away, far away, Land of love, Mandalay, Mandalay, Mandalay,46 The same approach is taken in the song ‘The Road to Mandalay’ (1916), in William McKenna and Oreste Vesella’s comic opera of the same name: Oh Mandalay, Oh Mandalay, The road is gay on which we stray, Fore’er and aye, Come let us stay, Oh, the road to Mandalay! Oh Mandalay!47 Rangoon featured in far fewer songs, but it too lent itself to a number of easy, if predictable, rhymes, as in: Come to old Rangoon; Beneath the moon I long to spoon.48 Inevitably, the singer went on to ‘softly croon … From night till noon’. In Olga Yardley and Paul Michelin’s song ‘Burmah Bells’ (1922), a lonely lover planned to ‘spoon beneath the Burmah Moon’.49 In his foxtrot ‘Beneath the Burmese Moon’ (1925), the self-styled ‘Poet of the Piano’, Herschel Henlere, once again combined ‘Rangoon’ with ‘moon’, but added a typhoon for good measure: Beneath the Burmese Moon, I’ll be there with you soon, beside the Blue Lagoon With love’s sweetest tune

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I’ll ride a wild typhoon to be in old Rangoon I’m coming to you, I’m coming, There beneath the Burmese moon.50 Val Valentine picked up the same theme in his 1928 ‘Burmese Barcarolle’, entitled ‘A Lagoon in Rangoon’.51 Despite the lack of imagination shown in the lyrics of many songs, the inventiveness – and playfulness – of the songwriters was sometimes revealed. More than one song coupled ‘sentimental’ with ‘Oriental’.52 Another song memorably referred to ‘that shadowy oasis’, where ‘I know my place is’.53 Names like ‘Irma From Burma’ and ‘Mandy From Mandalay’ kept good company with other alliterative Oriental song titles featuring women’s names, such as ‘Rhoda And Her Pagoda’ (1899), ‘Persian Pearl’ (1916), ‘Sarah From Sahara’ (1918), ‘Becky From Babylon’ (1920), ‘Lena From Palesteena’ (1920), ‘Egyptian Ella’ (1931) and ‘Bessa From Odessa’ (1938?).

Race and religion As numerous scholars and commentators have pointed out, during the Victorian and Edwardian eras the ‘ideologies of colonial supremacy and racism were complicated and layered’.54 There was a widespread belief – assumption even – that white Western civilisation was naturally superior, placing Europeans above members of ‘lesser races’ like the Burmese and justifying the imperial project. ‘All is race’, Benjamin Disraeli wrote in his novel Tancred, ‘there is no other truth’.55 As Michael Adas and others have described, Britain’s technical accomplishments and its military and commercial power around the world encouraged such views and led to a degree of hubris.56 A broadside ballad trumpeted in 1858: Oh! the men of merry, merry England, Where e’er Jove’s thunders are hurl’d, Bright monuments rise. Of their strong enterprise, And their commerce gives wealth to the world, Still may it increase, While the fair hands of peace, Send blessings and plenty so free, But should war call again, Our rights we’ll maintain, Then gaily my burden shall be, Let the bottle pass, And we’ll have another glass, To the men of merry, merry England.57 Embarrassments like the retreat from Kabul (1842), the battle of Isandlwana (1879), and a few massacres in the Sudan (1881–1889) aside, major military

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defeats experienced by the British during the Victorian era tended to be at the hands of other white men, such as Napoleon’s French armies, the Russians in the Crimea and the Boers in South Africa.58 Once again, these stereotypes were reinforced by performances in music halls and other popular entertainment venues, helping to establish a racial hierarchy in the popular imagination in which Asians were low on the scale. Conditioned by such beliefs, no one in the US, the UK or Britain’s English-speaking colonies batted an eyelid when performers and soldiers sang the ballad of General Campbell, with such lines as: Like lions bold we rushed on shore at ten o’clock that day: These cowardly dogs could not us stand, we forced them to give way.59 The British soldier’s dismissive attitude towards the cultural and religious traditions of Asian countries is also caught in Kipling’s lines: An’ I seed her first a-smokin’ of a whackin’ white cheroot, An’ a-wastin’ Christian kisses on an ’eathen idol’s foot: Bloomin’ idol made o’ mud – Wot they called the great Gawd Budd – Plucky lot she cared for idols when I kissed ’er where she stud!60 So common were references in popular songs to ‘dusty maids’ and ‘goddesses of brown’ that they passed unnoticed, even in polite society.61 For example, at soirees held at Government House in Rangoon around 1916, the after dinner entertainment included songs like Edmund Hobday’s ‘My Bearer Gungadeen’ (1892). The author’s patronising attitude to the eponymous ‘dusky Son of Sin’, who is portrayed as lazy, deceitful and sly, was more than likely shared by all those present.62 Other works included in a songbook prepared for the Governor at the time casually referred to ‘darkies’ and ‘Chinks’.63 As Helen Trager has amply documented, many Christian missionaries in Burma appear to have subscribed to such views, at least in the earlier part of the 19th century.64 They were also reflected in church music. Whether they were British, American or some other nationality, the early missionaries in Burma tended to be devout evangelists who sincerely believed that they were there to rescue the local population from the fires of eternal damnation. They were at first almost uniformly negative in their views of the country and its peoples.65 Not long after his arrival in Burma, for example, Adoniram Judson wrote: We … felt ourselves, in every sense of the word, on heathen ground … surrounded by despotism, avarice and cruelty; and the darkness, the dreadful moral darkness of heathen idolatry … evident wherever we turned our eyes.66

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Judson’s first wife Ann felt that she stood ‘on the dividing line of the empires of darkness and light’.67 These and other ‘good Christians’ saw themselves as having a sacred duty to ‘save’ the ‘heathen’ in ‘dark benighted Burmah’, for their own sakes. As Reginald Heber wrote in 1819: Can we, whose souls are lighted With wisdom from on high, Can we to men benighted The lamp of life deny? Salvation, O salvation! The joyful sound proclaim, Till each remotest nation Has learned Messiah’s name.68 Also, ‘the Western missionary perception of non-Christian home life was uniformly negative’.69 These attitudes helped encourage criticism of other aspects of traditional Burmese society and culture. In their approach to women, Christian missionaries in Asia sought to achieve two contradictory aims. One was to free women who were believed trapped in ‘primitive’ and intolerant pagan cultures, while the other was to curb the freedoms and regulate the behaviour of women found in more open societies. As described by Chie Ikeya: If Orientalist representations of sati and purdah served to legitimise colonialism, in Burma, it was what Christian missionaries characterised as the excessively free and therefore unrestrained and unrefined behaviour of indigenous, non-Christian (i.e., Buddhist) women that served as the raison d’etre of the Anglo-American civilising mission.70 As Ralph Locke has pointed out, at the same time as Asian women were being cast as femmes fragile, needing to be rescued, they were being condemned – in Burma at least – as femmes fatale who needed to be reined in.71 Missionary efforts were also complicated by the fact that, as several observers noted at the time, Burmese women seemed already to have achieved a status that was actively being sought by women back in the English-speaking world. The early missionaries in Burma demanded subscription to a completely new definition of reality. They either denied the validity of alternative belief systems like Buddhism and animism, or assigned them an inferior status. The Western public was encouraged to see missionaries as ‘visible saints, exemplars of ideal piety in a sea of persistent savagery’.72 These views were reflected in the hymns of the time. As already noted, Burma was viewed as a ‘land of gloomy error’ where ‘countless souls in misery languish’. As late as 1895, the indefatigable American songwriter Frances (Fanny) Crosby expressed such sentiments in ‘Christian Brethren O’er the Main’ (1895). With ‘Burmah’ specifically in mind, she urged all

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good Christians to ‘Carry the news o’er waters blue’ as ‘Perishing souls are waiting for you’.73 This uncompromising message was vigorously promulgated in the UK and the US, in part to raise funds but also to attract new recruits to the cause. Despite the heavy toll taken on their numbers by disease and other hardships, there does not appear to have been any shortage of believers from the US and UK willing to serve in Burma, many for long periods.74 For example, when Adoniram Judson died on a ship in the Bay of Bengal in 1850, there were 163 American Baptist missionaries in Burma, more than any other denomination.75 As time passed, however, and missionaries spent longer periods in country, many became more tolerant of traditional Burmese culture. They also became more reconciled to the difficulty of making any real inroads into Burma’s devoutly Buddhist society. They focussed their efforts on the more receptive animist population, and turned to less overtly religious avenues of Christian activity, such as opening schools and hospitals. It was felt that these institutions offered a more productive means of exercising influence, including over non-believers. In these activities, music played a surprisingly large role. As Terence Ranger has noted, British missionaries in the 19th century seemed to have few doubts about ‘the civilising and disciplining value of music’.76 European music represented higher culture and a world of order in contrast to the perceived chaos of ‘native’ societies. Some missionaries in Burma were slow to change that view, and remained attached to the hymns of their homelands, in their original forms. To quote Herbert and Sarkissian: On the surface it appears that hymn singing and brass bands were intended as a wholesale (and wholesome) replacement for ‘native’ musical practices, just as in Britain, these same musical activities were seen as a gentle palliative for working-class people immersed in an equally ‘primitive’ culture. For the missionaries, whose cultural values were shaped before they left British shores, there may have been little difference between foreign and domestic ‘natives’.77 The ordered rhythm of Western music, and of regular rituals like observance of the Sabbath once a week, were also felt to be a way of introducing the locals to ‘the necessities of industrial time’, which came to underpin so much of the British colonial presence in Burma.78 These factors can be seen, for example, in the role played by music in the primary and secondary schools established by various missionary organisations in Burma. Music was seen as an integral part of the process to discipline and ‘civilise’ the rising generation of Burmese and to ‘socialise them into Christian norms and values’.79 Communal singing was not only a routine part of worship at such schools, but also of daily life, regardless of the religious persuasion of the students.80 A few schools also taught music (mainly the violin and piano) and a number formed their own drum and

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fife bands, as an extra-curricular activity.81 The children’s remand centre established in Rangoon by the Salvation Army in 1917 also had a band. These groups mostly played British marching music and Burmese anthems arranged in a Western tonal style. Some of the larger missionary schools, such as one run by American Baptists in Bassein for Christian Karens from the Irrawaddy Delta, even had their own pipe organs.82 Outside colonial society and the missionary education system, Buddhist, Hindu and Moslem children were even further removed from Western culture, but they were still likely to have had some exposure to simple British nursery rhymes and folk songs.83 Even though most missionaries adapted to the local scene to a greater or lesser extent, and made notable contributions in the fields of health and education, religious intolerance remained an issue. Shortly before her death in 1845, for example, Sarah Judson wrote a poem for her husband that emphasised the continuing competition between Christianity and Buddhism: Then gird thine armour on, love, Nor faint thee by the way, Till Buddh shall fail and Burma’s sons Shall own Messiah’s sway.84 The measure of success adopted by the early missionaries was the number of Burmese that could be ‘saved’ from Buddhism. These attitudes were reflected in the hymns of the period, which looked forward to ‘idolatrous monuments’ crumbling and Buddhist shrines being forsaken. Popular songs too made disparaging references to ‘heathen idols’, ‘idols of mud’ and ‘little gods of brass’. Even Swinhoe and Alves, who were sympathetic to Burmese culture, refer to a Buddha statue as a ‘brazen image’, knowing that such a term would have specific connotations for devout Christians familiar with the second of the Ten Commandments.85 Such views persisted in some quarters despite Edwin Arnold’s sympathetic portrayal of Buddhism in The Light of Asia (1879), which ‘marked and to a limited extent caused a cultural attitude shift in the West concerning perceptions of the Buddha and receptivity to Buddhism’.86 This trend was encouraged by other book-length verse narratives of the Buddha’s life by Richard Phillips (in 1871) and Sidney Alexander (in 1887).87 It was aided in other ways by the publication in 1859 of Charles Darwin’s study On the Origin of Species and the flowering of scientific enquiry in the UK, which included the emergence in the 1860s of the new academic discipline of comparative religion. Together, they challenged many of the assumptions of the established Christian Church and helped create a more tolerant popular mood in the UK. Indeed, the period in which Kipling wrote ‘Mandalay’ has been described as the ‘Buddhism-steeped Nineties’.88 While still criticised by evangelical groups, Buddhism eventually came to be seen by the general public in Western countries as a relatively benign

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philosophy that in some respects predated Christian teachings. These trends were reflected in popular songs. In Pagoda of Flowers, for example, considerable tolerance is shown towards Buddhism and there is evidence of local knowledge. One song composed in 1919 included the lines: In an oriental clime Seated on a mystic shrine Buddha dwells, and dispels hate.89 In ‘Burmah Moon’ (1919), Gitz Rice refers generously to ‘images of gold and ivory’. Perceptions of Buddhism had softened further by 1921, when a hit song reassured Western audiences that ‘When Buddha smiles / All the world dries a tear’.90 This song was subsequently recorded by several bands, in several countries, but it was Benny Goodman’s swing version for HMV in 1936 that ensured its lasting popularity.91 Also, in 1924, Columbia Records released a foxtrot by the Azuly Blanco Marimba Band of Guatemala entitled ‘Buddha Smiled’.92 In ‘Rose of Mandalay’ (1928) the singer assures his girl that ‘Buddha knows I love you’.93 The mood was maintained when artists like Ferdy Kauffman and groups like the West End Celebrity Orchestra recorded an instrumental piece by Heini Kronberger and Mary Marriot entitled ‘Buddha’s Festival of Love’ (‘Buddha’s Liebesfeier’) (1929).94 That said, there remained widespread ignorance of Buddhist philosophy, and its diverse cultural manifestations, throughout the West. In those circumstances, it is perhaps not surprising that the Buddha images depicted on the covers of Burma-related sheet music during this period drew indiscriminately on the religious traditions of India, China and Japan, among other countries. For example, the Daibutsu (‘Great Buddha’) statue at Kamakura in Japan, the subject of a poem by Kipling in 1892, seems to have been viewed by many Western artists as representative of Buddha statues found throughout Asia.95 None of those depicted on the covers of any sheet music were recognisably Burmese. For example, the seated Buddha image depicted on the cover of the sheet music for Oley Speaks’ setting of ‘On the Road to Mandalay’, reissued by G. Schirmer Inc. of New York in 1935, is Tibetan.96

Burma and the Burmese While there were exceptions, few of the songs of the period showed any real knowledge, let alone understanding, of Burma’s traditional culture or society. The Blue Moon, for example, purported to depict scenes in Burma but any Burmese man or woman in the audience could be forgiven for thinking that the action was taking place in another country. The music itself was not in any way distinctive. As the British musicologist Jack Westrup once said of Henry Purcell’s semi-opera The Indian Queen (1695), ‘For all the music tells us, the action might be taking place in St. James’s Park’ (in London).97 Nor was there any serious attempt to provide genuine local

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colour. The ‘Burmese’ characters had vaguely Indian-sounding names like ‘Chandra Nil’ and ‘Moolraj’. It was left to the scene painter and costume designer to provide the appropriate atmosphere, yet the clothes worn on stage represented a curious mixture of Chinese, Japanese and Indian dress codes.98 The elaborate headdresses worn by both male and female actors would not have appeared out of place in a traditional Chinese opera.99 The same approach is evident in the sheet music of the period. Most covers depict young women. Some are Europeans, in European clothes, but many are clearly meant to be Burmese. A few are in broadly authentic Burmese dress, such as the girl on the cover of Beverley’s ‘Mandalay Waltz’ (1893).100 A song called ‘Zenobie’ (1904) was subtitled ‘A Hindoo Love Song’, but the girl depicted on the cover wore recognisably Burmese clothes.101 The remainder, however, were dressed in costumes that were reminiscent of conservative Middle Eastern, Indian or even Japanese cultures.102 The picture of the young girl on the cover of one edition of Oley Speaks’ ‘Road to Mandalay’ (1907) seems to be the result of an artist’s fond imaginings of harem girls in the One Thousand and One Nights, complete with diaphanous clothes and curly-toed slippers.103 Few are wearing headgear that would be familiar to Burmese women, who in any case tend not to wear hats. In a couple of cases, Burmese girls are shown in clothes that, with a few minor alterations, would be suitable for a Jane Austen romance. While in other ways an accurate portrayal of a Burmese girl, the cover illustration on the sheet music for Beverley’s waltz is marred by the presence of what appears to be a lute.104 In other cases, the instrument is either portrayed on the sheet music, or referred to in the lyrics, as a ukulele. This occurs, for example, in ‘Rose of Mandalay’ (1919). Other songs depict or refer specifically to a banjo, for example ‘Burmah Girl’ (1905), Willeby’s setting of ‘Mandalay’ (1911) and ‘There’s a Burmah Girl A-Calling’ (1916).105 The song ‘When the Mission Bells Were Ringing’ (1916) even refers to a guitar.106 All these references doubtless reflect the mention of a ‘banjo’ in Kipling’s 1890 ballad, but such instruments were never part of traditional Burmese culture.107 This has prompted considerable speculation about what Kipling had in mind. One musicologist has cited Kipling’s own statement that the banjo was ‘the war drum of white men round the world’, and claimed that its inclusion in ‘Mandalay’ reveals Kipling’s imperialistic mindset.108 However, the general consensus is that, if the reference is to be taken literally (something Kipling warned against), he was probably alluding to a traditional arched harp, or saung-gauk, as depicted in Frederick Goodall’s 1899 painting ‘On the Road to Mandalay’.109 Similar confusion surrounds the ‘temples’ and other buildings depicted on the sheet music of Burma-related songs. Few reflect typical Burmese architectural forms, among which the zedi or stupa predominates. While there are often elements of fantasy, most buildings shown suggest Mughal structures, with their blend of Indian and Persian styles.110 At times, the cover art reflected broader Islamic influences, with minarets, onion domes

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and arabesque patterns. The only buildings with those characteristics in Burma, however, were the Indo-Saracenic Revival buildings constructed by the British towards the end of the 19th century, and the occasional mosque.111 Of note in this regard was the sheet music for Evan Marsden’s collection ‘A Musician in Many Lands’ (1927), which accurately showed the Ananda Pagoda in the old city of Pagan.112 Also, the cover art for ‘By An Old Pagoda’ (1938) faithfully depicted the Shwedagon Pagoda in Rangoon, although that picture was spoilt by the inclusion of a ‘Burmese’ woman wearing an Indian sari, complete with pallu head covering.113 Given that these last two works were published relatively late, it is possible that Western illustrators had finally learned something about Burma and its unique architecture, or had greater opportunity to draw on first-hand descriptions and photos. The confusion over Burma’s national dress, architecture, botany and culture is perhaps understandable in light of the prevailing ignorance of Burma’s location, geography and climate. The best-known example of this phenomenon is Kipling’s reference, at least in the original version of ‘Mandalay’, to the Burma Girl sitting by the old Moulmein pagoda looking ‘eastward to the sea’. The ‘Burman Mission Hymn’ (1836) speaks of ‘isles’ ‘where the mango apples grow’. Other songs referred to Burma or Mandalay as an ‘Island far away’ or a ‘sun-kiss’d isle’.114 One song even referred to the ‘Land of Mandalay’.115 Other works place Mandalay on the coast, where ‘waving trees kiss the ocean breeze’.116 Several others refer to girls in Mandalay ‘gazing across the bay’ (presumably the Bay of Bengal), despite the fact that the city lies hundreds of kilometres inland.117 The cover art of the song ‘In Old Mandalay’ (1931) shows a couple standing on a moonlit seashore.118 Several songs speak of a ‘lagoon’. At a stretch, these could be references to the Irrawaddy River and the seasonal lakes that are found near the old capital, but as Mandalay is in Burma’s dry zone they still jar.119 These errors go beyond poetic licence and the search for a good rhyme. There were some exceptions to this rule, notably the various songs and operas produced by John Alves and Rodway Swinhoe. They wrote knowledgeably about Burmese customs, and incorporated genuine Burmese words and phrases into their works (albeit usually without English translations). Their references to the ‘pelting Rain and Heat’ in ‘The Cold Weather’ (1910) and ‘Love’s old, old tale the simple maidens tell, / With beating hearts, around the village well’, in ‘The Well’ (1910), strongly suggest personal experience and careful observation.120 The cover art on the sheet music of both collections of Songs of Burma (1910 and 1912), and on the cover of ‘The Golden Land of Burma’ (1911), features photographs of young Burmese men and women in traditional dress. Both Alves and Swinhoe, however, were longterm residents of Burma with a deep interest in its history and culture. Both produced other works about life in the country. In this regard, they stood out from the usual songwriters and musicians in New York and London, most of whom had little idea about the ‘real’ Burma.

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Generally speaking, the music publishers, songwriters and artists of the period were either oblivious to the realities of Burma and traditional Burmese culture, or they were prepared to overlook the facts in order to create the atmosphere they wanted. Many relied on what Edward Said called ‘imaginative geography’, the poetic endowment of a place that exceeded what was empirically known about it.121 As already noted, the focus occasionally slipped and descriptions of the landscape reflected North Africa or the Middle East more than Southeast Asia, with references to desert moons and caravans moving over the ‘ancient sands of Burma’.122 There were also references to ‘mystic Mandalay’ and a ‘land of love’.123 As one song stated, Burma was where the ‘villager contented dwells’, the implication being that the unsophisticated ‘natives’ were untroubled either by their own circumstances or by the concerns experienced by those in more ‘civilised’ places like the UK or US.124 All these clichés were designed to appeal to popular notions of the exotic East and conjure up a ‘wonderland beyond compare’ in the minds of the public.125 In this regard, it is worth noting too that very few of the songs composed during this period made any reference to the momentous changes that were taking place in Burma under the British. To adapt an observation made about India by Francis Hutchins, a Burma of the imagination was created that contained no elements of either social change or political menace.126 This presumptive Burma was unchanging and attractive, all golden pagodas, quaint villages and demure young girls. It was devoid of anything that threatened the timeless image of bucolic bliss or was hostile to the perpetuation of colonial rule. The locals were invariably portrayed as satisfied with their lot in life and grateful for the political, economic and technical benefits of Western civilisation. There were few references in popular songs to the guerrilla resistance that followed the fall of Mandalay, and none at all to the outbreaks of rural and communal violence that periodically wracked Burma. According to Maung Htin Aung, between 1919 and 1930 the British and Burmese were ‘bitter enemies, each despising the other’.127 Yet, these tensions, and the rising tide of nationalism that challenged the foundations of British rule after the turn of the century, were never mentioned.

Women and sexism The portrayal of Burmese women in popular songs before the Second World War was affected not just by a sense of racial and cultural superiority, but also by the deeply patriarchal nature of Victorian and Edwardian society. Even the UK’s imperial expansion was expressed in terms of a strong, masculine Britain imposing its will on weak, feminine foreigners. In addition to those deeply ingrained attitudes, the treatment of Burmese women was affected by their Orientalist image in the West and the mixed reactions this provoked. For, as noted by Ian Buruma, even before 1824 Asian women

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were portrayed in literature and music as exotic beauties, figures of mystery, objects of desire, and the potential sources of unimaginable pleasures. This added to their erotic fascination for many men. Regardless of their independence and capabilities, Burmese women were consistently infantilised and praised for their supposedly childlike qualities. They were repeatedly described as ‘maids’ or ‘little girls’.128 ‘In Mandalay’ (1918), for example, speaks of a ‘little Burmese maiden’ and a ‘brown eyed wonder’. They are typically ‘sweet and gentle’.129 Even when played by an English girl in disguise, they are ‘dark, demure and dreamy’.130 This idealised picture found a ready audience. It not only fitted prevailing male ideas of ideal womanhood, but it also conformed to other common beliefs. For example, notwithstanding the widespread views of ‘primitive’ foreigners, and reports in the press of attacks against British forces by dacoits, many Europeans were still attracted to the romantic notion of the ‘noble savage’, uncorrupted by Western civilisation, that had taken a hold on the popular imagination the previous century.131 Burmese women were also seen as essentially passive figures, accepting of their lot in life, even if that was to be abandoned by their European lover or temporary ‘husband’. Indeed, their apparently uncomplicated lifestyle and simple tastes were seen as highly desirable, making them even more attractive to many Western men: Oh Burmah girl you’re quite divine, Would we had met before, On my half pay if you were mine I could do so much more; You do not ask for rows of pearls To trim your frenzied frocks, You only need a simple bead, You’ve got no op’ra box. Burmah, Burmah, Burmah girl You don’t spend your days at Woolland’s and Jay’s, You don’t fret to play roulette, Making a poor man squirm, ah! Burmah, Burmah, Burmah girl no Carlton for you, No supper for two, I’ve made up my mind, If a wife I find I shall bring her to live in Burmah.132 Again emphasising the supposed simple pleasures of life with a Burmese girl, ‘My Song of India’ (1921) claimed that ‘wealth means nothing down old Burmah way’. Similar sentiments were expressed by British colonial civil servants (and amateur songwriters) who were living in Burma at the time. They

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contrasted the behaviour and demeanour of local women with those of their counterparts back home in the UK, who were agitating for equal rights with men: Come where the mingaley reigns supreme, Beyond the hope of the Feminist’s dream; Where the pranks of the hooligan Suffragette Are quite as unknown as the wilds of Thibet. The sceptre she wields is a winsome smile, Mightier far than ‘political bile’: As sparkling champagne surpasses the Nile, Or the skin of an apple the core!133 One verse of the song’s chorus referred to ‘dear old Burma / Where votes do not vex / The feminine sex’.134 As already noted, a ‘mingaley’ (or mingale) is a young Burmese girl. ‘Burma girls’ were frequently compared with the women of other countries, usually with positive results. Kipling started the practice by referring to ‘fifty ’ousemaids outer Chelsea to the Strand’ with ‘Beefy face an’ grubby ’and’, who did not understand the wants and needs of servicemen returned from the East. He longed for a ‘neater, sweeter maiden’. Also, as a song in the stage show Blue Moon made clear: The Irish girl, the Scottish lass, delightful in their way, And English girls, forgive me please, but I am bound to say: Burmah, Burmah, Burmah girl You stand alone of all I have known …135 Over and again in the songs of the day European men declaimed that ‘Other girls are lovely yet / You are still my eastern Queen’.136 In almost all of these works, sex is only hinted at, but it is an everpresent consideration. For example, there is the suggestion that Kipling’s British soldier did more than kiss his ‘Burma girl’ by the pagoda. Many of Kipling’s readers would have known that in 1886 he had written another poem, called ‘The Ladies’, which included a verse about Burmese women: Then I was ordered to Burma, Actin’ in charge o’ Bazar, An’ I got me a tiddy live ’eathen Through buyin’ supplies off ’er pa. Funny and yellow an’ faithful Doll in a teacup she were But we lived on the square, like a true-married pair, An’ I learned about women from ’er!137

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The narrator adds, ‘But the things you will learn from the Yellow an’ Brown, / They’ll ’elp you a lot with the White!’ In such cases, Kipling’s sympathies tended to be with the women, but he also understood the impulses that prompted men in Burma and India proper to take ‘local wives’ and, in most cases, eventually to leave them behind. One of his earliest short stories was about a colonial civil servant who purchases a young Indian girl to be his domestic companion.138 It shows considerable depth of feeling and emotional sincerity. To criticisms of such behaviour, his response was: civilised people who eat out of china and carry card-cases have no right to apply their standard of right and wrong to an unsettled land … The men who run ahead of the cars of Decency and Propriety, and make the jungle ways straight, cannot be judged in the same manner as the stay-at-home folks of the ranks of the regular Tchin.139 ‘Tchin’ appears to be a reference to ‘the ranks’, that is, officials and civil servants not posted abroad. Kipling’s was a view that was shared by many European men at the time, including those in Burma where, after all, ‘there aren’t no ten commandments’.140 When the practice became the subject of public debate in the UK around 1912, similar views were expressed by a senior ICS officer who, referring to the dangers of prostitution, felt that ‘the Burman system of concubinage, with its attendant evils, is, after all, more moral than a less permanent tie’.141 Music hall performances and vaudeville shows could be rather bawdy but the mood in musical comedies and operettas tended to be a little more restrained. As Newbury has noted, it was ‘prim but sexually promising, decent but potentially disruptive’.142 This theme of coy suggestiveness was carried over to many Burma-related songs. The artwork on the covers of some sheet music alludes to a sexual liaison, with its pictures of girls dressed for the harem, or women with off-theshoulder dresses giving arch backward looks of the kind associated with something more than an innocent kiss behind the pagoda.143 The artwork for ‘Danse Birmane’ (1911), by the popular French composer Maurice Yvain, depicts a young woman wearing nothing more than a see-through skirt and an elaborate oriental headdress.144 The cover art for Al Dubin and Gustav Benkhart’s 1916 song ‘When the Mission Bells Were Ringing, Down in Burma by the Sea’ seems to depict a bare-breasted girl smiling provocatively.145 Similarly, on the cover of ‘Burma Nights’ (1922), the woman appears topless. The song’s lyrics hint at ‘mystic sweet delights’. In the song ‘Moonlight in Mandalay’ (1920), the allusion is stronger: ’Neath your skies tender eyes are burning, Oh Mandalay, My Mandalay!

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’Neath your palms slender arms are yearning, And I am far away. … With lips aflame, oh, let me claim The heart I stole away …146 The song ‘I’m Going to Jazz My Way to Mandalay’ (1924), which was a hit for the Swanee Syncopators, Charles ‘Nat’ Star’s Orchestra, and Jack Hylton and his band, was a knowing reference to unbridled sexual activity.147 Sex was a central theme of Weill and Brecht’s Happy End, and a key aspect of Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. Not only is the ‘Burma girl’ a prostitute working in a brothel, but she is clearly in great demand, if not actually overworked: Faster, Johnny hey, faster, Johnny, hey, Sing the man the song of Mandalay: Love doesn’t have days and weeks to be reckoned, Johnny, come on, don’t you dare waste a second!148 In the show, Burma is summed up by the line: All the girls are cute as they can be, Even if they won’t put out for free.149 Fantasising about such matters was common musical comedy fare, but Weill and Brecht took the popular myth of the sexual allure and availability of Asian women, and presented it in an extreme form. In doing so they successfully challenged not only the social conventions of the day (although Berlin between the wars was pretty relaxed about such matters) but also one of the most durable myths held in the Western world about shy (albeit available) Burmese ‘maids’. There is unlikely to be a direct connection, but this rather cynical view of Burmese girls echoes a poem by George Orwell, written around 1925 when he was serving in Burma with the Indian Imperial Police. It was ironically titled ‘A Romance’: When I was young and had no sense In far-off Mandalay I lost my heart to a Burmese girl As lovely as the day. Her skin was gold, her hair was jet, Her teeth were ivory; I said ‘For twenty silver pieces, Maiden sleep with me’.

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This poem does not appear ever to have been published; at least not in Orwell’s lifetime. However, it neatly captures the key myths attached to Burmese girls during the colonial period – namely their attractiveness, their demureness and their availability – which also found their way into popular Western music. At this stage, it might be asked why all these songs with a Burma theme were so popular. Many were ephemeral pieces and quickly forgotten, but Kipling’s ballad and its key elements, enshrined in so many later songs, have clearly endured. The easy answer is that, regardless of their structure or subject matter, they were entertaining. They provided enjoyment and amusement. They were written to catchy tunes and met the immediate needs of the day, whether that was for songs in music halls and theatres, or for lively dance tunes. More than that, however, to most songwriters of the period Burma, and Mandalay in particular, became a potent symbol of the distant, exotic and mythical, where the codified ‘Burma girl’ waited patiently for her European lover to return. As Edward Said wrote, ‘In a system of knowledge about the Orient, the orient is less a place than a topos, a set of references’.151 They in turn made these songs and tunes enormously attractive to their prime audiences in the West, albeit usually at the expense of accuracy, balance and perspective. Perhaps it is within the historical context that the ultimate explanation of the popularity of these Burma-related songs must be sought. To use James Dormon’s argument about the popularity of ‘coon songs’ during much the same period, Burma-related songs conveyed ‘a multi-layered set of meanings and images, at times shifting and even contradictory in its implications’.152 They appealed at many different levels. At the risk of straying into socio-psychological analysis, there seems to have been a need in Western societies at the time for something that was offered by these songs and others like them. Again drawing on Dormon’s analysis, if the complex signals operating at the conscious, cognitive level were to be construed as a symbolic statement, the songs might be said to have constituted a form of rhetoric encompassing an ideology, a belief system reflecting the social needs of bourgeois society in the West. This system seems to have included a need to judge and ultimately to dominate a society and culture that, despite its usual portrayal as ‘primitive’, in some way threatened the West’s sense of itself. On the surface, the songs suggested confidence – even arrogance. Looked at from another perspective, however, these works arguably revealed what Nigel Leask has described as ‘anxieties and instabilities’ in Western society, not just ‘positivities and totalities’.153 While popular perceptions of the orient were clearly rooted in

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a sense of superiority, this was often a thin veneer. There was recognition of a kind that aspects of the East undermined their claim. Also, colonialists in places like Burma knew that they were vastly outnumbered by the locals, and that their authority rested upon brittle foundations. This sense of vulnerability, deriving in large part from the 1857 Indian ‘Mutiny’, remained for many years, despite the steady consolidation of British rule.154 As Douglas Peers has written, ‘Paranoia and pride were jumbled together’.155 These tensions exposed the Western world’s political and economic insecurities and its concerns over issues relating to religion, race and gender. At a deep level, the songs and tunes of the day seemed to offer comfort and reassurance about such matters, doubtless adding to their appeal and, in the case of Kipling’s ballad, their durability. The foregoing chapters focus mainly on Burma-related songs and tunes from the point of view of their composers and audiences in the West. This helps to gauge the extent to which they reflected, and influenced, perceptions of Burma and its peoples in countries like the UK and US. However, it is also worth looking at this subject from another perspective, namely the role that popular Western music played in Burma itself. Not only does this provide a broader geographical, historical and socio-cultural context in which to consider the impact of Kipling’s ballad, but it also helps highlight the fact that the composition and appreciation of Burma-related music was a dynamic process. As already seen, developments in Burma could influence the works being written ‘back home’. There were also some local contributions to the genre, which, to a greater or lesser extent, resonated in Western countries and helped consolidate the images formed by ‘Mandalay’ and its successors.

Notes 1. For example, in 1927, of the 26.8 million households in the US, 11 million had a phonograph. Also, it was estimated that by 1930 about 40 per cent of all American households owned radios, with the figure doubling to 80 per cent by 1940. See Bill Bryson, One Summer: America, 1927 (London: Doubleday, 2013), p. 79; and D.B. Craig, Fireside Politics: Radio and Political Culture in the United States, 1920–1940 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), p. 15. 2. The Blue Moon: ‘No. 1 – Opening Chorus’, lyrics by Henry Hamilton, at https://math.boisestate.edu/gas/colins_site/bluemoon/tbm01.html. 3. R.P. Locke, Musical Exoticism: Images and Reflections (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), p. 180. 4. Using a traditional folk tune, Peter Bellamy’s version took 5:40 minutes. See ‘Mandalay  – Peter Bellamy’, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1w1 CZNNhG0Y. See also ‘Lawrence Tibbett – 1935 On the Road to Mandalay’, YouTube, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSzXoVWjEbo. 5. ‘Abe Lyeman’s Orchestra – Mandalay (1924)’, at http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=xoLfZ7_yWP8.

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6. See ‘Bing Crosby and the Ipana Troubadours – Rose of Mandalay 1928’, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKasliReDTI. 7. ‘Burmese Bells: One Step’, music by Eugene Platzman, recorded by Art Hickman and his Orchestra (New York: Columbia Gramophone Co., 1919). 8. ‘Little Mandalay Princess: Oriental Idyll’, music by Cedric Lamont (London: Keith Prowse and Co. Ltd, 1924). 9. ‘Moonlight in Mandalay’ (1925). See also ‘Moonlight in Mandalay – Francis Craig Orchestra’, Dailymotion, at http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xcr2sl_ moonlight-in-mandalay-francis-craig_music. 10. ‘Yearning for Mandalay’, music by Sheik Taylor (Chicago: Chicago Music Publishing Co., 1928). This jazz number was recorded for Paramount Records by Preston Jackson in 1926, but does not seem to have been published as sheet music until two years later. 11. Dave Russell, Popular Music in England, 1840–1914: A Social History (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1987), p. 72. 12. A.L. McLean, ‘The Thousand Ways There Are to Move: Camp and Oriental Dance in the Hollywood Musicals of Jack Cole’, Journal for the Anthropological Study of Human Movement, Vol. 12, No. 3, Spring 2003, p. 62. 13. See, for example, ‘Burmah Bells’, words and music by Zo Elliott (London: Keith, Prowse and Co. Ltd, 1920); and ‘Burmah Bells’, words and music by D.G. Owens (Vancouver: Weaver Music Supply Co., 1922). 14. ‘When the Mission Bells Were Ringing, Down in Burma By The Sea’ (1916). 15. ‘Burmah Bells’, words by Olga Yardley and music by Paul Michelin (Sydney: W.H. Paling, 1922). 16. ‘Burmah Moon’ (1919). 17. See, for example, ‘Temple Bells (In the Soft Moonlight)’, words and music by Manuel Klein (New York: M. Whitmark and Sons, 1912). 18. Giordano Nanni, The Colonisation of Time: Ritual, Routine and Resistance in the British Empire (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2012), pp. 164 and 171. 19. This subject is explored in Jennifer Potter, Seven Flowers and How they Shaped Our World (London: Atlantic Books, 2013), pp. 1–32. 20. The Blue Moon, ‘Opening Chorus’. See also ‘The Blue Moon’, The Guide to Musical Theatre, at http://www.guidetomusicaltheatre.com/shows_b/BlueMoon.html. 21. Ian Malcolm, Indian Pictures and Problems (London: E. Grant Richards, 1907), p. 218. 22. ‘Burma: Oriental Foxtrot’, words by Rudy Bertram and music by Ben Evers (London: Rexborough Music Publishing Co., 1927). 23. A few rose varieties are native to northern and western Burma. They include Rosa gigantea and Rosa Colletiana, which were found in the Shan States by Henry Collett in 1888. There is also a hybrid called Cooper’s Burmese Rose (Rosa gigantea cooperii), seeds of which were sent back to the UK by the botanist Roland Cooper in 1927. See Henry Collett and W.B. Hemsley, ‘On a Collection of Plants from Upper Burma and the Shan States’, The Journal of the Linnean Society, Vol. 28, No. 189–91, November 1890, p. 6; and ‘Ronald Edgar Cooper’, Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, at http://stories.rbge.org. uk/archives/4224. 24. Potter, Seven Flowers, pp. 146–7.

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25. ‘Rose of Mandalay: Fox Trot Song’, words and music by Ted Koehler and Frank Magine (Leo Feist Inc., New York, 1928). 26. Love Scene from The Pagoda of Flowers (1909). 27. ‘Mandalay Moon’, words and music by Tom King and W.J. Munday [Jack Fewster] (London: West’s Ltd, 1924). 28. See, for example, ‘Moonlight in Mandalay’, words by Jack Yellen and music by Abe Olman (Chicago: Forster Music Publisher Inc., 1920). 29. For details of all these songs, see the Appendix. 30. See, for example, Joy Camden, Survival in the Dance World (Victoria: Trafford, 2005), p. 42. Camden was a member of a dance troupe that entertained the troops in Burma during the Second World War. 31. ‘Karama (A Japanese Romance)’, words and music by Vivian Grey (New York: Leo Feist, 1914); ‘Siam’, words by Howard Johnson and music by Fred Fischer (New York: Leo Feist, 1915); ‘My Little China Doll’, words and music by Gus Van, Joe Schenck and Jack Yellen (New York: Chas Harris, 1917); ‘Hindustan’, words and music by Oliver Wallace and Harold Weeks (Chicago: Forster Music, 1918); ‘Singapoo (Song of the East)’, words by Maude Fulton and music by Neil Moret (San Francisco: Daniels and Wilson, 1919); and ‘Manila Bay’, words by C.F. Harrison, music by Anton Lada and Spencer Williams (Chicago: Weaver and Harrison Music Publishers, 1921). 32. ‘With You, Dear, in Bombay’, words and music by Charlie Chaplin (New York: M. Witmark and Sons, 1923). 33. ‘My Rose of Mandalay’ (1919). 34. ‘Something Oriental’ (1918). 35. ‘The Bells of Burmah’, words by Edward Teschemacher and music by Herbert Oliver, in Songs of the Orient (London: H.J.H. Larway, 1912). 36. D.B. Scott, ‘Orientalism and Musical Style’, The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 82, No. 2, Summer 1998, p. 323. 37. Hugh Cunningham, ‘The Language of Patriotism, 1750–1914’, History Workshop Journal, Vol. 12, No. 1, 1981, p. 26. 38. Martin Clayton and Bennett Zon (eds), Music and Orientalism in the British Empire, 1780s–1940s: Portrayal of the East (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007). 39. Scott, ‘Orientalism and Musical Style’, p. 327. 40. Scott, ‘Orientalism and Musical Style’, p. 323. ‘Mousmee’ has several meanings, but in this context it refers to a Japanese mistress or ‘temporary wife’. 41. Scott, ‘Orientalism and Musical Style’, p. 326. 42. ‘Mandalay Moon’ (1924); ‘Little Mandalay Princess’ (1924); and ‘Burma: Oriental Foxtrot’ (1927). 43. Steffen, From Edison to Marconi, pp. 52ff. 44. ‘My Rose of Mandalay’ (1919). 45. ‘In Mandalay’ (1918). 46. ‘I’m On My Way To Mandalay’(1913). 47. ‘The Road to Mandalay’ (1916). 48. ‘Down in Old Rangoon’ (1923). 49. ‘Burmah Bells’ (Yardley and Michelin, 1922). 50. ‘Beneath the Burmese Moon: Foxtrot’, music by Herschel Henlere (London: ACO Records, 1925). Herschel also billed himself ‘The Mirthful Music Master’. See Frank Cullen, with Florence Hackman and Donald McNeilly, Vaudeville

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51. 52. 53. 54. 55. 56. 57. 58.

59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73.

74.

Patterns and particulars Old and New: An Encyclopedia of Variety Performers in America (New York: Routledge, 2007), Vol. 1, pp. 502–3. ‘A Lagoon in Rangoon: A Burmese Barcarolle’, words and music by Val Valentine, banjo and ukulele arrangement by A.D. Keech (London: B. Feldman and Co., 1928). ‘I’m On My Way to Mandalay’ (1913). ‘My Rose of Mandalay’ (1919). Elleke Boehner, Colonial and Postcolonial Literature: Migrant Metaphors (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 79. Disraeli, Tancred, p. 148. See, for example, Michael Adas, Machines as the Measure of Men, pp. 166–77. ‘The Men of Merry England’, words and music by J.G. Geoghegan, at http://collections.mun.ca/cdm4/item_viewer.php?CISOROOT=/broadside& CISOPTR=79. During the First Anglo-Afghan War (1839–42), a column of around 16,500 soldiers and civilians died during the retreat from Kabul to Jalalabad. At the battle of Isandlwana in 1879, a force of about 1800 British and colonial troops was annihilated by the Zulus. During the Sudan campaign, British-led forces were decisively defeated by the Mahdi at El Obeid (1883) and Khartoum (1885). ‘General Campbell’ (1828?). Kipling, ‘Mandalay’, in Rudyard Kipling’s Verse: Definitive Edition, pp. 234–8. ‘There’s a Burmah Girl A-Calling’ (1916); and ‘By An Old Pagoda’ (1938). ‘My Bearer Gungadeen: A Lay of India’, written by E.A.P. Hobday (London: Soundy and Co., 1892). Government House: Songs (Rangoon: Government of Burma Central Printing Office, 1916). Kipling’s poem ‘Gunga Din’ was also written in 1892. In that poem the subject was a hero. H.G. Trager, Burma Through Alien Eyes: Missionary Views of the Burmese in the Nineteenth Century (Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1966). Trager, Burma Through Alien Eyes, p. 144. Judson, An Account of the American Baptist Mission to the Burman Empire, p. 21. Judson, An Account of the American Baptist Mission to the Burman Empire, p. 224. Reginald Heber, ‘Can we, whose souls are lighted’, in Christian Chorals, for the Chapel and Fireside (New York: Biglow and Main, 1885), hymn 283, p. 216. D.L. Robert, ’Evangelist or Homemaker: Mission Strategies of Early Nineteenth-Century Missionary Wives in Burma and Hawaii’, International Bulletin of Missionary Research, No. 17, January 1993, pp. 4–12. Chie Ikeya, ‘The “Traditional” High Status of Women in Burma’, p. 60. Locke, Musical Exoticism, p. 182. Andrews, ‘Christian Missions and Colonial Empires Reconsidered’, p. 664. ‘Christian Brethren O’er the Main’, words by F.J. Crosby and music by W.H. Doane (1895). Crosby was blind from the age of two months, but was reputed to have been one of the most prolific hymnists in history, writing over 8,000 hymns and gospel songs. See ‘Adoniram Judson, First Missionary from the United States’, Christianity. com, at http://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/church-history-forkids/adoniram-judson-first-missionary-from-the-united-states-11635044.html.

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75. Judson had developed a serious lung disease, and was prescribed a sea voyage as a cure. Marika Sherwood, ‘Race, Empire and Education: Teaching Racism’, Race and Class, Vol. 42, No. 1, 2002, p. 16. 76. T.O. Ranger, Dance and Society in Eastern Africa, 1890–1970: The Beni Ngoma (London: Heinemann, 1975), p. 12. 77. Trevor Herbert and Margaret Sarkissian, ‘Victorian Bands and their Dissemination in the Colonies’, Popular Music, Vol. 16, No. 2, May 1997, p. 175. 78. Ranger, Dance and Society in Eastern Africa, p. 13. The founder of Methodism, John Wesley, taught that time was a precious commodity that had to be ‘redeemed’ from the control of Satan. See Nanni, The Colonisation of Time. 79. C.B. Tipton, ‘The Beginnings of English Education in Colonial Burma: Provision and Response, 1830–1880’, Journal of Educational Administration and History, Vol. 8, No. 2, 1976, p. 19. 80. See, for example, J.E. Marks, Forty Years in Burma (New York: E.P. Dutton and Co., 1917), p. 71. 81. Campagnac, The Autobiography of a Wanderer in England and Burma, p. 371. See also ‘Military’, in Wright (ed), Twentieth Century Impressions of Burma, p. 259. 82. San C. Po, Burma and the Karens (London: Elliot Stock, 1928), p. 63. See also Campagnac, The Autobiography of a Wanderer in England and Burma, p. 371. 83. Hideaki Onishi and Kit Young, ‘Western Music Education in Post-World War  II Burma/Myanmar’, in C.H. Lum and Peter Whiteman (eds), Musical Childhoods of Asia and the Pacific (Charlotte: Information Age Publishing, 2012), p. 217. 84. Cited in C.P. Hallihan, ‘Adoniram Judson, 1788–1850: The Word of God to Burma’, Quarterly Record: Magazine of the Trinitarian Bible Society, No. 571, April–June 2005, p. 27. 85. In the King James version of The Bible (Exodus 20:4), this commandment reads ‘Thou shall not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth’. 86. Franklin, ‘The Life of the Buddha in Victorian England’, p. 941. 87. Richard Phillips, The Story of Gautama Buddha and His Creed: An Epic (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1871); and S.A. Alexander, Sakya-Muni: The Story of Buddha (Oxford: A. Thomas Shrimpton and Son, 1887). 88. P.L. Caracciolo, ‘Buddhist Teaching Stories and Their Influence on Conrad, Wells and Kipling: The reception of the Jataka and allied genres in Victorian culture’, The Conradian, Vol. 11, No. 1, May 1986, p. 30. 89. ‘Buddha’, words by Lew Pollack and music by Ed Rose (New York: McCarthy and Fisher Inc., 1919). 90. ‘When Buddha Smiles: Foxtrot’, words by Arthur Freed and music by I. (Nacio) H. Brown (New York: Harms Inc., 1921). 91. Benny Goodman and his Orchestra, ‘When Buddha Smiles’, HMV Swing Music 1936 Series, No. 58. See also ‘When Buddha Smiles, Benny Goodman [Sept 26, 1951]’, YouTube, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uACWFXRaxAU. 92. ‘Buddha Smiled’, composed by Guando, Sourie and Buda, performed by the Azuly Blanco Marimba Band of Guatemala, Columbia Records, 1924. This band also recorded as the ‘Blue and White Marimba Band’. 93. ‘Rose of Mandalay: Fox Trot Song’ (1928).

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94. ‘Buddha’s Festival of Love’, music by Heini Kronberger and Mary Marriot (London: Bosworth and Co., 1929). The original German title was also translated as ‘The Love Festival of Buddha’. 95. Rudyard Kipling, ‘Buddha at Kamakura’ (1892), in Rudyard Kipling’s Verse: Definitive Edition, pp. 92–3. One verse of the poem refers to Burma’s Shwedagon Pagoda. 96. I am indebted to Charlotte Galloway for helping me identify this image. 97. J.A. Westrup, Purcell (London: J.M. Dent, 1937), p. 142. 98. See, for example, ‘In a Burmese Setting: The New Musical Play at the Lyric Theatre: Scenes and Characters from “The Blue Moon”’, The Illustrated London News (London, UK), 2 September 1905, p. 341. 99. ‘Burmah Girl’ (1905). 100. ‘Mandalay Waltz’ (1893). 101. ‘Zenobie: A Hindoo Love Song’, words by Carroll Fleming and music by R.A. King (New York: Leo Feist and Co., 1904). 102. See, for example, ‘Burma Maid’, music by C.W. Ancliffe (London: Hawkes and Son, 1913). 103. ‘On the Road to Mandalay’ (1907). 104. ‘Mandalay Waltz’ (1893). The girl shown on the cover of the sheet music is wearing a curious ‘little cap’, presumably to reflect Kipling’s ballad, but it bears no relation to traditional Burmese headwear. 105. ‘Mandalay’, lyrics by Rudyard Kipling and music by Charles Willeby (1911); and ‘There’s a Burmah Girl A-Calling, in Burmah by the Sea’ (1916). 106. ‘When The Mission Bells Were Ringing (Down in Burma by the Sea)’ (1916). 107. In 1908, the American illustrator Joseph Leyendecker created a cover for Collier’s magazine entitled ‘On The Road to Mandalay’. In several ways a highly fanciful depiction of a Burmese scene, it too showed a woman with a banjo. Collier’s: The National Weekly, Vol. 41, No. 4, 18 April 1908. 108. Hamilton, ‘Musicology as Propaganda in Victorian Theory and Practice’. See also Rudyard Kipling, ‘The Song of the Banjo’ (1894), in Rudyard Kipling’s Verse: Definitive Edition, pp. 98–101. 109. Goodall was given a Burmese harp by Alice Hart, to use as a model. See Frederick Goodall, ‘On the Road to Mandalay’, BBC: Your Paintings, at http://www. bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/paintings/on-the-road-to-mandalay-77330; and Goodall, The Reminiscences of Frederick Goodall, pp. 392–3. See also S.O.D. Wade, ‘A Burma Girl A’Settin’, The Kipling Journal, No. 253, March 1990, p. 49. 110. ‘When the Mission Bells Were Ringing (Down in Burma by the Sea)’ (1916). 111. See, for example, Sarah Rooney, 30 Heritage Buildings of Yangon: Inside the City that Captured Time (Chicago: Serindia Publications, 2012). 112. ‘A Musician in Many Lands’ (1927). 113. ‘By An Old Pagoda’ (1938). The pallu is the end piece of the sari. In South Asia, women use it to cover their heads as a sign of respect, an act of modesty or as a sign of religious devotion. This custom is not a part of traditional Burmese culture. 114. ‘I’m On My Way to Mandalay’ (1913); and ‘Mandalay: Fox Trot Ballad’ (1924). 115. ‘Burma: Oriental Foxtrot’ (1927). 116. ‘I’m On My Way to Mandalay’ (1913).

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117. See, for example, ‘In Mandalay’ (1918); and ‘My Rose of Mandalay’ (1919). 118. ‘In Old Mandalay’, words by Haven Gillespie, music by De Witt Parker and Harriett Bevson (Chicago: Milton Weil Music Co., 1931). 119. See, for example, ‘The Burman Lover’ (1845); ‘I’m On My Way to Mandalay’ (1913); and ‘Burmah Moon’ (1919). 120. ‘The Cold Weather’ and ‘The Well’, in Swinhoe and Alves, Four Songs of Burma (1910). 121. Said, Orientalism, p. 54. 122. ‘Burmah Bells’ (Yardley and Michelin) (1922). 123. ‘My Rose of Mandalay’ (1919); and ‘I’m On My Way to Mandalay’ (1913). 124. Pagoda of Flowers (1907). 125. ‘Burmah Moon’ (1919). 126. F.G. Hutchins, The Illusion of Permanence: British Imperialism in India (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1967), p. 157. 127. Maung Htin Aung, ‘George Orwell and Burma’, in Gross, The World of George Orwell, p. 20. 128. ‘My Maid of Mandalay’ (1907). 129. ‘I’m On My Way to Mandalay’ (1913). 130. ‘Little Blue Moon’ (1905). See also ‘The Blue Moon’, The Guide to Musical Theatre. 131. See, for example, Charles Dickens’ 1853 satirical essay ‘The Noble Savage’, in the weekly Household Words, in which he attacked those who exalted the cultures of ‘primitive’ peoples. 132. ‘Burmah Girl’ (1905). 133. ‘The Land of the Golden Semaphore, Air: “Brighton”’, in ‘Oolay’ [M.C.C. Poole], Ballads of Burma, (Calcutta: W. Thacker and Co., 1912), p. 2. 134. ‘The Land of the Golden Semaphore’, in ‘Oolay’, Ballads of Burma, p. 1. 135. ‘Burmah Girl’ (1905). 136. ‘Mandalay Moon’ (1924). 137. Rudyard Kipling, ‘The Ladies’ (1896), in Kipling, Rudyard Kipling’s Verse: Definitive Edition, pp. 442–3. 138. This story was ‘Without Benefit of Clergy’. It was first published in Macmillan’s Magazine in 1890 and was collected the following year in Life’s Handicap. 139. Kipling, ‘Georgie Porgie’, in Life’s Handicap, p. 328. See also D.H. Stewart, ‘Tchin?’, ‘Letters to the Editor’, The Kipling Journal, No. 241, March 1987, p. 39. 140. Kipling, ‘Mandalay’, in Rudyard Kipling’s Verse: Definitive Edition, pp. 418–20. See also Willis, Western Men with Eastern Morals, p. 1. 141. Willis, Western Men with Eastern Morals, p. 12. 142. Newbury, ‘Polite Gaiety’, p. 395. 143. See, for example, ‘Rose of Mandalay: Fox Trot Song’ (1928). 144. ‘Danse Birmane: Piano Solo’, music by Maurice Yvain (Paris: Max Eschig, 1911). 145. ‘When the Mission Bells Were Ringing’ (1916). 146. ‘Moonlight in Mandalay’ (1925). 147. ‘I’m Going to Jazz My Way to Mandalay’, words and music by J.G. Gilbert (London: Lawrence Wright Music Co., 1925). The title of this song was sometimes given as ‘I’m Jazzin’ My Way to Mandalay’. It was recorded between 1924–6 by Charles ‘Nat’ Star and the Star Syncopators, possibly for Pathe’s

156

148. 149. 150. 151. 152. 153. 154. 155.

Patterns and particulars Actuelle record label. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaqOKFdsHvc. It was also recorded by Homochord Records C750 (London: Homophone Co., 1926). See also A.P. Merriam and F.H. Garner, ‘Jazz – The Word’, in R.G. O’Meally (ed), The Jazz Cadence of American Culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), pp. 20–1. Brecht and Weill, Happy End, pp. 72–3. Brecht and Weill, Happy End, p. 70. George Orwell, ‘Romance’, in George Orwell, ‘A Kind of Compulsion’, 1903–1936 (London: Secker and Warburg, 2000), pp. 89–90. Said, Orientalism, p. 177. Dormon, ‘Shaping the Popular Image of Post-Reconstruction American Blacks’, p. 466. Cited in MacKenzie, Orientalism, p. 30. As late as the early 20th century, ‘native’ troops and military policemen in India and Burma were issued with obsolete weapons, to ensure that they would be inferior to British troops in the event of another rebellion. Peers, ‘Colonial Knowledge and the Military in India, 1780–1860’, p. 161.

6

Burma’s changing soundscape

Burma’s soundscape changed slowly at first, but the pace picked up dramatically as the 20th century dawned. Developments in the global music industry drew the country into a mass culture that embraced a wide range of musical forms. Also, as time passed, more Europeans and Americans had the opportunity to visit Burma and spend time there. The range and standard of local entertainment venues improved markedly and the province (later colony) began to appear on the itineraries of international artists. Yet the market in the West for sentimental stories about shy ‘native’ girls patiently waiting for their lovers did not diminish. Indeed, any movement towards a greater understanding of the country and its culture was set back by the advent of movies, which reinforced many of the familiar stereotypes, both on screen and in terms of their soundtracks. Even the Second World War could not shake images of Burma that had been created by Kipling’s ballad and later popular music. Indeed, in many cases it reinforced them.

Early colonial entertainments The place of Western music in colonial India has not attracted much serious study, but it was always a part of the British presence.1 It was evident at all levels of society, reflecting different attitudes both to music and to the UK’s imperial role. While even less attention has been paid to Burma in this regard, it is reasonable to assume that the same could be said of colonial society in that country, although conventions and tastes there did not exactly mirror those of India proper. Burma was completely conquered relatively late in the Victorian era and, while the Europeans sent there had much the same values and adopted many of the same practices as their counterparts in India, there were local variations. Burmese culture was more relaxed than that found on the subcontinent. There was no caste system and women were more independent. Arguably, the prevailing Buddhist ethic and its doctrine of karma encouraged a more fatalistic approach to life.2 Also, the resident European community in Burma was always small – never above 12,000 – and largely concentrated in Rangoon.3 Well over half of this number was soldiers, and below the commissioned officer level most were poorly educated.4 Some conventions

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and practices were rigidly observed, notably those relating to race, but as a result of factors such as these colonial society in Burma seems to have been a little less conservative than in India, allowing greater room for individual interests and expression.5 As Ian Woodfield has pointed out, the musical tastes of colonial society tended to follow closely those of the concert-going public in London.6 This was to be expected, particularly in the early days of the Raj when there were few local alternatives. For many years, the mainstay of Western music at the elite level was classical works. Corelli, Vivaldi and Handel seem to have been early favourites, although Beethoven, Rossini, Donizetti, Strauss and other composers of the Romantic Period were mentioned in later memoirs.7 Appreciation of such music was also a critical indicator of the separateness – and imagined superiority – of British colonial society. As Bradley Shope has explained: The high art of Europe, as the perceived location of elevated aesthetic accomplishment, compelled much of the British establishment in colonial India to pursue musical activities that mirrored the homeland. The popularity and exclusiveness of Western classical and military brass band music was an example of this socially constructed aesthetic of unmatched musical distinctiveness.8 It also helped to set the colonial elite apart from other classes of Westerners in India and Burma, the so-called ‘low Europeans’ who in India proper made up more than 50 per cent of the white population.9 By the early 19th century there were a few small orchestras in India, and the Governor-General had a private band, but most non-military music making in India was focussed on amateur gatherings at private homes. These took place frequently, and included recitals and the singing of parlour songs and drawing room ballads.10 Also, small social clubs were formed to cater to the musical tastes of colonial officials and their (European) partners. ‘Evenings began at seven with a formal concert which, after supper, was followed by catches, glees and solo songs well into the night.’11 Wind and stringed instruments seem to have predominated on these occasions, but the invention of compact upright pianos with iron frames around 1825 – such as the Broadwood mentioned in Kipling’s poem ‘Song of the Banjo’ (1894)  – saw them imported in large numbers.12 Other models popular in Burma were by Brinsmead, Richard Lipp and Schiedmayer and Sons. London’s Orchestrelle Company dominated pianola sales. Amateur theatricals also formed an important part of expatriate social life, from the highest ranks to the lowest. Simla, the summer capital of India under the British Raj, was described by one contemporary observer as ‘the Mecca of amateur actors abroad’, a true ‘amateur dramatic paradise’.13 Maymyo, Burma’s equivalent hill station, also gained a reputation for the number and quality of amateur productions staged there during the

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high season. In India and Burma, expatriate communities outside the main population centres were even more dependent on their own resources for theatrical entertainment.14 Works produced included both melodramas and musicals. According to Robert Baden-Powell, who was posted to India between 1876 and 1884, Gilbert and Sullivan operettas were very popular with both soldiers and civilians.15 Another hit with the Anglo-Indian community was the musical comedy The Geisha (1896), with music by Sidney Jones.16 In 1901, the Amateur Dramatic Club of Rangoon scored a hit with a ‘grand burlesque’ entitled ‘The Muddled Merchant of Venice’. The lead actor was the President of the Rangoon Municipality. The most obvious manifestation of European musical traditions in India and Burma, however, was the military bands.17 In the view of Trevor Herbert and Margaret Sarkissian, ‘it is virtually certain that the establishment of most British-imposed music cultures in the colonies was initiated by some form or other of brass or military band’.18 They had an important role in official ceremonies and were central to colonial social life. Bands were invited to play at official residences and regularly provided music at officers’ messes. They also gave public performances in military cantonments and on the maidans of the major cities.19 To Herbert and Sarkissian, ‘The symbolism attached to the military bands and the brass instruments in them was important in the construction of the empire’.20 Through their visual and aural display, they helped disseminate an image of power, control and confidence. This was critical to the maintenance of ‘prestige’, the intangible factor which many British officials saw as the hidden foundation of colonial rule. All regiments stationed in Burma had their own bands, as did local forces such as the BMP, the civil Burma Police and the Rangoon Volunteer Rifles.21 So too did the Salvation Army. These varied considerably in size and their inventory of musical instruments. On official occasions, military bands played mostly marches and regimental tunes, but at public venues their repertoire widened to include dances and popular airs.22 The relative simplicity of the bands’ performance techniques and the catchy tunes they played added to their appeal.23 W.H. Marshall described the social scene in Moulmein in 1860: In all Indian military stations, the bands of regiments having their headquarters there, play on certain evenings of the week, upon the parade ground, during the fine seasons, and the Band Stand on such occasions forms the usual fashionable resort.24 To give another example, Bert Rendall has described how, in 1915, the band of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers gave public performances in Rangoon’s Cantonment Gardens, ‘wherever the crowd was largest’.25 As time passed, popular British and American airs, music hall melodies and even folk songs increasingly made an appearance in ‘respectable’ society.26 By the early 20th century wealthy and middle-class families

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in Burma, from both the European and local communities, held musical evenings which included piano or violin recitals, featuring the light classics, excerpts from Franz Lehar operettas, or popular songs.27 As colonial society grew in size and sophistication, and more foreign musicians visited Burma, domestic parties of this kind were increasingly joined by more public performances. Social clubs, choral societies and other kinds of music organisations flourished.28 In the districts dances were rare, but in the population centres balls were held in public venues and were open (in theory, at least) to anyone who could afford the cost of a subscription.29 After it began broadcasting in 1936, the local AM radio station played songs by Cole Porter and Ivor Novello. Other favourites were film songs by Judy Garland and the British radio show Operetta Selection, introduced by Noel Coward.30 A snapshot of contemporary musical tastes – at the elite level, at least – can be found in a 40-page booklet produced for Government House in Rangoon in 1916. It included an eclectic mix of songs and styles, ranging from ‘Auld Lang Syne’ (1788), ‘The Eton Boating Song’ (1863), ‘Roamin in the Gloamin’ (1911) and ‘When Irish Eyes Are Smiling’ (1912), to ‘All Aboard for Dixie Land’ (1913) and ‘Sammy, the Dashing Dragoon’ (1914). The refrain of the latter doubtless kept everyone amused: I’m Sammy, Captain Sammy, They call me strawb’ry jammy, I’m hot! great Scott! What! What! Although I’ve a leg that’s gammy, The slightest thing annoys me, I rage like a bally typhoon. My uniform always is perfectly cut, I’m a masher, a smasher, a basher, tut! tut! A crasher, a slasher, a filbert, a nut! Why damme! I’m Sammy, I’m Sammy the Dashing Dragoon.31 Also included was Kipling’s ballad ‘Mandalay’. Unfortunately, the preferred musical setting for this song is not specified, but by that stage Oley Speaks’ version was widely favoured. The collection appears to have been compiled at the order of the then Lieutenant Governor of Burma, Sir (Spencer) Harcourt Butler, a man described in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography as ‘a wonderful host [whose] fondness for music added greatly to the charm of his entertainments’.32 It seems likely that the booklet was printed for his guests to join in communal singing at dinner parties. Another important factor in the appreciation of Western music in Burma was the private clubs. There were more than two dozen scattered throughout the province (and later colony), but they differed greatly in terms of size, membership and status.33 Reflecting on expatriate life in the capital

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in the 1930s, the civil servant and author Maurice Collis described the situation thus: Rangoon society was wholly English and it was composed of the members of three great clubs, the Pegu, the Boat and the Gymkhana. Nobody but a European could be elected to these clubs. Wealth or attainments or character was irrelevant: only race counted.34 Outside Rangoon, there were similar institutions like the Upper Burma Club in Mandalay, which opened in 1886 and the Maymyo Club in Maymyo, which was established in 1896. As described in numerous memoirs, and novels like Orwell’s Burmese Days, these and smaller ‘Kipling-haunted little Clubs’ were the centre of expatriate social life.35 Indeed, one visitor to Burma noted in 1899 that, to the colonial community, ‘the club seems as necessary to existence as the air they breathe’.36 The club was essentially a masculine institution, but after the turn of the century the pressure for female emancipation in the UK and changes in the British government’s policy regarding overseas postings for married officials started to alter the gender balance of colonial society.37 European women remained marginal to the culture of clubland, but their growing numbers in Burma put pressure on the membership to make them more welcome.38 Increasingly, dances and other functions were staged which both sexes could attend.39 In 1910, for example, it was said of one leading Burmese club that: On the social side the Gymkhana Club is especially strong. Three times a week before dinner a military band discourses selections of music, on two of these evenings for dancing, and there are functions at the club at frequent intervals.40 By 1928, the club was holding four dances a week, in two ballrooms.41 Some clubs arranged for military bands to play in their gardens during the afternoon. By the early 20th century, it was also possible for members and their guests to listen to the latest records.42 Outside the main population centres, club dances relied on gramophone music.43 It has been argued that the clubs acted as ‘an intermediate zone between both metropolitan and indigenous public spheres’, but even in the 20th century the social lives of the colonials and the locals rarely overlapped.44 Echoing Maurice Collis, one Burmese writer noted that, right up until the Second World War, ‘rank, wealth, and birth had no relevance. The colour of the skin was the only feature that mattered’.45 The clubs remained an ‘oasis of European culture in the colonies’.46 Penny Edwards has suggested that European exclusivity was maintained in other, more subtle ways. Colonial entertainments tended to be held in formal venues, such as ballrooms, theatres and concert halls. They often coincided with key events on the colonial calendar, and their programs invariably derived from the UK, like Gilbert

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and Sullivan operettas. This set them apart from the traditional anyein pwe, or variety show, which was marked by ‘a lack of temporal or spatial discipline or predictability of repertoire’.47 Such events, described by one of Orwell’s fictional characters as a ‘hideous and savage spectacle’, were seen by many colonials as further proof of Burma’s need for Western order, discipline and culture.48

Burma’s developing music scene After the turn of the century social life in Burma became more diverse. With the growth of the European community, and the development of civic and commercial buildings in Rangoon and other population centres, leisure activities that had once been confined to the home, club, cantonment and maidan expanded to include theatres, racecourses, restaurants and other venues.49 Jubilee Hall in Rangoon, erected to commemorate Queen Victoria’s 60th year on the throne, opened for dances and theatrical performances in 1898. It was described as ‘one of the best appointed theatres in the Orient’, and had a seating capacity of 796.50 In 1901, the capital’s first grand hotel, The Strand, was opened by the Sarkies Brothers, who owned the Raffles Hotel in Singapore.51 By 1905, The Strand had been joined by the Royal Hotel, the Minto Mansions and several others. They offered modern facilities and multiple recreational venues, such as bars, dining rooms, ballrooms and shops. In 1913, The Strand added an annex, with a concert hall for visiting orchestras, dancers and singers. It measured 602 square metres and could accommodate a seated audience of 600 people.52 With the growth of Burma’s educated urban middle class the consumption of music extended to a number of nightclubs, which included cabarets featuring mixed programs. For the upper and middle strata of colonial society, the private clubs remained the main social institution but, as commercial ventures, hotels and cabarets were more promiscuous.53 By definition comfort zones, hotels also became ‘contact zones’ par excellence within the colonial city, where increasingly diverse social, ethnic, and national groups – albeit only at an elite level – could interact.54 During the inter-war years, grand hotels like The Strand acquired resident orchestras and offered ballrooms for social dancing.55 They also responded to the popularity of modern dancing styles, offering not just waltzes, polkas, rumbas and tangos, but also more modern steps like the foxtrot and the Charleston. Most of Burma’s grand hotels also offered live music to accompany evening meals.56 This tended to consist of ‘light chamber music such as Strauss waltzes, Hungarian dances, Gypsy airs, Italian ballads (cancions), Iberian tangos and the like’.57 The members of the bands came from a mix of countries, but Filipino, White Russian, Austrian and Eurasian musicians seem to have predominated.58 During the inter-war period, the character of public sector Western music in Burma was redefined in other ways. ‘Though not the sole influence on this shift, the role of jazz in moderating an elite, imperialist aesthetic inspired

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new trends.’59 Jazz was associated with modernity and the emergence of a metropolitan way of life. It was eagerly embraced by the emerging urban middle class and European-educated population. To quote Shope once again: By the 1930s an established broadcast and gramophone industry … as well as an emphasis on a newly-understood idea of the global, modified what could have been defined as the Eurocentrism and elitism of British musical thought.60 Western-style bands in Burma prided themselves on keeping up with musical tastes in the wider world and bringing them to audiences in their own country. As David Steinberg has written, ‘Western classical music did not penetrate the society despite more than three score years of British colonial rule’.61 During the 1930s, there was a Rangoon Gramophone Society, ‘which was open to anyone with a good gramophone, a room capable of taking their twenty members, and a willingness to give a record concert followed by drinks’.62 There was a small amateur orchestra, made up entirely of expatriates who met to play at receptions, dinner parties and charitable functions. Also, a Eurasian group called The Rangoon Radio Trio, comprising a piano, violin and cello, performed pieces for the local radio station and occasionally gave public recitals.63 Most often, however, classical music was appreciated at home, in private. This situation changed in 1940, when a Rangoon Symphony Orchestra (RSO) of about 40 musicians was formed, largely through the efforts of the British civil servant Vernon Donnison. ‘Recruitment of instrumentalists was affected by driving around the city – where, because of the heat, windows were rarely closed – listening to people practising’.64 Also, people carrying likely looking instrument cases were stopped in the street and asked to audition. As a result, the orchestra was made up of European, Burmese, Eurasian and other musicians, both professionals and amateurs, drawn from all walks of life. The conductor was a Mr Dumble, a trained musician who had been in the army, ‘ending up in Burma and taking an office job there, spending his evenings with a cheroot and a tumbler of whisky, playing chamber music to himself’.65 Sheet music for the orchestra was borrowed from individuals and organisations in Burma and India, including the Calcutta Orchestral Society. The RSO gave its first performance in November 1940. It played a mixed program, including works by Beethoven, Mozart, Bizet, Kreisler and Moszkowski, to an appreciative audience, which included the Governor. A second concert, planned for late 1941, was prevented by Japan’s invasion of Burma. The global economic boom that followed the First World War saw a growth in the number of foreign visitors to Burma, attracted by better transport, business opportunities and low prices.66 Others were prompted

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to visit by the displays of Burmese culture, including performances of traditional music and dance, staged at the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley Park in 1924–1925.67 Popular Western music, too, played a part. In 1926, for example, one newspaper reported that Kipling’s ballad ‘Mandalay’ ‘has brought more tourists to Burma than any other advertisement’.68 The same claim was made by the American traveller James Childers in 1932: Men and women of both England and America eagerly cross ocean and desert to see the little girl whose petticoat was yaller and whose little cap was green.69 The eccentric British sportsman Rowland Raven-Hart, who toured Burma in the late 1930s, was another prompted to visit after reading ‘Mandalay’.70 All these visitors wanted to see for themselves if Burma was the exotic and romantic place that, thanks largely to Kipling’s ballad, it had become in the popular imagination of the West. International attention was also drawn to Burma by events like the visit of the Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII) in 1922. His itinerary included a call on Rangoon University, where he heard ‘weird jazz bands of the local variety’, and an evening dance at the Gymkhana Club ‘which had been transformed by coloured lamps and lanterns into a scene from fairyland’.71 The Prince was accompanied on his tour by a young Louis Mountbatten, who wrote in his diary that ‘There is a great fascination about the whole of Burma and no one could really mistake it for India’.72 It is also relevant that, around this time, several books appeared describing life in Burma. Orwell’s novel Burmese Days, Maurice Collis’ autobiographical Trials in Burma and H.G. Wells’ polemical In Search of Hot Water did not make the place sound as appealing as the travelogues by Scott O’Connor, Aldous Huxley, Somerset Maugham and others. However, in their own ways, they all added to Burma’s mystery and allure.73 There was also a steady trickle of British, American, Canadian and Australian musicians and entertainers, who called into Burma as part of a ‘colonial circuit’. This pattern was established as early as the 1890s. Logically, it focussed on those colonial cities that had sizeable English-speaking populations, promising large audiences and thus reasonable takings. For example, in an article entitled ‘Touring in the Orient’ published in 1920, a correspondent for the influential British yearbook The Stage wrote that: no good entertainment ever leaves Bombay, Calcutta, Colombo, Rangoon, Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tientsin, etc., with the management dissatisfied with the financial results of the visit.74 The author of this article, who was himself based in the ‘Far East’, felt that cities like Calcutta could be played for six weeks, while Rangoon could be relied upon to provide sufficient receipts to warrant a company’s stay for

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a fortnight.75 Arrangements for tours could be made in advance through locally based theatrical agents. In Burma’s case, this was usually the music publishers and instrument manufacturers Misquith and Company, based in Rangoon.76 The technical and logistical demands of musical productions imposed certain constraints on touring companies. Not all could afford to travel with a full complement of musicians. In most places, a local orchestra (or at least local musicians) could be engaged, but for more ambitious operettas and musical comedies it was recommended that a qualified chef d’orchestra be employed. Otherwise, as The Stage’s correspondent noted drily, ‘the results may be both startling and disconcerting’.77 Despite all these problems, musicals were very popular with colonial audiences. Gilbert and Sullivan’s operettas led the way, but after 1900 they were eclipsed by musical comedies. A case in point was Our Miss Gibbs, a production in two acts, which opened at the Gaiety Theatre in London in 1909 and ran for 632 performances.78 It was simultaneously played by touring companies throughout the Empire, including in Rangoon in 1911. It later became a favourite with amateur theatre groups. As Tobias Becker has noted, touring companies provided intellectual stimulation, spiritual nourishment and an enjoyable distraction from colonial life. By providing a direct link with Britain they also exercised an important socio-cultural – even political – purpose. By performing the hits of the West End at the imperial periphery, touring companies not only allowed colonial audiences to participate in the metropolitan culture, but also inadvertently helped to unify the British empire; whether they lived in London, the provinces, or a colonial city, all British subjects were able to consume the same popular culture, forming in effect one big taste community.79 Colonial audiences did not exactly mirror those in Britain – they were predominantly young and male – but the theatre reinforced the bonds between members of colonial society and emphasised their shared heritage. In that sense, theatres arguably fulfilled similar functions to the social clubs. This remained the case, even after public entertainment venues proliferated and audiences increasingly included what one contemporary observer called ‘the educated natives’.80 Between the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Burma was also visited (in some cases annually) by troupes of performers from the India-based Chartres Circus, Wirth’s Circus from Australia, the US-based Warren’s Circus and the UK-based ‘Harmston’s Circus and Royal Menagerie of Performing Wild Animals’. On its 1907 tour, for example, the latter spent about a month in Burma, giving performances twice daily, mostly in Rangoon and Mandalay. Naturally, the European community was welcomed at these shows, but it was considered ‘fatal’ to attract an expatriate audience at the

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expense of the local population. Circus managers and entrepreneurs openly acknowledged that attracting ‘the natives’ was ‘the great factor of success’.81 Large audiences were considered imperative for financial reasons, but as ‘natives in general are paupers’, efforts were made to keep admission fees low. Companies also had to overcome a reluctance to pay for entertainment that in traditional Burmese culture was usually offered free of charge.82 As circus performances were essentially visual spectaculars language was not a problem, but they relied heavily on incidental music to create the right atmosphere. This was usually provided in the form of short upbeat marches known in the trade as ‘screamers’. Other foreign artists added to the richness and sophistication of Burma’s entertainment scene. For example, Parsi theatre troupes, including ‘Parsee opera’ companies, began visiting Burma from India soon after the annexation of Lower Burma.83 In 1883, the province was visited by Tom Pollard’s Lilliputian Opera Company from Australia, featuring a cast of singing children. In 1923, the Russian prima ballerina Anna Pavlova danced in Rangoon. In 1928, American jazz pioneer Morgan Prince and Wilbur’s Blackbirds played in Rangoon and Mandalay.84 Jascha Heifetz visited Burma in 1927 (when he was described by the The Rangoon Gazette with typical understatement as ‘a great violinist’), and again in 1932.85 Peter Dawson gave four concerts in Rangoon in the 1930s, as part of a regional tour.86 In 1933, Burma was visited by Boris Lissanevitch and Kira Stcherbatcheva, a couple trained in Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes. According to one Indian newspaper report, ‘The public … was honoured and surprised that such talent had come out to the colonies’.87 Brass bands from India and other British possessions occasionally went to Burma to give concerts.88 Some visitors were seeking artistic inspiration. In 1915, for example, Roshanara visited Rangoon, leaving with ideas for new dances and ‘wonderfully weird effects’.89 In 1925, the Denishawn Dancers, led by Ruth St Denis and Ted Shawn, visited Burma. St Denis was already well known for her ‘Oriental’ modern dances, possibly including the solo ‘Burmese umbrella dance’.90 In Burma, the company gave several performances, later claiming that they were among the first to present ‘serious Western dance’ in Burma.91 They also studied traditional dance with ‘the greatest dancer of Burma’, U Po Sein.92 The company felt that Burma’s dancers were ‘by far the best in the Orient’.93 Inspired by what they saw there, they added a number to their repertoire entitled ‘Burmese Yein Pwe’.94 It incorporated Burmese musical instruments that had been acquired on tour. In 1928, the American ballet dancer Ruth Page called into Burma as part of an Asian study tour.95 The same year, Henry Eichheim and Leopold Stokowski visited Burma to learn more about Burmese classical music. Stokowski was described in the US press as wanting ‘to bring oriental music to the western hemisphere’.96 In 1936, the American choreographer La Meri briefly studied traditional dance in Burma and performed there with the Indian (and part Burmese) dancer Ram Gopal.

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Increasingly, throughout this period, Rangoon was considered a modern, cosmopolitan city that catered to all tastes in entertainment. As early as 1900, one American impresario had stated that ‘Rangoon, though in an out of the way corner of the globe, is one of the best show towns in the East’.97 He remarked upon the large number and range of theatrical entertainments usually available to the European population there. At any one time, several professional companies from overseas and amateur local groups were putting on shows for the public, ranging from musical comedies to Shakespearean dramas. Outside Rangoon, the options for touring companies were far more limited. Only two other cities were considered large enough to be worth the effort. One was Mandalay, which had a Volunteer Drill Hall that could accommodate audiences of up to 500 people. The other was Moulmein, where the local Gymkhana Club had a theatre that could be hired. Some visiting circuses, however, performed at smaller towns, such as Pegu, Toungoo and Pyinmana. Significantly, all could be reached by railway from Rangoon. By the 1930s, the educational and professional background of colonial administrators in Burma had changed. Military officers were less prominent in European circles and university-educated officials and businessmen more common.98 Also, urban leisure was gradually becoming more middle class and multi-racial. Live music could be enjoyed at a variety of venues from the most formal to the most informal. For example, Western style dances were staged by student groups from Rangoon and Judson Colleges, with the Eurasian students usually taking a leading role.99 Recitals were given at the Rangoon Municipal Town Hall. Leslie Glass ICS has described how, in 1934, he was invited to a charity fancy-dress dance at the Victoria Jubilee Hall in Rangoon, with a number of female missionaries. He also attended cabaret performances by foreign artists at the Silver Grill Café, Rangoon’s premier restaurant where, typically, young people ‘danced the night away’.100 One merchant seaman visiting Rangoon in the 1930s recalled ‘some sort of Palais de dance halls’.101 In other ways too, Rangoon developed the reputation of being ‘a marvellous place for “rest and recreation”’.102 This was a barely veiled reference to the fact that Rangoon’s (officially authorised) red light district was the largest in British India.103 The ‘old soldier sahib’ Frank Richards has described how it had an international flavour, with one street housing prostitutes from all around the world.104 In addition to bars and brothels, European men could go to playhouses where Burmese girls would dance for them naked.105 The habitués of this district did not seem deterred by the moral campaigners who periodically gathered to sing hymns outside the larger ‘houses of ill-repute’. Some even joined in the singing.106 As George Orwell wrote in Burmese Days, doubtless drawing on his own experiences, if they did not want to go out single men could stand around the piano in their chummery, or bachelor quarters, drinking whisky and ‘bawling songs of insane filthiness and silliness’.107

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It was also relevant that, before the racial tensions, political violence and rural unrest of the 1930s, Burma was generally a peaceful place, far away from the troubles of Europe. If Bert Rendall’s memories of a military posting to Burma from 1914 to 1919 are any guide, the First World War was simply ‘a storm beyond the horizon’, as Orwell described it.108 In those circumstances, it is little wonder that one music hall song of the 1920s included the verse: Where was I when the war was on? I can hear a faint voice murmur. Where was I when the war was on? In the safest place – in Burma.109 This ditty was reputedly popular in military messes around the Far East, presumably among those who had been closer to the action. It was probably no coincidence that in some respects it echoed Kipling’s well-known poem ‘Gunga Din’ (1892), which refers – ironically – to soldiers in India being ‘quartered safe out ’ere’.110 As in India, Eurasians played an important role in the diffusion of Western music in Burma. The reasons for this are not clear, although as Stephane Dorin has claimed: Their relative number and high visibility in the field of music, well above their absolute numbers in the population, thus reflect two factors: the first one is pragmatic, since it is the knowledge and practice of European music through the tradition of church music, and the second one is more political, as they were tolerated alongside the colonizers in the role of entertainers and Western musical entertainment providers.111 As early as 1883, Eurasian musicians had been playing in the bands of volunteer regiments in Burma.112 By 1900, they had joined military ensembles in playing the circuit of clubs and hotels, where they provided some of the live music. They also helped redefine racial boundaries by bridging the gap between the musical styles of the colonialists and the tastes of more sophisticated and Westernised members of the Burmese community. Bands such as Wally Fagin’s Rangoon Gymkhana Club Orchestra were in great demand, specialising in jazz numbers like ‘My Melancholy Baby’ (1912), ‘Constantly’ (1932) and ‘Trade Winds’ (1940).113 Reuben Solomon and the Jive Boys broadcast music on All India Radio, from their base in Rangoon. Eurasians were prominent in other ways.114 Two of the largest shops selling Western musical instruments in Burma were Misquith and Company, and Silgardo and Company, both owned by Eurasians. Together with a small number of Europeans, Eurasian teachers provided private music lessons for both locals and expatriates in the piano, violin, organ

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and brass instruments.115 There were also a number of small schools, which specialised in classical Western music. It was not possible for music students in Burma to sit examinations for the internationally recognised Trinity College (London) certificate. For that, children had to travel to India, which was an expensive proposition out of the reach of many.116 However, the Eurasian organist at Rangoon Cathedral was employed as an examiner for the London College of Music’s diplomas, which were rated almost as highly. Eurasian musicians were also influential in the movie industry, where they contributed significantly to the diffusion of Western instrumentation and harmony by accompanying silent films.117 Indeed, a case can be made that, in the years leading up to the Second World War, ‘film was the primary medium by which the sound of foreign instruments was introduced to Burma’.118 For many years, the music for films was provided by local musicians and local orchestras. This was the era of silent movies, when live musicians with excellent sight-reading skills were needed to provide the background music to films being screened, from printed scores provided by the producers.119 Sometimes, pianos were used to provide the soundtrack. This caused problems in movie houses shared by both British and Burmese patrons as the piano had to be tuned differently for European movies and Burmese movies.120 Lap style Hawaiian guitars were also used to accompany silent films, which were still being made and screened in Burma up to the 1940s. It  was probably through the rise of Burma’s own movie industry in the 1930s and early 1940s that Burmese musicians added the widest variety of sounds to their pallet.121 By the outbreak of war in December 1941, Burmese production houses had made about 600 movies. As many ‘talking’ pictures during this early period were musicals, they too were influential in the distribution of popular songs and tunes, including those from overseas. This was particularly the case beyond the main urban centres, where gramophones and radios were rare well into the 1950s.122 The film and music industries were intertwined throughout the 20th century and, particularly with the rise of the big American studios, were marked by what one study has described as ‘coordinated cross-promotion’.123 As a result, the importation of American and British movies into Burma was usually accompanied by the release of records carrying the film’s songs and other tunes. The recording industry also helped transform Burma’s music scene. After an exploratory visit to Burma and other Southeast Asian countries in 1902, the Gramophone Company built a record pressing plant at Dum Dum, near Calcutta, in 1907. Discs imported from India, the UK and US permitted everyone in Burma with the means to buy them to follow the latest trends.124 Some Columbia brand 78 rpm discs were described as a ‘Special Rangoon Recording’, and featured the image of a Burmese chinthe (leogryph) on the label.125 Record sales grew rapidly at the beginning of the century, dipped

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during the First World War, but picked up again and remained strong until the Depression.126 The popularity of records was encouraged during the 1920s by the availability of cheap phonographs from Japan. The advent of records not only gave access to a much wider range of music, but it also changed social behaviours. Writing in 1930 about his visit to Burma, for example, Somerset Maugham described the ‘agreeable’ social round in Rangoon, which included ‘dancing to a gramophone’ after dinner.127 Increasingly, Burmese lovers of Western music followed similar practices. It is worth noting in passing that international companies also recorded local musicians. For example, in 1905 a team from the German firm Beka made a visit to record Burmese artists. Between 1910 and 1920 Gramophone made 508 recordings in Burma.128 However, Columbia Records, HMV (known locally as the ‘Dog Brand’, due to its logo of a dog listening to a wind-up gramophone) and the locally owned A-1 Film and Recording Company came to dominate the Burmese music market.129 Particularly among the urban elite – both Burmese and other non-European communities – there was quite a strong following for Western music. There was also a growing Burmese interest in adopting Western musical styles, and adapting Western musical instruments, to meet the demands of changing local tastes. For a long time Western and Burmese musical traditions remained quite distinctive and far apart. It has been said, for example, that ‘Western music is a compound, whose object is harmonious coalescence, whereas [Burmese] music is a mixture, the pleasure lying in the artful mixture of sounds’.130 Despite the occasional efforts of people like bandmaster John Mackenzie-Rogan, the likelihood of any real cross-fertilisation between the two seemed remote. Indeed, most Westerners in Burma during the colonial period shared the view of one of Orwell’s fictional characters, who described traditional Burmese music as a ‘fearful pandemonium’.131 This feeling seemed to be reciprocated. In 1893, for example, an Indian Army officer stationed in Burma wrote that ‘Every Eastern native looks down on our music with undisguised contempt.’132 As Gavin Douglas has noted, however, ‘colonial governance and the increased introduction of foreign ideas gradually changed the social and musical landscape of the society’.133 Burma’s interest in Western music dates back at least to the 19th century, when the Italian ambassador presented a piano to King Mindon.134 Retuned to approximate the Burmese scale, and played using a technique that was based on traditional percussion instruments, the piano (known locally as the sandaya) was used to accompany classical or neoclassical Burmese songs.135 By the end of the 19th century, court music had absorbed instruments like the guitar and violin (the local version of which was known as the tayaw) and adopted uniquely Burmese playing styles. New avenues of expression, as well as new compositional possibilities, were discovered as this [traditional] music was performed on these Western instruments, and they eventually came to influence the

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tuning systems used throughout the country and presented opportunities for the introduction of Western-style harmonies and chordal accompaniments.136 One Burmese classical composer adapted certain slow movements of Christian sacred music that he heard from early Catholic missionaries, and players of percussion instruments (such as the patt waing drum circle), were reportedly inspired by Western band music.137 Increasingly, other local musicians began to use banjos, oboes, violins and mandolins (either modified or in their original form) to produce a hybrid sound, albeit with mixed results. For example, George Scott wrote in 1880 that: Fiddles may often be heard played with greater or less skill, especially on the pagoda steps by blind and deformed beggars, but the instrument is not national, and is never, or but rarely, found where Europeans have not penetrated. The same may be said of the young Burmans who play in Rangoon on the concertina and the English fife and piccolo.138 During the 1930s, banjos and mandolins were popular with university students wishing to serenade their sweethearts.139 Scott felt that ‘It is flattering to national pride to notice with what accuracy and rapidity they pick up English airs’.140 However, not everyone was as impressed. Geraldine Mitton was more representative of the European community when she recounted in 1907 how Burmese musicians took popular songs like ‘Daisy Bell’ (1892) and gave them their own ‘unique’ treatment.141 It was not meant as a compliment. The adoption of Western musical instruments and styles by the local population was sometimes opposed for other reasons. In 1900, for example, one European observer wrote: It is a matter for great regret that the beautiful music which the Burmans unquestionably possess is being forgotten. The modern tendency is to imitate European and Indian themes, and the time is not distant when genuine Burmese music will be a thing of the past.142 According to a later Burmese musicologist, during the 1920s and 1930s the country was ‘flooded with Hawaiian guitars, hillbilly banjos, and Harlem saxophones’.143 Anticipating some of the concerns of Burma’s post-war leaders, he noted with dismay how local artists tried to adapt ‘Good King Wenceslas’ (1853), ‘John Brown’s Body’ (1861) and ‘Isle of Capri’ (1934) for records and public performances. Some of Burma’s wealthier families even abandoned the employment of traditional orchestras at funerals, in favour of European-style bands. Apparently, waltzes from Franz Lehar’s 1905 operetta ‘The Merry Widow’ were a popular choice.144

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Gavin Douglas captured this process of cultural exchange nicely when he wrote in 2011 that ‘Foreign instruments become local instruments as, over time, they are modified (physically and in performance practice) to accommodate local aesthetics’.145

Music and the war years Between December 1941 and September 1945, Burma was the setting for the longest military campaign of any in the Second World War, arguably fought over the most varied and hostile terrain. Yet, it received much less attention at the time than the more familiar and better-publicised campaigns that were being waged in Europe and the Pacific. Efforts were made to draw attention to what became known as the China-Burma-India Theatre, including through two documentary films, but not for nothing was General William Slim’s 14th Army known as ‘the forgotten army on the forgotten front’.146 The war saw numerous songs written or adapted for use in the CBI area of operations. While testimony to the talent and inventiveness of the servicemen and women deployed there, not many of their efforts seem to have survived. Even fewer were formally published, although some have been included in collections of soldiers’ songs compiled after 1945. Many can be traced to the pre-war British and Indian armies, but others were original compositions. For example, the Allied troops deployed to India at the beginning of the war were quick to come up with disrespectful commentaries on current affairs: There was a young man called Gandhi Who went to a pub for a shandy, He lifted his cloth To wipe off the froth, The barmaid said, ‘Wow, what a dandy’.147 William Pennington has described how, during breaks in their training in India, the troops would amuse themselves with drinking parties. ‘The banter and singing could be heard throughout the cantonment … The songs would go on for hours, some melancholy, others ribald or humorous, all an escape’.148 High on the list of favourites was the First World War standard ‘When this bloody war is over’, sung to the tune of the old Anglican hymn ‘What a friend we have in Jesus’ (1855). More basic were ditties such as: I love a lassie A bloody great Madrassi, She’s as black as the ace of fucking spades, She’s got hairs on her belly Like the palms that grow at Delhi, Nelly, my big fat girl.149

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There were also more anatomically explicit versions. As George Orwell once wrote, soldiers’ songs are ‘the real popular poetry of our time, like the ballads in the Middle Ages. It’s a pity they are always unprintable.’150 One song well known to Indian Army servicemen around this time referred to the widespread practice in colonial India and Burma of taking a mistress or ‘temporary’ wife: Six long years you loved my daughter, Now you go to Blighty Sahib. May the boat that takes you over Sink to the bottom of the pawnee, Sahib Or if you prefer, Atora cheeny tora chah. Bombay bibi boat atcha. May the boat that takes you over Sink to the bottom of the pawnee, Sahib.151 In soldiers’ parlance, atora (or tora) cheeny is Urdu for ‘a little sugar’, chah (or char) is tea, and boat atcha (or bahut accha) means very good. ‘Pawnee’ is a corruption of pani, the Hindi for water. Bibi (or beebee) is Hindi for a lady. It was a title of distinction initially applied to highborn women, and European women in India, but came to be used for female servants, mistresses and local wives. The last two lines appear again in a song entitled ‘Bombay Bibley’, presumably a play on the word bibi. The subject was a Bombay prostitute, soliciting for business. According to Martin Page, both versions were heard in ‘wet’ canteens and on the march, ‘from the NorthWest frontier, even up into Burma’.152 In his masterful memoir of the land war in Burma, the author George MacDonald Fraser cited yet another version. Described as one of ‘the forgotten soldier songs of India’, this one was called ‘Deolali Sahib’ and was sung to the tune of Andrew Young’s hymn ‘There Is a Happy Land’ (1838): Tora cheeny, tora chah, Bombay bibi, bahut accha! Sixteen annas, ek rupee, Seventeen annas, ek buckshee. Oh Deolali Sahib! Oh, Deolali Sahib! May the boat that you go home on Niche rakko pani, sahib!153 Deolali was the name of a large British army camp, about 160 kilometres north of Bombay (Mumbai). The last line roughly translates as ‘sink to the bottom of the sea’. Fraser noted that ‘Like most of our songs, it was sung either on the march or when travelling by truck. Camp-fire vocalising was almost unknown’.

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He  noted that ‘Deolali Sahib’ probably dated from the 19th century, and went on to observe: Many of our marching songs were of even greater antiquity; I cannot guess where the famous ‘One-Eyed Riley’ originated, but ‘Samuel Hall’ dates at least from the time of Captain Kidd, and ‘Three German Officers Crossed the Rhine’ is an echo from the Middle Ages – the Three Captains, or the Three Knights, have been in folk-song for many centuries.154 Fraser added that most of these songs were ‘obscene in the extreme’, but were sung with vim, ‘especially the scatological bits’. Another popular pastime among the troops was to sing popular songs partly in Urdu ‘with no regard for the niceties of that language’.155 A favourite with Fraser and his comrades was a song called ‘Shanghai Bye Bye’, which one of the group had ‘picked up in the China wars’ during the 1920s; Wrap up all my care and woe, Here I go, swinging low, Bye-bye Shanghai! Won’t somebody wait for me, Please get in a state for me, Bye-bye, Shanghai! Up before the colonel in the morning, He gave me a rocket and a warning: ‘You’ve been out with Sun-yat-sen, You won’t go out with him again’, Shanghai, bye-bye!156 It was sung to the tune of ‘Bye Bye Blackbird’ by Mort Dixon and Ray Henderson, which had been made popular by Gene Austin in 1926. Another well-known song was ‘Bless ’Em All’, also known as ‘The Long and the Short and the Tall’. Often described as ‘the anthem of British fighting men since World War I’, it was reputedly written in 1916 by Fred Godfrey, but probably dates from the end of the 19th century.157 One version began: There’s many a troopship just leaving Bombay, Bound for Old Blighty’s shore. Heavily laden with time-expired men, Bound for the land they adore. There’s many a corporal just serving his time, And many a twat signing on. They’ll get no promotion this side of the ocean, So cheer up, my lads, bless ’em all.158

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The song was popular among soldiers, sailors and airmen posted to India and Burma as early as the 1920s, although they probably knew it under its original title of ‘Fuck ‘Em All’.159 It was cleaned up and given a new treatment by James Lally (‘Jimmy Hughes’) and Frank Kerslake (‘Frank Lake’), and recorded in 1940 by George Formby. It later became a hit for Gracie Fields, and Vera Lynn sang it on her tour of Burma in 1944. During the war the song underwent several other textual changes, mainly to appeal to the American market and to help sell US war bonds. It gained a new lease of life when a version was used in the Warner Brothers movie Captains of the Clouds (1942), starring James Cagney.160 After the chaotic and humiliating British retreat from Burma in 1942, and the subsequent failure of the Allied High Command adequately to support the ‘forgotten’ 14th Army (which was formed in India in October 1943), the tone of many soldiers’ songs became darker. Jon Latimer cited an anonymous contribution, which seems to have been inspired by the rapid advance of the seemingly invincible Japanese forces. It began: The Jap holds out at Razabul He’s made a raid on Taung, There’s trouble on the Ngakyedauk It seems he must be strong.161 The bitterness felt by many soldiers in the CBI Theatre was reflected in another anonymous contribution, entitled ‘Spud Spedding’s Broken Boys’ or ‘White Feather’. It read, in part: I was walking down the street the other day, When I chanced to hear a certain lady say: ‘Why isn’t he in khaki, or a suit of navy blue, Fighting for his country like the other fellows do?’ I turned around, and this is what I said: ‘Now lady look I’ve only got one leg. On two legs I’d be firmer, But the other one’s out in Burma’.162 One song was entitled ‘Bury Me Out In The Jungle’, or ‘The Dying Soldier’. It was about ‘a lad from the Borders’ (regiment) who ‘fell to a Japanese gun’ at Kohima in 1944. Sung to the tune of the ‘Eton Boating Song’ (1863) or ‘Red River Valley’ (1896?), the three middle verses expressed the same sense of a sacrifice made, but one not appreciated back home in the UK: ‘Oh, bury me out in the jungle, Under the old Burma sun, Bury me out in the jungle, My duty to England is done’.

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Burma’s changing soundscape So, they buried him out in the jungle, By the light of the far setting sun, They buried him out in the jungle His job for his country was done. Now when you get back to old Blighty And the war is all over and won, Just remember that poor British Tommy Under the old Burma sun.163

A new work prompted by the Burma campaign was entitled ‘Down by Mandalay’, sung to the tune of the German hit song ‘Lili Marlene’ (1937). The first two and last verses went as follows: Out there in the jungle, down by Mandalay, A few forgotten soldiers slowly fight their way, They dream of the girls they left back home, And soon they hope to cross the foam To see their land and loved ones, Never more to roam. Some of them are repat, some are time expired, Longing for their troopship, and their fireside. They often talk of Burmese plains, Of dust and heat, and monsoon rains, Of roads that lead to heaven, And tracks that lead to hell … Now when this war is over and the job is done, All you lads from Burma go tell it to your son: ‘Remember the war against the Hun, But don’t forget the war they won, In Asia’s south eastern corner Against the Rising Sun’.164 The feelings of the hard-pressed troops in the front line were also well expressed in another song, with the ironic title ‘Doing Our Bit For the War’. Recalling the ditty sung about soldiers who enjoyed a safe posting to Burma during the First World War, the first two verses went: Fighting the Nazis from Delhi, Fighting the Japs from Kashmir, Exiled from England, we feel you should know The way that we are taking it out here. Sticking it out at the Cecil, Doing our bit for the war,

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Going through hell, At Maiden’s hotel, Where they stop serving lunch after four.165 In his account of the Burma campaign, David Rooney credits Noel Coward with this humorous attack on staff officers and ‘base-wallahs’ enjoying the comforts of life back in India. However, its creator has never been identified.166 After Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten’s appointment as the Supreme Allied Commander, Southeast Asia Command (SEAC) in 1943, a concerted effort was made to lift the spirits of the Allied troops, which were low enough to cause official concern.167 Radio SEAC, based first in India and then in Ceylon, broadcast a wide range of popular songs and tunes, many dating from the First World War.168 Initially, any works deemed likely to remind the troops of home were excluded, on the grounds that they were bad for morale. Belatedly, it was realised by the authorities that these songs were exactly what the forces wanted, and needed. Also, later in the war, the UK-based Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA) staged variety shows in India. From 1942, this role had been performed by the members of Calcutta’s British community, who formed the Bengal Entertainment Services Association (BESA). Music was a prominent feature of BESA shows. As described by Anthony Green: Initially, the music played was standard ballroom fare sometimes using a violin to sweeten the melody. Increasingly the influence of swing and American big bands was reflected in the choice of numbers.169 ENSA and BESA merged in 1944 and took variety shows on the road, including to Burma, which by then was being retaken by the Allies. Audiences at various locations ranged from a handful of men to a thousand or more.170 One ENSA artist who performed in Burma in 1944 was ‘The Forces’ Sweetheart’, Vera Lynn. She sang ‘all the popular songs of the day’, including ‘Roll Out the Barrel’ (1927), ‘We’ll Meet Again’ (1939), ‘There’ll Always be an England’ (1939), ‘A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square’ (1939) and ‘The White Cliffs of Dover’ (1941).171 Also that year ENSA sent Noel Coward to Burma, where he performed ‘Mad Dogs and Englishmen’ (1931) to audiences of bemused US servicemen on the Ledo Road, in terrible conditions.172 It was said that Coward’s mixed experiences in the CBI Theatre, including at Imphal, helped inspire his scathing satire of the Indian Army entitled ‘I Wonder What Happened to Him’ (1944): The India that one read about And may have been misled about In one respect has kept itself intact. Though pukka sahib traditions may have cracked

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It was a great hit with the troops in India and Burma. A slightly bowdlerised version was included in Coward’s first post-war musical, Sigh No More, staged in London in 1945. Other humorous skits and songs were performed for the troops, possibly including Billy Bennett’s spoofs of Kipling’s ballad ‘On the Road to Mandalay’.174 One of the Royal Air Force’s Gang Shows also entertained the troops in Burma. It included a young drummer and comic named Peter Sellers. One song was written specifically to inspire the Allied forces after the death in March 1944 of Major General Orde Wingate, the idiosyncratic founder and driving force behind the Chindit long-range penetration forces. Entitled ‘Song of the Chindits’, it was published in the SEAC newspaper and distributed widely. The first and last verses read: We are the sword he forged, eager and bright, Tempered so cunningly, proudly bequeathed, Tested, unbroken and keen for the fight, Others must wield it before it is sheathed. … We are the flag he raised, bloody and torn, We are his dagger that leaps to the kill, Strong in our hearts is his courage reborn, He is our leader, the conqueror, still.175 This song was probably written by John Hollington, one of whose literary pseudonyms was ‘Frolik’.176 His brother was a Chindit and he was a great admirer of Wingate. It is not known to what tune, if any, this work was meant to be sung, but given its rather grandiloquent tone it is unlikely to have been a popular choice with the men in the ranks. They preferred bawdy ballads and unofficial unit songs, such as ‘Blaydon Races’ (1862) which was sung by the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers in Burma, and the Royal Horse Artillery’s ‘We are the Horse Artillery … / We don’t have to march like the infantry’.177 Also, in this war, as in so many others, soldiers put their own words to popular tunes, to describe their experiences and feelings. One example that is now included in most anthologies of Second World War works was ‘South of Meiktila’, sung to the tune of Gene Autry’s country and western hit ‘South of the Border (Down Mexico Way)’ (1939).178 It was written by Sergeant Tommy Wren from the Border Regiment in 1945. George Macdonald Fraser described in his memoir how it was created in the back of a truck jolting its way south to Rangoon that April, after his battalion of the Borders had cleared Pyawbwe of the Japanese. Hence the first line, ‘South of Meiktila, down Pyawbe way’ (sic).179

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Another example of this practice was provided by Eurasian guerrillas operating in northern Burma with Detachment 101, the local name given to the US Office of Strategic Services (the forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency). Entitled ‘Yellow Rose of Burma’, and sung to the tune of ‘Yellow Rose of Texas’ (1858), this unusual piece deserves quoting in full: I’m a fellow that was born in Burma and I’ll sing to you a song Of a Burmese girl in Mandalay on good old Burma ground. She’s a young and charming little maid, her age is ten and eight And she smiles at everyone that passes through her little gate. CHORUS:

She’s my Yellow Rose of Burma that the Burmese never knew Her eyes they shine like diamonds that sparkle in the dew. You can talk to me of Calcutta girls or the girls from Bangalore, But the Yellow Rose of Burma beats the whole darn lot and more.

Very soon I’m going back to Burma on a bright and sunny day, Without any leave and any pay I’ll get there any way. And the Calcutta girl can go to hell for I have a story to tell To my Yellow Rose of Burma and to Burma I belong.180 As Ed Cray has suggested, this was probably a bowdlerised version of the song, which clearly lent itself to more ribald variations.181 It is also interesting to note the echoes of other popular songs, which compare Burmese girls with those of other cultures. Throughout this period, the bagpipes continued to play a prominent part in Burma’s music scene. In addition to Scottish regiments stationed in, or deployed to, Burma, the pipes had been adopted by the Gurkhas, and by local units consisting largely of Chins and Kachins. The reasons given for this practice vary between sources, but all three ethnic groups were apparently deemed by the British colonial authorities to be ‘highlanders’, for whom the bagpipes was an appropriate martial instrument.182 The pipes were also to be found in BMP units, along with bugles.183 There were numerous reports of pipers playing in Burma throughout the Second World War, on the march, at welcoming ceremonies, and on other formal occasions. For example, in March 1945, when General Slim formally raised the Union Jack over the old royal palace in Mandalay – known to the British as Fort Dufferin – it was to the pipes of the 8th Gordons, 1st Royal Scots and 1st Camerons.184 One piece of pipe music, which came to the fore during this period, was the ‘Burma Rifles March Past’. Its composer remains unknown but, according to popular tradition, the tune was picked up by the pipers of the Cameron Highlanders when they moved from Calcutta to Maymyo in 1925. The 1st Battalion of the Camerons was stationed at Alexandra Barracks

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there until 1928. When the Burma Rifles were created as part of the Indian Army in 1917, it included a small number of ethnic Burmans. After they were purged from its ranks in 1927 for suspected disloyalty, the regiment consisted mainly of Kachin, Chin and Karen ‘hill tribesmen’. Its training centre, too, was at Maymyo.185 The march was reportedly passed on by ear from one generation of pipers to another. It is not known if the piece was ever performed in a formal setting during this period, but it was played on the march to Mandalay by the pipers of the 1st Battalion of the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders in December 1944.186 As Charles Malcolm wrote in 1927, ‘Bagpipe tunes form a musical record of the battles in which Highland regiments, or clans, with their pipers have taken part’.187 So it was in Burma during the Second World War, when at least two new pieces of martial music were added to their repertoire. One was ‘Over the Chindwin’, which was composed in December 1944 by Pipe Major Evan Macrae of the 1st Camerons, to commemorate his unit’s crossing of the Chindwin River in Upper Burma.188 The second work also marked a critical stage of the campaign to retake Burma from the Japanese. It was descriptively named ‘9th Battalion Gordon Highlanders Crossing the Irrawaddy’, by Pipe Major A.A. Sim.189 As the 116th Regiment, Royal Armoured Corps (Gordons), the 9th Gordons were part of 255 Tank Brigade. They played a major part in the battle for Meiktila south of Mandalay, and for Pakokku on the Irrawaddy River, both in February 1945. As the war progressed and final victory against the Japanese became more likely, British soldiers’ songs in and about Burma tended to be more cheerful and reflected more kindly on the harsh experiences of the preceding four years. For example, one piece sung by the Border Regiment late in the campaign and into 1946 was ‘The Minden Dandies’, the last verse of which went: Down by the Irra-Irrawaddy you can hear the Burmese sing, Takes my heart right back To a little bamboo basha by the Waddy’s shore, A place to call our own. Oh I love to sit and listen, to hear the Burmese singing Home, sweet home.190 A basha was a hut usually made out of bamboo and palm thatch. This song included several tacit references to the 23rd Regiment of Foot, later renamed the Royal Welch Fusiliers. One of the regiment’s battle honours was Minden in 1759, during the Seven Years War (1754–1763). The song also recalled Kipling’s poem ‘“The Men That Fought at Minden”’ (1895), which paid homage to the ‘rookies’ who became disciplined soldiers and went on to win a remarkable victory.191 Despite all these momentous events, and fresh injections of musical inspiration from both the troops in Burma and people back home, the ghost of Rudyard Kipling (who died in 1936) was never far away. As George

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Macdonald Fraser wrote, the 14th Army was ‘the final echo of Kipling’s world’ and the bard of empire remained a constant presence in the minds of all those in the CBI Theatre.192 For example, it was common practice during the war for the troops to sing selections from the Barrack Room Ballads as they marched along, both during training and between operations. Pennington singles out for mention ‘Screw-Guns’ (1890), which was sung to the tune of the ‘Eton Boating Song’.193 While this might be expected from a member of the Royal Horse Artillery, it can be assumed that ‘Mandalay’ was a popular choice, sung to Oley Speaks’ well-known tune. J.P. McCall’s setting of Kipling’s poem ‘Boots’ (1903), as sung by Peter Dawson but with ‘Burma’ replacing ‘Africa’ in the lyrics, was probably another.194 Throughout the war, ‘Mandalay’ continued to colour perceptions of Burma. The ballad was mentioned a number of times in the Pocket Guide to Burma issued to all US troops deployed to the CBI Theatre.195 It was also invoked by war correspondents writing about developments there.196 For example, during the 1942 retreat to India the American journalist Clare Boothe wrote a two-part story for Life magazine, which, despite a few factual errors, drew heavily on Kipling’s work to capture the prevailing mood: Yesterday, what did I know of Mandalay? Yesterday, to me it was just a Kipling song, an Empire sound … from Moulmein to Mandalay the course of the Empire took its hot triumphant way, when Kipling was a war correspondent given to writing wondrous jungle jingles before this century began. … Mandalay in my mind was only a shadowy, mysterious Oriental montage. I envisaged the city of Thibaw’s evil queen, whose name was Supyalat, full of bustling noisy bazaars where lacy silver and solid gold trinkets, rubies from Magok, sapphires and jades and amber, bright lacquer bowls and carved teak were sold. I saw, in my mind’s eye, Buddhist priests, kneeling before the innumerable white pagodas, heard the temple bells, the chant of temple rites, the chug-chug of little steamers on the Irrawaddy, the creaking of the wheels of lazy bullock carts. I fancied the smiling faces of black-haired, sandal-footed, flowery-robed Burmese girls jingling anklets and bracelets (‘a’wastin’ Christian kisses on an ’eathen idols’ foot’). I smelt the fragrance of incense and flowering trees …197 The Australian journalist George Johnston repeatedly alluded to the ballad in his reports for newspapers back home, notably during the battle for the old royal capital in 1945.198 Other correspondents did the same. One news story in the Goulburn Evening Post began with a lengthy quotation from ‘Mandalay’ and continued: It is impossible for those who once felt the thrill and mystery of Kipling’s lines in the more spacious days of thirty and forty years ago not to feel just a little nostalgic thrill when the news came through this

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The report ended with another line from Kipling’s poem. Other reporters on the ground compared the city to the ballad and, not surprisingly considering the damage resulting from the war, were disappointed.200 Mandalay was not the most important strategic objective in Upper Burma. That label probably attached to Meiktila, further south, which not only hosted a larger number of Japanese troops but also had a major airfield and logistics facilities. However, as one participant in these events later wrote, ‘the fall of Mandalay was the more prestigious as it was the old capital and known to every Englishman from ballads’.201 One such Englishman was Winston Churchill, who was known to have had a particular liking for ‘Mandalay’. When the old royal capital finally fell to Slim’s 14th Army in March 1945, he was reported to have said ‘Thank God they have got a place whose name we can pronounce!’.202 Given the British Prime Minister’s respect for Kipling’s ‘many-sided genius’ and known familiarity with his works (he called the inspirational poem ‘If’ (1910) his ‘spiritual autobiography’), this was probably an oblique reference to ‘A Nightmare of Names’ (1886).203 In this early poem, a journalist in India (obviously representing Kipling himself) is described as reading the telegrams that had just arrived from the Burma front. Bewildered by the unfamiliar Burmese names he encounters, the journalist expresses his frustration about the British forces ‘fighting Lord knows who, in jungles Deuce knows where!’204 After the Japanese invasion, there appears to have been little development of Western music in Burma itself. However, circumstances dictated some new approaches to its performance and appreciation. As far as circumstances allowed, Allied prisoners of war (POWs) in Burma kept up their spirits with music and song. On the Burma–Thailand railway, for example, morale was maintained by the musicians among them, playing whatever instruments they could find, or leading sing-alongs. Whenever possible, concert parties were staged.205 For a period, the Japanese even permitted the prisoners in Burma a brass band, which entertained the troops. One march it played was ‘Colonel Bogey’ (1914), but with different lyrics: Bollocks! Was all the band could play. Bollocks! They played it night and day. Bollocks! Ta-ra-ra Bollocks! Ta-ra-ra bollocks! Bollocks! Bollocks!206 After the railway was completed, many prisoners were sent to hospitals or relocation camps where they had greater scope to stage variety shows and

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cabarets. Often, the lyrics of well-known songs were rewritten to make them more topical. One POW recalled that ‘Some of the material was quite lewd and rude’.207 Others tried to make light of the brutality of their captors: It’s a Jap, slap, happy day If you don’t kiostke (Attention!), You get the boot If you don’t salute, It’s a Jap slap happy day.208 As Sears Eldredge has noted, music and theatre were critical coping strategies employed by the desperate men working on the railway, under terrible conditions. The construction experiences of POWs in Burma were broadly similar to those across the border in Thailand but, in his view, due to a number of remarkable ‘producer-directors’ in the Burmese camps ‘the “jungle shows” they produced to help them survive were unique’.209 At a more modest level, similar efforts were made by the POWs held in Rangoon’s Central Jail.210 Again, many of the musical works performed were written by the prisoners themselves. Philip Stibbe has described how they staged musical revues, accompanied by a mouth organ and improvised instruments in the style of the German pre-war group the Comedian Harmonists.211 Also, satirical songs were written in the manner of the Western Brothers, a British music hall and radio act popular in the 1930s. According to Stibbe, most songs were ‘unfit to print’ but one ended as follows: We think this rising sun affair has gone a bit too far But Lord Mountbatten’s fixing an eclipse, So always give a ‘keri’ to the Nips, fellows Always give a ‘keri’ to the Nips.212 The ‘Nips’ were the Japanese and ‘keri’ was the Japanese word for a bow or salute. One unrecorded ditty by John Wilde, which was greatly admired by his fellow POWs, was entitled ‘When My Soldier Days Are Over’. Stibbe felt that the POW concerts were far better than anything produced by ENSA. Burmese music lovers like ‘President’ Ba Maw continued to play their favourite records in private. According to one who knew him, Burmese classical music ‘never failed to delight’ Ba Maw, but he was ‘equally at home with Western music, both classical and low-brow’.213 However, it did not pay to appear too pro-Western, even if Burma was nominally an ally of Japan. In any case, the occupation meant that Burmese nationalists could once again sing the patriotic songs that had been banned by the British before the war, such as ‘Nagani’ (‘Red Dragon’) and ‘Myanmar Kaba Ma Kyei’ (‘Myanmar Till the End of the World’).214 The prospect of full independence also prompted the resurrection of an ‘ancient’ patriotic song. According to U Nu, who became the country’s first Prime Minister in 1948,

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‘All were exulting in the thought that Burma would be free, and as the grand old song resounded throughout the countryside no one could hear it without trembling with emotion’.215 The leader of the pro-Japanese Indian National Army (INA), Subhas Chandra Bose, placed a high priority on music to inspire his forces, which from 1944 were based mainly in Burma. At his request, a talented member of the INA, Captain Ram Singh Thakur, composed the music for a number of patriotic songs, including the regimental march ‘Qadam Qadam Badaye Ja’ (1942). One verse read: ‘For Delhi’ you yell Hold your banner high Plant it on the Red Fort And let it fly eternally.216 Thakur also composed the tune for ‘Sub Suk Chain’ (1943), the national anthem of Bose’s Provisional Government of Free India (Azad Hind).217 Western music was also popular with the INA troops, most of which originally hailed from British colonies. Even the Japanese soldiers in Burma sang popular English, German and Italian songs, some of which were learned from Allied POWs.218 However, Japan had its own rich musical traditions, which included military marching songs.219 Some of the latter were picked up and given a fresh treatment by members of Burma’s fledgling nationalist army.220 According to Aung San Suu Kyi, whose father commanded that army, they included such works as ‘Infantry’s Tune’ and ‘March For My Lovely Horse’. The latter included the memorable lines: How long ago is it since I left my country Prepared to die together with this horse? Old horse, are you feeling sleepy? The reins I hold are as a vein that Links your blood to mine.221 Many of these works remain popular to this day. Japanese soldiers also taught other kinds of songs to the Burmese children they encountered during the war.222 As the Burmese became disillusioned with Japan’s oppressive rule, and a secret resistance movement led by nationalist leader Aung San gathered strength in 1943 and 1944, songs began to circulate that described the Japanese occupation forces in pejorative terms. Drawing on the text of a subversive leaflet, one work referred to the Japanese as Maung Pu (‘Mr Dwarf’) and said that he would have to leave Burma shortly.223 In 1941 and 1942 many Burmese musicians fled to India, where a number achieved prominence. One was Reuben Solomon, leader of The Jive Boys.

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Two other members of the band were self-taught guitarists Cedric West and ‘Ike’ Isaacs. Solomon and West played for some years with American jazz pianist Teddy Weatherford and his band at Calcutta’s Grand Hotel. After Weatherford’s death from cholera in April 1945 several members of his band joined the Jive Boys, who went on to become popular throughout India.224 Their repertoire consisted mainly of European favourites and cover versions of songs taken from popular movies of the period. Between January 1943 and April 1944 they recorded about 24 tracks for Columbia Records, including ‘Hello Frisco’ (1915), ‘Moonlight Becomes You’ (1942), ‘Constantly’ (1942), ‘You’ll Never Know’ (1943), ‘I Dug a Ditch’ (1943) and ‘Shoo Shoo Baby’ (1943).225 Teddy Weatherford’s band also made a number of broadcasts for the US Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS). The AFRS operated an India-Burma Network. The first AM station was established in Delhi in March 1944 and before the war ended it had expanded to 16 stations. They operated independently, so it was a network in name only, but occasionally stations coordinated the broadcast of pre-recorded programs. As the Allied forces retook northern Burma in 1945, the AFRS and US Air Force set up stations at Shinbwiyang, Myitkyina and Bhamo, all on the Ledo Road to China.226 The Myitkyina station’s call sign was ‘Halfway House’, and the Bhamo station was known as ‘Wings Over The Orient’. During a highly successful concert tour of India and Burma with the United Service Organisations (USO) in 1944, the opera singer Lily Pons visited the Bhamo station, where she sang ‘Ave Maria’ (1853) and ‘Estrellita’ (1912) to the troops.227 According to a poll taken around that time, the music most favoured by the AFRS’s listeners were ‘sweet popular’, dance, swing and ‘hot jive’, all scoring around 80 points out of 100. Much further down the list was religious music (21 points), concert and classical music (15 points), and Country and Western music (11 points).228 Not content with radio broadcasts and the occasional touring artist, US units in Burma also made their own music, often displaying a remarkable ability for improvisation. This was particularly the case among AfricanAmerican soldiers, whose morale and resources were rarely accorded the same priority as that of white members of the armed forces. For example, in 1944 a number of articles in the army-run CBI Roundup: hailed the ingenuity of soldiers who built guitars out of cargo crates and aluminium scrap, or described the sweet rhythms of an a capella group, named Four Notes in Harmony, that once serenaded [General] Stilwell with Hawaiian folk tunes.229 According to one story, African-American soldiers working on the Ledo Road established a ‘juke joint’ named the Bamboo Inn. It had an in-house band that specialised in an ‘allegro version’ of the popular 1942 song by Frank Loesser called ‘Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition’.230

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It is not known if it ever performed inside Burma, but another American group toured military bases in India staging a fast-moving, two-act musical comedy for troops in the CBI Theatre. It was entitled ‘Hump Happy’, after the name given to the section of the Himalaya mountains between India and China routinely traversed by US Air Transport Command, ferrying munitions and other supplies to the Nationalist Chinese forces. The show began as an improvised series of acts staged one night at an Assam air base, but made such an impression on a visiting general that it was given a quick polish and sent on tour. Several of the 12 enlisted men in the cast had experience as professional musicians back in the US. According to Yank magazine, ‘the whole show, with its latrine lyrics and gents-room jokes, makes a Minsky burlesque look like a Legion of Decency selection. But it’s just what the doctor ordered for the entertainment-starved Yanks in the CBI’.231 As suggested by the AFRS poll, the most popular musical works in India and Burma at the time tended to be standards from ‘back home’, intended to distract the troops and others from the hardships of war and boost their morale. However, the war years also saw the creation of a few show tunes, which referred specifically to Burma. For example, in the Hollywood movie If I Had My Way (1940), Bing Crosby and Gloria Jean sang a song entitled ‘Meet the Sun Half Way’. It contained the verse: Get into the tub And as you begin to scrub and rub Give out with your version of ‘The Road to Mandalay’ Don’t ever expect the bright side served up to you on a tray, Get out, get out, and meet the sun half-way!232 Another song that appeared in 1940 was ‘And You’ll Be Home’, by Johnny Burke and Jimmy Van Heusen. It included the lines ‘Have you ever been to Mandalay, / Or Cairo on a market day?’233 In 1942, Decca’s US branch released a 78 rpm disc of an instrumental foxtrot entitled ‘A Burmese Ballet’. This lively dance number was composed and arranged by Sid Phillips, and was played by the prolific and enormously popular British combination of Bert Ambrose and his orchestra.234 While there was some attempt to convey an Oriental mood, it is difficult to discern any authentically Burmese sounds coming from the band’s large brass and wind sections.235 Phillips was a prolific songwriter, but it is not known how he came to choose a Burmese theme for this number, which was recorded in London in 1939, well before the war in Burma began. Also in 1942, Karl King wrote a march entitled ‘Burma Patrol’. Not surprisingly, given King’s early career as a circus composer and bandmaster, it became popular with brass bands and circus orchestras during and after the war.236 The following year, Abe Lyman and his California Orchestra recorded a swing number entitled ‘Burma Bomber’, with guitarist William (‘Billy’) Bauer. While the tune is usually credited to Lyman, who played it on his weekly radio show in 1943, the copyright was claimed by Bauer, who backdated it to 1942.237

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As the war progressed, Burma occasionally featured in other productions. One was ‘Burma Bound!’ (1945), written and composed by Johnny Uphill. Played by The Harmoniers, it was billed as ‘the 14th Army’s own song’ and was popular with soldiers on leave in India, at bars such as the famously named ‘Nip Inn’ in Calcutta.238 Clearly influenced by American jive music, it featured an upbeat melody and rather cosmopolitan lyrics: Burma bound, never had a furlough, Burma bound! Ev’ry man a hero, Ram-ram, hep-hep, salaam Bully beef and biscuits, salmon and jam, Tom-toms beating eight to the bar, Soldiers heading for the bazaar, Shouting Hey Joe! Kitna Pice, Why don’t you bounce me brother With a bowl of rice, Burma bound!239 Kitna pice was the Urdu-based expression used by foreigners in India at the time to ask for the price of something. Also in 1945, the British team of Nat Temple and Ray Terry jointly composed the tune ‘Burma Road’ (1945).240 While initially scored for the piano, this ‘Descriptive Composition’ was later given the ‘big band’ treatment by Temple and his Club Royal Orchestra. In April 1945, it was recorded on a 78 rpm disc by Decca. Described in his 2008 obituary as ‘the closest to being the British Benny Goodman’, Temple was in the Grenadier Guards for most of the war, playing in service bands.241 He served mainly in Italy and North Africa, however, and was never posted to Burma. The same year, the American bandleader Roy Milton, later known as ‘the grandfather of R&B’, released ‘Burma Road Blues’ (1945) on Hamp-Tone records.242 It was initially divided into two parts so that it could be issued on both sides of a 78 rpm disc, but was later released as a single work. According to one critic: The resulting seamless six-minute performance is a sobering testimonial describing a soldier’s plight in the Pacific during World War II. Singing lyrics apparently written by Lionel Hampton, Milton describes leaving San Francisco when ‘everything was in bloom’, landing in Australia, preparing for armed conflict in the Philippines, and ending up in Burma where the sky appeared to be on fire.243 After the war, jazz master Lionel Hampton stated that he had released Milton’s work on his new record label ‘as a tribute to his many friends and their comrades who were stationed along the historic road, blazing the trail for Uncle Sam’.244 In 1946, Billboard magazine was more prosaic, describing the work simply as ‘an engaging blues shouter’ that had already become dated.245

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The registers of the US Library of Congress Copyright Office for the years 1942–1945 list several other musical compositions, which refer to Burma. They include a song by Al Berkman and John Burton entitled ‘Air Raid Over Burma’ (1942).246 There was also ‘Burma Road’, with music by Rie Kreger; ‘Bombers Over Burma’ by Bob Carleton; ‘Burma Girl’, with music composed by Porter Burnett; ‘I’m Dreaming of Burma Road’, with music and words by H.A. Campbell; ‘Burma Flyer’, with music by E.V. Bonnemere; and ‘Burma Bounce’ by Frankie Masters and Al Hecker. Two songs registered in 1944 were called ‘Irma from Burma’.247 Few of these works, however, appear to have been formally published. There were probably other compositions of this nature produced in the US and elsewhere, but they have left little trace. Needless to say, their impact on popular culture was minimal, but the titles of those still on the public record reflect the themes that were uppermost in people’s minds at the time.248

Notes 1. A notable exception is Ian Woodfield, Music of the Raj: A Social and Economic History of Music in Late Eighteenth Century Anglo-Indian Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). See also Raymond Head, ‘Corelli in Calcutta: Colonial Music-Making in India during the 17th and 18th Centuries’, Early Music, Vol. 13, No. 4, November 1985, pp. 548–53. 2. See, however, Melford Spiro, Buddhism and Society: A Great Tradition and its Burmese Vicissitudes (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), p. 434. 3. According to the 1931 census, there were 30,851 Europeans and Eurasians in Burma, of whom 7,819 had been born in Europe, the UK, Australasia and North America. Of that number, 6,426 had been born in the British Isles. About 5,000 of the Britons in Burma at the time were in the army, the vast majority below commissioned officer level. The same year, Rangoon had a total population of 400,415. Of this number, only 4,426 were Europeans, made up of 2,895 males and 1,531 females. See R.H. Taylor, The Relationship Between Burmese Social Classes and British-Indian Policy on the Behaviour of the Burmese Political Elite, 1937–1942, unpublished PhD thesis, Cornell University, 1974, p. 21; and Census of India, 1931, Volume XI, Burma: Part 1 – Report (Rangoon: Office of the Superintendent, Government Printing and Stationery, Burma, 1933), pp. 52–3. Also useful is George Appleton, Burma: The War and After (London: Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, 1946), at http://anglicanhistory.org/ asia/burma/appleton1946/ 4. In the 1890s, some 60 per cent of Other Ranks in the British Army were illiterate or barely literate. Of the remainder, the educational standard was ‘elementary at best’. E.M. Spiers, The Late Victorian Army, 1868–1902 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992), pp. 144–5. 5. A good sense of expatriate life in Burma during the later colonial period can be gained from Maurice Collis’s memoirs, in particular Trials in Burma (London: Faber and Faber, 1938) and Into Hidden Burma: An Autobiography (London: Faber and Faber, 1953). See also Hyam, Empire and Sexuality, p.  158; Ballhatchet, Race, Sex and Class under the Raj, pp. 144–59; and Gilmour, The Ruling Caste, pp. 285–7.

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6. Woodfield, Music of the Raj, p. 145. 7. See, for example, Marshall, Four Years in Burmah, pp. 18–19. 8. Bradley Shope, ‘The Public Consumption of Western Music in Colonial India: From Imperialist Exclusivity to Global Receptivity’, South Asia, Vol.  31, No. 2, August 2008, p. 271. See also Harmonium Music, at http://www. harmoniummusic.com.au/?page_id=1569 9. Fischer-Tine, Low and Licentious Europeans, p. 4. 10. Benita Parry, Delusions and Discoveries: Studies on India in the British Imagination, 1880–1930 (London: Allen Lane, 1972), p. 36. See also Beth Ellis, An English Girl’s First Impressions of Burma (London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kemp and Co., 1899), pp. 175–7. 11. Head, ‘Corelli in Calcutta’, p. 549. 12. In the 1840s, the London-based firm of John Broadwood and Sons was producing around 2,500 pianos a year. By this time, the number of musical instruments being imported into India was so large that it merited a separate entry in official trade summaries. See Herbert and Barlow, Music and the British Military in the Long Nineteenth Century, p. 263. See also Malcolm, Indian Pictures and Problems, p. 210. For a fictionalised account of one piano (a French Erard model) in Burma in the late 19th century, see Daniel Mason, The Piano Tuner (London: Picador, 2002). 13. Nathaniel Newnham-Davis, ‘Amateurs in foreign parts’, in W.G. Elliot (ed), Amateur Clubs and Actors (London: Edward Arnold, 1898), pp. 221 and 229. 14. Tobias Becker, ‘Entertaining the Empire: Theatrical Touring Companies and Amateur Dramatics in Colonial India’, The Historical Journal, Vol. 57, No. 3, September 2014, pp. 699–725. 15. Robert Baden-Powell, Indian Memories: Recollections of Soldiering, Sports etc. (London: Herbert Jenkins, 1915), pp. 93–7. 16. ‘The Geisha: The Story of a Tea House’, lyrics by Harry Greenbank, and music by Sidney Jones to a libretto by Owen Hall (1896). 17. It has been estimated that there were about 40,000 brass bands active across the empire during the Victorian era. Herbert and Sarkissian, ‘Victorian Bands and their Dissemination in the Colonies’, p. 168. See also Spiers, The Late Victorian Army, p. 144. 18. Herbert and Sarkissian, ‘Victorian Bands and their Dissemination in the Colonies’, p. 169. 19. Maidan is Urdu for a flat area or open field, but the term was widely applied by the British colonialists to parade grounds, parks and esplanades. 20. Herbert and Sarkissian, ‘Victorian Bands and their Dissemination in the Colonies’, p. 169. 21. See, for example, C.M. Enriquez, A Burmese Loneliness: A Tale of Travel in Burma, The Southern Shan States and Keng Tung (Calcutta: Thacker, Spink and Co., 1918), p. 89; and C.G.L. Arnot, A Collection of Highland Bagpipe Music, Comprising Marches, Strathspeys, Reels, arranged for Volunteer Bands in India (Rangoon?: The Author, 1918). Arnot was a Pipe Major in the Rangoon Volunteer Rifles. See also Barry Renfrew, Forgotten Regiments: Regular and Volunteer Units of the British Far East (Amersham: Terrier Press, 2009), pp. 189–216. 22. Spiers, The Late Victorian Army, p. 144. See also Gascoigne, Among Pagodas and Fair Ladies, p. 96. 23. Shope, ‘The Public Consumption of Western Music in Colonial India’, pp. 275–6.

190 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30.

31. 32.

33. 34.

35.

36. 37.

38.

39.

40.

Burma’s changing soundscape Marshall, Four Years in Burmah, Vol. 2, p. 15. Mills, A Strange War, p. 44. The regiment’s march was ‘Sprig of Shillelagh’. See, for example, Scott, The Singing Bourgeois. R.F. Cernea, Almost Englishmen: Baghdadi Jews in British Burma (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2007), p. 47. Head, ‘Corelli in Calcutta’, pp. 548–53. See also Cady, ‘Our Burma Experience of 1935–1938’, p. 149. Marshall, Four Years in Burma, Vol. 2, pp. 24–5. See also H.T. White, A Civil Servant in Burma (London: Edward Arnold, 1913), p. 22. It was unusual for Burmese to attend such functions. Naresh Fernandes, ‘Rangoon Rhapsody’, Taj Mahal Foxtrot, 13 October 2012, at http://www.tajmahalfoxtrot.com/?p=2202. See also Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper, Forgotten Armies: The Fall of British Asia, 1941–1945 (London: Allen Lane, 2004), p. 90. ‘Sammy, the Dashing Dragoon’, words by C.E. Grey and music by T.C. Sterndale Bennett (London: Reynolds and Co., 1914), cited in Government House: Songs, pp. 13–14. ‘Butler, Sir (Spencer) Harcourt (1869–1938)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, at http://www.oxforddnb.com/templates/article.jsp? articleid=32218&back=. In 1897, all of Burma was made a province of India, under a Lieutenant Governor. This position was elevated to Governor in 1923 when Burma was granted a limited level of self-government. See C.H. Rao (ed), The Indian Biographical Dictionary, 1915 (Madras: Pillar and Co., 1915), pp. xxvii–xxxvii. There were also clubs that catered to other sectors of the community, such as the Railway Institute and the Goa Club. Collis, Trials in Burma, p. 53. The Gymkhana Club opened in 1877 and the Pegu Club opened in 1882. The Boat Club was established around 1888. For the relative standing of these and other major clubs in Burma, see Maria Misra, Business, Race and Politics in British India, c.1850–1960 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 42. Orwell, Burmese Days, p. 58. See also Mrinalini Sinha, ‘Britishness, Clubbability, and the Colonial Public Sphere: The Genealogy of an Imperial Institution in Colonial India’, Journal of British Studies, Vol. 40, No. 4, October 2001, pp. 489–521. Ellis, An English Girl’s First Impressions of Burma, p. 89. For many years, the health (and other) risks to European women in Burma were considered so great that unaccompanied men were favoured for postings there. In the 1890s, serious thought was given to advising all British wives then living in Burma to leave. See Gilmour, The Ruling Caste, p. 285. When Beth Ellis visited Maymyo in 1896, women were not permitted in the club, but had to use a ‘hut’ in the garden. By the time that Geraldine Mitton visited Maymyo in 1907, however, women were given the ‘freedom of the club’. Ellis, An English Girl’s First Impressions of Burma, p. 90, and Mitton, A Bachelor Girl in Burma, p. 205. One such dance is described in Ellis, An English Girl’s First Impressions of Burma, p. 36. See also Murdoch, From Edinburgh to India and Burma, pp. 232–3; and Dorothy Black, ‘Burma: A Paradise for Women’, The Mercury (Hobart, Australia), 7 January 1921. ‘Clubs’, in Wright, Twentieth Century Impressions of Burma, p. 303.

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41. Allister Macmillan (ed), Seaports of India and Ceylon: Historical and Descriptive Commercial and Industrial Facts, Figures and Resources (London: W.H. and L. Collingridge, 1928), p. 386. 42. Mitton, A Bachelor Girl in Burma, p. 22. See also Joseph Dautremer, Burma Under British Rule, translated by George Scott (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1913), p. 167; and Emma Larkin, Secret Histories: Finding George Orwell in a Burmese Teashop (London: John Murray, 2004), p. 95. 43. L.A. Crozier, Mawchi: Mining, War and Insurgency in Burma (Brisbane: Centre for the Study of Australia–Asia Relations, Griffith University, 1994), pp. 5–6. 44. Sinha, ‘Britishness, Clubbability, and the Colonial Public Sphere’, p. 492. See also Wai Wai Myaing, A Journey in Time: Family Memoirs (Burma, 1914–1948) (New York: iUniverse, 2005), p. 8. 45. Wai Wai Myaing, A Journey in Time, p. 176. One historian has claimed that in the British Empire rank was more important than race, but this was probably true only for very senior figures in India. See David Cannadine, Ornamentalism: How the British Saw Their Empire (London: Penguin, 2001), pp. 123–4. 46. Sinha, ‘Britishness, Clubbability, and the Colonial Public Sphere’, p. 489. 47. Edwards, ‘Half-cast’, p. 282. 48. Orwell, Burmese Days, p. 101. 49. The Burma Turf Club had staged races since at least 1887, but horse racing entered a new phase with the creation of the Rangoon Turf Club at the turn of the century and the opening of Rangoon’s Kyaikkasan Racecourse in 1926. See S.A. Christopher, ‘Sport’, in Wright, Twentieth Century Impressions of Burma, pp. 273–4; and Pearn, A History of Rangoon, p. 265. 50. Another 300 could be accommodated standing. ‘Theatrical: News From The Far East’, The New York Clipper (New York, US), 24 March 1900. 51. Andreas Augustin, The Strand, Yangon (Vienna: The Most Famous Hotels of the World, 2013), pp. 40–1. 52. Interview with The Strand Hotel’s Hospitality Manager, Rangoon, March 2015. 53. Maurizio Peleggi, ‘The Social and Material Life of Colonial Hotels: Comfort Zones as Contact Zones in British Colombo and Singapore, ca. 1870–1930’, Journal of Social History, Vol. 46, No. 1, Fall 2012, p. 139. 54. Peleggi, ‘The Social and Material Life of Colonial Hotels’, p. 125. 55. Stephane Dorin, ‘Jazz and Race in Colonial India: The role of Anglo-Indian musicians in the diffusion of jazz in Calcutta’, Jazz Research Journal, Vol. 4, No. 2, 2010, p. 127. 56. Augustin, The Strand, Yangon, pp. 68–9. 57. Gerald D’Souza, ‘Music in a time of war’, Himal South Asian, December 2011, at http://old.himalmag.com/component/content/article/4805-music-in-a-timeof-war.html. 58. D.M. Seekins, State and Society in Modern Rangoon (London: Routledge, 2011), p. 34. 59. Shope, ‘The Public Consumption of Western Music in Colonial India’, p. 271. 60. Shope, ‘The Public Consumption of Western Music in Colonial India’, p. 271. See also Bradley Shope, ‘“They Treat Us White Folks Fine”’, South Asian Popular Culture, Vol. 5, No. 2, October 2007, pp. 97–116. 61. D.I. Steinberg, ‘Tread With Caution in Highly Sensitive Burma’, YaleGlobal Online, 13 February 2014, at http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/tread-cautionhighly-sensitive-burma.

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62. David Donnison, Last of the Guardians: A Story of Burma, Britain and a Family (Newtown: Superscript, 2005), p. 220. 63. Eric Menezes, ‘The Story Beyond the Headlines’, in Yvonne Vaz Ezdani (ed), Songs of the Survivors (Goa: Goa 1556, 2007), p. 254. 64. ‘Obituary: Vernon Donnison’, The Independent (London, UK), 13 September 2014, at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-vernon-donnison1458731.html 65. Donnison, Last of the Guardians, pp. 220–1. 66. Keck, ‘Picturesque Burma’, p. 388. See also Mitton, A Bachelor Girl in Burma, p. 3. 67. One of the posters produced to publicise the British Empire Exhibition was of two stylised Burmese figures in full costume performing a traditional dance. 68. ‘History Replete with Genius Mistakes’, Sunday Times (Sydney, Australia), 7 March 1926. 69. J.S. Childers, Bangkok to Bali, Burma and Bombay: The Mysteries of the Oriental Souls (Pakthongchai: ThaiSunset Publications, 2010), pp. 157–8. 70. ‘“Canoe to Mandalay”’, Western Mail (Perth, Australia), 18 January 1940. See also R. Raven-Hart, Canoe to Mandalay (London: The Book Club, 1939), especially pp. 199–201. 71. Philip Ziegler (ed), The Diaries of Lord Louis Mountbatten: 1920–1922, Tours With the Prince of Wales (London: Collins, 1987), p. 230; and The Prince of Wales’ Eastern Book (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1922), ch. 1. 72. The Diaries of Lord Louis Mountbatten: 1920–1922, p. 233. 73. Orwell, Burmese Days; Collis, Trials in Burma; Huxley, Jesting Pilate; W.S. Maugham, The Gentleman in the Parlour: A Record of a Journey from Rangoon to Haiphong (London: William Heinemann, 1930); and H.G. Wells, Travels of a Republican Radical in Search of Hot Water (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1939), pp. 82–8. 74. Campbell Henderson, ‘Touring the Orient’, in Lionel Carson (ed), The Stage Year Book 1920 (London: ‘The Stage’ Offices, 1920), p. 87. 75. Even then, the financial returns were sometimes quite modest. See T.C. Davis, The Economics of the British Stage, 1800–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 351. 76. Misquith and Company was founded in India in 1865. The firm opened a branch in Rangoon in 1889 and by 1909 also had premises in Mandalay and Maymyo. It achieved a measure of fame through the construction of pianos specially adapted to Burma’s hot and humid climate. Wright (ed), Twentieth Century Impressions of Burma, p. 351. 77. Henderson, ‘Touring the Orient’, p. 88. 78. ‘Our Miss Gibbs’, lyrics by Adrian Ross and Percy Greenbank, with music by Ivan Caryll and Lionel Monckton (1909). Other sources claim that it ran for 636 performances. It also had a short Broadway run in 1910. 79. Becker, ‘Entertaining the Empire’, p. 702. 80. Henderson, ‘Touring the Orient’, p. 87. 81. ‘The Circus in the Orient’, The New York Clipper (New York, US), 6 October 1900. According to one theatrical agent’s estimate, at the turn of the century there were only 4,500 Europeans in Rangoon and 600 in Moulmein. In Mandalay there were 900 civilians and 1800 British soldiers. ‘Theatrical: News From The Far East’.

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82. Scott, The Burman, pp. 286–7. 83. The Parsis, who practised the pre-Islamic Zoroastrian religion of Persia, were the most Westernised Indian minority at the time. They studied classical music, enjoyed ballroom dancing and formed theatrical companies. See M.I. Cohen, ‘On the Origin of the Komedie Stamboel: Popular Culture, Colonial Society and the Parsi Theatre Movement’, Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia, Vol. 157, No. 2, 2001, pp. 315–9. 84. Gushee, Pioneers of Jazz, p. 237. See also Augustin, The Strand, Yangon, p. 79. 85. ‘A Great Violinist’, The Rangoon Gazette (Rangoon, Burma), 10 March 1927. 86. Peter Dawson, Fifty Years of Song (London: Hutchinson, 1951), pp. 105–6. Curiously, no one (including Dawson himself, in his autobiography) has given precise dates for this visit. 87. Cited in Michel Peissel, Tiger for Breakfast: The Story of Boris of Kathmandu (New York: Dutton and Co., 1966), p. 98. 88. Richards, Imperialism and Music, p. 437. 89. ‘“There’s a Burma Girl A-Settin” – And A Dancin: Roshanara in Burmese Attitudes and Dresses’, The Illustrated London News: Supplement (London, UK), 11 August 1915, pp. 6–7, at http://www.illustratedfirstworldwar. com/item/theres-a-burma-girl-a-settin-and-a-dancin-roshanara-in-burmesebpc000005_19150811_02_0006/. In this story, Roshanara is compared to the ‘Burma girl’ in Kipling’s poem ‘Mandalay’, which is quoted at length. 90. See ‘Ruth St Denis in a Burmese solo dance’, photo by Nickolas Muray (1923), New York Public Library, at https://www.flickr.com/photos/nypl/3110864852/. It is possible that this photo has been labelled 1923 by mistake. A date after the company’s Asian tour is more likely. However, a girl from Burma had been included in ‘Three Ladies of the East’, a dance choreographed by St Denis in 1918. See C.L. Schlundt, The Professional Appearances of Ruth St Denis and Ted Shawn: A Chronology and an Index of Dances, 1906–1932 (New York: New York Public Library, 1962), p. 31. 91. Jane Sherman, Denishawn: The Enduring Influence (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1983), p. 71. 92. Kenneth Sein and J.A. Withey, The Great Po Sein: A Chronicle of the Burmese Theatre (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1965), p. 92. 93. A.W. Wentink, ‘“from the orient … oceans of love, Doris”: The Denishawn tour of the orient as seen through the letters of Doris Humphrey’, Dance Chronicle, Vol. 1, No. 1, 1977, p. 36. See also Jane Sherman, Soaring: The Diary and Letters of a Denishawn Dancer in the Far East, 1925–26 (Middletown: Wesleyan University Press, 1976), pp. 79–93. 94. This dance was choreographed by Ruth St Denis and Doris Humphrey to music by Clifford Vaughan. See ‘A Burmese Yein Pwe’, in Ruth St. Denis, Ted Shawn and their Denishawn Dancers: Souvenir Program: In the Orient, from August 7th 1925 to November 26th 1926, p. 21, at http://oceanpark.us/1925test. htm#DenishawnSouvenirProgram. The dance was only ever performed in 1926 and 1927. 95. See, for example, J.A. Meglin, ‘Choreographing Identities beyond Boundaries: La Guiablesse and Ruth Page’s Excursions into World Dance (1926–1934)’, Dance Chronicle, Vol. 30, 2007, pp. 439–69. 96. Leof, ‘Stokowski to Travel to Orient to Obtain Eastern Music Ideas’. 97. ‘Theatrical: News From The Far East’.

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98. N.A. Englehart, ‘Liberal Leviathan or Imperial Outpost? J.S. Furnivall on Colonial Rule in Burma’, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 45, No. 4, 2011, p. 761. 99. Aye Kyaw, The Voice of Young Burma, Southeast Asia Program Series No. 12 (Ithaca: Cornell University), p. 52. 100. Leslie Glass, The Changing of Kings: Memories of Burma 1934–1949 (London: Peter Owen, 1985), pp. 14 and 122. See also M.D. Leigh, The Evacuation of Civilians from Burma: Analysing the 1942 Colonial Disaster (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2014), p. 7. 101. R.D. Crow, ‘Pre-war Rangoon’, British India Steam Navigation Company Ltd, at http://www.merchantnavyofficers.com/richard4.html 102. Hyam, Empire and Sexuality, p. 108. 103. Charney, A History of Modern Burma, pp. 26–8. See also Hyam, Empire and Sexuality, p. 108. 104. Frank Richards, Old Soldier Sahib (New York: Harrison Smith and Robert Haas, 1936), pp. 277–8. 105. See, for example, Mills, A Strange War, pp. 43–4. 106. Public Prostitution in Rangoon, p. 5. 107. Orwell, Burmese Days, p. 55. 108. Orwell, Burmese Days, p. 57. 109. Cited in Jon Latimer, Burma: The Forgotten War (London: John Murray, 2004), p. 42. See also Mills, A Strange War, pp. 38–9. 110. Rudyard Kipling, ‘Gunga Din’ (1892), in Rudyard Kipling’s Verse: Definitive Edition, pp. 406–8. 111. Dorin, ‘Jazz and Race in Colonial India’, p. 128. 112. Wright, Twentieth Century Impressions of Burma, p. 260. These units included (at various times) the Rangoon Volunteer Rifles, the Akyab Volunteers, the Moulmein Volunteer Rifles, the Moulmein Volunteer Artillery, the Upper Burma Volunteer Rifles, the Rangoon Port Defence Volunteers and the Burma Railway Volunteers. Most probably had drummers and buglers as part of their normal strength, but it appears that there was only one full band, based in Rangoon. 113. Naresh Fernandes, ‘Gymkhana Jive’, Taj Mahal Foxtrot, 27 October 2012, at http://www.tajmahalfoxtrot.com/?p=2212. See also Naresh Fernandes, ‘Reuben Solomon’s Hot Jam’, Taj Mahal Foxtrot, 22 September 2012, at http://www.tajmahalfoxtrot.com/?p=2170 114. In 1913, the Eurasian population of Burma was about 6,000. Of this number, about half lived in Rangoon. Koop, The Eurasian Population in Burma, pp. 15 and 23. 115. See, for example, John and Philomena Fernandes, ‘And Yet, The Music Did Not Die’, in Ezdani, Songs of the Survivors, p. 111; and Leo Rego, ‘A Lasting Legacy’, in Ezdani, Songs of the Survivors, p. 209. 116. Banfield, ‘Towards a History of Music in the British Empire’, in Darian-Smith, Grimshaw and Macintyre, Britishness Abroad, p. 76. 117. Dorin, ‘Jazz and Race in Colonial India’, p. 129. See also D’Souza, ‘Music in a time of war’. 118. Douglas, Music in Mainland Southeast Asia, p. 148. 119. Gerald D’Souza, ‘Living with the Japanese’, in Ezdani, Songs of the Survivors, p. 124. 120. Douglas, Music in Mainland Southeast Asia, pp. 145–6.

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121. Douglas, Music in Mainland Southeast Asia, pp. 145–6. See also Aung Zaw, ‘Celluloid disillusions’, The Irrawaddy, March 2004, at http://www2. irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=924 122. See, for example, Johnson, On the Back Road to Mandalay, pp. 162–3. 123. Shepherd, et al., Continuum Encyclopaedia of Popular Music of the World, Vol. 1, p. 499. 124. By 1910, the Gramophone Company of London had produced over 4,000 recordings, which were being marketed throughout the Empire. Peter Manuel, ‘Popular Music in India: 1901–86’, Popular Music, Vol. 7, No. 2, May 1988, p. 172. 125. See, for example, ‘Rangoon’, with vocals (in Urdu) by Habloo Quawal, Columbia Records RE190 (date unknown, but probably late 1920s). 126. Pekka Gronow, ‘The Record Industry Comes to the Orient’, Ethnomusicology, Vol. 25, No. 2, May 1981, pp. 184–251. 127. Maugham, The Gentleman in the Parlour, p. 7. 128. Gronow, ‘The Record Industry Comes to the Orient’, pp. 184–251. 129. Douglas, Music in Mainland Southeast Asia, p. 150. 130. Khin Zaw, ‘Burmese Music: A Partnership in Melodic Patterns’, in Perspective of Burma: An ‘Atlantic Monthly’ Supplement, 1 February 1958, p. 69. 131. Orwell, Burmese Days, pp. 97–101. 132. C.T. Paske, Myamma: A Retrospect of Life and Travel in Lower Burmah, edited by F.G. Aflalo (London: W.H. Allen and Co., 1893), p. 62. 133. Douglas, ‘Myanmar (Burma)’, in Shepherd, Encyclopaedia of Popular Music of the World, Vol. 4, p. 197. 134. Keeler, ‘Burma’, p. 219. 135. Jonathan Webster, ‘Solitude and Sandaya: The Strange History of Pianos in Burma’, The Appendix, Vol. 1, No. 3, July 2013, at http://theappendix.net/ issues/2013/7/solitude-and-sandaya-the-strange-history-of-pianos-in-burma. See also Kit Young, ‘The Strange, The Familiar: Foreign Musical Instruments in Myanmar/Burma’, Asia Society, at http://asiasociety.org/arts/performing-arts/ music/strange-familiar-foreign-musical-instruments-myanmarburma. 136. Douglas, ‘Myanmar (Burma)’, in Shepherd, Encyclopaedia of Popular Music of the World, Vol. 4, pp. 196–7. 137. Khin Zaw, Burmese Culture: General and Particular (Rangoon: Printing and Publishing Corporation, 1981), p. 69; and Khin Zaw, Burmese Music: A Preliminary Enquiry (Rangoon: Burma Research Society, 1941), p. 13. 138. Scott, The Burman, p. 319. 139. Wai Wai Myaing, A Journey in Time, p. 103. 140. Scott, The Burman, p. 319. 141. Mitton, A Bachelor Girl in Burma, p. 214. See also ‘Daisy Bell’, words and music by Harry Dacre (New York: T.B. Harms and Co., 1892). 142. P.A. Mariano, ‘Note on Burmese Music’, in Ferrars and Ferrars, Burma, p. 211. 143. Khin Zaw, ‘Burmese Music’, p. 69. 144. Edmonds, Peacocks and Pagodas, p. 17–18. 145. Gavin Douglas, ‘Mediated Tradition: The Globalization of Burmese Music’, in Timothy Rice (ed), Ethnomusicological Encounters with Music and Musicians (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), p. 182. 146. All US forces in China, Burma and India were grouped in one Command, referred to as the ‘CBI Theatre’. This ‘umbrella’ term has since gained popular

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147. 148. 149. 150. 151. 152. 153. 154.

155. 156. 157. 158.

159. 160. 161. 162.

163. 164. 165.

Burma’s changing soundscape currency. However, it was not one of the recognised theatres of the war, since it extended geographically across the boundaries of India Command, and of the South-East Asia and China theatres. See Mountbatten of Burma, Report to the Combined Chiefs of Staff by the Supreme Allied Commander, South-East Asia, 1943–1945 (New Delhi: The English Book Store, 1960), p. 7. William Pennington, Pick up Your Parrots and Monkeys: The Life of a Boy Soldier in India (London: Cassell, 2003), pp. 105–6. Pennington, Pick up Your Parrots and Monkeys, p. 172. Pennington, Pick up Your Parrots and Monkeys, pp. 172–3. George Orwell, ‘The Proletarian Writer’, in Orwell and Angus (eds), The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, Volume 2, p. 59. Pennington, Pick up Your Parrots and Monkeys, p. 173. ‘Bombay Bibley’, in Martin Page (ed), Kiss Me Goodnight, Sergeant Major: The Songs and Ballads of World War II (London: Hart-Davis, 1973), p. 170. G.M. Fraser, Quartered Safe Out Here: A Recollection of the War in Burma (London: Harvill, 1992), pp. 54–5. Fraser, Quartered Safe Out Here, p. 55. See also ‘One-Eyed Riley’, Hymns and Arias (well ok – Dirty Ditties, Rugby Songs and Chants), at http://www.odps. org/glossword/index.php?a=term&d=5&t=137; and ‘Three German Officers’, Hymns and Arias (well ok – Dirty Ditties, Rugby Songs and Chants), at http://www.odps.org/glossword/index.php?a=term&d=5&t=191. For ‘Samuel Hall’, see http://www.horntip.com/html/songs_sorted_by_name/with_music/s/ samuel_hall.htm. Captain William Kidd lived from 1645 to 1701. Fraser, Quartered Safe Out Here, p. 55. Fraser, Quartered Safe Out Here, pp. 54–5. Ed Cray, The Erotic Muse: American Bawdy Songs (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992), pp. 387–91. ‘Bless ’Em All’, words by Jimmy Hughes, Frank Lake and Al Stilman (London: Keith Prowse, 1940). See also Roy Palmer, ‘What a Lovely War!’: British Soldiers’ Songs from the Boer War to the Present Day (London: Michael Joseph, 1990), p. 142. This song was freely adapted by artists during the war and was often published with different credits. It was also the subject of numerous variations made by servicemen in the field. For the original lyrics, see Cleveland, ‘Soldiers’ Songs: The Folklore of the Powerless’; and Cray, The Erotic Muse, pp. 387–91. J.B. Jones, The Songs That Fought the War: Popular Music and the Home Front, 1939–1945 (Lebanon: Brandeis University Press, 2006), p. 111. Cited in Latimer, Burma: The Forgotten War, p. 186. Anonymous, ‘White Feather’, in Page, Kiss Me Goodnight, Sergeant Major, p.  122. Lieutenant Colonel Spedding commanded a battalion of the Border Regiment in Burma during the war. See Palmer, ‘What a Lovely War!’, pp. 192–3. Anonymous, ‘Bury Me Out In The Jungle’, in Page, Kiss Me Goodnight, Sergeant Major, p. 169. See also Palmer, ‘What a Lovely War!’, p. 183. Anonymous, ‘Down By Mandalay’, in Page, Kiss Me Goodnight, Sergeant Major, p. 168. The Cecil (Simla) and Maiden’s (Delhi) were luxury hotels frequented by senior officers. See ‘Doing Our Bit For The War (A British Point of View on

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166. 167. 168.

169. 170. 171. 172.

173. 174.

175. 176. 177. 178.

179.

180. 181. 182.

197

CBI)’, Ex-CBI Roundup, Vol. 8, No. 4, April 1954, p. 26, at http://www.ex-cbiroundup.com/documents/1954_april.pdf David Rooney, Burma Victory: Imphal, Kohima and the Chindit Issue, March 1944 to May 1945 (London: Arms and Armour, 1992), p. 175. Kaushik Roy, ‘Discipline and Morale of the African, British and Indian Army Units in Burma and India During World War II: July 1943 to August 1945’, Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 44, No. 6, November 2010, pp. 1271–80. See, for example, Clare Boothe, ‘US General Stilwell Commands Chinese on Burma Front’, Life, 27 April 1942, pp. 15–16. Also of relevance is John Brophy and Eric Partridge, The Long Trail: Soldiers’ Songs and Slang, 1914–18 (London: Sphere, 1969). Anthony Green, ‘For the Boys Beyond the Blue: Bengal Services Entertainment Association, 1942–1944’, Popular Entertainment Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1, 2014, p. 113. Andy Merriman, Greasepaint and Cordite: How ENSA Entertained the Troops During World War II (London: Aurum Press, 2013), p. 370. Vera Lynn, Vocal Refrain: An Autobiography (London: W.H. Allen, 1975), pp. 109–22. See also Merriman, Greasepaint and Cordite, p. 370. ‘Noel Coward in Burma’, The Examiner (Launceston, Australia), 13 June 1944. For various reasons, Coward’s tour was less successful than Vera Lynn’s. See Frank McLynn, The Burma Campaign: Disaster into Triumph, 1942–45 (London: The Bodley Head, 2010), pp. 362–3; and Merriman, Greasepaint and Cordite, pp. 364–5. ‘I Wonder What Happened to Him’, words and music by Noel Coward (1944). A Billy Bennett monologue of ‘Mandalay’ was included on a 1975 EMI LP record based on the popular BBC TV comedy series ‘It Ain’t Half Hot Mum’, which portrayed the activities of a Royal Artillery Concert Party in India and Burma during the Second World War. ‘Frolik’, ‘Song of the Chindits’, SEAC, 4 June 1944, cited in Roy Humphries, To Stop a Rising Sun: Reminiscences of Wartime in India and Burma (Thrupp: Sutton Publishing, 1996), pp. 33–4. See ‘John Augustus Hollington’, at http://www.myinterwebs.net/johnhollington Fraser, Quartered Safe Out Here, p. 138; and Pennington, Pick up Your Parrots and Monkeys, p. 190. ‘South of the Border (Down Mexico Way)’, words and music by Jimmy Kennedy and Michael Carr (New York: Shapiro, Bernstein and Co., 1939). The song was initially a hit for Shep Fields, with vocals by Hal Derwin, but is best known for Gene Autry’s rendition in the 1939 Republic film South of the Border. ‘South Of Meiktila’, words by Tommy Wren (1945), in Page, ‘Kiss Me Goodnight, Sergeant Major’, p. 170. See also Fraser, Quartered Safe Out Here, pp. 55 and 143. While given in anthologies as Pyawbe, the usual English language rendition of the town’s name is Pyawbwe. Cited in W.R. Peers and Dean Brelis, Behind the Burma Road (London: Robert Hale Ltd, 1964), p. 111. Cray, The Erotic Muse, p. 411. See, for example, Shelford Bidwell, The Chindit War: The Campaign in Burma, 1944 (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1979), p. 117.

198

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183. See, for example, Enriquez, A Burmese Loneliness, p. 68; and Orwell, Burmese Days, p. 34. 184. William Slim, Defeat Into Victory (London: Cassell and Co., 1956), p. 470. See also Instrument of War: Part 2: ‘Call to the Blood’, Highland Classics DVD (UK: Westminster King Productions, 2010). 185. Renfrew, Forgotten Regiments, pp. 189–207. 186. The Cabar Feidh Collection: Pipe Music of the Queen’s Own Highlanders (Seaforth and Camerons) (London: Paterson’s Publications, 2004), p. 61. 187. Malcolm, The Piper in Peace and War, p. 42. 188. ‘Over the Chindwin’, in The Cabar Feidh Collection, p. 130. 189. ‘9th Battalion Gordon Highlanders Crossing the Irrawaddy’, in The Cabar Feidh Collection, pp. 128–9. 190. ‘The Minden Dandies’, in Palmer, ‘What a Lovely War!’, p. 194. 191. Rudyard Kipling, ‘The Men That Fought at Minden’ (1895), in Kipling, Rudyard Kipling’s Verse: Definitive Edition, pp. 438–40. 192. Fraser, Quartered Safe Out Here, p. 28. 193. Pennington, Pick up Your Parrots and Monkeys, p. 190. 194. ‘Boots’, words by Rudyard Kipling, music by J.P. McCall (Sydney: Chappell and Co., 1928), sung by Peter Dawson, HMV Records, 1930. See also Fraser, Quartered Safe Out Here, p. 56. 195. Even in this work on Burma, Kipling was accused of having ‘badly scrambled its geography’. See Pocket Guide to Burma (Washington DC: War and Navy Departments, 1943), pp. 10–11. 196. See, for example, T.I. Goodman, ‘Men of the 14th Army are Well on the Road to Mandalay’, Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney, Australia), 7 March 1945. 197. Clare Boothe, ‘Burma Mission’ (Part I), Life, 15 June 1942, p. 100. Kipling was not a war correspondent. The town in Burma known for its rubies is Mogok, not Magok. Unlike Indian girls, the Burmese do not wear anklets. See also Clare Boothe, ‘Burma Mission’ (Part II), Life, 22 June 1942, pp. 77–84. 198. George H. Johnston, ‘This Wasn’t Kipling’s Road’, The Australasian (Melbourne, Australia), 5 May 1945. See also G.H. Johnston, Journey Through Tomorrow (Melbourne: F.W. Cheshire, 1947), p. 375. 199. ‘Mandalay’, Goulburn Evening Post (Goulburn, Australia), 21 March 1945. 200. Noel Wynyard, ‘Mandalay: Its Magic and Drama’, The Australasian (Melbourne, Australia), 17 March 1945. 201. John Prendergast, Prender’s Progress: A Soldier in India, 1931–1947 (London: Cassell, 1979), p. 229. 202. Cited in William Fowler, We Gave Our Today: Burma 1941–1945 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2009), p. 163. 203. See, for example, ‘Winston Churchill on Kipling: Empire’s Debt to the Poet’, The Argus (Melbourne, Australia), 7 December 1937; and Rudyard Kipling, ‘If’ (1910), in Kipling, Rudyard Kipling’s Verse: Definitive Edition, pp. 576–7. 204. Kipling, ‘A Nightmare of Names’ (1886), in Rutherford, Early Verse by Rudyard Kipling, pp. 347–8. 205. See, for example, R.S. La Forte and R.E. Marcello (eds), Building the Death Railway: The Ordeal of American POWs in Burma, 1942–1945 (Wilmington: Scholarly Resources Inc., 1993), p. 154; and L.G. Hall, The Blue Haze:

Burma’s changing soundscape

206.

207. 208. 209. 210. 211.

212. 213. 214.

215. 216. 217. 218. 219. 220. 221. 222. 223. 224.

199

Incorporating the History of ‘A’ Force, Groups 3 & 5, Burma-Thai Railway, 1942–1943 (Harbord: The Author, 1985), p. 255. S.A. Eldredge, Captive Audiences/Captive Performers: Music and Theatre as Strategies for Survival on the Thailand-Burma Railway, 1942–1945 (St Paul: Macalester College, 2014), Chapter 3, ‘“Jungle Shows” Burma’, at http:// digitalcommons.macalester.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1005&context= thdabooks, p. 89. Eldredge, Captive Audiences/Captive Performers, p. 82. Eldredge, Captive Audiences/Captive Performers, p. 92. This was a parody of the song ‘Hap, Hap, Happy Day’ (1939) with words by Sammy Timberg and Winston Sharples, and music by Al Neiburg. Eldredge, Captive Audiences/Captive Performers, Chapter 3, ‘“Jungle Shows” Burma’, at http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/thdabooks/19/ Lionel Hudson, The Rats of Rangoon (London: Leo Cooper, 1987), p. 82. Between 1928 and 1934, the Comedian Harmonists were one of the most successful musical groups in Europe. After three Jewish members of the group fled Germany, they recruited three more players and reformed as the Comedy Harmonists. Philip Stibbe, Return Via Rangoon: A Young Chindit Survives the Jungle and Japanese Captivity (London: Leo Cooper, 1994), p. 191. E.M. Law-Yone, ‘Dr. Ba Maw of Burma: An Appreciation’, in Ferguson, Contributions to Asian Studies, p. 5. ‘Nagani’ remains popular with the opposition movement today. See Aung San Suu Kyi, ‘The Peacock and the Dragon’, in Letters from Burma (London: Penguin Books, 1997), pp. 19–21. In 1948, ‘Kaba Ma Kyei’ was adopted as Burma’s national anthem. Nu, Burma Under the Japanese: Pictures and Portraits (London: Macmillan and Co., 1954), p. 20. ‘Qadam Qadam Badaye Ja’, written by Vanshidhar Shukla, with music by Ram Singh Thakur (1942). J.C. Lebra, The Indian National Army and Japan (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2008), p. 28. See, for example, Michio Takeyama, Harp of Burma (Tokyo: Tuttle, 1966). See also ‘Lesson of love’, Church Times, 15 October 2004, at http://www. agapeworldjp.org/news/pdfs/IMG_0002.pdf See, for example, Yuji Aida, Prisoner of the British: A Japanese Soldier’s Experiences in Burma (London: Cresset Press, 1966), p. 7; and Gerald D’Souza, ‘Living with the Japanese’, in Ezdani, Songs of the Survivors, pp. 132–3. M.P. Callahan, Making Enemies: War and State Building in Burma (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003), p. 39. See also ‘A Burmese marching song from WWII’, YouTube, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aynLE_tnR8 Aung San Suu Kyi, ‘Old Songs’, in Letters from Burma, pp. 91–3. See also D’Souza, ‘Music in a time of war’. Bayly and Harper, Forgotten Armies, p. 234. Ba Than, The Roots of the Revolution (Rangoon: Director of Information, 1962), p. 44. Naresh Fernandes, ‘Burmese Nights’, Taj Mahal Foxtrot, 21 April 2012, at http://www.tajmahalfoxtrot.com/?p=2202. See also Shope, ‘“They Treat Us White Folks Fine”’, p. 107.

200

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225. Naresh Fernandes, ‘Reuben Solomon and his Jive Boys’, Taj Mahal Foxtrot, at http://www.tajmahalfoxtrot.com/?page_id=2040. See also Shope, ‘“They Treat Us White Folks Fine”’, p. 113, note 49. 226. The Shinbwiyang station began broadcasting in August 1944, Myitkyina followed in December 1944 and Bhamo in February 1945. See George Gingell, ‘AFRS Outfits Go Silent Along “Road”’, Radio Heritage Foundation, at http:// www.radioheritage.net/Story234.asp. See also ‘AFRS China-Burma-India’, Radio Heritage Foundation at http://www.radioheritage.net/Story48.asp 227. Pons was accompanied by her husband, bandleader Andre Kostelanetz. See ‘Armed Forces’ Radio Stations Bring American Programs to I–B’, India–Burma Theater Roundup, 3 May 1945, at http://home.comcast.net/~cbi-theater-5/ roundup/roundup050345.html. While better funded, better organised and more professional in its approach, the USO was the American equivalent of ENSA. 228. Art Heenan, ‘Commercial Radio Plug Featured Even on Armed Forces Stations’, in India–Burma Theater Roundup, 12 July 1945, at http://cbi-theater-5.home. comcast.net/~cbi-theater-5/roundup/roundup071245.html 229. B.I. Koerner, Now The Hell Will Start: One Soldier’s Flight from the Greatest Manhunt of World War II (New York: Penguin Press, 2008), p. 126. See also ‘Music ‘Midst Assam Tea Patches for GIs’, CBI Roundup, 7 September 1944, at http://home.comcast.net/~cbi-theater-5/roundup/roundup090744.html; and ‘G.I. Jungle Rhythm’, CBI Roundup, 2 March 1944, at http://home.comcast. net/~cbi-theater-5/roundup/roundup030244.html. Most of the American forces which helped build the Ledo Road were African-Americans assigned to the Services of Supply. 230. Darrell Berrigan, ‘The Joint’s Jumpin’ Up in Assam’, CBI Roundup, 28 January 1943, at http://home.comcast.net/~cbi-theater-5/roundup/roundup012843. html 231. ‘Hump Happy’, Yank: The Army Weekly, 11 February 1944, collected in China-Burma-India Edition, Part 3, 2006, at http://cbi-theater-2.home. comcast.net/~cbi-theater-2/yankcbi/yank_cbi_3.html 232. ‘Meet The Sun Half Way’, words by Johnny Burke and music by James Monaco (Universal City: Universal, 1940). 233. ‘And You’ll Be Home’, words by Johnny Burke and music by Jimmy Van Heusen (New York: Famous Music Corporation, 1940). 234. ‘A Burmese Ballet’, music by Sid Phillips, recorded by Bert Ambrose and his Orchestra (New York: Decca, 1942). Ambrose was one of the few British bandleaders to achieve any real popularity in the US before the war, probably as a result of his time as a bandleader in New York in the 1920s. 235. See ‘Ambrose and his Orchestra – A Burmese Ballet’, YouTube, at https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=4LUYXou6JnY 236. ‘Burma Patrol’, music by K.L. King (Oskaloosa: C.L. Barnhouse Co., 1942). 237. Billy Bauer and Thea Luba, Sideman: The Autobiography of Billy Bauer as told to Thea Luba (New York: William H. Bauer Inc., 1997), pp. 34–6. 238. Sheet music of this song in the author’s possession once belonged to the Nip Inn. See also Fraser, Quartered Safe Out Here, p. 185. 239. ‘Burma Bound’, words and music by Johnny Uphill (Calcutta: Bernstein and Hills, 1945).

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240. ‘Burma Road’, music by Ray Terry and Nat Temple (London: Campbell Connelly and Co., 1945). 241. ‘Obituary: Nat Temple’, The Guardian (London, UK), 5 June 2008, at http:// www.theguardian.com/stage/2008/jun/05/theatre.culture 242. ‘Burma Road Blues, Parts 1 and 2’, Roy Milton’s Sextet (Los Angeles: HampTone 104, 1945). 243. ‘Roy Milton: Classics, 1945–1946 (CD)’, WowHD, at http://www.wowhd. com.au/CD/roy-milton-classics-1945-1946/dp/5188559 244. ‘Hamp-Tone Label New Outlet for Business’, The Pittsburgh Courier (Pittsburgh, US), 7 September 1946. 245. ‘Roy Milton’s Sextet’, The Billboard, 12 October 1946, p. 102. 246. ‘Air raid over Burma’, words by J.A. Burton and music by Al Berkman, (unpublished, 1942), Library of Congress Copyright Office, Catalogue of Copyright Entries, Part 3, Musical Compositions, Including Renewals, 1942, New Series, Vol. 37, No. 1, p. 1128, at https://archive.org/stream/catalogofcopyrig373libr#page/1128/ mode/2up/search/burma 247. Details of these works are given in the Appendix. 248. See, for example, Library of Congress Copyright Office, Catalogue of Copyright Entries, Part 3, Musical Compositions, Including Renewals, 1943, New Series, Vol. 38, No. 1, at https://archive.org/details/catalogofcopyrig38libr

7

And the band played on

By the time the Second World War broke out, there was a more cosmopolitan appreciation of Western music in Burma and its place in colonial society. This was due in large part to the diversification of popular entertainment venues, the advent of radio broadcasting and technological advances in the music recording industry. These changes were greatly assisted by the growing size, sophistication and influence of British, American and (in the region, at least) Indian film distribution networks. Ironically, they gave Burma much greater exposure in the West. Also, Mandalay’s reputation as an exotic, faraway place easily lent itself to exploitation by this new cultural medium.1 As the technology improved, musical soundtracks became a more prominent feature of such productions.2 In a few cases, they included songs about Burma or Mandalay, which were in turn promoted as discrete pieces of music.

Burma, Hollywood and film music Before the war began, four movies were made with the obvious intention of capitalising on the popularity of Kipling’s ballad. The first was A Maid of Mandalay, a short romance made in 1913 by the Vitagraph Company of America. It was filmed on location, which was unusual for the time. The movie starred American matinee idol Maurice Costello as the British soldier and Clara Kimball-Young as Ma May, the ‘neater, sweeter maiden’.3 Costello was also the director. At that time there were no soundtracks, but there was accompanying music. This was usually provided as printed scores by the film company, but was occasionally improvised by local musicians hired by the movie theatres.4 This did not always enhance the mood in the manner intended. For example, one review of A Maid of Mandalay stated that ‘Illustrating Kipling’s Mandalay song, this picture needs the music to give it life. We saw it accompanied by the usual drumming on the piano and it fell very flat’.5 A Maid of Mandalay was followed in 1926 by The Road to Mandalay. Produced by MGM, this film was described by one critic as ‘a lurid silent thriller about prostitution and murder’.6 It was directed by Tod Browning and starred Lon Chaney as the disfigured leader of a criminal syndicate

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whose saintly daughter wants to marry one of his henchmen, in the middle of a gang war. One reviewer wrote of its tenuous links to Kipling’s ballad: While it was frankly admitted that the picture called ‘The Road to Mandalay’ was not concerned with the ruminations of Kipling’s ten-year soldier standing in ‘the blasted English drizzle’, the title created the hope that it would be a subject possessing strong drama, a degree of poetic thought and colourful atmosphere.7 Once again, there was no soundtrack – the first commercial ‘talkie’ was not released until the following year – but advertisements for the movie appeared on sheet music that was on public sale in the US.8 Once sound technology became available, the studios were quick to capitalise on the popularity and exotic Oriental associations of songs like ‘On the Road to Mandalay’. For example, George Dewey Washington sang Oley Speaks’ setting of the song in the second Metro Movietone Review, produced by MGM in 1929.9 The same year, the song was played in Vitaphone’s Paul Tremaine and His Aristocrats (1929), featuring Tremaine and his 15-piece orchestra. Also in 1929, it was performed by Doug Stanbury and his Lyric Quartet in a musical short by Warner Brothers entitled Pack Up Your Troubles. The song featured again in 1932, this time in the movie You Said a Mouthful, starring Ginger Rogers. Speaks’ musical setting was also used, without words, as part of the soundtrack for China Seas (1935), a romantic adventure starring Clark Gable and Jean Harlow. The same year, the song was performed by opera star Lawrence Tibbett in the musical romance Metropolitan (1935). The ballad was also used in the comedy Wife, Husband and Friend (1939) and featured once more in They Met in Bombay, another Clark Gable film, in 1941. By then, the song was so well known, and so intimately associated with the ‘Far East’, that it was often uncredited.10 Also worth brief mention here is a one-reel documentary about Burma shot on 16mm film for Britain’s Pathe Pictures in 1930. Entitled The Golden Pagoda, it was the first in a series of 15 ‘Vagabond Adventures’ produced by the peripatetic film-maker Tom Terris. While the film dwelt mainly on life in Rangoon, some scenes were shot in Mandalay. It featured a musical soundtrack which, for reasons that are not clear, was later transferred from film to wax for Victor Records.11 Presumably someone at Victor felt that it had commercial potential. The composer is unknown. The old Burmese capital featured again in Mandalay (1934) and The Girl From Mandalay (1936). The first was a torrid melodrama in which a Russian refugee abandoned by her gun-running lover becomes a notorious prostitute in a Rangoon nightclub, before being forced to flee to Mandalay to escape deportation. During the opening credits, Oley Speaks’ setting of ‘On the Road to Mandalay’ can be heard. The film also included the song ‘When Tomorrow Comes’ sung by Kay Francis, who played the leading lady.

204 And the band played on While the song did not refer specifically to Burma, the lyrics included a nod to Kipling. There are three lines, which read: The golden dawn will thunder Like a million drums Some day when tomorrow comes.12 This appears to refer to the chorus of ‘Mandalay’ in which ‘the dawn comes up like thunder outer China ’crost the bay’. Also on the film’s soundtrack was the World War One song ‘The Infantry, the Infantry’, adapted from ‘The Son of a Gambolier’ (1870). It was sung by Lyle Talbot, one of Kay Francis’ co-stars.13 The Girl From Mandalay was loosely based on Reginald Campbell’s 1936 action-romance novel (set in Thailand) entitled Tiger Valley, and was typical of many low budget movies made by Republic Studios during this period.14 It was directed by Howard Bretherton and starred Kay Linaker as a Mandalay resort chanteuse who marries a broken-hearted Briton, who has just been jilted by his aristocratic girlfriend. In what was probably intended to be another allusion to Kipling’s ballad, one character refers to ‘jolly old Mandalay, where the old teak wallahs play’.15 Apart from a traditional Christmas carol, and a supposedly ‘Oriental’ dance number performed by scantily-clad girls in a Mandalay bar, the soundtrack consisted largely of stock from the studio’s music department. It was notable, however, for the fact that it included uncredited work by Arthur Kay, who was later responsible for much of the orchestration of the music for Warner Brothers’ immensely popular movie Gone With the Wind (1939), starring Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh. A lighter approach was taken in Moon Over Burma, produced by Paramount in 1940. The two managers of a lumber camp compete for the affections of an American showgirl, played by Dorothy Lamour, who is stranded in Rangoon. While enlivened by a forest fire, and a fight with villains trying to prevent the export of the camp’s teak logs, this rather pedestrian B-movie was essentially a vehicle for the former Miss New Orleans to ‘wrap a variety of alluring costumes around her hourglass frame’.16 The soundtrack was composed by Victor Young, but the film is perhaps best remembered for two songs sung by Lamour. One was entitled ‘Moon Over Burma’, with words by Frank Loesser and music by Frederick Hollander. In dulcet tones, Lamour crooned that the moon ‘smiling above’ in the eastern sky was said to be ‘the wonderful goddess of love’.17 The other song in the movie was called, rather improbably, ‘Mexican Magic’, and does not mention Burma at all.18 Both songs were released as sheet music, and on a 78 rpm record by HMV.19 In the same year, ‘Moon Over Burma’ (1940) was also released on Decca records by Glen Gray and the Casa Loma Orchestra, with vocals by Kenny Sargent. Also in 1940 yet another version was made by Gene Krupa and his orchestra for Okeh Records. The vocals were by Irene Daye.

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‘Moon Over Burma’ (1940) should not be confused with another song of that name composed in 1939 by Will Livernash, with words by Dick McIntyre and Leroy Redman.20 Between 1937 (when Japan invaded China proper) and 1939, thousands of Chinese labourers constructed a ‘mighty mountain highway’ over very difficult terrain from Kunming in Yunnan Province to the railhead at Lashio in northern Burma. It was soon labelled ‘the back door to China’ and ‘beleaguered China’s lifeline’.21 Due largely to the value attached to China’s survival by the US government, the route remained important even after Lashio was overrun by the Japanese army (attacking from the south) in April 1942.22 A major operation was launched to fly munitions and other supplies from India over ‘the Hump’ to China. Meanwhile, a new road was built from Ledo in northeast India to link up with the old road near the Burma-China border.23 At the same time, the Chinese government employed a group of American pilots, in part to defend the road against the Japanese. All this activity prompted the production of four US movies, Burma Convoy (1941), Bombs Over Burma (1942), A Yank on the Burma Road (1942) and Flying Tigers (1942). Burma Convoy tells the story of a group of American truckers taking supplies up the Road for ‘the defenders of the ancient soil of China’.24 The convoy is threatened by assorted spies and smugglers, who are only defeated when the hero, played by Charles Bickford, rallies the truckers against them. Bombs Over Burma is about an international group travelling to Chungking who become involved in a plot to alert Japanese bombers to the location of a supply convoy. It starred Anna May Wong and had a mixed cast of spies, turncoats and patriotic truckers. A Yank on the Burma Road follows the adventures of a New York City taxi cab driver who is hired to lead a convoy carrying medical supplies up the Road. Flying Tigers, starring John Wayne, was essentially Hollywood’s tribute to the American Volunteer Group, which operated unofficially in Burma and southern China until the unit was absorbed by the US Army Air Force in 1942. None of these movies can claim distinctive musical scores. Most were produced quickly to assist the war effort, and drew heavily on stock tunes and old songs. Burma Convoy featured four songs, including Stephen Foster’s classics ‘Old Folks At Home’ (1851) and ‘Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair’ (1854).25 A more recent contribution to the soundtrack was by Frederick Hollander and Frank Loesser, who also wrote the song ‘Moon Over Burma’ (1940). Entitled ‘You’ve Got That Look’ (1939), this work was recycled from the Western movie Destry Rides Again (1939), in which Marlene Dietrich famously sings the lines: You’ve got that look That look that leaves me weak …26

206 And the band played on The fourth song in Burma Convoy was ‘I’m In My Glory’, which was taken from the Universal picture Merry Go Round of 1938 (1937).27 The music over the end titles, composed by Heinz Roemheld and Frank Skinner, was original but went uncredited.28 The soundtrack of Bombs Over Burma featured the traditional songs ‘Yankee Doodle’ and ‘Jingle Bells’.29 A Yank on the Burma Road relied entirely on background music produced by MGM’s in-house composers. The soundtrack of Flying Tigers was by the prolific Victor Young but the film included two familiar songs. One was Sammy Fain and Lew Brown’s 1937 hit ‘That Old Feeling’, which had featured in the movie Vogues of 1938.30 The other was Julia War Howe’s classic of the American Civil War, the ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic’ (1862), set to the tune of ‘John Brown’s Body (1856).31 Two more movies were produced by Hollywood during the war years. In 1943, RKO Radio Pictures produced Rookies in Burma, starring Wally Brown and Alan Carney. The only comedy ever to be made by a major studio about Burma, it is rarely seen now, probably due as much to its blatant racism as to its poor quality. The movie made use of the 1917 song ‘You’re In the Army Now’, by Isham Jones, Tell Taylor and Ole Olsen.32 The song was recorded for HMV’s Bluebird Records by Abe Lyman and the Californians in November 1940.33 Perhaps the best-known production about wartime Burma was Objective Burma (1945), made by Warner Brothers and starring Errol Flynn. The movie portrayed the tribulations of a group of commandos who parachute into the country to destroy a Japanese radar station. When it was released, The New York Times described the movie as ‘without question one of the best war films yet made in Hollywood’.34 Despite provoking the wrath of 14th Army veterans, who resented the film’s strong American bias, it is still considered one of Flynn’s better performances.35 The ‘pounding score’ by Franz Waxman consisted of 13 separate instrumental pieces, ranging from short interludes of a few minutes to compositions nearly 14 minutes long.36 Waxman felt that ‘some Orientalism will be required for the Burmese locale’ but, as the music critic Lawrence Morton noted, he ruled out ‘such banalities as the characterization of the enemy by what Western ears regard as Oriental music – the clichés of the pentatonic scale, temple bells, and wood blocks’.37 The score was re-released on CD in 2005. As Christopher Thorne has argued, during the Second World War the UK and US were only ‘allies of a kind’, and they disagreed over many issues.38 Their differences extended to how the war in Burma should be represented on film. In the end, it became impossible to reconcile the political and practical differences that arose between the British and the Americans on the matter, and two films were made. In 1945, the US released The Stilwell Road and the British produced Burma Victory.39 The musical score for the former was composed by Franz Waxman, although he was not formally credited. The soundtrack for Burma Victory was written by Alan Rawsthorne, who has been compared with Edward Elgar, among other notable

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British musicians.40 It included the pieces ‘Dropping Supplies’, ‘Dawn and Jungle Advance’, ‘Building Boats’ and ‘Mandalay’. Played by the London Symphony Orchestra, it became known for what one reviewer called its ‘pulse-pounding battle sequences’.41 Predictably, a British Pathe newsreel of the Allied advance into Burma across the Chindwin River in 1945 was entitled The Road to Mandalay.42 The narration by Frank Owen, the editor of the SEAC newspaper, was accompanied by dramatic, if unremarkable, music by an unknown composer. Few of these musical compositions bore any direct relation to Burma, nor added anything to the wider understanding of its history and culture. Indeed, it could be argued that, in their rather crude and misleading depictions of Burmese scenery and society these movies simply helped perpetuate many of the myths and misconceptions that had grown up about the country since publication of Kipling’s poem in 1890. The same could be said of the half-dozen or so movies set in Burma, which were made by the major UK and US studios in the 1950s and 1960s.43 Most were wartime dramas, of varying quality. Even so, they were still able to build on images of the country that had already been firmly implanted in the Western consciousness by 55 years of popular music.

Western music in Burma after 1948 There are two modern footnotes to this story. The first relates to the continuing interest shown in Western music by the Burmese themselves, and the restrictions placed upon both artists and audiences by successive military governments after General Ne Win’s military coup d’etat in 1962. Following the Second World War, and Independence in 1948, Burma was in such a state of chaos that culture, including the performing arts, was given a low priority.44 The government was weak and divided, the economy had been devastated by the war, and throughout the country communities were under constant threat from insurgent groups, mutinous soldiers and dacoits. To quote Onishi and Young, ‘the effort to introduce Western art music during this period was sporadic at best’.45 Those with most exposure to ‘the Western idioms of tonal harmony’ were Christians and children attending mission schools, where hymns were sung, as well as choral works by masters like George Frideric Handel and Johan Sebastian Bach.46 In the mid-1950s, an attempt was made to organise a curriculum of ‘international music’ at the Rangoon School of Fine Arts, but this foundered when the xenophobic Ne Win seized power and Burma largely withdrew from the world. Once again, lovers of Western music who were living in Burma were obliged to meet in private homes to listen to, and discuss, the latest recordings.47 The public’s only other exposure to Western music during this period occurred when foreign embassies hosted visits by musicians from their home countries. The US, for example, saw jazz as an effective means of connecting with the locals. Duke Ellington, Marian Anderson, Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Louis Armstrong, Jack Teagarden and the Charlie Bird Trio all visited

208 And the band played on Burma and played to packed houses.48 While such tours were seen by the US embassy in Rangoon as ‘of central importance to our [diplomatic] mission’, some artists sought to develop relationships with the local population. 49 In 1957, Benny Goodman played a Burmese oboe (hne) with local musicians in Rangoon. The Burmese reportedly adopted the Goodman band’s rendition of the Burmese national anthem as the official version.50 After his visit in 1958, Jack Teagarden sent books on arranging to film companies in Burma ‘so that the Burmese could write their own music scores for their movies’.51 During a visit in 1971, Count Basie played a version of the popular Burmese song ‘Emerald Dusk’. Duke Ellington’s 1970 visit was so successful that, when he returned in 1972, he was permitted the rare privilege of being able to perform in Mandalay as well as Rangoon.52 America’s ‘jazz ambassadors’ were not alone in bringing Western music to Burma around this time. Dance companies also played an important role. In 1957, for example, the State Department arranged for the San Francisco Ballet to perform Tchaikovsky’s ‘Swan Lake’ in Rangoon. The US embassy also arranged visits to Burma in 1955 and1974 by the choreographer Martha Graham. On both occasions, her program included Appalachian Spring (1944), with music by Aaron Copland. When the company performed on an outdoor stage in Rangoon they attracted audiences of up to 5,000 people.53 Graham later claimed that she had been fascinated by Burma and Burmese dance ever since she joined the Denishawn Dancers in 1916.54 The choreographer Eleanor King, another pioneer of modern dance, made an independent study tour of Burma in 1977.55 The West was not alone in enlisting high culture to fight the Cold War, and break down neutral Burma’s isolation from the international community. In 1961 and 1964, for example, China’s national ballet company performed Western programs in Burma. Such tours have continued to this day. In 2001, for example, the Australian soprano Joanna Cole gave two opera recitals in the Strand Hotel’s concert hall.56 She was in Burma on a private visit, but they were organised by the Australian embassy. In 2010, the US government sponsored a tour by San Francisco’s ODC/Dance Company. It visited Rangoon and Mandalay, and gave a number of modern dance performances to appreciative audiences. In an echo of earlier visits by Roshanara, the Denishawn Dancers, Martha Graham and the like, the company learned some basic Burmese dance steps. It incorporated these movements into its final performance in Rangoon, to great acclaim.57 In 2014, the British Council sponsored a ‘Sounds of the World’ classical musical recital in Rangoon. All these and similar visits helped to bring Western music to the Burmese population – in Rangoon and Mandalay at least – and influenced local composers who drew inspiration and ideas from the music they heard. For many years, however, the opportunities to express themselves in this fashion were very limited. During Ne Win’s 26-year rule, Western music and dancing was considered by the deeply conservative dictator to be ‘decadent’ and an ‘alien

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cultural influence’.58 Protest songs like ‘We Shall Overcome’ (1948) were banned.59 The General had a particular dislike of modern pop music, which was effectively driven underground until the regime co-opted it in 1973 to promote the referendum on a new national constitution. There was one celebrated incident in 1975 when Ne Win, annoyed by the sound of a Western-style band playing at a hotel near his lakeside home, went there with his military bodyguards personally to stop the music.60 Under his autarkic socialist government, the importation of Western musical instruments and records was forbidden.61 Even so, during this period, the Burma Broadcasting Service (BBS) began to broadcast weekly radio programs of Western music, with commentaries. They included selections from classical and pop music, introduced by staid disc jockeys speaking carefully enunciated BBC English.62 Local pop bands were able to perform carefully vetted cover versions of ‘English songs’ on the BBS’s amateur talent shows.63 The stylised ‘mono’ music heard on state-controlled radio, however, failed to meet the popular demand for Western pop songs, leading to the rise of an underground culture known as ‘stereo’ music.64 After 1988, when the armed forces crushed a nation-wide pro-democracy uprising and took back direct political control of the country, the new State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) relaxed a number of measures governing civil society in Burma. This included lifting some restrictions on Western-style music. In 2002, for example, Yangon City FM radio began broadcasting locally produced pop music. In 2004, a school opened in Rangoon to teach Western music.65 However, the regime remained concerned about the security risks inherent in large crowds, so live performances of such music were rare. Also, the SLORC and, after 1997, its successor the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), took a number of steps to ‘protect’ Burma’s traditional culture.66 The country’s military leadership felt that ‘copied-Western culture’ would cause ‘the spread of adverse behavior that may harm the nation’s dignity and culture’.67 In 1989, for example, Western bands in Rangoon were warned against any activities that were contrary to Burma’s traditions. Also, their music had to ‘benefit the people’.68 In 2009, the SPDC ordered that all Western musical instruments had to be removed from Burmese saing waing orchestras, many of which had incorporated violins, mandolins, guitars and banjos in their ensembles.69 In other ways too, the military government was slow to change. For example, in 1996 the SLORC banned a pop song about Aung San Suu Kyi entitled ‘Prat Phom Kyai’, performed by the Thai singer Kewsan. In 2000, the regime banned the album All That You Can’t Leave Behind by the Irish rock band U2, because it included a song entitled ‘Walk On’. The song, which was released as a single in 2001, was dedicated to Aung San Suu Kyi, who was described as ‘a singing bird in an open cage’.70 The related video clip featured photographs of the opposition leader and various pro-democracy demonstrations in Burma.71 In 2004, the regime also banned a two CD set entitled For The Lady, which contained 27 tracks by

210 And the band played on well-known Western bands like U2, Pearl Jam and Coldplay, and artists like Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton and Sting. The CD was ‘dedicated to freeing Aung San Suu Kyi and the courageous people of Burma’.72 The penalty for any Burmese citizen ignoring these bans ranged from three years to 20 years in prison, and officials were instructed to confiscate any copies brought into the country. Even if it had wanted to, however, it would have been difficult for the regime to eliminate all Western musical influences. For example, a University of Culture opened in Rangoon in 1993, offering degrees in several traditional arts. As Gavin Douglas has explained, it was part of the military government’s efforts to ‘valorise’ pre-colonial Burmese culture. Together with the creation of committees to standardise the classical musical canon, and the inauguration of an annual performing arts competition, the university was aimed at helping to ‘regenerate, reculturize, and re-present the music of Burma to the Burmese public and to the world’.73 Yet class requirements still included the study of international (i.e. Western) music notation and history courses that focussed on both Western and Burmese musical traditions. Also, there being no standardised theory of Burmese music, students were required to learn the fundamentals of Western music theory.74 Firstyear students attended lessons on the violin and piano, as well as on local instruments such as the pattala and saung-gauk. Since the advent of President Thein Sein’s mixed military-civilian government in 2011, and the introduction of a far-reaching program of political and economic reforms, many of the earlier restrictions have been removed. State censorship of music was officially abolished in August 2012, although the government retained the legal right to vet music videos. Also, the importation of foreign CDs, the spread of satellite television and the easing of restrictions on Internet access by the government have made it much easier for Burmese to listen to a wide range of contemporary music.75 These developments have given rise to an outpouring of copy thachin, or Burmese cover songs of international hits, which dominate the popular music scene in Burma.76 While many copyright and intellectual property issues remain unresolved, the country now enjoys a vibrant musical scene with all kinds of groups – both traditional and Western – largely free to pursue their own interests. There are even developing punk and heavy metal scenes, which were actively discouraged by the military government.77 Nor has classical music been forgotten. A national symphony orchestra had been mooted during the Socialist era but was opposed by Ne Win as being too Western. In 2001, the Ministry of Information formed an orchestra, reportedly at the suggestion of Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamed.78 Musicians were drawn from the bands of Myanmar Radio and Television and the Myanmar Police Force, supplemented by students from the National University of Arts and Culture. Training was provided mainly by Singapore and China. However, the orchestra was only permitted one public performance by the SLORC before its powerful patron, Lieutenant General

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Khin Nyunt, fell from grace in 2004 and was imprisoned.79 The military government subsequently denied the existence of a Western-style national orchestra.80 The 60-strong company is now being revived, with the help of a number of European countries.81 In another development, private ensembles are starting to appear. One such is the Attachment of Cloud string orchestra, which was organised in 2003 by a group of Karen musicians, several of whom had studied abroad. All these developments reflect broader trends in Burmese politics, culture and society, which are currently undergoing a remarkable transformation after decades of isolation and repression. To quote Gavin Douglas once again, ‘Musical change is social change. Changes in sound directly reflect (and produce) changes in social norms, behaviours, and beliefs’.82 In words that could be applied not only to popular music in Burma but also to the country as a whole, Heather MacLachlan has pointed out that ‘the current era is one of dramatic expansion. However, it is also marked by deep uncertainty’.83 The future for the performance and appreciation of Western and Western-style music inside Burma is looking brighter now than ever before, but there are still many challenges ahead for Burmese music makers, just as there is for Burmese society.84 At the same time, there seems to have been a revival of interest in Burma among music lovers in the Western world. In large part, this has been due to the enormous publicity given to the pro-democracy struggle in Burma since the 1988 uprising, and in particular the trials and tribulations of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. In addition to U2’s 2000 album, several individual musical works and collections were released with the aim of drawing international attention to the military regime’s human rights abuses, and its harsh treatment of the charismatic opposition leader, who is known to many in Burma simply as ‘The Lady’. In addition, over the past 25 years a number of other recordings have been released in the West that take Burma, Rangoon or Mandalay as a central theme.85 They range from pop songs and jazz works to classical compositions.86 Some pieces, like Robbie Williams’ song ‘The Road to Mandalay’ (2000) and Elton John’s ‘Mandalay Again’ (2010) hark back directly to Kipling’s 1890 ballad.87 To round out the picture, it is worth noting too that Burma has been brought to the attention of modern audiences by three feature films, Beyond Rangoon (1995), Rambo 4 (2008) and The Lady (2011).88 All had relatively sophisticated music scores, composed and arranged by Hans Zimmer, Brian Tyler and Eric Serra respectively. In eight tracks, Zimmer supplemented his trademark brand of electronic music with ‘ethnic flutes’ and pipes to provide what one reviewer described as ‘a convincing feel for the culture of Burma’.89 For his part, Tyler drew on earlier Rambo movie scores by Jerry Goldsmith to produce a generic action thriller soundtrack with, in the words of another reviewer, ‘a variety of wind and percussion elements lending musical credence to the location’.90 Serra’s 32-track score for The Lady was performed mainly by the Symphonic Orchestra of Paris

212 And the band played on and attempted to portray deep emotion rather than any spirit of place. All three soundtracks were released separately as audio CDs.91 Like the movies themselves, they received a mixed reception, possibly due in part to their rather clichéd ‘Oriental’ motifs. None had an appreciable impact on the contemporary music scene.

Aung San Suu Kyi, Kipling and music The second footnote to the story of Burma, Kipling and Western music relates to Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s links to, and obvious affection for, both the unofficial ‘Poet Laureate of Empire’ and popular music.92 She has also shrewdly used these personal interests to promote her political agenda outside Burma. When Aung San Suu Kyi began to challenge the country’s new military government after the 1988 uprising, a campaign that saw her awarded the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, Kipling’s most famous poem was used in state propaganda against her.93 The generals likened her to the ‘unpatriotic’ Burma girl who had turned her back on her own race and, by implication, her own country. As David Steinberg has explained: They cite the marriage of Aung San Suu Kyi to a British academic, Michael Aris, as disqualifying her from leading the country. This colonial issue, as exemplified in Rudyard Kipling’s poem ‘The Road to Mandalay’ (and its paean to Burmese women who had relations with British soldiers) and George Orwell’s Burmese Days (whose hero had a Burmese mistress), thus continues today.94 This issue arose again in 2007, when a British Member of Parliament (MP) suggested that the prominent Burmese activist Maung Zarni had also equated Aung San Suu Kyi with Kipling’s ‘Burma girl’ who, like the ‘prostitute nation’ of Burma, was waiting her turn.95 This accusation was strongly refuted by Dr Zarni, whose views appear to have been misrepresented by the MP concerned.96 However, the incident was a reminder of the military regime’s earlier attempt to smear the popular opposition leader, and the impact it had outside Burma. There is no denying that Aung San Suu Kyi is a great admirer of Kipling. In 1972, extracts from his poem ‘Mandalay’, referring to ‘a neater, sweeter maiden in a cleaner, greener land’, were read out at her wedding. She and her husband named their second son Kim, after the lead character in Kipling’s famous novel, first published in 1901.97 Also, she ended her first Reith Lecture for the BBC in 2011 by quoting her favourite lines from Kipling. They were taken from his poem ‘The Fairies’ Siege’, the last verse of which reads: I’d not give way for an Emperor I’d hold my road for a King –

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To the Triple Crown I would not bow down – But this is a different thing. I’ll not fight with the Powers of Air, Sentry, pass him through! Drawbridge let fall, ’tis the Lord of us all, The Dreamer whose dreams come true!98 Despite the views of some postcolonial scholars, Aung San Suu Kyi has always associated Kipling with the idea of freedom. Referring to his poem ‘If’, published in 1910, she once said ‘the poem that in England is often dismissed as the epitome of imperialist bombast is a great poem for dissidents’.99 The verse most often associated with the opposition leader and her struggle for democracy in Burma was the second: If you can dream – and not make dreams your master; If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two imposters just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools: …100 Aung San Suu Kyi even distributed a Burmese translation of the poem to inspire her staff and supporters. The report in one biography that she actually translated the poem herself, however, is incorrect.101 In this context, there is no easy segue from Kipling to music, other than to say that, thanks to modern technology, the musical settings of his poetry are often better known than the original texts. It can be assumed that Aung San Suu Kyi was familiar with both, but it would appear that she preferred the printed versions. Also, if her carefully chosen selection of recordings for the BBC radio program ‘Desert Island Discs’ in 2013 is any guide, her musical tastes, while mixed, seem to be inclined more to the classical than the popular end of the spectrum.102 Because of her enormous public standing, and the challenge she posed to Burma’s ruling council, Aung San Suu Kyi was kept under house arrest in Rangoon for almost 15 years. During that time, part of her daily regimen was to practise on a Yamaha upright piano, which had originally belonged to her mother. Until it became out of tune, she played pieces by Western composers like Pachelbel, Telemann, Scarlatti, J.S. Bach, Mozart, Clementi and Bartok. (She has stated at different times that her favourite composers were Telemann, Mozart and Clementi). At one stage, when under particular pressure from the military government, she was forced to sell much of her household furniture to generate money for food. According to one account, one of the few items that she refused to surrender was her piano.103

214 And the band played on As Jonathan Webster wrote in 2013, Aung San Suu Kyi’s piano playing ‘in rebellious isolation’ became a powerful symbol of her continuing resistance to military rule: Concerned supporters reportedly snuck within earshot for assurance that she was still alive. Famous Europeans who publicized her struggle sympathised with her as musicians. U2 called her ‘a singing bird in an open cage’. Annie Lennox tried to send her a new piano. The top prize in the Leeds International Piano Competition was recently renamed the Daw Aung San Suu Kyi Gold Medal for its fiftieth anniversary.104 Aung San Suu Kyi’s supporters around the world turned the image of her sitting at the piano in her closely guarded Rangoon home into a symbol of her country’s long struggle for democracy. Some also equated the regime’s efforts to curb the appreciation of Western music in Burma with their attempts to silence the respected opposition leader. In 2012, the Los Angeles Times even called the piano itself ‘a symbol of Myanmar’s struggle for democracy’.105 It inspired songs and artwork, such as Robert Stone’s painting ‘About The Lady at her Broken Piano’.106 Her own efforts aside, Aung San Suu Kyi was well aware of the power of popular music to influence public opinion. During the 1990s, she issued an ‘appeal to artists’ which publicly encouraged musicians around the world to write songs about the lack of freedoms in Burma. She repeated this message in an interview in 2009, to mark the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: I think that musicians and artists anywhere in the world are in a position to draw public attention to our cause in a way in which others cannot. Because one good freedom song can go a lot further than several long speeches … or a number of interviews like this is nothing compared to a really catchy freedom song for Burma. If somebody would really come up with it, it could spread all over the world. That would help us a great deal.107 Aung San Suu Kyi once told an interviewer that she agreed with the author Rebecca West, that musicians and artists were ‘a procession of saints always progressing towards an impossible goal’.108 She saw them as being in a unique position, both inside Burma and abroad, to promote the pro-democracy movement.109 Whether or not it was in response to Aung San Suu Kyi’s appeals, popular music played an important role in mobilising external support for Burma’s political struggle. In 1997, the American jazz musician Wayne Shorter won a Grammy Award for a song entitled ‘Aung San Suu Kyi’, which he released on an album produced with Herbie Hancock entitled 1+1.110 U2’s song ‘Walk On’ was released in 2000. A song by the Irish singer-songwriter Damien

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Rice, entitled ‘Unplayed Piano’, was performed at the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Oslo.111 In the years that followed, at least three other CDs were produced which were dedicated to the charismatic opposition leader.112 In 2010, for example, a group of Burmese exiles in New Delhi produced a collection of protest songs.113 Several other artists posted their compositions on YouTube and various social media sites. On its ‘360 degrees’ concert tour in 2011, U2 distributed Aung San Suu Kyi masks for the audience to wear.114 In 2012, after her release from house arrest, Aung San Suu Kyi received an Amnesty International award at a grand ‘Electric Burma’ concert in Dublin.115 The same year, she was the subject of a ten-minute orchestral piece by the British composer Jonathan Dove, commissioned by the BBC.116 In all these campaigns, as in so many other aspects of Burma’s political struggles over the past few decades, there is an element of exaggeration and myth-making – on both sides of the political divide. That said, Aung San Suu Kyi’s affection for Western music and her determination to use popular music to change Burma and make it a more respectable international citizen are not in dispute. Indeed, they have some interesting historical parallels. Also, rather than denote Aung San Suu Kyi’s abandonment of her country, as once suggested by the military government, her interest in Rudyard Kipling and his works suggests quite the opposite. One could say that, in several ways, the wheel has come full circle. As Burma gradually emerges from its long period of military dictatorship, economic hardship and international isolation, there are millions of people both inside and outside the country who hope that it keeps turning.

Notes 1. An idea of Burma’s remoteness and exotic status can be gained from the fact that the nationality of the Asian villain in Cecil B. DeMille’s movie The Cheat (1915) was changed from Japanese to Burmese, after complaints by the Japanese Association of Southern California. The ‘Burmese ivory trader’ in the 1918 re-release of the film, however, still had the vaguely Japanese-sounding name of Haka Arakau. 2. S.E. Schoenherr, ‘Motion Picture Sound, 1910–1929’, History Department, University of San Diego, 1999, at http://web.archive.org/web/20070429191100/ http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/recording/motionpicture1.html; and S.E. Schoenherr, ‘Motion Picture Sound, 1930–1989’, History Department, University of San Diego, 1999, at http://web.archive.org/web/20070502041713/http://history. sandiego.edu/gen/recording/motionpicture.html. 3. Kipling, ‘Mandalay’, in Rudyard Kipling’s Verse: Definitive Edition, pp. 418–20. 4. M.M. Marks, Music and the Silent Film: Contexts and Case Studies, 1895–1924 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), p. 88. 5. ‘The Short Films of Clara Kimball Young, 1913: Reviews’, at http://www. stanford.edu/~gdegroat/CKY/reviews/shorts1913.htm#mom. 6. Edith Mirante, ‘Escapist entertainment: Hollywood movies of Burma’, The Irrawaddy, 1 March 2004, at http://www2.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id= 932&page=1.

216 And the band played on 7. Mordaunt Hall, ‘The Road to Mandalay (1926)’, The New York Times (New York, US), 29 June 1926. 8. See, for example, ‘Thinking of You All the Time’, words by J.W. Grey and music by Allie Moore (1924?), with the cover illustration of Lon Chaney and Henry B. Walthall, The Road to Mandalay, Ritz Theatre, Brooklyn, New York, 13–14 August 1926 (copy in author’s possession). There was also a paperback book produced to tie in with the movie. See Tod Browning and H.J. Mankiewicz, The Road to Mandalay (New York: Jacobsen-Hodgkinson Corporation, 1926). 9. ‘George Dewey Washington – On The Road to Mandalay’, YouTube, at https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=tj8zYldHMyQ. 10. ‘Oley Speaks’, International Movie Data Base, at http://www.imdb.com/name/ nm1672696/. 11. ‘The Golden Pagoda’, Pathe Pictures, 1930, Victor: Encyclopaedic Discography of Victor Recordings, at http://victor.library.ucsb.edu/index.php/matrix/ detail/2000043237/MRC-DV-1-The_golden_pagoda. 12. ‘When Tomorrow Comes, from the First National and Vitaphone picture, as sung by Kay Francis with Ricardo Cortez’, words by Irving Kahal and music by Sammy Fain (New York: M. Witmark and Sons, 1933). 13. ‘The Infantry, the Infantry’ is uncredited, but was sung by US soldiers in France during the First World War, based on the tune of the Irish song ‘A Son of a Gambolier’ (1895). 14. Reginald Campbell, Tiger Valley (New York: Richard R. Smith, 1931). Although he was familiar with Burma, Campbell spent the greater part of his working life in northern Thailand. See Reginald Campbell, Teak-Wallah: The Adventures of a Young Englishman in Thailand in the 1920s (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1986). 15. ‘The Girl From Mandalay’ (1936), YouTube, at http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=dfUPVpum5zY. 16. Bosley Crowther, ‘Review: “Moon Over Burma”’, New York Times (New York, US), 12 December 1940, at http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/ 102807/Moon-Over-Burma/overview. 17. ‘Moon Over Burma: As Sung by Dorothy Lamour in the Paramount Picture “Moon Over Burma”’: words by Frank Loesser and music by Frederick Hollander (New York: Paramount Music Corporation, 1940). 18. ‘“Mexican Magic”, As Sung by Dorothy Lamour in the Paramount Picture “Moon Over Burma”’, words by Frank Loesser and music by Harry Revel (New York: Paramount Music Corporation, 1940). 19. Both songs from the film were recorded by HMV on the Bluebird label, 78 rpm, Catalogue No.B-10891, 1940). 20. ‘Moon Over Burma’, words by Dick McIntyre and L.L. Redman, music by Will Livernash (New York: Whitney Blake Music Publishing, 1940). The only known recording of this song was by the guitarist Chet Atkins, in Nashville in 1957. 21. Frank Outram and G.E. Fane, ‘Burma Road, Back Door to China’, National Geographic Magazine, Vol. 128, No. 5, November 1940, pp. 629–58. 22. The importance of China in US strategic planning cannot be underestimated. Referring to the American political and military leadership around this time, Winston Churchill told General Archibald Wavell that ‘China bulks as large

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23.

24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34.

35. 36.

37. 38. 39.

217

in the minds of many of them as Great Britain’. See Barbara Tuchman, Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911–45 (New York: Macmillan, 1971), p. 240. The Ledo Road was renamed the Stilwell Road in 1945, at the suggestion of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. See, for example, Donovan Webster, The Burma Road: The Epic Story of the China-Burma-India Theater in World War II (New York: Farrer, Strauss and Giroux, 2003). Film foreword of Burma Convoy, IMDB, at http://www.imdb.com/title/ tt0033440/plotsummary. ‘Old Folks at Home’, words and music by Stephen Foster (New York: Firth, Pond and Co., 1851); and ‘Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair’, words and music by Stephen Foster (New York: Firth, Pond and Co., 1854). ‘You’ve Got That Look (That Leaves Me Weak)’, words by Frank Loesser and music by Frederick Hollander (Los Angeles: Universal Music, 1939). ‘I’m In My Glory’, words by Harold Adamson and music by Jimmy McHugh (Universal City: Universal Pictures, 1937). ‘Burma Convoy: End Title’, music by Heinz Roemheld and Frank Skinner (New York: Universal Music Corp., 1941). ‘Yankee Doodle’ is reputed to have been written in the 1770s by Richard Shuckburgh. ‘Jingle Bells’ was written by James Lord Pierpont and first published in 1857. ‘That Old Feeling’, words and music by Lew Brown and Sammy Fain (New York: Leo Feist, 1937). ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic’, words by J.W. Howe (1862) and music by William Steffe (1856). ‘You’re In the Army Now’, words by Tell Taylor and Ole Olsen, music by Isham Jones (1917). ‘“You’re In the Army Now” performed by Abe Lyman and his Californians, vocals by The Chorus’, at http://www.authentichistory.com/1939-1945/3-music/03Defense/19401127_Youre_In_The_Army_Now-Abe_Lyman.html. ‘The Screen; “Objective Burma”, a Realistic and Excitingly Told War Film Starring Errol Flynn, Opens at the Strand Theatre Here’, The New York Times (New York), 27 January 1945, at http://www.nytimes.com/movie/ review?res=9B06EED81E38EE3BBC4F51DFB766838E659EDE. I.C. Jarvie, ‘Fanning the Flames: Anti-American Reaction to “Operation Burma”’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Vol. 1, No. 2, 1981, p. 125. ‘Objective Burma! Film Score, 1945’, by Franz Waxman, Audio CD (Hong Kong: Naxos Classics, 2005). See also Jeffrey Richards, ‘The Forgotten War Remembered’, History Today, Vol. 62, No. 5, 2012, at http://www.historytoday. com/jeffrey-richards/forgotten-war-remembered. ‘Objective Burma!, Film Score, 1945’, notes by John Morgan (Hong Kong: Naxos Classics, 2005), p. 6. See also Lawrence Morton, ‘The Music of “Objective Burma!”’, Hollywood Quarterly, Vol. 1, No. 4, July 1946, pp. 378–95. Christopher Thorne, Allies of a Kind: The United States, Britain, and the War Against Japan, 1941–1945 (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1978). I.C. Jarvie, ‘The Burma Campaign on Film: “Objective Burma” (1945), “The Stilwell Road” (1945) and “Burma Victory”’ (1945)’, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Vol. 8, No. 1, 1988, pp. 55–73.

218 And the band played on 40. It was later said of Rawsthorne: ‘The road to music has many different paths. As far as British music is concerned, Rawsthorne stands in the direct line of Elgar, Walton, Constant Lambert and Tippett’. Francis Routh, Contemporary British Music: The Twenty-five Years from 1945 to 1970 (London: Macdonald, 1972), p. 54. 41. See Victor Carr’s review of ‘The Film Music of Alan Rawsthorne’, Chandos CD, Catalogue No. CHAN 9749, released 1 March 2000, at http://www. classicstoday.com/review/review-4878/. 42. The Road to Mandalay: Exclusive Commentary by Maj. Frank Owen, Publisher of SEAC, the 14th Army’s Mewspaper, British Pathe (1945), at http://www. britishpathe.com/video/the-road-to-mandalay/query/ARTILLERY+EAST. 43. For details, see Selth, ‘Burma, Hollywood and the Politics of Entertainment’, pp. 321–34. Three Burma-related movies not included in that study are The Hasty Heart (1949), Yesterday’s Enemy (1959) and The Long, the Short and the Tall (1961). 44. When the last British Governor of Burma departed in 1948, it was to the sound of ‘Thousands of thin sing-song Burmese voices mingled with the rougher, deeper tones of the British singing “Old Lang Syne”’. See ‘British Leave Burma’, The Advertiser (Adelaide, Australia), 6 January 1948. 45. Onishi and Young, ‘Western Music Education in Post-World War II Burma/ Myanmar’, p. 271. 46. From an early date, middle- and upper-class Buddhist, Muslim and Hindu families sent their children to mission schools, recognising the advantages of a Western-style education and proficiency in the English language. 47. See D.I. Steinberg, ‘Foreword’, in Wendy Law-Yone, A Daughter’s Memoir of Burma (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014), p. xiii. Also, interview with Professor Steinberg, Singapore, 1 August 2014. 48. The State Department also hoped that the Dave Brubeck Quartet could visit Rangoon, but it could not be included in the group’s tour of the region in 1958. S.A. Crist, ‘Jazz as Democracy? Dave Brubeck and Cold War Politics’, The Journal of Musicology, Vol. 26, No. 2, Spring 2009, p. 145. 49. Cited in P.M. Von Eschen, Satchmo Blows up the World: Jazz Ambassadors Play the Cold War (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004), p. 219. 50. Von Eschen, Satchmo Blows up the World, p. 46. 51. ‘Jack Teagarden’, Transcript of filmed interview, 30 October 1959, p. 5, at http://musicrising.tulane.edu/uploads/transcripts/j.teagarden%2010-301959.pdf. 52. H.G. Cohen, Duke Ellington’s America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010), p. 539. The outdoor concert in Mandalay attracted an audience of 15,000 people. 53. Russell Freedman, Martha Graham: A Dancer’s Life (New York: Clarion Books, 1998), p. 124. See also Mark Franko, Martha Graham in Love and War: The Life in the Work (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 108–9. 54. In her autobiography, Graham wrote that ‘You can be Eastern or Burmese or what have you, but the function of the body and the awareness of the body results in dance and you become a dancer, not just a human being’. Martha Graham, Blood Memory: An Autobiography (New York: Doubleday, 1991), p. 265.

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55. See Chris Miller, ‘Key Intersections of Modern Dance with Dance Traditions of Burma’, unpublished paper presented at the International Burma Studies Conference 2014, Singapore, 1–3 August 2014. 56. ‘Diva hits a high note for double centenary’, Myanmar Times, 15–21 October 2001, at http://www.ibiblio.org/obl/docs3/MT085.htm. 57. Clare Croft, Dancers as Diplomats; American Choreography in Cultural Exchange (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), p. 167. 58. Selth, ‘Modern Burma Studies: A Survey of the Field’, pp. 401–40. 59. Joe Glazer, Labor’s Troubadour: Music in American Life (Baltimore: University of Illinois, 2002), p. 210. 60. A first-hand account of this incident is given in Harriet O’Brien, Forgotten Land: A Rediscovery of Burma (London: Michael Joseph, 1991), pp. 104–6. O’Brien was the daughter of the British ambassador to Burma at the time. 61. Min Zin, ‘Burmese pop music: Identity in transition, The Irrawaddy, September 2002, at http://www2.irrawaddy.org/print_article.php?art_id=2710. 62. From 1959, BBS personnel attended training courses in London run by the BBC. 63. MacLachlan, Burma’s Pop Music Industry, p. 7. The audience for these broadcasts was quite small. In 1966, only 1.06:100 Burmese owned a radio receiver. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, Broadcasting in Asia: A Survey of its Use for Education and Development, (Paris: UNESCO, 10 May 1966), p. 4. 64. Martin Smith, State of Fear: Censorship in Burma (London: Article IX, 1991), p. 23. 65. Paul Watson, ‘Singing while under suspicion in Myanmar’, Los Angeles Times, 30 January 2008, at http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-choir30jan30-story. html#page=1. 66. See, for example, Aung Zaw, ‘Burma: Music under Siege’, in Marie Korpe (ed), Shoot the Singer: Music Censorship Today (New York: Zed Books, 2004), pp. 39–61. 67. Cited in Gustaaf Houtman, Mental Culture in Burmese Crisis Politics: Aung San Suu Kyi and the National League for Democracy, Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, Monograph No. 33 (Tokyo: Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, 1999), p. 94. See also Khin Nyunt, ‘Address to the 11th Myanmar Traditional Cultural Performing Arts Competitions’, New Light of Myanmar (Rangoon, Burma), 4 November 2003, at http://www. myanmar.gov.mm/NLM-2003/enlm/Nov04 h2.html. 68. ‘Musicians Given Guidance’, Working People’s Daily (Rangoon, Burma), 20 November 1989. 69. Arkar Moe, ‘Western instruments outlawed from traditional orchestras’, The Irrawaddy, 29 December 2009, at http://www2.irrawaddy.org/article. php?art_id=17491. 70. ‘U2’s album banned in Burma’, ABC News, 24 November 2000, at http:// abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=112794&page=1. 71. ‘Walk On – U2 (Aung San Suu Kyi)’, YouTube, at https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=EqFeSut1vu8. 72. For The Lady: Dedicated to Freeing Aung San Suu Kyi and the Courageous People of Burma, Audio CD, Rhino Records, 2004.

220 And the band played on 73. Gavin Douglas, ‘Who’s Performing What? State Patronage and the Transformation of Burmese Music’, in Monique Skidmore (ed), Burma at the Turn of the 21st Century (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2005), p. 230. 74. Douglas, ‘Who’s Performing What? ’, p. 231. 75. Kelly Macnamara, ‘Burma’s pop stars brace for revolution’, Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney, Australia), 28 March 2012, at http://www.smh.com. au/entertainment/music/burmas-pop-stars-brace-for-revolution-201203271vw3s.html. 76. Jane Ferguson, ‘Burmese Super Trouper: How Burmese Poets and Musicians Turn Global Popular Music into Copy Thachin’, The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, Vol. 14, No. 3, 2013, pp. 221–39. 77. See, for example, the documentary film Yangon Calling – Music, Subculture and Politics in Myanmar (2012) by Alexander Dluzak, Carsten Piefke and Matt Grace. Also useful is Jonathan DeHart, ‘Punk in Asia: Rebelling from Burma to Beijing’, The Diplomat, 16 April 2013, at http://thediplomat.com/2013/04/ punk-in-asia-rebelling-from-burma-to-beijing/. 78. Yeni, ‘Burma’s Unfinished Symphony’, The Irrawaddy, October 2004, at http:// www2.irrawaddy.org/print_article.php?art_id=4124. 79. Zon Pann Pwint, ‘National orchestra seeks wider audience’, The Myanmar Times (Rangoon, Burma), 28 January 2013, at http://www.mmtimes.com/ index.php/lifestyle/3895-national-orchestra-seeks-wider-audience.html. See also ‘National symphony orchestra presents classical music’, New Light of Myanmar (Rangoon, Burma), 2 April 2007, at http://www.burmalibrary.org/ docs2/NLM2007-04-02.pdf. 80. Takeshi Fujitani, ‘Myanmar national orchestra ready to return to the stage’, The Asahi Shimbun (Tokyo, Japan), 9 July 2012, at http://ajw.asahi.com/ article/asia/around_asia/AJ201207090013. 81. Kyaw Phyo Tha, ‘Burmese Orchestra joins with French Quartet for concerts’, The Irrawaddy, 14 November 2013, at http://www.irrawaddy.org/burma/ burmese-orchestra-play-rangoon-mandalay-angkor-wat.html. 82. Douglas, ‘Mediated Tradition’, p. 182. 83. MacLachlan, Burma’s Pop Music Industry, p. 9. 84. To date, Burmese music has had little impact outside the country. See Gavin Douglas, ‘Burmese Music and the World Market’, Anthropology Today, Vol. 21, No. 6, December 2005, pp. 5–9. 85. The American rock band ‘Mission of Burma’ took its name from a plaque on a diplomatic building in New York, not out of any particular connection to the country. 86. For the first, see for example ‘Burma’ by Dizzy Gillespie, in his album The Winter in Lisbon (Milan Records, 1990). For an example of the last, see ‘Letters from Burma: for oboe and string quartet’, music by Rosanna Panufnik (London: Edition Peters, 2004). 87. ‘Mandalay Again’, words by Bernie Taupin and music by Elton John, on the album The Union (2010). 88. These movies are discussed in Selth, ‘Burma, Hollywood and the Politics of Entertainment’, pp. 321–34. 89. ‘Beyond Rangoon’, Filmtracks, 13 September 2008, at http://www.filmtracks. com/titles/beyond_rangoon.html.

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90. ‘Rambo’, Filmtracks, 22 March 2011, at http://www.filmtracks.com/titles/ rambo4.html. 91. Beyond Rangoon, original motion picture soundtrack, music composed by Hans Zimmer, Milan Records CD, 2001; Rambo, original motion picture soundtrack, music composed by Brian Tyler, Lions Gate Films CD, 2008; and The Lady, original film score, music by Eric Serra, Sony Music CD, 2011. 92. It is not clear where Kipling’s popular title originated. Most sources cite W.T. Stead, the editor of Review of Reviews, but it may have been George Orwell. See Jenny Stringer (ed), The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-century Literature in English (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 365. 93. An early version of this section was published as Andrew Selth, ‘Aung San Suu Kyi and Kipling’s Burma’, The Interpreter, 31 October 2014, at http://www. lowyinterpreter.org/post/2014/10/31/Aung-San-Suu-Kyi-Kipling-and-Westernmusic.aspx. 94. Steinberg, Burma/Myanmar: What Everyone Needs to Know, pp. 39–40. 95. ‘Q163 John Bercow’, 12 June 2007, in House of Commons International Development Committee, DFID Assistance to Burmese Internally Displaced People and Refugees on the Thai-Burmese Border: Tenth Report of Session 2006–7, Volume II: Oral and Written Evidence, at http://books.google. com.au/books?id=vLKAmaJbuugC&pg=PA36&lpg=PA36&dq=%22aung+ san+suu+kyi%22+kipling&source=bl&ots=6ctsWj1Xv4&sig=MyzCw HPzOdAVQWYmIu9v7cd_mgY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=aG4eVOKgII_68QXTyo KYAg&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=%22aung%20san%20 suu%20kyi%22%20kipling&f=false. 96. ‘Memorandum by Dr Maung Zarni, Founder, Free Burma Coalition, Visiting Research Fellow (2006–2009), Department of International Development (QEH), University of Oxford’, www.parliament.uk, at http://www.publications. parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmselect/cmintdev/ucburma/ucm2902.htm. 97. Rudyard Kipling, Kim (London: Macmillan, 1901). 98. This verse first appeared in Kim, under the title of ‘The Siege of the Fairies’. Later, the title was changed and two more verses added, before the full poem was included in published collections. See Kipling, Kim, pp. 316 and 365; and Rudyard Kipling, ‘The Fairies’ Siege’, Rudyard Kipling’s Verse: Definitive Edition, pp. 520–1. The ‘triple crown’ is the Pope’s (secular) triregnum, or tiara. Aung San Suu Kyi’s first Reith Lecture, entitled ‘Liberty’, was broadcast on the BBC on 28 June 2011. 99. Cited by Bart Moore-Gilbert, ‘Kipling and Post-colonial Literature’, in H.J. Booth, The Cambridge Companion to Rudyard Kipling (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), p. 166. 100. Kipling, ‘If’ (1910), in Rudyard Kipling’s Verse: Definitive Edition, pp. 576–7. 101. See Justin Wintle, Perfect Hostage: A Life of Aung San Suu Kyi (London: Hutchinson, 2007), p. 309; and Timothy Garton Ash, ‘Beauty and the Beast in Burma’, in Facts Are Subversive: Political Writing from a Decade Without a Name (London: Atlantic Books, 2009), pp. 270–1. 102. ‘Desert Island Discs: Aung San Suu Kyi’, presented by Kirsty Young, BBC Radio 4, 27 January 2013, at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/desertisland-discs/castaway/0be64a73.

222 And the band played on 103. ‘Aung San Suu Kyi Under House Arrest’, Facts and Details, at http:// factsanddetails.com/southeast-asia/Myanmar/sub5_5b/entry-3017.html. 104. Webster, ‘Solitude and Sandaya’. 105. Mark Magnier, ‘Suu Kyi’s piano tuners play small but key part in Myanmar history’, Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles, US), 15 November 2012, at http://articles. latimes.com/2012/nov/15/world/la-fg-myanmar-piano-tuner-20121116. 106. Brian Rex, ‘Rangoon’s piano-tuners recall the vital part they played in Suu Kyi’s struggle’, The Independent (London, UK), 30 March 2012, at http://www. independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/rangoons-pianotuners-recall-the-vitalpart-they-played-in-suu-kyis-struggle-7601138.html. See also ‘About The Lady at her Broken Piano’, Robert Stone Art Studio, at http://robertstoneartstudio. com/recent-paintings/the-lady-at-her-broken-piano/. 107. ‘Aung San Suu Kyi “Freedom Song”’, 9 February 2009, at http://dassk.org/ index.php?topic=2704.0. 108. Aung San Suu Kyi, The Voice of Hope: Conversations with Alan Clements, with Contributions by U Kyi Maung and U Tin U (London: Penguin, 1997), p. 61. 109. In 2011, Aung San Suu Kyi invited local musicians to support her political party by performing at a concert in Rangoon. See Wai Moe, ‘Stars turn out for Suu Kyi’, The Irrawaddy, 29 December 2011, at http://www2.irrawaddy.org/ article.php?art_id=22747. 110. ‘Aung San Suu Kyi’, words and music by Wayne Shorter, 1+1 (Polygram Records, 1997). 111. ‘Aung San Suu Kyi’, The Piano Sage, 26 June 2012, at http://pianosage. blogspot.com.au/2012/06/aung-san-suu-kyi-her-upright-piano.html. 112. See, for example, Victoria Horne sings The Lady of Burma (Aung San Suu Kyi), Audio CD, Coeur de Celte, 2007; and DBG, Free Burma, Audio CD, I Scream Records, 2011. 113. ‘Burmese music: Sound of the underground’, The Independent, 14 April 2010, at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/burmese-music-sound-ofthe-underground-1944013.html. 114. Michael Gilmour, ‘U2, Aung San Suu Kyi and the Prophet Jeremiah’, Huffington Post, 5 May 2012, at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-gilmour/u2aung-san-suu-kyi-and-prophet-jeremiah_b_1302465.html. 115. ‘Bono to present Aung San Suu Kyi with Ambassador of Conscience award’, Amnesty International, 2 June 2012, at http://www.amnesty.org.au/news/ comments/28837/. 116. Jonathan Dove, ‘A Portrait of Aung San Suu Kyi’ (Frankfurt: Peters Edition Ltd, 2012), at http://www.jonathandove.com/works/orchestra/a-portraitof-aung-san-suu-kyi/.

8

Afterword

During the colonial period, Burma never achieved quite the same status in the minds of the Western public as Sax Rohmer’s ‘mysterious orient’, or Walter de la Mare’s ‘heart-beguiling Araby’, but it became an easily recognisable reference point, redolent of exotic places far away, full of mystery and promise.1 This was particularly true of Mandalay. Like Timbuktu, Samarkand and other semi-mythical cities that captured the popular imagination of the West during the 19th and early 20th centuries, the old royal capital became a powerful symbol. After passing through it in the 1920s, for example, Somerset Maugham observed: First of all Mandalay is a name. For there are places whose names from some accident of history or happy association have an independent magic and perhaps the wise man would never visit them, for the expectations they arouse can hardly be realised … Mandalay has its name; the falling cadence of the lovely word has gathered about itself the chiaroscuro of romance.2 Maugham felt that the very name Mandalay ‘informs the sensitive fancy’. To his mind, it was not possible for anyone to write it down ‘without a quickening of the pulse and at his heart the pain of unsatisfied desire’.3 Such was the power of its accumulated associations. The ‘magic’ described by Maugham was in large part derived from Kipling’s ballad, and helped shape the reception given to later musical compositions with Oriental themes. It would be going too far to claim that ‘Mandalay’ alone was responsible for the outpouring of songs and tunes over the next 60 or so years that related in some way to Burma. By 1890, there was already a long association between the Orient and Western music, part of which dwelt on relationships between Asian women and Western men. Also, Barrack-Room Ballads not only appeared at the height of Britain’s imperial expansion, but it also coincided with a number of social movements in the UK and further afield, to do with questions of race, religion and gender. Equally important was the fact that, soon after ‘Mandalay’ was published, the popular music industry underwent a radical transformation. Technical advances in the recording, marketing and broadcasting of music led to the

224 Afterword globalisation of Western music and the appearance of a mass culture that affected most countries, including Burma. Even so, assisted by all those developments, Kipling’s ballad had a remarkable impact, which is still being felt today. Not only was it enormously popular in its own right, spawning over 24 different musical settings, but it prompted dozens of imitations and variations. By 1948, more than 180 popular songs and tunes referred in some way to Burma, or more often Mandalay, which became a recognisable symbol in the West of everything remote, exotic and romantic. These works were part of a wider genre of songs and tunes that had as their central themes a young woman in Asia pining for her foreign lover, or a Western man recalling his days in Asia and the local girl who had kept him company there. Most refer to temple bells, moonlit tropical nights and ‘brown-eyed dusky maids’.4 These themes ran like a riff through the music of the day, recurring in different ways in different compositions. They reflected the imagined experiences of foreigners in other Asian countries, and the West’s fascination during this period with the wider Oriental world, but these works still owed a great deal to Kipling’s ‘Mandalay’.5 This opened up opportunities for music sales which songwriters, composers and producers were quick to exploit.6 In literature too, the ballad has long been a favourite of publishers and authors.7 A dip into the websites of a few prominent on-line booksellers reveals almost 30 works with their main titles drawn directly from Kipling’s poem. In addition to several named The Road to Mandalay, they encompass such variations as The Road From Mandalay, The Road Past Mandalay, Back to Mandalay, Red Roads to Mandalay, On the Back Road to Mandalay and The Road from Rangoon to Mandalay. There are similar titles in French, German and other languages. The publication dates of these works range from the early 20th century right through to the present day. The list includes novels, travelogues, autobiographies, histories, collections of poetry, science fiction stories, academic theses and books of photographs.8 Also, ‘Mandalay’ has long been used to punctuate stories about Burma in the news media and to illuminate longer works.9 This is in addition to the dozen or so feature films, documentaries and travel guides, all named with the obvious intention of capitalising on the popularity of Kipling’s poem, or at least the likelihood that its exotic and historical associations would be recognised and acknowledged.10 Once it became well known, the name ‘Mandalay’ acquired commercial value in other spheres. It was applied to condiments and cocktails, crockery and clothes, ships and streets, buildings and businesses. In 1907, for example, H.J. Heinz invested heavily in his Mandalay Sauce, which, despite earlier criticisms of Burmese food, sought to replicate some of the ‘spicy garlic smells’ described by Kipling.11 In the late 1920s, the Orange Crush Company produced a grape drink called ‘Mandalay Punch’. A cocktail based on rum and fruit juice was dubbed ‘A Night in Old Mandalay’. There was even

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a children’s board game called ‘Mandalay’, released in 1960.12 It is stretching a point, but at one stage ‘Manderley’, believed by many to be a variant spelling of ‘Mandalay’, was reputed to be the most popular house name in the UK. The ubiquity of the name was more likely due to the popularity of Daphne de Maurier’s 1938 novel Rebecca (and Alfred Hitchcock’s 1940 film adaption of the same name), in which ‘Manderley’ was the name of the fictional country estate owned by the main character. Even so, the opening line of the novel, ‘Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again’, has been likened by some commentators to the wish expressed by the British soldier, in Kipling’s poem, to return to Mandalay.13 To use Nicoleta Medrea’s memorable phrase, during the Victorian and Edwardian eras Rudyard Kipling ‘colonised the imagination’ of the West.14 His ballad ‘Mandalay’ was ‘an essential element in the psychic legacy of empire’ that he understood so well.15 It became firmly fixed in popular culture and endured into the 21st century. It did not matter if accuracy suffered in the process. By the 1930s, Peter Dawson was seriously claiming that ‘No man knew or saw more, in and about India and Burma, than Rudyard Kipling’.16 During the Second World War, correspondents in Burma repeatedly invoked ‘Mandalay’, confident that their readership would immediately make the connection. After a visit to Burma in 1951, Norman Lewis wrote: ‘Mandalay. In the name there was a euphony which beckoned to the imagination’.17 The historian Hugh Tinker could have expanded the scope of his observation when he stated in 1957, ‘to the average Englishman Burma conjured up one poem and perhaps a short story by Kipling – Kipling, who spent three days in Burma’.18 Writing in 2002, an American travel writer took a less generous view: ‘Rare is the book about Burma’, he wrote, ‘that doesn’t gush the obligatory line or two of Kipling!’19 This complex amalgam of fact and fantasy, realism and romance, in the public imagination of the West was captured in 2004 by the author and Burma watcher Emma Larkin. In her book Secret Histories, in which she retraced George Orwell’s footsteps in Burma, she confessed to feeling something of the ‘independent magic’ of Mandalay: I always find it impossible to say the name ‘Mandalay’ out loud without having at least a small flutter of excitement. For many foreigners the name conjures up irresistible images of lost oriental kingdoms and tropical splendour. The unofficial Poet Laureate of British colonialism, Rudyard Kipling, is partly responsible for this, through his well-loved poem ‘Mandalay’.20 These sentiments are clearly widely held. As demonstrated by countless modern musicians, authors, film makers, journalists, tour company operators and travel guides, Kipling’s ballad is widely recognised, and still holds

226 Afterword enormous appeal. It continues to evoke strong responses among all those who read the ballad or, more likely, hear it sung. As George Orwell once wrote: Unless one is merely a snob and a liar it is impossible to say that no one who cares for poetry could not get any pleasure out of such lines as: ‘For the wind is in the palm trees, and the temple bells they say, / “Come you back, you British soldier, come you back to Mandalay!”’21

Notes 1. See, for example, Scott, ‘Rohmer’s “Orient” – Pulp Orientalism?’; and ‘Araby’, words by Walter de la Mare and music by C.A. Gibbs (London: J. Curwen and Sons, 1924). De la Mare’s original poem is dated 1919. 2. Maugham, The Gentleman in the Parlour, p. 27. See also Janet Aldis, Love and Sunshine in the East (London: Herbert Joseph, 1930), p. 3. 3. Maugham, The Gentleman in the Parlour, p. 27. 4. ‘Down on the Philippine Isles’, words and music by Melbourne Brogan (Kansas City: Brogan Music Publishing Co., 1921). 5. See, for example, Walsh, Tin Pan Alley and the Philippines. It is relevant that between 1890 and 1948, ‘an astonishing number of novels were published in Britain dealing with the theme of romance in India or exploring the possibilities and perils of interracial love’. See Hsu-Ming Teo, ‘Romancing the Raj: Interracial Relations in Anglo-Indian Romance Novels’, History of Intellectual Culture, Vol. 4, No. 1, 2004, at http://www.ucalgary.ca/hic/issues/vol4/3. 6. Brian Mattinson, ‘Kipling and Music’, at http://www.kipling.org.uk/rg_music1. htm. 7. The popular association between Kipling and Mandalay was further underlined when a US firm released The Mandalay Edition of the Works of Rudyard Kipling, 14 volumes (New York: Doubleday, 1925–7). 8. One unusual example of the poem’s ubiquity is Martin Gardner, ‘The Road to Mandalay’, Asimov Science Fiction Magazine, Vol. 8, No. 7, July 1984, pp. 28–43. Another is Alex Cretey Systermans, ‘The Missed Road to Mandalay: Travelling in Burma, January 2012’, at http://www.systermans.com/index.php?/ projects/the-missed-road-to-mandalay/. 9. See, for example, ‘No road to Mandalay’, The Economist, 28 September 2000, at http://www.economist.com/node/381788; and Patrick Forsyth, A Land Like None You Know: Awe and Wonder in Burma on the Road to Mandalay (Bangkok: Bangkok Books, 2008). 10. Selth, ‘Burma, Hollywood and the Politics of Entertainment’, pp. 321–34. 11. Q.R. Skrabec, H.J. Heinz: A Biography (Jefferson: McFarland and Co., 2009), p. 177. There was also a ‘Burma Sauce’ made by the London firm of White, Cottell and Company, which was popular between the two world wars. It was advertised as ‘The only “Sauce” I dare give father!’ 12. A modern version of the game was released in Germany in 2007, and updated in 2008. 13. Most critics believe that ‘Manderley’ derives from ‘Menabilly’, the name of Du Maurier’s Cornish home, See, for example, Vishwas Gaitonde, ‘The Art of

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14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21.

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the Sentence’, Tin House, 25 September 2012, at http://www.tinhouse.com/ blog/17326/the-art-of-the-sentence-vishwas-r-gaitonde.html. N.A. Medrea, ‘Kipling and the Colonization of Imagination’, Studia Universitatis Petru Maior – Philologia, No. 13, July 2012, pp. 320–28. Lycett,, Kipling Abroad, p. 78. Dawson, Fifty Years of Song, p. 106. Norman Lewis, Golden Earth: Travels in Burma (London: Eland Books, 1983), p. 81. Hugh Tinker, The Union of Burma: A Study of the First Years of Independence (London: Oxford University Press, 1957), p. 351. Steven Martin, ‘Orwell’s Burma’, at http://orwell.ru/library/novels/Burmese_Days/ english/e_sm_ob. Larkin, Secret Histories, p. 10. George Orwell, ‘Rudyard Kipling’, in Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus (eds), The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, Vol. 2, My Country Right or Left, 1940–1943 (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968), p. 226.

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Appendix Musical works with Burmese themes

Compiling a list of songs and tunes with Burma-related titles and themes is no easy task, even if it is confined to the period 1824–1948. Some compositions were so ephemeral that they appear never to have been published or recorded. Some were only produced in small numbers. Most of them soon passed from the musical scene and a number appear to have been lost forever. Others, like the musical settings inspired by Kipling’s ballad ‘Mandalay’, were so popular that they themselves spawned a wide range of melodies, arrangements and lyrics. Many had the same or similar titles, usually involving signature words like ‘Burma’ (or ‘Burmah’), ‘Mandalay’ and, to a lesser extent, ‘Rangoon’. Copyright lists, collections of sheet music and old recordings held by libraries and sound archives are helpful in identifying such works, but until an authoritative list can be compiled, the following must be considered provisional only. Although they are mentioned in the book, the following list does not include works that only refer to Burma (or related places like Rangoon or Mandalay) in passing, for example as a brief mention in a song about something else. Nor does this list include different arrangements of the same tune or song, unless it differs significantly from other versions, for example the various musical settings of the poem ‘Mandalay’. Also absent are the different arrangements of particular songs and tunes, recorded by bands and singers after the development of gramophone records. Most religious songs and soldiers’ songs have been left out on the grounds that, despite their wide use in Burma for certain periods, they were not ‘popular’ in the usual sense of the word, and often did not refer specifically to the country. In any case, only works that have a direct connection to Burma have been included. To include all works mentioned in this study would make the list too broad and unwieldy. All musical compositions have been listed in chronological order by first publication, or original recording. Where those details are not known, they are listed according to the date of their first mention in published sources. Songs and tunes that appear never to have been published have been listed according to the date on which copyright was first granted, as shown in the US Library of Congress’s annual catalogue of copyright entries for musical

230 Appendix compositions.1 Where any information is not available, or is unreliable, this is shown by the use of question marks in the appropriate place. All these general rules have been broken, however, if a work does not meet any of the above criteria but is cited in the study and is considered in some way important for an understanding of the book’s main arguments.

The early period (1824–1889) ‘The Parting Scene: Lines written on the sailing of Messrs Wheelock and Colman for India, from Boston, Nov. 16, 1817’, words by Thomas Baldwin, in Daniel Chessman, Memoir of Rev. Thomas Baldwin DD (Boston: True and Greene, 1826) ‘General Campbell’ (broadsheet) (Durham: Walker, Printer, 1827?) ‘Parting Hymn of Missionaries to Burmah’, by L.H. Sigourney, in L.H. Sigourney, Zinzendorff: And Other Poems (New York: Leavitt, Lord and Co., 1836) ‘Burman Mission Hymn: Dedicated to American Baptist Board of Foreign Missions’, words by ‘W.C.R.’, music by Lowell Mason (New York: Hewitt and Jaques, 1836) ‘The Burman Lover’, words and music by John C. Baker, in First Set of Songs and Glees: The Bakers of New Hampshire (Boston: Keith’s Music Publishing House, 1845) ‘The Burial of Mrs Judson at St Helena, Sep. 1, 1845’, words by H.S. Washburn and music by Lyman Heath (Boston: Oliver Ditson, 1846) ‘Farewell to the Missionaries’, by A.M.O. Edmund, in John Dowling (ed), The Judson Offering, Intended as a Token of Christian Sympathy with the Living and a Memento of Christian Perfection for the Dead (New York: L. Colby and Company, 1847) ‘A Mound is in the Graveyard, or The Missionary-Mother’s Lament, written by Mrs Judson addressed to a missionary friend in Burmah, on the death of her little boy thirteen months old, in which allusion is made to the previous death of his little brother’, words by E.C. Judson and music by I.B. Woodbury (Boston: G.P. Reed and Co., 1851) ‘The Burman Lover’, music by John C. Baker, arranged by Louis Tripp (Louisville: G.W. Brainard and Co., 1853) ‘The Mounted Infantry’? (1887?), words by B. May, in Lewis Winstock, Songs & Music of the Redcoats: A History of the War Music of the British Army, 1642–1902 (London: Leo Cooper, 1970) ‘Kayah Than (Sound of the Trumpet)’, music recorded by W.G. St Clair (London: Boosey, 1887) ‘Christian Brethren O’er the Main’, words by F.J. Crosby and music by W.H. Doane, in Songs of the Kingdom Prepared for the Use of Young People’s Societies and Adapted for Prayer Meetings, Sunday Schools and the Home (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1896)

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‘The Maid of Mandalay; or Nam Le Voo’, in John MacGregor, Through the Buffer State: A Record of Recent Travels Through Borneo, Siam and Cambodia (London: F.V. White, 1896) ‘The 1st Burma Rifles’ Quickstep’ (1892?), music by A. McLeod, in David Glen (ed), David Glen’s Collection of Highland Bagpipe Music, Book 11 (Edinburgh: David Glen and Sons, 1906?)

Kipling’s ‘Mandalay’ and after (1890–1939) ‘“Mandalay”: No. 2 of a Set of Barrack Room Ballads’, words by Rudyard Kipling and music by Gerard F. Cobb (London: Herman Darewski Music Publishing, 1892) ‘“Mandalay”, Musical Kindergarten Sketch No. 20’, music by Gerard F. Cobb, arranged by Theo Bonheur [Charles Rawlings] (London: Charles Sheard and Co., 1892) ‘Mandalay’, words by Rudyard Kipling and music by A.W. Thayer (Philadelphia: Theodore Presser and Co., 1892) ‘Mandalay Waltz’, music by Bewicke Beverley (London: Charles Sheard and Co., 1893) ‘Memories of Burma: Waltz’, music by Amy E. Warde (London: Weekes and Co., 1894) ‘On the Road to Mandalay’, words by Rudyard Kipling and music by Henry Trevannion (Joseph Flanner: Milwaukee, 1898) ‘Mandalay’, words by Rudyard Kipling and music by Walter J. Damrosch (Cincinnati: John Church and Co., 1898) ‘Mandalay’, music by Percy Grainger (unpublished, 1898) ‘The Mandalay: Two Step’, music by Henry Trevannion (Joseph Flanner: Milwaukee, 1899) ‘On the Road to Mandalay: Rudyard Kipling’s Celebrated “Barrack-Room Ballad”’, music by Walter Hedgcock (London: Charles Sheard and Co., incorporating Herman Darewski Music Publishing Co., 1899) ‘Mandy, from Mandalay: “A Black Man’s Burden”, A Long Way After Kipling’, words by W.H. Ford, music by J.W. Bratton (New York: M.  Witmark and Sons, 1899) ‘Under the British Flag: Fantasia on Songs and Dances of Great Britain and Her Colonies’, music by J.A. Kappey (London: Boosey and Company, 1900?) ‘“Mandalay”, in ‘Rudyard Kipling’s Barrack-Room Ballads set to music’, music by Arthur Whiting (New York: G. Schirmer Inc., 1900) ‘Rangoon’, words by Arnold Brooks and music by Charles Wood (Edinburgh: Foreign Mission Chronicle, 1900) ‘On The Road to Mandalay’, words by Rudyard Kipling and music by Dyneley Prince (New York: G. Schirmer Inc., 1903) ‘You’d Better Come to Burmah’, words and music by Paul A. Rubens, in The Blue Moon, by Howard Talbot and P.A. Rubens (New York: Chappell and Co., Ltd, 1905)

232 Appendix ‘Burmah Girl’, words and music by Paul A. Rubens, in The Blue Moon, by Howard Talbot and P.A. Rubens (New York: Chappell and Co., Ltd, 1905) ‘Little Blue Moon’, words by Percy Greenbank, music by Howard Talbot, in The Blue Moon, by Howard Talbot and P.A. Rubens (New York: Chappell and Co., 1905) ‘My Maid of Mandalay’, words by Roderic Penfield and music by Hans Scherber (New York: Maurice Shapiro, 1907) ‘On The Road to Mandalay’, words by Rudyard Kipling and music by Oley Speaks (Cincinnati: The John Church Company, 1907) The Pagoda of Flowers: A Burmese Story in Song, words by Frederick J. Fraser and music by Amy Woodforde-Findon, arranged by Sydney Baynes (London: Boosey and Co., 1907) ‘Mandalay’, words by Rudyard Kipling and music by Henry Handel Richardson [Ethel Richardson] (1908), in Bruce Steele and Richard Divall (eds), Songs by Henry Handel Richardson for Voice and Piano (Sydney: Currency Press, 2000) ‘Love Scene from The Pagoda of Flowers: A Burmese Story in Song’, words by Frederick J. Fraser and music by Amy Woodforde-Findon (London: Boosey and Co., 1909) ‘In Far Off Mandalay’, words by Alex Rogers and music by Al Johns (Chicago: Will Rossiter, 1909) ‘Burma L.M.’ (1909?), words by Philip Doddridge and music by T.B. Mosley, in W.L. Higgins (ed), Crimson Glory: Our 1939 Book for Church, Sunday Schools and Conventions (Dalton: The A.J. Showalter Company, 1938) ‘The Maid of Mandalay’, words by Joseph Blethen with music composed by Harry Girard (also known as Victor Kemp) (from The Maid of Mandalay, San Francisco, 1910?) Four Songs of Burma, words by R.C.J. Swinhoe and music by J.W.J. Alves (London: Boosey and Co., 1910) (Includes ‘The Cold Weather’, ‘The Well’, ‘The River’ and ‘Ma Lay Lay’) ‘Danse Birmane: Piano solo’, music by Maurice Yvain (Paris: Max Eschig, 1911) ‘Mandalay’, words by Rudyard Kipling and music by Charles Willeby (Cincinnati: The John Church Company, 1911) ‘The Golden Land of Burma’, words by R.C.J. Swinhoe and music by J.W.J. Alves (Rangoon: Misquith Ltd, 1911) The Cat’s Eye: A Burmese Operetta, words by R.C.J. Swinhoe and music by J.W.J. Alves (Rangoon: n.p., 1911?) Songs of Burma (Second Set), words by R.C.J. Swinhoe and music by J.W.J. Alves (London: Boosey and Co., 1912) (Includes ‘Lullaby’, ‘The Loom’, ‘Rubies’, ‘Sunrise’ and ‘The Maiden and the Buddh’) ‘The Bells of Burmah’, words by Ed Teschemacher and music by Herbert Oliver, in Songs of the Orient (London: J.H. Larway, 1912)

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‘Burma Maid: Dance Intermezzo’, music by Charles W. Ancliffe (London: Hawkes and Son, 1913) A Palace Plot, or The Maiden Aunt’s Revenge, words by R.C.J. Swinhoe and music by J.W.J. Alves (Mandalay: Upper Burma Advertiser Press, 1913) The Moon Maiden: A Burmese Operetta, book and lyrics by George L. Stoddard, music by Charles Berton (New York: M. Witmark and Sons, 1913) (Includes ‘Maiden Fair’, ‘Cupid Holds the Key’, ‘Hope On, Dear Heart’, ‘Just For You’, ‘Pansies and Poppies’, ‘Say You’ll Be My Own, Dear’, ‘Until the End I’ll Love But You’, ‘Forever’ and ‘Childhood Days’) ‘I’m On My Way to Mandalay’, words by Alfred L. Bryan and music by Fred Fisher [Fred Fischer] (New York: Leo Feist Inc., 1913) ‘I’m On My Way to Mandalay (Including Patriotic Version)’, words by A.L. Bryan and music by Fred Fisher [Fred Fischer] (New York: Leo Feist Inc., 1914?) ‘I’m On My Way to Mandalay: Medley Overture’ (Feist’s Song Medley No. 2), arranged by Lee Orean Smith (New York: Leo Feist, 1914) ‘Mandalay’, words by Rudyard Kipling and music by Gerard F. Cobb, in Jack and Tommy’s Favourite Patriotic Tunes, arrangements by Stanley Gordon (London: Charles Sheard and Co., 1914) ‘Mandalay (March Song), dedicated to S.S. Mandalay’, words and music by Mabel Besthoff (New York: Delaware-Hudson Steamship Co., 1914) ‘Mandalay’, words by Rudyard Kipling and music by Arthur Foote (Boston: Arthur P. Schmidt Co., 1915) ‘When the Mission Bells Were Ringing (Down in Burma by the Sea)’, words by Al Dubin and music by Gustav Benkhart (Philadelphia: Emmett J. Welch, 1916) ‘There’s a Burmah Girl A-Calling’ (in Burmah by the Sea)’, words by Harry Flanagan and music by Earl Burtnett (New York: A.J. Stasny Music Co., 1916) The Road to Mandalay: A Comic Opera in Two Acts, book by W.H. Post, words by William McKenna and music by Oreste Vesella (New York: M.  Whitmark and Sons, 1916) (Includes ‘Road to Mandalay’, ‘Alone’, ‘Firefly’, ‘Love That’s Never Been Told’ and ‘Shadows’) ‘A Burmese Ballet’, words by Harold Atteridge and music by Sigmund Romberg, Otto Motzan and Herman Timberg, in The Show of Wonders (New York: n.p., 1916) ‘Mandalay’, words by J.E. Hazzard and Percival Knight, music by A.B. Sloane, in Dew Drop Inn (New York: Leo Feist, 1917) ‘Mandalay’, music and words by C.B. Weston (unpublished, 1917) ‘In Mandalay’, words by Clifford Gray and music by N.D. Ayer, in The Bing Boys on Broadway (London: B.Feldman and Co., 1918) ‘A Burmese Boat’, music by C. Gilbert (New York?: n.p., 1918?) ‘Burmah Moon’, words and music by Gitz Rice (New York: Henry Burr Music Corporation, 1919)

234 Appendix ‘Burmese Belles’, music by Patricia Platzman, recorded by Art Hickman and his Orchestra (New York: Columbia Gramophone Co., 1919) ‘Burmese Bells: One Step’, music by Eugene Platzman (New York: Shapiro, Bernstein and Co., 1919) ‘My Rose of Mandalay’, words by Harold G. Frost and music by F. Henri Klickman (Chicago: McKinley Music Co., 1919) ‘Rose of Mandalay’, words by Ballard MacDonald and music by Herbert Claar (New York: Shapiro, Bernstein and Co., 1919) ‘Hindu Moon’, words by Lucille Palmer, music by Frank Magine and H.R. Cohen (Chicago: Will Rossiter, 1919) ‘Dancing on the Mandalay’, words and music by Lee David (New York: Delaware Hudson Steamship Company, 1919) ‘In Mandalay’, part of ‘Suite, Op.85’, music by Joseph Holbrooke (London?: n.p., 1920s?) ‘In Old Rangoon’, words and music by Gitz Rice (New York: G. Ricordi and Co., 1920) ‘Moonlight in Mandalay’, words by Jack Yellen and music by Abe Olman (Chicago: Forster Music Publisher Inc., 1920) ‘Burmah Bells’, words and music by Zo Elliott (London: Keith, Prowse and Co. Ltd, 1920) ‘Mandalay’, words by Neville Fleeson and music by Albert Von Tilzer (New York: Broadway Music Corp., 1920) ‘When I’m Back in Mandalay Again’, words by Allan Flynn and music by Jack Egan (New York: Irving Berlin Inc., 1920) ‘Mandalay’, words by H.M. Lockwood and music by L.W. Lockwood (unpublished, 1920) ‘Maid of Mandalay’, words and music by John Finke (unpublished, 1920) ‘My Burmah Girl’ (unpublished? 1920) ‘My Song of India’, words and music by Harley Rosso and H.L. Alford (St Paul: McClure Music Co., 1921) ‘Schuetz Burmah Air’, music by H.W. Yost (unpublished, 1921) ‘Mandalay’, words and music by F.W. Thomas (unpublished, 1921) ‘Twenty Miles From Mandalay’, words by Henry Creamer and music by Joe Jordan (New York: Irving Berlin Inc., 1922) ‘Burmah Bells’, words by Olga Yardley and music by Paul Michelin (Sydney: W.H. Paling, 1922) ‘Burmah Bells’, words and music by D.G. Owens (Vancouver: Weaver Music Supply Co., 1922) ‘Rangoon’, words and music by Toni Farrell (New York: Enoch and Sons, 1922) ‘Burma Nights’, words by Ray Valentine and music by Louis St Clair (London: Chappell and Co., 1922) ‘Mandalay’, words and music by Lew Brown and Carey Morgan (New York: Leo Feist, 1922)

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‘Burma’, music by Richard Cherkasky and Lucien Schmit, arranged by Dave Kaplan (unpublished, 1922) ‘In Dreamy Burma’, music by F.B. Winegar, arranged by L.S. Montgomery (unpublished, 1922) ‘Meet Me In Mandalay’, words and music by Albert Schiller (unpublished, 1922) ‘Rose of Mandalay’, music by Lynn Stroud (unpublished, 1922) ‘Rangoon’, words and music by J.H. Flynn (unpublished, 1922) ‘Down in Old Rangoon’, words by Wyn Ewart and music by Charles Prentice (London: Chappell and Co., 1923) Burmah Rubies: A Cycle of Four Eastern Songs, words by Percy Edgar and music by Mark Strong [J.L. Harris] (London: Boosey and Co., 1923). (Includes ‘Burmah Rubies’, ‘The Forest Temple’, ‘My Bamboo Flower’ and ‘The Dacoit’s Song’) ‘Maid O’ Mandalay’, words and music by Tom King and Jack Fewster (Adelaide: Saturday Journal, 1923) ‘Rose of Burmah’, words by Percy Edgar and music by Lawrence Emlyn, in Shuffle Along (London: St Giles Publishing Co. Ltd, 1923) ‘Chant Birman’, words and music by Andre Messager, in L’Amour Masque (Paris: Francis Salabert, 1923) ‘From Mandalay to Hudson Bay, As Long as I’m With You’, words by Owen Murphy and music by Al Sherman (New York: Clarke and Leslie Songs Inc., 1924) ‘Little Mandalay Princess: Oriental Idyll’, music by Cedric Lamont (London: Keith Prowse and Co. Ltd, 1924) ‘Mandalay: Fox Trot Ballad’, words and music by Earl Burtnett, Abe Lyman and Gus Arnheim (New York: Jerome H. Remick, 1924) ‘Mandalay’, words by Rudyard Kipling and music by Frederic Ayres (New York: G. Schirmer and Co., 1924) ‘Mandalay Moon’, words and music by Tom King and W.J. Munday [Jack Fewster] (London: West’s Ltd, 1924) ‘I’m Going to Jazz My Way to Mandalay’ (also known as ‘I’m Jazzin’ My Way to Mandalay’), words and music by J.G. Gilbert (London: Lawrence Wright Music Co., 1925) ‘Moonlight in Mandalay’, words by Marty Fay, music by Lou Herscher and Elmer Naylor (New York: Jack Mills Inc., 1925) ‘On The Road to Mandalay, Poem from Barrack-Room Ballads by Rudyard Kipling’: musical setting by George Gilder (New York: F.B. Haviland Publishing Co., 1925) ‘Burma Rifles March Past’ (Maymyo?: Queen’s Own Highlanders, 1925) ‘Beneath the Burmese Moon’, music by Herschel Henlere (London: ACO Records, 1925) ‘A Burmese Pwe: An Impression of Burma’, music by Henry Eichheim (New York: Neighbourhood Playhouse, 1926)

236 Appendix ‘A Burmese Yein Pwe’, music by Clifford Vaughan (Singapore?: Denishawn Dancers, 1926) ‘Mandalay: Isle of a Thousand Palms’, words and music by F.W. Salley (Tampa: Booster Record and Publishing Co., 1926) ‘The Pagoda of Flowers: Burmese Suite’, music by Sydney Herbert (London: Boosey and Hawkes, 1926) ‘Rangoon Wedding’, words and music by Gitz Rice (?), in Nic Nax of 1926 (New York: n.p., 1926) ‘Burma – Orchestra Suite’, music by Henry Eichheim (Chicago: n.p., 1927) ‘Burma: Oriental Fox-trot’, words by Rudy Bertram and music by Ben Evers (London: Rexborough Music Publishing Co., 1927) ‘In Mandalay with My Fair Lady’, words by Sidney Holden and music by Otto Motzan (New York: Otto Motzan, 1927) ‘Mandalay: “From the Barrack-Room Ballads”: Song’, lyrics by Rudyard Kipling, music by Harold Dixon (New York: Mills Music, 1927) ‘Mandalay Lady’, words by Eric Valentine and music by Rob Katscher, banjo and ukulele arrangement by A.D. Keech (London: B. Feldman and Co., 1927) ‘Mandalay’, words by Rudyard Kipling and music by A.M. Baldwin (unpublished? 1927) ‘Burmese Dance’, in ‘Piano Concerto No. 2, L’Orient, Op.100’, music by Joseph Holbrooke (London: n.p., 1928?) ‘Rose of Mandalay: Fox Trot Song’, words and music by Ted Koehler and Frank Magine (New York: Leo Feist Inc., 1928) ‘Burma Girl: Foxtrot’, words and music by Anthony Picton, banjo and ukulele arrangement by A.D. Keech (London: Billy Thorburn Music Publishing Co., 1928) ‘A Lagoon in Rangoon: A Burmese Barcarolle’, words and music by Val Valentine, banjo and ukulele arrangement by A.D. Keech (London: B. Feldman and Co., 1928) ‘Burmese Chant’, music by Evan Marsden (London: Joseph Henry Larway, 1928) ‘Yearning for Mandalay’, music by Sheik Taylor (Chicago: Chicago Music Publishing Co., 1928) ‘Song of Mandalay’, in Happy End, book by Elisabeth Hauptman, words by Bertolt Brecht and music by Kurt Weill (Berlin: n.p., 1929) ‘Festival of Empire: Grand Patriotic Fantasia’, music by John MackenzieRogan (London: Boosey and Company, 1929) ‘Rangoon’, composer unknown, vocals (in Urdu) by Habloo Quawal (Dum Dum: Columbia Records, 1920s?) ‘Rangoon Rice Carriers’, music by Joseph Holbrooke (London: Piccadilly Records, 1930?) ‘Burma Girl’, music by Charlie Lawrence, recorded by Paul Howard and the Quality Serenaders (Hollywood: Victor Records, 1930)

Appendix

237

‘Mandalay, Moonlight and You’, music by Lee David (New York: DelawareHudson Steamship Company, 1930) ‘In Old Mandalay’, words by Haven Gillespie, music by De Witt Parker and Harriett Bevson (Chicago: Milton Weil Music Co., 1931) ‘On The Road to Mandalay: Song’, words by Rudyard Kipling and music by Charles H. Maskell (Philadelphia: Morris Music Co., 1932) ‘Calling Me Home Again’, words by Perceval Graves and music by Vera Buck (London: Boosey and Co., 1935) ‘Mandalay’, words by Rudyard Kipling and music by Erling Winkel (Copenhagen: Musikk-Husets Forlag, 1936) ‘Six Melodies of Burma for Pianoforte’, arranged by Ma Hla Phroo (Cambridge: Heffer and Sons, 1937) ‘By An Old Pagoda’, words by Jimmy Kennedy and music by Hugh Williams (London: Peter Maurice Music Co., 1938)

The war years and after (1940–1948) ‘Moon Over Burma’, words by Dick McIntyre and L.L. Redman, music by Will Livernash (New York: Whitney Blake Music Publishing, 1940) ‘Moon Over Burma: As sung by Dorothy Lamour in the Paramount Picture Moon Over Burma’, words by Frank Loesser and music by Frederick Hollander (New York: Paramount Music Corporation, 1940) ‘Burma Convoy: End Title’, music by Heinz Roemheld and Frank Skinner (New York: Universal Music Corp., 1941) ‘Burma Road’, words and music by Gene Burdette? (unpublished, 1941) ‘A Burmese Ballet’, music by Sid Phillips, recorded by Bert Ambrose and his Orchestra (New York: Decca, 1942) ‘Burma Patrol’, music by Karl L. King, arranged by James Swearingen (Oskaloosa: C.L. Barnhouse Co., 1942, reprinted 2009) ‘Mandalay’, words by Rudyard Kipling and music by Erling Winkel, lyrics translated into Danish by Kai Fris Moller (Copenhagen: Skandinavisk og Borups Musikforlag, 1942) ‘Burma Bomber’, music by William Bauer, with Abe Lyman and his California Orchestra (n.p., 1942) ‘Burma Girl’, music by W.P. Burnett (St Louis: Porter Burnett Co., 1942) ‘I’m On My Way to Mandalay: Medley Overture’, arranged by L.O. Smith (New York: Leo Feist, 1942) ‘Bombers Over Burma’, music by Bob Carleton (unpublished, 1942) ‘Burma Road’, music by M.E. Kreger (unpublished, 1942) ‘Air Raid Over Burma’, words and music by J.A. Burton (unpublished, 1942) ‘Temple Bells of Mandalay’, words and music by E.M. Curtis (unpublished, 1942) ‘We’re on Our Way to Mandalay’, words and music by L.L. Schroeder (unpublished, 1942)

238 Appendix ‘From Tokyo to Mandalay’, words by Joan Haudenschield and music by C.A. Grimm (unpublished, 1942) ‘Greater Mandalay’, words and music by E.A. Nunez (unpublished, 1942) ‘Love From Mandalay’, words by J.L. Guiu (unpublished, 1942) ‘The Moon Was Shining Bright On Burma Valley’, words and music by J.N. Lenz (Detroit: Golden Tune Publishers, 1943) ‘Bee-line for Burma’, music by Harold Grant (New York: Colonial Music Co., 1943) ‘Mandalay Moon’, music by Robert Pollack (unpublished, 1943) ‘I’m Dreaming of Burma Road’, words and music by H.A. Campbell (unpublished, 1943) ‘Yellow Rose of Burma’ (1943?), words by Anonymous, in W.R. Peers and Dean Brelis, Behind the Burma Road (London: Robert Hale Ltd, 1964) ‘Burma Bounce’, music by Frankie Masters and Al Hecker (New York: Embassy Music Corporation, 1944) ‘Song of the Chindits’, words by ‘Frolik’ [John Hollington] (Colombo: SEAC, 1944) ‘Over the Chindwin’, music by Evan Macrae (1944), in The Cabar Feidh Collection: Pipe Music of the Queen’s Own Highlanders (Seaforth and Camerons) (London: Paterson’s Publications, 2004) Suite from the film Burma Victory (1944), music by Alan Rawsthorne (London: Ministry of Information, 1945) (includes ‘Dropping Supplies’, ‘Dawn and Jungle Advance’, ‘Building Boats’ and ‘Mandalay’) ‘Burma Flyer’, music by E.V. Bonnemere (unpublished, 1944) ‘Irma From Burma’, music by A.W. Halgerson (unpublished, 1944) ‘Irma From Burma’, words and music by Lew (Louis) Tobin (unpublished, 1944) ‘Irma From Burma’, words and music by Fred Fensterer (unpublished, 1944) ‘9th Battalion Gordon Highlanders Crossing the Irrawaddy’, music by A.A. Sim (1945), in The Cabar Feidh Collection: Pipe Music of the Queen’s Own Highlanders (Seaforth and Camerons) (London: Paterson’s Publications, 2004) ‘South Of Meiktila’, words by Tommy Wren (1945), in Martin Page, ‘Kiss Me Goodnight, Sergeant Major’: The Songs and Ballads of World War II (London: Hart-Davis, MacGibbon, 1973) Score from the film Objective, Burma!, music by Franz Waxman (Los Angeles: Warner Brothers, 1945). (Includes ‘Briefing in an Hour’, ‘Taking Off’, ‘Jumping’, ‘Killing the Sentry’, ‘Stop Firing’, ‘Andante’, ‘Two Came Back’, ‘Burmese Village’, ‘Resting’, ‘Missing the Plane’, ‘At Night’, ‘Invasion’ and ‘The Camp’) ‘Burma Road’, music by Ray Terry and Nat Temple (London: Campbell Connelly and Co., 1945) ‘Burma Road Blues, Parts 1 and 2’, words by Lionel Hampton, performed by Roy Milton’s Sextet (Los Angeles: Hamp-Tone 104, 1945)

Appendix

239

‘Burma Bound’, words and music by Johnny Uphill (Calcutta: Bernstein and Hills, 1945) ‘Sweetheart out in Burma’, music by Nat Vincent or D.M. Shelby (unpublished 1945) ‘Lookin’ at the Burma Moon’, music by Leo Richard and Hector Richard (unpublished 1945) ‘The Temple Bells of Mandalay’, words and music by E.M. Curtis (unpublished, 1945) ‘Burma Moon’, words and music by E.J. Roth (unpublished, 1945) ‘On the Burma Road’, music by B.L. Allaire (unpublished, 1945) ‘Down by Mandalay’, words by Anonymous, in Martin Page, ‘Kiss Me Goodnight, Sergeant Major’: The Songs and Ballads of World War II (London: Hart-Davis, MacGibbon, 1973) ‘Bury Me Out In The Jungle’, words by Anonymous, in Martin Page, ‘Kiss Me Goodnight, Sergeant Major’: The Songs and Ballads of World War II (London: Hart-Davis, MacGibbon, 1973) ‘Spud Spedding’s Broken Boys’, words by Anonymous, in Martin Page, ‘Kiss Me Goodnight, Sergeant Major’: The Songs and Ballads of World War II (London: Hart-Davis, MacGibbon, 1973) ‘The Minden Dandies’, words by Anonymous, in Roy Palmer, ‘What A Lovely War!’ British Soldiers’ Songs from the Boer War to the Present Day (London: Michael Joseph, 1990)

Note 1. US Library of Congress, Catalog of Copyright Entries, Musical Compositions (Washington: US Government Printing Office, various years).

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Other sources ‘Aung San Suu Kyi’, words and music by Wayne Shorter, in Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter, 1+1,Audio CD (Polygram Records, 1997) Beyond Rangoon, original motion picture soundtrack, music composed by Hans Zimmer, Audio CD (Milan Records, 2001)

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DBG, Free Burma, Audio CD (I Scream Records, 2011) For The Lady: Dedicated to Freeing Aung San Suu Kyi and the Courageous People of Burma, Audio CD (Rhino Records, 2004) Halliwell, Michael, ‘Rudyard Kipling’s Barrack-Room Ballads’, notes to When the Empire Calls, Audio CD (Sydney: ABC Classics, 2005) Instrument of War: Part 2: ‘Call to the Blood’, Highland Classics DVD (UK: Westminster King Productions, 2010) Leyendecker, J.C., ‘On The Road to Mandalay’, in Collier’s: The National Weekly, Vol. 41, No. 4, 18 April 1908 Miller, Chris, ‘Key Intersections of Modern Dance with Dance Traditions of Burma’, unpublished paper presented at the International Burma Studies Conference 2014, Singapore, 1–3 August 2014 ‘Objective Burma!, Film Score, 1945’, by Franz Waxman, Audio CD (Naxos Classics, 2005) Over the Hills and Far Away: The Music of Sharpe, Audio CD (Virgin Records, 1996) Peter Bellamy Sings the Barrack Room Ballads of Rudyard Kipling, Audio CD (Fellside, 2012) Rambo, original motion picture soundtrack, music composed by Brian Tyler, Audio CD (Lions Gate Films, 2008) ‘Rumpole and the Show Folk’, in Rumpole of the Bailey, starring Leo McKern, Series 2, Episode 3, 1979, DVD box set (London: Thames Television, 1992?) Songs That Won The War, Audio CD (ABC Classics, 2010) Taylor, R.H., The Relationship Between Burmese Social Classes and British-Indian Policy on the Behaviour of the Burmese Political Elite, 1937–1942, Unpublished PhD thesis, Cornell University, 1974 The Lady, original film score, music by Eric Serra, Audio CD (Sony Music, 2011) The Road to Mandalay (Kipling in Song 1866–1966), Owen Brannigan (Bass), Ernest Lush (Piano) with Gilbert Vinter and his Orchestra, 33.3 rpm LP (HMV/ EMI, 1966) Victoria Horne sings The Lady of Burma (Aung San Suu Kyi), Audio CD (Coeur de Celte, 2007) Yangon Calling – Music, Subculture and Politics in Myanmar (2012) film by Alexander Dluzak, Carsten Piefke and Matt Grace

Note 1. All on-line sources were accessed during the period July 2014–June 2015. They are listed as they appeared on screen, except that the authors’ names, where relevant, have been put into alphabetical order by surname.

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Index

The titles of movies, shows and major works such as operas and musical comedies are italicised. Titles of publications are also italicised and are followed by the author’s name in parentheses. Individual poems, songs and tunes are identified by the use of quotation marks. Dates in parentheses distinguish works with identical or very similar titles. Page numbers in the form ‘28n29’ indicate endnotes, for example note 29 on page 28. ‘The 1st Burma Rifles’ Quickstep’ 57 ‘9th Battalion Gordon Highlanders Crossing the Irrawaddy’ 180 Abduction from the Seraglio 14 ABMP see American Baptist Mission Press (ABMP) ‘About The Lady at her Broken Piano’ (painting) 214 An Account of the American Baptist Mission to the Burman Empire (Judson) 38–9 Ace of Clubs 123n149 Adas, Michael 135 AFRS see Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS) Ahuja, D.A. 17 Aida 14–15 ‘Air Raid Over Burma’ 188 air travel 13, 28n30 The Alaskan 95 Alexander, Sidney 139 ‘All Aboard for Dixie Land’ 160 ‘All As God Wills, Who Wisely Heeds’ 44 All That You Can’t Leave Behind 209 Alladin 59 Allen, Charles 83 ‘Alone’ 100 Alves, J.W.J. 96–8, 133, 139, 142 Ambrose, Bert 135, 186 American Baptist Board of Foreign Missions 37 American Baptist Mission Press (ABMP) 46

American Volunteer Group 205 Amherst, John 59 Ananda Pagoda, Pagan 107, 142 ‘And You’ll Be Home’ 186 Anderson, Marian 207–8 Anglican Church see Church of England Anglo-Burman (usage of term) 5 Anglo-Burmese Wars 10 1st (1824–1826) 6, 8n7, 18, 40, 51, 54, 152n58 2nd (1842–1853) 4, 8n7, 18, 55 3rd (1885) 19–20, 55, 56, 59, 60, 73–4 musical compositions 54–9 Anglo-Indian (usage of term) 5 animists 44, 137, 138 ‘Ap Shenkin’ (1808) 54 Appalachian Spring 208 Arakan province 8n7, 23–4 architecture in cover art 141–2 Oriental themes 13, 28n29 Arlen, Harold 112 armed bandits see dacoits Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS) 185 Armstrong, Louis 207–8 Arnheim, Gus 104 Arnold, Edwin 13, 139 art depictions of Burmese women 25, 141 portrayals of Burma 9 portrayals of Oriental life 13

274

Index

artwork for sheet music 90, 93, 104, 127–8, 130, 140, 141–2, 146 Ash, Sam 102 Assam province 8n7 Association for Moral and Social Hygiene 24 ‘At Naiac’ 91–2 Atkins, Tommy (slang name) 51, 80, 115 see also soldiers’ songs Attachment of Cloud string orchestra 211 Atteridge, Harold 100 Auden, W.H. 14 ‘Auld Lang Syne’ 160 tune of 36 Aung San 184 Aung San Suu Kyi 184, 209–10, 211, 212–15 and Kipling 212–13 and music 213–15 ‘Aung San Suu Kyi’ (song 1997) 214 Austin, Gene 174 Autry, Gene 178 Ava (Inwa) 5 ‘Ave Maria’ 185 Ayer, Nat 100, 134 Azad Hind (Provisional Government of Free India) 184 Azuly Blanco Marimba Band of Guatemala 140 Ba Maw 183 Baden-Powell, Robert 159 bagpipes see pipe music ‘Baile Inneraora’ (1715?) 57 Baker, John 52 ‘The Bakers of New Hampshire’ (family group) 52 Bakst, Leon 14 Baldwin, Anita 106 Baldwin, Thomas 36, 41 ‘The Ballad of Boh Da Thone’ 74 ‘The Ballad of East and West’ 106 ‘A Ballad of the Expeditionary Force’ 81 ballet see dance and dancers Bama (name of country) 3 see also Burma (country) Bamar ethnic group 5 bands see Christian missionaries; military bands and music banjos 77, 132, 141, 171 Baptist Church Hymnal 43–4

Baptist missionaries 21, 36–41, 43, 44–6, 50, 138 see also Christian missionaries Baring-Gould, Sabine 41 Barrack-Room Ballads and Other Verses (Kipling) 72, 76, 80, 85n25, 115, 181, 223 Basie, Count 207–8 ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic’ 206 The Battle of Waterloo (1824) 59 Bauer, William (‘Billy’) 186 Beato, Felice 17 Becker, Tobias 165 ‘Becky From Babylon’ 135 Beere, Rose Kidd 92, 93 Beethoven, Ludwig van 69n142 Bellamy, Peter 79 Belloc, Hilaire 61 bells in Burma-related songs 79, 94, 108, 128 ‘The Bells of Burmah’ (1912) 131 ‘Beneath the Burmese Moon’ 134 ‘Beneath the Shadow of the Cross’ 44 Bengal (European) Fusiliers 57 Bengal Entertainment Services Association (BESA) 177 Benkhar, Gustav 146 Bennett, Billy 82, 178 Bennett, Cephas 46 Berkman, Al 188 Bermah/Birmah see Burmah (name of country) Berton, Charles 98 BESA see Bengal Entertainment Services Association (BESA) ‘Bessa From Odessa’ 135 Besthoff, Mabel 124n159 Beverley, Bewicke 78, 79, 141 Bewitched by Burma (Carter) 48–9 Beyond Rangoon 211–12 bibi (beebee) (Hindi term) 173 The Bing Boys Are Here 100 The Bing Boys on Broadway 100 The Bing Girls Are Here 100 Bizet, Georges 15, 16 Blackberries 112 Blair, Eric see Orwell, George ‘Blaydon Races’ 178 Blei, Franz 108 ‘Bless ’Em All’ 174–5 Blethen, Joseph 95 The Blue Bells of Scotland 60 ‘Blue Bonnets over the Border’ (1745?) 54

Index The Blue Moon 93–4, 126, 131, 134, 140, 145 BMP see Burma Military Police (BMP) Bolger, Ray 112 ‘Bombay Bibley’ 173 ‘Bombers Over Burma’ (1942) 188 Bombs Over Burma (1942) 205, 206 Bonheur, Theo 79 Bonnemere, E.V. 188 Boothe, Clare 181 ‘Boots’ 181 Bose, Subhas Chandra 184 Boston Symphony Orchestra 108 Bowlly, Al 112 Boyer, Deborah 9, 18, 20, 59–60 Bradbury, William 46 brand names incorporating ‘Mandalay’ 224–5 Brannigan, Owen 80 Brecht, Bertolt 109, 127, 147 Bretherton, Howard 204 Britain see United Kingdom ‘The British Bayoneteers’ 55 British Burma (Indian province) 4, 8n7, 74, 80, 190n32 see also Burma (country) ‘The British Grenadiers’ (1706?) 54, 55 British press see newspapers and magazines British servicemen 53, 80 broadcasting see radio Broderick, George 84n20 Broken Blossoms 101 Brooks, Arnold 42 Brown, Lew 206 Brown, Wally 206 Browning, Tod 202 Bryan, A.L. 99, 114–15 Buchanan, Robert 60, 85n25 Buck, Vera 110 ‘Buddha’ 140 ‘Buddha at Kamakura’ 140 ‘Buddha Smiled’ (1924) 140 ‘Buddha’s Festival of Love’ (‘Buddha’s Liebesfeier’) 140 Buddhism 137–40 iconography 128 images of Buddha 140 Western attitudes to 139–40 Buddhists attitudes to Christian converts 43 attitudes to communal hymn singing 39 forms of reference to Buddha 77

275

‘Building Boats’ 207 Burchett, Wilfred 22–3, 24 ‘The Burial of Mrs Judson’ 43 Burke, Johnny 186 Burma (country) administrative capitals 5 annexation by UK 4, 8n7, 17, 18, 19–20, 73–4, 190n32 colonial society 157–62 documentaries on 172, 203 ethnic diversity 5 first European contacts 17 ‘Golden Land’ 39 government 4, 207, 208–11, 212 independence 2, 4, 8n4, 207 Japanese occupation of 8n4, 175, 182–4, 205 Kipling’s visit 1, 73–4, 225 monarchy 19 names 3–4 population 188n3 separation from India 5, 103, 190n32 unusual phenomena 18 see also Anglo-Burmese Wars; Western music in Burma; Western perceptions of Burma ‘Burma’ (nickname/personal name) 112 ‘Burma’ (or ‘Burmah’) frequency in song titles 126 ‘Burma (Oriental Fox-Trot)’ (1927) 133 ‘Burma – Orchestra Suite’ (1927) 108, 127, 131 ‘Burma Bomber’ 186 ‘Burma Bounce’ 188 ‘Burma Bound!’ 187 Burma Broadcasting Service 209 Burma Convoy (1941) 205–6 ‘Burma Flyer’ 188 ‘Burma Girl’ (1930) 106 ‘Burma Girl’ (1942) 188 ‘Burma girl’ concept 25–6, 75, 126, 145–8, 212 see also Burmese women Burma in Western music see musical works with Burmese themes; Western music and Burma after ‘Mandalay’; Western music and Burma before ‘Mandalay’ ‘Burma L.M’ 44 ‘Burma Lou’ 112 Burma Military Police (BMP) 20 ‘Burma Nights’ 146 ‘Burma Patrol’ 186

276

Index

‘Burma Rifles March Past’ 179–80 ‘Burma Road’ (1942) 188 ‘Burma Road’ (1945) 187 ‘Burma Road Blues’ (1945) 187 Burma Victory 206 Burmah (melodrama) 61 Burmah (name of country) 4 see also Burma (country) ‘Burmah’ (tune) 43 ‘Burmah Bells’ (1922) 127–31, 134 ‘Burmah Girl’ (1905) 93, 141, 144, 145 ‘Burmah Moon’ 101–2, 129, 140 ‘Burmah Rubies’ 105 Burmah Rubies: A Cycle of Four Eastern Songs 105 The Burman (Scott) 56 Burman (usage of term) 5 ‘The Burman Lover’ 52 ‘Burman Mission Hymn’ 37–8, 142 Burma–Thailand railway 183–4 Burmese (usage of term) 4 ‘A Burmese Ballet’ (1916) 100 ‘A Burmese Ballet’ (1942) 186 ‘Burmese Belles’ (1919) 104, 127 ‘Burmese Bells’ (1919) 120n89 ‘Burmese Birds of Paradise’ 59 ‘A Burmese Boat’ 102 ‘Burmese Chant’ 107 ‘Burmese Dance’ 107 Burmese Days (Orwell) 11, 23, 24, 48, 161, 164, 167 Burmese monarchy customs 117n39, 118n53 see also Mindon (King); Supayalat (Queen); Thibaw (King) Burmese music 107–8, 166, 169–72 contrasted with Western music 170 descriptions of 39, 49–50, 54, 170, 171 in films 169 Japanese influences 184 Karen musical talents 49–50 national orchestra 210–11 patriotic songs 183–4 Sullivan and 42 terminology xii university curricula 210 and Western musical styles 170–2, 208, 209, 210–11 see also Western music in Burma Burmese musical instruments 48, 107–8, 132, 141, 208, 210 Burmese musicians 184–5, 208, 209

A Burmese Pwe: An Impression of Burma 107–8, 127 Burmese themes in Western music see musical works with Burmese themes The Burmese War: or, Our Victories in the East 59 Burmese women ‘Burma girl’ concept 25–6, 126, 145–8, 212 clothing 23, 77, 141 status of 137 Western perceptions of 21–6, 137, 141, 143–8 ‘Burmese Yein Pwe’ (dance) 166 Burnett, Porter 188 Burns, Robert 36, 56–7 Burtnett, Earl 104 Burton, John 188 Buruma, Ian 16, 143 ‘Bury Me Out In The Jungle’ 175–6 Butler, (Spencer) Harcourt 160 ‘By An Old Pagoda’ (1938) 106, 126, 142 ‘By Old Fort San Felipe’ 91 ‘By The Old Pagoda Anchorage’ (1926) 113 ‘Bye Bye Blackbird’ 174 ‘Cabar Feidh’ (1715?) 57 Cagney, James 174 Cain, James 79 ‘Calcutta Cholera Song’ 54–5 Calcutta Orchestral Society 163 California Orchestra 104, 186 Californians (band) 206 ‘Calling Me Home Again’ 110, 126 Cambridge Edition of the Poems of Rudyard Kipling (Pinney) 76 Campagnac, Charles 50 Campbell, Archibald 51 see also ‘General Campbell’ Campbell, H.A. 188 Campbell, Reginald 204 ‘The Campbells Are Coming’ (1715?) 57 ‘Can we, whose souls are lighted’ 137 Captains of the Clouds 174 Carleton, Bob 188 Carmen 16 Carney, Alan 206 ‘Carnival of the Animals’ 114 Carrington, Charles 83, 121n107 Carter, Anne 48–9 Caruso, Enrico 91

Index Casa Loma Orchestra 204 The Cat’s Eye 97–8 ‘The Cat’s Eye Song’ 97 Ceylon (Sri Lanka) 15, 43 Chaney, Lon 202 ‘Chant Birman’ 111 Chaplin, Charlie 130 Chappell and Company 115n2 Charlie Bird Trio 207–8 The Cheat 215n1 Chicago Symphony Orchestra 108 Childers, James 164 ‘Childhood Days’ 98 Chin people 49 China Japanese invasion 205 national ballet company 208 China Seas 203 China-Burma-India theatre, Second World War see Second World War A Chinese Honeymoon 16 Chinese themes and influences 13 see also Orientalism cholera 54–5 ‘Cholera Camp’ 54 Christian, John 76 ‘Christian Brethren O’er the Main’ 137, 152n73 Christian churches 48, 66n88 bells 128 organs 47–8 Christian missionaries 11, 23, 36–51 attitudes to alternative belief systems 137–9 attitudes to local culture 45, 136–8 attitudes to women 137 belief in Western supremacy 136 colonialism and 11–12 converts made 40, 43, 44, 45, 48, 64n47 music and bands 45, 47, 48, 50, 66n93, 138–9, 159 schools in Burma 138–9 see also hymn books; hymn singing; hymns ‘The Christian’s Hope’ 36–7 Christie, Clive 9, 14 Church of England Anglican numbers in Burma 47 churches 47–8 hymns 35, 36, 40, 47, 49 missionaries 40, 63n32 see also Christian missionaries Churchill, Winston 182, 216n22

277

circuses 165–6, 167 Claar, Herbert 104 Clapton, Eric 210 classical music 158, 163, 208, 209, 210–11, 213 Clayton, Martin 132 Clive, Franklin 132 Club Royal Orchestra 187 ‘Coastwise’ 113 Cobb, Gerard 78, 79, 80 cohabitation 23–4, 145–6, 173 Cohen, Henry 103 ‘The Cold Weather’ 96, 142 Coldplay 210 Cole, Joanna 208 Collis, Maurice 161, 164 ‘Colonel Bogey’ 182 colonial society 157–62 colonialism 10–12, 13, 19, 80, 135–40, 148–9 see also Anglo-Burmese Wars Colonna, Jerry, new lyrics adapted to tune ‘Come, Holy Spirit, Dove Divine’ 40 ‘Come, Holy Spirit, Guest Divine’ 63n28 ‘Come, Holy Spirit, Love Divine’ 63n28 Comedian Harmonists 183 communal hymn singing see hymn singing concubinage 23–4, 145–6, 173 ‘A Conference of the Powers’ 74 Congregational Church Hymnal 43 Congregational Hymnary 43–4 ‘Constantly’ 168, 185 converts to Christianity 40, 43, 44, 45, 64n47 ‘coon songs’ 114, 148 Copland, Aaron 208 copy thachin (Burmese cover songs of international hits) 210 copyright 78, 210 Costello, Maurice 202 Coward, Noel 113–14, 160, 177–8 Cowper, William 44 Craddock, Olive 102 Cray, Ed 179 Crimson Glory 44 Crosby, Bing 80, 127, 133, 186 Crosby, Frances (Fanny) 137–8 Crown of India 15 Crozier, L.A. contribution to Kipling Journal 77, 86n38 Cunningham, Hugh 131

278

Index

‘Cupid Holds the Key’ 98 Curtis, Eric see Marsden, Evan Cutler, Julian 112 dacoits 20, 57, 58, 60, 144, 207 ‘The Dacoit’s Song’ 105 ‘Daisy Bell’ 171 Damrosch, Walter 78, 79, 102 dance and dancers 14, 59, 60–1, 102, 107–8, 127, 166, 208 dance music 131 ‘Dancing on the Mandalay’ 115 ‘Danse Birmane’ 146 Darwin, Charles 139 Daughters of the Empire (fictional ballet) 60 Dave Brubeck Quartet 218n48 ‘Dawn and Jungle Advance’ 207 Dawn Patrol (movie) 69n142 Dawson, E.C. 42 Dawson, Peter 80, 127, 166, 181, 225 ‘The Day Thou Gavest Lord, Is Ended’ 41 Daye, Irene 204 definitions 5–6 Delap, Lucy 26 Delibes, Léo 16 DeMille, Cecil B. 215n1 Denishawn Dancers 127, 166, 208 ‘Deolali Sahib’ 173–4 Departmental Ditties (Kipling) 74 ‘Der Song von Mandalay’ (‘The Mandalay Song’) 109–10 Devers, W.J. 57 Devine, Philippa 59 Dew-Drop Inn 101 Dhamma Thadinsa (Religious Herald) 46 ‘Dhobie’ (term) 92 Dickens, Charles 13, 155n131 Dietrich, Marlene 205 disease 54–5, 59 Disraeli, Benjamin 11, 135 Dixon, Mort 174 Doane, W.H. 152n73 Dobree, Bonamy 83 Doddridge, Philip 44 Dodge, Ossian 52 ‘Doing Our Bit For the War’ 176–7 Dolman, Eric see Marsden, Evan Domett, Alfred 69n142 Donnison, Vernon 163 Dormon, James 148 Douglas, Gavin 3, 170, 210, 211

Dove, Jonathan 215 Doveton, Frederick 54 Dowling, Bartholomew 55 ‘Down by Mandalay’ 176 ‘Down by Manila Bay’ (1904) 91 ‘Down by Old Manila Bay’ 92 ‘Down in Burmah’s sunny distant land’ 111 ‘Down in Old Rangoon’ 105, 134 ‘Dropping Supplies’ 207 Du Maurier, Daphne 225 Dubin, Al 146 Duffield, George 41 Dumble, Mr 163 ‘The Dying Soldier’ 175–6 East India Company see Honourable East India Company (HEIC) Easton, Robert 80 the East/the Orient, defined 5–6 see also Orientalism; Western perceptions of the Orient Eckstein, Willie (‘Mr Fingers’) 102 Edgar, Percy 101, 105 Edison, Thomas 90 Edmund, A.M.O. 38 Edward VII (King) 6, 61 Edward, Prince of Wales 164 Edwardes, George 60–1 Edwards, Penny 161 Egypt 15, 42, 101, 128 see also North Africa ‘Egyptian Ella’ 135 Eichheim, Henry 107–8, 127, 131, 132, 166 Eldredge, Sears 183 ‘Electric Burma’ concert, Dublin 215 Elgar, Edward 15 Eliot, T.S. 78, 83 Ellerton, John 41 Ellington, Duke 207–8 ‘Emerald Dusk’ 208 Emlyn, Lawrence 101 English Hymnal 47 Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA) variety shows 177 ‘Estrellita’ 185 ethnic diversity of Burma 5 ‘Eton Boating Song’ 160, 175, 181 Eurasian (usage of term) 5 Eurasian musicians 162, 168–9 evangelism see Christian missionaries Ewart, Win 105

Index Fagin, Wally 168 Fain, Sammy 206 ‘The Fairies’ Siege’ 212–13 The Fakir of Ava 14 ‘Far East’ see the East/the Orient ‘Farewell to the Missionaries’ 38, 62n16 Fay, Marty 106 Feingold, Michael 109 females see Burmese women; women, attitudes to Fielding, Ben 111 Fielding, H. see Hall, Harold Fielding Fields, Gracie 174 film music 91, 169, 202, 203–7, 211–12 films 9–10, 91 Burmese 169 documentaries 172, 203 Hollywood portrayals of Burma 9, 202–7, 211–12 titles associated with ‘Mandalay’ 224 films relating to ‘Mandalay’ film of singers of ‘On the Road to Mandalay’ 80–1 movies with links to ‘Mandalay’ 202–5 ‘Firefly’ 100 The First Burmese War (1826) 59 ‘The 1st Burma Rifles’ Quickstep’ 57 Fisher, A. Hugh 25 Fisher, Fred 99, 114–15 Fitzgerald, Ella 112 Flanagan, Harry 104 flowers in Burma-related songs 128–9 Flying Tigers 205, 206 Flynn, Errol 206 ‘Follow the Sea’ 113 ‘The Fond Dove and his Lady Love’ 106 food 18, 224 Forbes, Charles 21 Foreign Mission Chronicle (magazine) 42 ‘The Forest Temple’ 105 ‘Forever’ 98 ‘Forever Here My Rest Shall Be’ 44 Formby, George 174 Foster, Garry see Marsden, Evan Foster, Stephen 205 Four Songs of Burma (1910) 96, 133, 142 see also Songs of Burma (Second Set) (1912)

279

France 19 Francis, Kay 203 Frank Phinney and B.M. Jones, Hymns of Praise 46 Franklin, Jeffrey 11 Franklyn, Guy 107 Fraser, George MacDonald 173–4, 178, 181 Frolik (pseudonym) 178 From Edinburgh to India and Burma (Murdock) 42 ‘From Whence Doth This Union Arise’ 41 Frost, Harold 103 ‘Fuck ‘Em All’ 174 Gable, Clark 203, 204 Garland, Judy 160 ‘Garryowen’ 55 Gascoigne, Gwendolen Trench 23 Gatling Gun 71n183 The Geisha 159 ‘General Campbell’ 51, 136 George V (King) 6 George VI (King) 6, 20 ‘Georgie Porgie’ 22, 24, 74 Gershwin, Ira 112 Gilbert, C. 102 Gilbert and Sullivan operettas 15, 159, 161–2, 165 see also Sullivan, Arthur Gilmour, David 77–8 Girard, Harry 95 The Girl From Mandalay (1936) 203, 204 The Girl I Left Behind Me (Belasco & Fyles 1893) 70n178 The Girl I Left Behind Me (Edwardes 1893) 60 Glass, Leslie 167 The Glass Palace Chronicle 97 Glen, David 57 Glover-Kind, John 111 ‘God Moves in a Mysterious Way’ 44 Godfrey, Charles 11 Godfrey, Fred 174 Goebbels, Josef on Hindemith 122n124 ‘Golden Land’ (Burma) 39 ‘The Golden Land of Burma’ 96, 142 The Golden Pagoda 203 Goldsmith, Jerry 211–12 Gone With the Wind 204 ‘Good King Wenceslas’ 171

280

Index

Goodall, Frederick 25, 141 Goodman, Benny 140, 207–8 ‘gook (‘gugu’ ‘goo-goo) (term) 91–2 Gopal, Ram 166 gospel songs 46, 47, 152n73 see also hymns Graham, Martha 208 Grainger, Percy 78 gramophone records see sound recordings ‘Grand Patriotic Fantasia’ 56 ‘The Grave of the Hundred Dead’ 74 Graves, Perceval 110 Gray, Glen 204 Great Britain see United Kingdom Green, Anthony 177 ‘From Greenland’s Icy Mountains’ 40–1, 47 Grey, Clifford 100, 134 Griffith, D.W. 101 Grosz, Wilhelm (Hugh Williams) 106 ‘gugu’ (‘goo-goo’ ‘gook’) (term) 91–2 ‘Gunga Din’ 152n63, 168 Gurney, Dorothy 49 Guys and Dolls 122n125 Gymkhana Club, Rangoon 161, 164 Orchestra 168 Hall, Harold Fielding 22 Hamilton, Sharon 75 Hampton, Lionel 106, 187 Hancock, Herbie 214 ‘Hap, Hap, Happy Day’ parody 183 Happy End 109, 127, 131, 147 ‘Harbour Lights’ 106 Harburg, E.Y. 112 Harding, John Wesley 52 Harlow, Jean 203 The Harmoniers 187 Harriden, Jessica 23 Harris, Augustus 61 Harris, Lawrence 81 Hart, Alice 34n137 Harvey, G.E. 21 Harvey, Godfrey 80 Haswell, James 45 Hauptmann, Elisabeth 109 Heath, Lyman 43 Heber, Reginald 40–1, 45, 47, 137 Hecker, Al 188 Hedgcock, Walter 78, 79, 80, 132 HEIC see Honourable East India Company (HEIC) Heifetz, Jascha 166

‘Hello Frisco’ 185 Henderson, Ray 174 Henlere, Herschel 134 Herbert, Sydney 95 Herbert, Trevor 138, 159 ‘Here’s to the Grog’ 51 ‘Here’s To The Last To Die’ 55 Herscher, Lou 106 Heywood, Donald 112 Hickman, Art 104, 127 hill tribes 20, 44, 180 Hindemith, Paul 108–9, 122n124 ‘Hindu Moon’ 103, 130 ‘Hindustan’ 130 Hmannan Maha Yazawindawgyi (The Glass Palace Chronicle) 97 Hobday, Edmund 136 ‘The Hokey Cokey’ 121n104 Holbrooke, Joseph (Josef) 107, 127, 131 Hollander, Frederick 204, 205 Hollington, John 178 Hollywood movies see films ‘Holy, Holy, Holy’ 41 Honourable East India Company (HEIC) 8n7, 28n26, 40, 54, 57, 68n125 ‘Hope On, Dear Heart’ 98 Hough, George 46 How, William Walsham 42 Howard, Paul 106 Howe, Julia War 206 Howe, Robert 80 Hughes, Isaiah 14 Hughes, Jimmy 174 ‘Hump Happy’ 186 Huxley, Aldous 14, 164 Hylton, Jack 147 hymn books 36, 37, 41, 43–4, 46, 47 hymn singing 35, 39, 40, 44–5, 46, 47, 49, 138 hymns 35–51, 137–8, 152n73 in Burmese languages 39–40, 41, 43, 45–7, 49 gospel songs 46, 47 themes 40–1 Hymns Ancient and Modern 36, 41, 42, 47 Hymns Especially Designed for Divine Worship 37 Hymns of Praise (Phinney and Jones) 46 Hymns of the Heavenly Way 46

Index ‘I Dug a Ditch’ 185 ‘I Like America’ 114 ‘I Wonder What Happened to Him’ 177–8 ‘If’ 182, 213 If I Had My Way 186 Ikeya, Chie 23, 137 ‘I’m Dreaming of Burma Road’ 188 ‘I’m Getting Better Every Day’ 105 ‘I’m Going to Jazz My Way to Mandalay’ 147 ‘I’m In My Glory’ 206 ‘I’m On My Way to Mandalay’ 99, 114–15, 134 imperialism see Anglo-Burmese Wars; colonialism ‘In a Persian Market’ 15 ‘In an Oriental Garden’ 111 ‘In Far Off Mandalay’ 95 ‘In Mandalay’ (1918) 100, 134, 144 ‘In Mandalay’ (Holbrooke, part of Suite, Op.85, 1928?) 107 ‘In Old Mandalay’ (1931) 142 ‘In Old Rangoon’ 102 ‘In Partibus’ 75, 110 In Search of Hot Water (Wells) 164 Incomplete Guide to Burma (Swinhoe) 96 India Anglo-Indians 5 British Burma province 4, 8n7, 74, 80, 190n32 British rule 10, 54, 57, 149 Burma confused with 18 Burma separation from 5, 103, 190n32 church music 40, 48 colonial society 157–9 Indian themes and iconography 103, 130, 142 music 54 portrayals of 12, 13, 15 Provisional Government of Free India 184 Indian Army 53, 57, 58, 68n125, 96, 177–8, 180 The Indian Army ABC (‘Myauk’) 117n39 Indian Imperial Police 50, 67n108, 156n154 Indian National Army 184 The Indian Queen 140 Indo-Burma Pioneer Mission 44 ‘The Infantry, the Infantry’ 204

281

‘Infantry’s Tune’ 184 Inwa see Ava (Inwa) ‘Irma from Burma’ 188 Irrawaddy Flotilla Company 77 Isaacs, ‘Ike’ 185 ‘Isle of Capri’ 106, 171 ‘It Ain’t Half Hot Mum’ (TV series) 178 The Italian Girl in Algiers 14–15 ‘It’s the English-Speaking Race Against the World’ 11 ‘Jack Tar’ (slang name) 115 Jackson, Preston 127 James, Lewis 106 James, Richard Rhodes 96 Janssen, Werner 102 Japanese occupation of Burma 8n4, 175, 182–4, 205 Japanese themes and influences 13, 15, 130, 132, 184 see also Orientalism ‘Javanese Pepper Dance’ 107 jazz music 101, 125, 129, 131, 133, 162–3, 168, 207–8 Jean, Gloria 186 ‘Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair’ 205 ‘Jesus Loves Me, This I Know / For the Bible Tells Me So’ 46 ‘Jingle Bells’ 206 Jive Boys 168, 184–5 John, Elton 211 ‘John Barleycorn’ (1782) 56 ‘John Brown’s Body’ 171, 206 Johns, Al 95 Johnson, J. Rosamond 95 Johnston, George 181 Jolson, Al 104, 127 Jones, B.M. and Frank Phinney, Hymns of Praise 46 Jones, Isham 206 Jones, Sidney 110, 159 Judson, Adoniram 37, 38, 39–40, 41, 63n33, 136, 138 Judson, Ann 21, 38–9, 137 Judson, Emily 52 Judson, Sarah 43, 139 ‘Just For You’ 98 Just So Stories (Kipling) 100 Kachin people 49 ‘Kaloolah’ (1906) 111 Kappey, Jacob 56 ‘Karama (A Japanese Romance)’ 130

282

Index

Karen Baptist Mission, Tavoy 46 Karen people Christian converts 44 musical talents 49–50 musicians 211 ‘Kashmiri Song’ 94 Kauffman, Ferdy 140 Kay, Arthur 204 ‘Kayah Than’ (‘The Sound of the Trumpet’) 56, 102 Keck, Stephen 9 Keeler, Ward 3 Kelly, Gerald 25–6 Kelly, Robert 23, 24 Kelly, Robert Talbot 25 Kemp, Victor 95 Kennedy, Jimmy 106 Kerslake, Frank 174 Ketelbey, Albert 15 Kewsan 209 Khin Nyunt 211 Kim (Kipling) 212 Kimball-Young, Clara 202 King, Charles 93 King, Eleanor 208 King, Karl 186 Kingdom of Ava 5 see also Burma (country) Kipling, Rudyard Aung San Suu Kyi admiration for 212–13 Burma references in writings 74 on Burmese women 24, 145–6 Eliot. on 78, 83 life 75, 84n18 musical awareness 78 Nobel Prize for Literature 76 Orwell on 82–3, 226 vernacular style 76 visit to Burma 1, 73–4, 225 Kipling, Rudyard, works ‘The Ballad of Boh Da Thone’ 74 ‘The Ballad of East and West’ 106 Barrack-Room Ballads 72, 76, 80, 85n25, 115, 181, 223 ‘Boots’ 181 ‘Buddha at Kamakura’ 140 ‘Cholera Camp’ 54 ‘A Conference of the Powers’ 74 Departmental Ditties 74 ‘The Fairies’ Siege’ 212–13 ‘Georgie Porgie’ 22, 24, 74 ‘The Grave of the Hundred Dead’ 74 ‘Gunga Din’ 152n63, 168

‘If’ 182, 213 ‘In Partibus’ 75, 110 Just So Stories 100 Kim 212 ‘The Ladies’ 145 ‘The Men That Fought at Minden’ 180 ‘My Great and Only’ 78 ‘A Nightmare of Names’ 74, 182 Something of Myself 78 ‘Song of the Banjo’ 158 ‘A Song of the English’ 11 ‘The Taking of Lungtungpen’ 74 see also ‘Mandalay’ (poem) ‘The Kipling Walk’ 100 Klickmann, Frank 103 Klier, Adolphe 17 Konbaung Dynasty 5 Kreger, Rie 188 Kronberger, Heini 140 Krupa, Gene 204 La Meri 166 ‘The Ladies’ 145 For The Lady (2004) 209–10 The Lady (2011) 211–12 ‘A Lagoon in Rangoon’ 135 Lahr, Bert 112 Laine, Frankie 80 Lake, Frank 174 Lakme 16 Lally, James 174 Lamont, Cedric 127 Lamour, Dorothy 204 L’Amour Masque 111 Lanner, Katti 60 Larkin, Emma 225 ‘The Lass That Loves a Sailor’ 51 Latimer, Jon 174 Laurie, William 55 Lawrence, Charlie 106 Lehar, Franz 171 Leigh, Michael 46 Leigh, Vivien 204 ‘Lena From Palesteena’ 135 Lennox, Annie 214 ‘The Lesser Evil’ (Orwell, poem) 50, 67n109 ‘Let’s Take a Walk Around the Block’ 112 Leviathan (ship) 104 Lewis, Norman 225 Lewisohn, Irene 107 Life Begins at 8:40, 112

Index A Life of Pleasure 61 The Light of Asia 13, 139 ‘Lili Marlene’ 176 Lillie, Beatrice 113 Lilliputian Opera Company 166 Linaker, Kay 204 Lissanevitch, Boris 166 literature Eliot on 83 Nobel Prize 76 portrayals of Burma 9, 23, 26, 164 portrayals of Oriental life 12–14, 17 titles associated with ‘Mandalay’ 224 see also Kipling, Rudyard; travel literature ‘Little Mandalay Princess (Oriental Idyll)’ (1924) 127, 132 Littlejohns, John 107 Livernash, Will 205 Locke, Ralph 137 Loesser, Frank 185, 204, 205 ‘The Long and the Short and the Tall’ 174–5 Longfellow, William 44 ‘The Loom’ 97–8 the Lord’s Prayer 39 ‘the lottery of life’ quotation 11 lotus flowers 128, 129 love and longing (theme) 74, 125–31, 224 ‘Love Farewell’ 56–7 ‘Love That’s Never Been Told’ 100 Lower Burma 4, 8n7 see also Burma (country) ‘Lullaby’ 97 Luttman, A.C. 96 Lyman, Abe 104, 186, 206 Lynn, Vera 174, 177 Lyric Quartet 203 ‘Ma Lay’ 96 McCall, J.P. 181 McCartney, Paul 210 McEnelly, Edwin J. 106 McGonagall, William 60 MacGregor, John 52–3 McIntyre, Dick 205 McKenna, William 99, 134 Mackenzie-Rogan, John 55, 56, 57, 58, 132, 170 MacLachlan, Heather 3, 211 McLeod, Alexander 57 Macrae, Evan 180

283

‘Mad Dogs and Englishmen’ 113–14, 177 Madam Butterfly 16 ‘Mademoiselle from Armentieres, Parlez-vous?’ 102 magazines see newspapers and magazines magic tricks 14 Magine, Frank 103 The Maid of Mandalay (1910?) 95–6 ‘The Maid of Mandalay’ (1910?) 96 A Maid of Mandalay (1913) 202 ‘The Maid of Mandalay; or Nam Le Voo’ (1896) 52–3 ‘The Maiden and the Buddh’ 97 ‘Maiden Fair’ 98 Major Barbara 109 Malcolm, Charles 180 Mama’s Papa 111 Mandalay (city) 5 British recovery of (Second World War) 179, 182 Duke Ellington concert 208 Maugham on 223 Orwell on 89n88 social life 161, 167 as symbol 223, 224 Mandalay (commercial brands) 224–5 Mandalay (film 1934) 203–4 ‘Mandalay’ (film score 1945) 207 ‘Mandalay (March Song)’ (1914) 115 ‘Mandalay’ (poem) Aung San Suu Kyi and 212–13 ‘banjo’ in 77, 132, 141 changes to first line 76–7 criticisms of 76–8, 82–3 geographical anomalies 77, 142 history of 73–5 influence of 1, 83, 180–2, 223–6 interpretations of 75 Kipling comments on 77, 78 musical settings 78–83, 148, 160, 181, 224 names 91 Orwell on 82–3, 226 parodies and imitations 81–2, 178 popular association with Burma 80, 164, 181–2, 225–6 popularity 73, 75, 79–80, 83, 90, 148 references in musical works 93–4, 114, 126, 224 rhyme patterns 133 soldiers’ attitudes to Asian culture reflected in 136

284

Index

text in full 72–3 translations 79 see also ‘On the Road to Mandalay’ (song); Western music and Burma after ‘Mandalay’ ‘Mandalay’ (song 1911) 79, 141 ‘Mandalay’ (song 1924) 104, 127 ‘Mandalay’ (song 1927) 106 Mandalay (steamship) works composed for 115 ‘The Mandalay’ (tune 1899) 91 ‘Mandalay (Where the Moonbeams Play)’ 129 ‘Mandalay Again’ 211 Mandalay Herald newspaper 52 ‘Mandalay Moon’ (1924) 129 ‘Mandalay Moon (Oriental Fox-Trot Song)’ (1924) 132 ‘Mandalay, Moonlight and You’ 115, 129 ‘Mandalay Potpourri’ 80, 87n65 ‘Mandalay Scena’ 80, 87n65 ‘The Mandalay Song’ (‘Der Song von Mandalay’) 109–10 ‘Mandalay: The Isle of a Thousand Palms’ 115 ‘Mandalay Waltz’ 78, 141 ‘Mandy From Mandalay’ 114 ‘Manila Bay’ (1921) 130 ‘Manila Way’ (1904) 91 Maples, Nelson 104 Marblehead Historical Society (US) 112–13 ‘March For My Lovely Horse’ 184 marching songs see soldiers’ songs Mareo, Eric 107 Marks, Godfrey 57 Marriot, Mary 140 Marsden, Evan 107, 121n113, 142 Marshall, W.H. 23, 159 Martell, Edgar 107 Maskell, Charles 79 Mason, Lowell 37 ‘Master, master, don’t forget me, will we meet again’ 56 Masters, Frankie 188 Mattinson, Brian 79 Maude, Mary Fawler 49 Maugham, Somerset 26, 164, 170, 223 Maung Htin Aung 24, 143 Maung Zarni 212 Mawlamyine see Moulmein Maxim Gun 61, 71n183 May, D. 57

Maymyo, Burma 57, 96, 158–9, 161, 179, 180 Medrea, Nicoleta 225 ‘Meet the Sun Half Way’ 186 Meiktila, Burma 178, 180, 182 ‘Men of Harlech’ 56 ‘The Men of Merry England’ 135 ‘The Men That Fought at Minden’ 180 Menzeli sisters 59 merchant shipping 13, 28n30 Merry Go Round of 1938, 206 ‘The Merry Widow’ 171 Messager, Andre 111 Methodist Church 46, 153n78 see also Christian missionaries Metro Movietone Review (1929) 203 Metropolitan 203 ‘Mexican Magic’ 204 Michelin, Paul 134 Middleton, James Raeburn 25 Mikado 15 military bands and music 53–9, 158, 159, 161, 168, 187 see also soldiers’ songs ‘Millennial Dawn’ 41 Miller, Marilyn 100 Milton, Roy 187 ‘The Minden Dandies’ 180 Mindon (King) 19 missionaries see Christian missionaries ‘The Missionary Mother’s Lament’ 52 Mitton, Geraldine 171 The Modern Traveller (guidebook 1826) 23 Mogok gem mines 61 Monks, Victoria 57 Moody, Dwight 47 The Moon Maiden: A Burmese Operetta 98–9 ‘Moon Over Burma’ (1939) 205 ‘Moon Over Burma’ (1940) 129, 204, 205 Moon Over Burma (1940) 204 ‘Moonlight Becomes You’ 185 ‘Moonlight in Mandalay’ 106, 127, 129, 146–7 moonlight theme in Burma-related songs 129 ‘The Morning Light is Breaking’ 41 Morton, Lawrence 206 Mosley, Thomas 44 Motzan, Otto 100 Moulmein, Burma Kipling’s visit 74

Index ‘Mandalay’ and 76–7 printing presses 46, 47 social life 159, 167 ‘A Mound is in the Graveyard’ 52 Mountbatten, Louis 164, 177 Mounted Infantry 57 ‘The Mousmee’ 132 movies see films Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus 14 Mr Lode of Koal 95 ‘The Muddled Merchant of Venice’ 159 Murdoch, W.G. Burn 25 Murdock, William Gordon Burn 42 music as cultural vector 9–10 global markets 125 Oriental themes 14–16, 101, 131–2, 140–3, 223–4 see also Burmese music; hymns; military bands and music; musical works with Burmese themes; sound recordings; Western music and Burma after ‘Mandalay’; Western music and Burma before ‘Mandalay’; Western music in Burma music halls 15, 51, 78, 136 music lessons 168–9 music publishing 9–10, 90–1, 97, 119n73 see also sheet music musical instruments Asian 107 banjo 77, 132, 141, 171 bells 79, 94, 108, 128 Burmese 48, 107–8, 132, 141, 208, 210 church organs 47–8 in cover art 141 piano 158, 169, 170, 213–14 ukulele 132, 141 Western, in Burma 158, 168, 170–2, 209 see also military bands and music musical terms ix–xii musical works with Burmese themes duration of songs and instrumentals 126–7 in late 20th century 211–12 musical styles 131–5 popularity 148 re-use of lyrics/change of settings 130 sheet music artwork 93, 127–8, 130, 140, 141–2, 146 stage shows 93–110, 127, 131, 146

285

storylines 126–31 see also Western music and Burma, after ‘Mandalay’; Western music and Burma, before ‘Mandalay’ musical works with Burmese themes, lists of 229–30 1824–1889 (early period) 230–1 1890–1939 (Kipling’s ‘Mandalay’ and after) 231–7 1940–1948 (war years and after) 237–9 musical works with Burmese themes, patterns in Burma and the Burmese 140–3 race and religion 135–40 styles, types and rhymes 131–5 subjects and themes 125–31, 224 women and sexism 143–8 ‘A Musician in Many Lands: Impressions of Travel’ 107, 142 ‘My Bamboo Flower’ 105 ‘My Bearer Gungadeen’ 136 ‘My Fillipino Belle’ 111 ‘My Great and Only’ 78 ‘My Little China Doll’ 130 ‘My Maid of Mandalay’ 94, 134 ‘My Melancholy Baby’ 168 ‘My Oriental Rosebud’ (1918) 132 ‘My Rose of Mandalay’ (1919) 103, 129, 130, 133 ‘My Song of India’ 103, 130, 144 ‘My Wife Has Gone to Visit Her Relations’ 96 Myanmar (name of country) 3, 4 see also Burma (country) ‘Myanmar Kaba Ma Kyei’ (‘Myanmar Till the End of the World’) 183 ‘Myauk’ (pseudonym) The Indian Army ABC 117n39 mysticism 14 ‘Nagani’ (‘Red Dragon’) 183 Nanni, Giordano 128 Nash, Ogden 114 National Vigilance Association 60 Naylor, Elmer 106 Naypyidaw 5 Ne Win 207, 208–9, 210 Nelson Eddy 80 Neruda, Pablo 24 New Leviathan Oriental Foxtrot Orchestra 120n94 New Orleans Ragtime Band 99 ‘News in Daly’s Bar’ 113

286

Index

newspapers and magazines 9, 17, 19 Burmese language 46 ngapi (spicy dish) 18 Nic Nax of 1926, 102 ‘A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square’ 177 ‘A Nightmare of Names’ 74, 182 ‘9th Battalion Gordon Highlanders Crossing the Irrawaddy’ 180 ‘noble savage’ concept 144 North Africa setting for songs 14–15, 129, 130, 131, 143 see also Egypt Novello, Ivor 160 novels portrayals of Burma 9, 23, 26 portrayals of Oriental life 12–13, 17 titles associated with ‘Mandalay’ 224 see also literature Nu, U 183–4 Nusch Nuschi 108–9 ‘O Perfect Love’ 49 ‘Oasis’ 103 Objective Burma 206 ‘Ocean of Dreams’ 100 ‘An Ocean Tramp’ 113 O’Connor, Scott 164 ODC/Dance Company 208 ‘O’er The Sea, Manila Way’ 92, 93 ‘Oh King of Kings’ 42 ‘The Old Clipper Days’ 112–13 ‘Old Folks At Home’ 205 ‘Old King Tut’ 101 Olsen, Ole 206 ‘ombongpong’ (slang term) 82, 88n80 ‘On the Road to Dongolay’ 81, 91 ‘On the Road to Mandalay’ (painting) 25, 141 ‘On the Road to Mandalay’ (song) 79, 80–3, 104, 114, 178 criticisms of 82–3 duration of versions 126–7 films and sound recordings 75, 80–1, 84n20, 202–4, 211 ‘Japanese’ music 132 new lyrics adapted to tune 91–3 references in other works 93–4, 114 sheet music 79, 93, 140 translations 79 vocal styles 133 see also ‘Mandalay’ (poem); Western music and Burma after ‘Mandalay’ ‘On the Road to Old Luzon’ 91

On the Origin of Species (Darwin) 139 ‘The One in the World’ 111 ‘One-Eyed Riley’ 174 ‘Onward Christian Soldiers’ 41 Operetta Selection (radio show) 160 organs (musical instruments) 47–8 ‘Oriental’ (usage of term) 132–3 ‘The Oriental Coon’ 114 ‘Oriental Echoes’ 132 ‘Oriental Impressions Suite’ 107 ‘Oriental Love Dreams’ 132 ‘Oriental Memories’ 132 Orientalism 12–16, 25–6, 206 the East/the Orient, defined 5–6 Oriental motifs in Burma-related songs 102, 127–31, 140–3 Oriental themes in music 14–16, 101, 131–2, 140–3, 223–4 see also musical works with Burmese themes; Western perceptions of the Orient Orientalism (Said) 12, 16 Orwell, George 50–1, 147–8, 161, 162, 164, 167, 168, 170, 225 on Kipling 82–3, 226 on Mandalay (place) 89n88 on soldiers’ songs 173 ‘Ossian’s Serenade’ 52 Our Crown (1902) 60–1 ‘Our Father, God, Who Art In Heaven’ 39 ‘Our Jack’s Come Home Today’ (1883?) 57 Our Miss Gibbs 165 ‘Our Saviour Bowed Beneath the Wave’ 40 ‘Over the Chindwin’ 180 ‘Over the Hills and Far Away’ (1706?) 54, 56 Owen, Frank 207 Pagan (city) 107, 142 Page, Martin 173 Page, Ruth 166 The Pagoda of Flowers: A Burmese Story in Song 94–5, 127, 129, 131, 140 ‘The Pagoda of Flowers: Burmese Suite’ 95 A Palace Plot, or, The Maiden Aunt’s Revenge 98, 127 ‘Pansies and Poppies’ 98 ‘Parting Hymn of Missionaries to Burmah’ 37

Index ‘The Parting Scene’ 36 ‘The Pathan War March’ 59 patriotic songs 183–4 Paul Tremaine and His Aristocrats 203 Pavlova, Anna 166 Pearl Fishers 15 Pearl Jam 210 Pechotsch, Eric 107 Peers, Douglas 149 ‘Peg O’ My Heart’ 99 Pegu province 8n7, 17, 24 Peluso, Tom 112 Penfield, Roderic 94 Pennington, William 172, 181 periodicals Victorian era references to Burma 9, 19 see also newspapers and magazines ‘Persian Pearl’ 135 Pettitt, Henry 61 Philadelphia Orchestra 108 Philippine-American War (1899–1902) soldiers songs 91–3 Phillips, Richard 139 Phillips, Sid 186 Phinney, Harriet 45–6 phonographs see sound recordings photographs portrayals of Burma 9, 17 pianos 158, 169, 170, 213–14 picture postcards 9, 17–18 Pinney, Thomas 76, 83 pipe music 57, 58–9, 179–80 see also military bands and music pipe organs 47–8 Platzman, Patricia 104, 127 ‘A Play for Burmese Marionettes’ 108 plots see storylines in Burma-related songs Po Sein, U 166 Pocket Guide to Burma 181 poetry see Kipling, Rudyard; literature; ‘Mandalay’ (poem) Poiret, Paul 14 Pollard, Tom 166 Pons, Lily 185 ‘Poor Old Ship’ 113 popular entertainment 12, 15–16, 59–61, 148 see also music halls; stage shows popular music Aung San Suu Kyi and 212, 213, 214–15 bans 209–10

287

spread of 90–1, 210, 223–4 usage of term 6 Porter, Cole 160 Porter, Paul 102 Post, William H. 99 postcards see picture postcards Potter, Jennifer 129 ‘Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition’ 185 ‘Prat Phom Kyai’ (song) 209 prayer books in Burmese language 47 Prentice, Charles 105 Presbyterian Indo-Burma Pioneer Mission 44 Prince, Dyneley 79 Prince, Morgan 166 ‘Prince Albert’s March’ (1843?) 54 printing presses 46, 47 prisoner-of-war concerts 182–3 ‘Private Tommy Atkins’ 51 The Psalmist 36 Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs (Winchell) 40 publishing 46 Puccini, Giacomo 15, 16 Purcell, Henry 140 Pyin Oo Lwin see Maymyo, Burma ‘Qadam Badaye Ja’ 184 Quality Serenaders 106 ‘The Queen’s Ships’ 113 racism 135–40 radio 9–10, 91, 160 programs of Western music 209 Second World War networks 177, 185–6 see also sound recordings Radio SEAC 177 railways 13, 28n30 ‘The Rakes of Mallow’ 56 Rakhine see Arakan province Rambo 4, 211–12 Ranger, Terence 138 Rangoon administrative capital 5, 105, 120n96 hotels 1, 162 Kipling’s visit 1, 73–4 in musical works 105, 211 population 157 printing presses 46, 47 in sea shanties 112–13 Shwedagon Pagoda 74, 94–5, 120n96, 120n97, 142, 154n95

288

Index

social life and entertainment 159, 160, 162–72 ‘Rangoon’ (hymn) 42 Rangoon Gramophone Society 163 Rangoon Gymkhana Club 161, 164 Rangoon Gymkhana Club Orchestra 168 ‘Rangoon’ in song titles, frequency of 126 The Rangoon Radio Trio 163 ‘Rangoon Rice Carriers’ 107, 127, 131 Rangoon Symphony Orchestra 163 ‘Rangoon Wedding’ 102 Raven-Hart, Rowland 164 Rawlings, Charles 79 Rawsthorne, Alan 206 Reaux, Angelina 110 Rebecca (Du Maurier) 225 records see sound recordings ‘Red River Valley’ 175 ‘Red Sails in the Sunset’ 106 Redman, Leroy 205 regimental marches see military bands and music Religious Herald (Dhamma Thadinsa) 46 religious music see hymn books; hymn singing; hymns Rendall, Bert 159, 168 Republic of the Union of Myanmar 4 see also Burma (country) resistance fighters see dacoits ‘The Revel’ 55 ‘Rhoda And Her Pagoda’ 135 Rhodes, Cecil 11 rhyme patterns in Burma-related songs 133–4 Rice, Damien 214–15 Rice, Gitz 101–2, 140 Richards, Frank 167 Richards, Jeffrey 36, 60 Richardson, Henry Handel 79 Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny 109–10, 147 ‘The River’ 96 ‘Road to Mandalay’ (1907) 141 The Road to Mandalay (1916) 99 ‘The Road to Mandalay’ (1916) 99–100, 134 The Road to Mandalay (1926) 202–3 The Road to Mandalay (1945) 207 ‘The Road to Mandalay’ (2000) 211 see also ‘Mandalay’ (poem); ‘On the Road to Mandalay’ (song)

‘Roamin in the Gloamin’ 160 Robinson, Kay 78 Roemheld, Heinz 206 Rogers, Alex 95 Rogers, Ginger 203 ‘Roll Out the Barrel’ 177 ‘Rollin’ Home’ 112 Roman Catholic Church 47, 66n88 see also Christian missionaries ‘A Romance’ 147–8 Romberg, Sigmund 100 Rookies in Burma 206 Rooney, David 177 ‘Rose of Burmah’ 101 ‘Rose of Mandalay’ (1919) 104, 129, 141 ‘Rose of Mandalay’ (1928) 127 ‘Rose of Mandalay: Foxtrot Song’ (1928) 129, 140 Rose of Persia 42 roses native to Burma 150n23 symbolism 129 Roshanara (dancer) 102, 127, 166, 208 Rossini, Gioachino 14–15 Round the Town (1892) 60 Royal Munster Fusiliers 57 Royal Pavilion, Brighton UK 28n29 ‘Rubies’ 97 Runyon, Damon 122n125 sacred songs see gospel songs; hymns Sacred Songs and Solos and Gospel Hymns 47 ‘Sacrifice of Water Buffaloes’ 107 Said, Edward 12, 16, 143, 148 ‘Sailing’ (1880) 57 St Clair, W.G. 56 St Denis, Ruth 166 ‘St Patrick’s Day’ 55 Saint Saen, Camille 15, 114 Salvation Army missionaries 44, 47 music and bands 47, 48, 66n93, 139, 159 in musical comedy 109 see also Christian missionaries ‘Sammy, the Dashing Dragoon’ 160 Samson and Delilah 15 ‘Samuel Hall’ 174 San Francisco Ballet 208 San Francisco earthquake and fire (1906) 81–2

Index San Toy, or The Emperor’s Own 110–11 sandaya see pianos Sankey, Ira D. 46, 47 Sao Ohn Nyunt 26 ‘Sarah From Sahara’ 135 Sargent, Kenny 204 Sarkissian, Margaret 138, 159 saung-gauk ( traditional arched harp) 141 ‘Say You’ll Be My Own, Dear’ 98 Scherber, Hans 94 School of Military Music, London 55 schools 138–9 ‘Scots Wha Hae (Wi Wallace Bled)’ (1793) 57 Scott, Derek 131, 132 Scott, George (‘Shway Yoe’) 18, 21–2, 25, 56, 171 ‘Screw-Guns’ 181 sea shanties 112–13 Second World War 126 films about 205–7 Japanese occupation of Burma 8n4, 175, 182–4, 205 music as morale booster 176–8, 182, 185 news reports 181–2, 207, 225 pipe music 179–80 prisoners of war 182–3 radio networks 177, 185–6 show tunes and other compositions 186–8 soldiers’ songs 172–81 touring musical shows 177–8, 185–6 Secret Histories (Larkin) 225 Sellers, Peter 178 Serenade (Cain) 79 Serra, Eric 211–12 servicemen’s songs see soldiers’ songs Seventh Day Adventist church 43, 46–7 see also Christian missionaries sex and seduction, attitudes towards 16–17 sexism 143–9 see also women, attitudes to sexual freedom, perceptions of 23–4, 26 ‘Shadows’ 100 ‘Shanghai Bye Bye’ 174 Sharpe’s War (television series) 69n156 Shaw, George Bernard 109 Shawn, Ted 166

289

sheet music artwork 90, 93, 104, 127–8, 130, 140, 141–2, 146 film music 203 sales 79, 101 see also music publishing The Sheik 101 Shipp, Jesse 95 shipping 13, 28n30 ‘Shoo Baby’ 185 Shope, Bradley 158, 163 Shorter, Wayne 214 The Show of Wonders 100 Shuffle Along (1921) 119n70 Shuffle Along (1923) 101 Shway Yoe see Scott, George (‘Shway Yoe’) ‘Shwe pyi kaungin sonlo gyinle’ (hymn) 39–40 Shwedagon Pagoda, Rangoon 74, 94–5, 120n96, 120n97, 142, 154n95 ‘Siam’ 130 Sigh No More 178 Sigourney, Lydia 37 Silverstein, Josef 9 Sim, A.A. 180 Simons, Caroline 45 Sinatra, Frank 80, 81 ‘Singapoo’ 130 ‘Singapore Sorrows’ 111 Sitwell, Osbert 83 Skinner, Frank 206 Slim, William 172, 179, 182 SLORC see State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) Smith, Cicely Fox 113 Smith, Samuel 36, 41 social life in Burma colonial period 157–62 20th century 162–72 see also Western music in Burma Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma 4 see also Burma (country) Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts 40, 63n32 soldiers’ songs 53–4, 59, 80, 126, 168, 184 after ‘Mandalay’ 91–3, 115 Kipling ditties and ballads 74, 76, 115, 181 Second World War 172–82 see also Barrack-Room Ballads and Other Verses (Kipling) Solomon, Reuben 168, 184–5 Something of Myself (Kipling) 78

290

Index

‘Something Oriental’ 15, 130–1 ‘The Son of a Gambolier’ 204 ‘Song of the Banjo’ 158 ‘Song of the Chindits’ 178 ‘A Song of the English’ 11 Songs and Music of the Redcoats (Winstock) 53 songs and tunes as cultural vectors 9–10 see also hymn singing; hymns; sea shanties; soldiers’ songs; stage shows; and titles of songs Songs of Burma (Second Set) (1912) 97, 142 see also Four Songs of Burma (1910) Songs of the Orient 131 ‘The Sound of the Trumpet’ (‘Kayah Than’) 56, 102 sound recordings 9–10 of Burmese musicians 170 film music 169, 202–4, 211–12 Indian pressing plant 169 market and popularity 84n20, 90–1, 101, 125, 149n1, 169–70 play duration 127 technology 90–1, 133 see also radio; and for recordings of particular works, see specific song titles ‘South of Meiktila’ 178 ‘South of the Border (Down Mexico Way)’ 178 Spanish-American War (1898) soldiers songs 91 SPDC see State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) Speaks, Oliver (Oley) 76–7, 79–80, 82, 93, 104, 140, 141, 160, 181, 203, 204 ‘Spud Spedding’s Broken Boys’ 175 stage shows after ‘Mandalay’ 93–110, 127, 131, 146 before ‘Mandalay’ 59–61 see also touring musical companies Stanbury, Doug 203 ‘Stand to Your Glasses’ 55 ‘Stand up! Stand up for Jesus’ 41 Stanley, Brian 11 Star, Charles ‘Nat’ 147 State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) 209, 210 State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) 209 Stcherbatcheva, Kira 166

Steinberg, David 163, 212 Stibbe, Philip 183 The Stilwell Road 206 Sting 210 Stock, Frederick 108 Stoddard, George E. 98 Stokowski, Leopold 108, 166 Stone, Lew 112 Stone, Robert 214 storylines in Burma-related songs 126–31 Strand Trio 102 Stranger Here Myself 110 Strong, Mark 105 ‘Sub Suk Chain’ 184 Sullivan, Arthur 41, 42 see also Gilbert and Sullivan operettas ‘Sunrise’ 97 Supayalat (Queen) 19, 76 ‘Surabaya Johnny’ 109–10 Sutton, Amos 36–7 Swanee Syncopators 147 Swinhoe, R.C.J. 96–8, 133, 139, 142 Symes, Michael 24 Tagore, Rabindranath on Rangoon 105 ‘The Taking of Lungtungpen’ 74 Talbot, Lyle 204 Taylor, Tell 206 Teagarden, Jack 207–8 ‘Tekien, tekien me no songolah’ (‘My benefactor why are you leaving?’) 56 Temple, Nat 187 Temple, Richard 34n137 ‘Ten Thousand Miles Away’ 79 Tenasserim province 8n7 Terris, Tom 203 Terry, Ray 187 Thakur, Ram Singh 184 ‘That Old Feeling’ 206 Thayer, Arthur 78 Thein Sein 210 ‘There Is a Happy Land’ 173 ‘There’ll Always be an England’ 177 ‘There’s a Burmah Girl A-Calling (in Burmah by the Sea)’ 104, 141 They Met in Bombay 203 Thibaw (King) 19, 55, 56, 76 ‘Thine For Ever’ 49 The Third Little Show 113 Thomas Cook and Son 28n31 Thompson, William 54–5

Index Thorne, Christopher 206 ‘Three German Officers Crossed the Rhine’ 174 Threepenny Opera 109 Through the Buffer State (MacGregor) 52 Tibbett, Lawrence 80, 126, 203 Tiger Valley (Campbell) 204 Timberg, Herman 100 Tin Pan Alley 119n73, 133 Tin Pan Alley and the Philippines (Walsh) 93 Tinker, Hugh 225 ‘Tis Dawn, the Lark is Singing’ 41 Togwell, A. 111 Tommy (‘Tommy Atkins’ slang name) 51, 80, 115 see also soldiers’ songs touring musical companies 164–7, 177–8, 185–6, 207–8 see also stage shows tourism 13, 28n31, 163–4 see also travel literature ‘Trade Winds’ 168 Trager, Helen 136 Trant, Thomas 23, 54 travel literature Burma portrayed in 9, 17, 18, 20, 26, 164–5 Burmese women portrayed in 22–4 Oriental life portrayed in 13–14 titles associated with ‘Mandalay’ 224 Tremaine, Paul 203 Trevannion, Henry 78, 91, 93 Trials in Burma (Collis) 164 Tripe, Linneaus 17 Tripp, Louis 52 ‘Trumpet of God, sound high’ (‘Rangoon’) 42 Turandot 15 Turkey 13 ‘Turkish captivity’ operas 16 Tyler, Brian 211–12 U2 (rock band) 209–10, 214, 215 ukulele 132, 141 ‘Under the British Flag: Fantasia on Songs and Dances of Great Britain and Her Colonies’ 56 Underwood, Christopher 80 Union of Burma 4 see also Burma (country) Union of Myanmar 4 see also Burma (country)

291

United Kingdom annexation of Burma 4, 8n7, 10, 17, 18, 19–20, 73–4, 190n32 enmity with Burma (20th century) 143 imperialism 10–12, 13, 19, 80, 135–6 popular culture 12, 15–16 wars 12, 53, 135–6 see also Anglo-Burmese Wars; Second World War United Kingdom War Office 55 United Service Organisations 185 United States Armed Forces music 185–6 United States Armed Forces Radio Service, India-Burma Network 185 University of Culture, Rangoon 210 ‘Unplayed Piano’ 215 ‘Until the End I’ll Love But You’ 98 Uphill, Johnny 187 Upper Burma 4, 19–20 see also Burma (country) Uptown Band 127 Valentine, Val 135 Van Heusen, Jimmy 186 variety shows see stage shows Varney, Leo see Marsden, Evan venereal disease 59 Verdi, Giuseppe 14–15 Vesella, Oreste 99, 134 Victoria (Queen) 6 Diamond Jubilee 42, 162 Victorian era 14, 53, 133 see also United Kingdom Vogues of 1938 206 Wade, Jonathan 39 ‘Walk On’ 209, 214 Wallace, Ian 80 Walsh, Thomas 93 Warner, Anna 46 Warren, Leonard 80, 81 Washburn, Henry 43 Washington, George Dewey 82, 203 Waxman, Franz 206 Wayne, John 205 W.C.R. (lyricist) 37 ‘We are the Horse Artillery …’ 178 ‘We Shall Overcome’ 209 Weatherford, Teddy 185 Webb, George 41 Webster, Jonathan 214 Weill, Kurt 109–10, 127, 147 ‘We’ll Meet Again’ 177 ‘The Well’ 96, 142

292

Index

Wells, H.G. 164 Wenzel, Leopold 60 ‘We’re Going to Hang Out the Washing on the Siegfried Line’ 121n104 Werrenrath, Reinald 79 Wesley, Charles 44, 46 Wesley, John 153n78 Wesleyan Methodist Church and School Hymn Book 46 the West (the Western world) colonialism 10–12, 13, 19, 80, 135–40, 148–9 defined 5–6 ignorance of real life in Asia 12, 13–14, 18 see also Western perceptions of the Orient West, Cedric 185 West, Rebecca 214 West End Celebrity Orchestra 140 Western Brothers 183 Western Men with Eastern Morals (Willis) 25 Western music and Burma, after ‘Mandalay’ 223–4 Burma-related works 110–15, 125–6 Burmese themes 93–110, 211 list of works 231–9 musical settings of ‘Mandalay’ poem 78–83 soldiers’ songs 91–3, 126 see also ‘On the Road to Mandalay’ (song); and titles of songs Western music and Burma, before ‘Mandalay’ list of works 230–1 religious music 35–51 secular music 51–9 soldiers’ songs 53–4, 59, 74, 76, 80 stage shows 59–61 see also hymn singing; hymns Western music in Burma after 1948, 207–12 Burmese adoption of instruments and styles 170–2 censorship 208–10 colonial period 157–62 Second World War years 172–88 20th century 162–72, 202, 207–12 Western music relating to Burma, patterns in Burma and the Burmese 140–3 race and religion 135–40 styles, types and rhymes 131–5

subjects and themes 125–31, 224 women and sexism 143–8 see also Western music and Burma after ‘Mandalay’; Western music and Burma before ‘Mandalay’ Western perceptions of Burma 17–21, 45, 83, 136–49, 157, 180–2, 202, 223–6 little known prior to ‘Mandalay’ 10, 18, 61, 75–6, 142 perceptions of Burmese women 21–6, 137, 143–8 studies of 9 see also Christian missionaries; Western music and Burma after ‘Mandalay’ Western perceptions of the Orient 10–17, 110, 148–9 studies of 9 see also Orientalism Westrup, Jack 140 ‘What a friend we have in Jesus’ 172 ‘When Buddha Smiles’ (1936) 140 ‘When Buddha Smiles: Foxtrot’ (1921) 140 ‘When Irish Eyes Are Smiling’ 160 ‘When My Soldier Days Are Over’ 183 ‘When the Mission Bells Were Ringing, Down in Burma by the Sea’ 100–1, 141, 146 ‘When this bloody war is over’ 172 ‘When Tomorrow Comes’ 203–4 ‘Where I Would Be’ 93 ‘The White Cliffs of Dover’ 177 ‘White Feather’ 175 Whiting, Arthur 78 Whittier, John 44 ‘Widower’s Tango’ (poem) 24 Wife, Husband and Friend 203 Wilbur’s Blackbirds 166 Wilde, John 183 Willeby, Charles 79, 80, 141 ‘William and Nancy’s Parting’ 51 Williams, Bert 95 Williams, Hugh 106 Williams, Robbie 211 Winchell, James 40 Wingate, Orde 178 Winstock, Lewis 53, 55, 56, 59 ‘With You, Dear, in Bombay’ 130 The Wizard of Oz 123n151 women, attitudes to Christian missionaries’ attitudes 137 depictions of non-Western women 16–17

Index portrayals of Burmese women 21–6, 137, 141, 143–8 women’s names in song titles 135 Wong, Anna May 205 ‘Won’t You Come Home to BomBombay’ 57 ‘Won’t You Come Back to Bombombay’ 57 Wood, Charles 42 Woodfield, Ian 158 Woodforde-Finden, Amy 94, 95 Wordsworth, William 12, 76 ‘A World Full Of Lies’ 55 World War II see Second World War ‘The Wounded Heart’ (‘Zachmi dil’/‘Zakh Midil’) 58–9 Wren, Tommy 178 Yangon see Rangoon A Yank on the Burma Road 205, 206

293

‘Yankee Doodle’ 206 Yardley, Olga 134 ‘Yearning for Mandalay’ 127 ‘Yellow Rose of Burma’ 179 ‘Yellow Rose of Texas’ 179 Yes Uncle 111 You Said a Mouthful 203 ‘You’d Better Come to Burmah’ 126 ‘You’ll Never Know’ 185 ‘You’re In the Army Now’ 206 ‘You’ve Got That Look’ 205 Young, Andrew 173 Young, Victor 204, 206 Yvain, Maurice 146 ‘Zachmi dil’/‘Zakh Midil’ (‘The Wounded Heart’) 58–9 ‘Zenobie’ 141 Zimmer, Hans 211–12 Zon, Bennett 132