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[edit] Men at Arms Annotations

The recruitment song (p313/238) seems familiar.

To what, pray? --Knmatt 20:45, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

I think it has an echo of the traditional Irish song "The Recruiting Sergeant", which dates (at least in the form used by the Pogues) from 1916. The original song starts something like

As I was walking down the road

A feelin' fine and dandy-oh,

A recruiting sergeant came up to me

And said "You'll look fine in khaki-oh"...

and ends

Come rain or hail or wind or snow,

I'm not going out to Flanders-oh,

There's fighting in Dublin to be done,

Let your sergeants and your commanders go!

Let English men fight English wars,

Cos near every time you start them all,

And wishing the sergeant a very good night,

There and then we parted right!

The Ankh-Morpork version lacks the republican sentiment, the principled refusal to enlist, and indeed the scan and rhyme and rhythm of the original, and reduces the arguments to "enlist or you get your goohulog heads kicked in". According to my old English Lit teacher, this is a fine example of "bathetis"....--AgProv 22:11, 10 May 2008 (UTC)

According to the APF v9.0[1], it is based off a song called Ratcliffe Highway.--AutisticMajor 03:47, 11 May 2008 (UTC)