Songs For All Seasons

In the run-up to Armistice Day, I have two songs to share. The first, for Remembrance Sunday, is a setting of a thought-provoking poem by G. K. Chesterton (1974 - 1936), called "For a War Memorial". Chesterton was a huge figure, both literally—standing 6 feet 4 inches (1.93 m) tall and weighing around 20 stone 6 pounds (130 kg; 286 lb)—and figuratively, in British late 19th and early 20th century literature. He wrote around 80 books, several hundred poems, some 200 short stories, 4,000 essays (mostly newspaper columns), and several plays. He was a literary and social critic, historian, playwright, novelist, journalist, BBC broadcaster, Catholic theologian and apologist, debater, and mystery writer. He was a columnist for the Daily News, The Illustrated London News, and his own paper, G. K.'s Weekly; he also wrote articles for the Encyclopædia Britannica, including the entry on Charles Dickens and part of the entry on Humour in the 14th edit...

On this solemn Remembrance Sunday I would like to share with you the second of my songs on the theme "War's End". This is a setting of a poem by Robert William Service (1874 – 1958) called "Victory Stuff". Service was born just down the road from me actually, in Preston, Lancashire. Of Scottish descent, he moved back to Scotland with family when he was 5 years old, and then emigrated to North America at the age of 21, spending years drifting around western North America, wandering from California to British Columbia, taking and quitting a series of jobs: "Starving in Mexico, residing in a California bordello, farming on Vancouver Island and pursuing unrequited love in Vancouver."* Aged 40 when World War I broke out, Service was turned down for active duty on health grounds, but he served by working as a stretcher bearer and ambulance driver with the Ambulance Corps of the American...

In the run-up to Armistice Day, I have two songs to share. The first is a setting of a thought-provoking poem by G. K. Chesterton (1974 - 1936), called "For a War Memorial". Chesterton was a huge figure, both literally—standing 6 feet 4 inches (1.93 m) tall and weighing around 20 stone 6 pounds (130 kg; 286 lb)—and figuratively, in British late 19th and early 20th century literature. He wrote around 80 books, several hundred poems, some 200 short stories, 4,000 essays (mostly newspaper columns), and several plays. He was a literary and social critic, historian, playwright, novelist, journalist, BBC broadcaster, Catholic theologian and apologist, debater, and mystery writer. He was a columnist for the Daily News, The Illustrated London News, and his own paper, G. K.'s Weekly; he also wrote articles for the Encyclopædia Britannica, including the entry on Charles Dickens and part of the entry on Humour in the 14th edition (1929). Get the music...