It is one of the great things about YouTube, with a searchable archive of music, that one discovers things previously unremarked. In 1989 I was still quite removed from popular culture. I remember both English football fan tragedies but had not processed that it was Liverpool fans both times. I had never heard that McCartney and Starr had been part of a charity recording with Gerry and the Pacemakers and others, but it does make sense.
My own high-school duo sang "Don't Let The Sun Catch You Cryin'," but would not likely have considered this. It's a little strange to sing a nostalgia/loyalty song about a place you aren't from and haven't even seen.
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True, but we sang them in music class anyway: Dixie, Shenandoah ... I don't remember any about Ireland, but I'd bet they were there in more heavily Irish states.
You sang “Dixie” in music class, but weren’t in the South?
We did not sing "Dixie," that i remember, but i knew it in 6th grade, so who knows? And "Shenandoah," "Red River Valley," yes, I admit I had not thought of the folk songs. "The sun shines bright, on my old Kentucky home..." Anything that was considered general American might qualify, even "Pat works on the railway." Plus the English and further British folksongs now that I think about it, because they were ours by history. Ancestors had lived there. In a mill city this was often not very true, but because we were their cultural descendants, that's what we celebrated. I had forgotten all this when I made my statement, thinking only about what we would have sung about current places.
California. There was a collection, probably designed to be used all over the country; western songs and Erie Canal and so on.
"The English language needs a word whose definition would be 'nostalgia for that which one has not experienced.' "
Liverpudlians are able to feel patriotic about Liverpool. Do we have anything like that here in America? Are people deeply attached to a specific locale?
Many southern states, I think. Alaskans. Texans. NH and VT were until about my childhood.
In England, the places in the north generally have a bit of a chip on their shoulder compared to the wealthier, more stylish southern places.
Yes!!!
"The English language needs a word whose definition would be “nostalgia for that which one has not experienced.” How about Nescientalgia? OK, no. I'll keep working on it though.
Or "nesctalgia," pronounced "neshtalgia."
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