Eton Boating Song
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There are a number of school songs associated with Eton College which are sung at the end of year concert and on other important occasions. The Eton Boating Song is the best known. It is also played during the procession of boats. The words of the song were written by William Johnson, a Master at the school. The music was composed by an Old Etonian (i.e., a former Eton student), Capt. Algernon Drummond. It was first perfomed on 4 June, 1863.
Johnson's words for it are as follows:
- 1.
- Jolly boating weather,
- And a hay harvest breeze,
- Blade on the feather,
- Shade off the trees,
- Swing swing together,
- With your backs/bodies between your knees,
- Swing swing together,
- With your backs between your knees.
- 2.
- Skirting past the rushes,
- Ruffling o'er the weeds,
- Where the lock stream gushes,
- Where the cygnet feeds,
- Let us see how the wine-glass flushes,
- At supper on Boveney meads,
- Let us see how the wine glass flushes,
- At supper on Boveney meads.
- 3.
- Thanks to the bounteous sitter,
- Who sat not at all on his seat,
- Down with the beer that's bitter,
- Up with the wine that's sweet,
- And Oh that some generous "critter",
- Would give us more ducks to eat!
- 4.
- Carving with elbow nudges,
- Lobsters we throw behind,
- Vinegar nobody grudges,
- Lower boys drink it blind,
- Sober as so many judges,
- We'll give you a bit of our mind.
- 5.
- "Dreadnought" "Britannia" "Thetis",
- "St George" "Prince of Wales" and "Ten",
- And the eight poor souls whose meat is,
- Hard steak, and a harder hen,
- But the end of our long boat fleet is,
- Defiance to Westminster men.
- 6.
- Rugby may be more clever,
- Harrow may make more row,
- But we'll row for ever,
- Steady from stroke to bow,
- And nothing in life shall sever,
- The chain that is round us now,
- And nothing in life shall sever,
- The chain that is round us now.
- 7.
- Others will fill our places,
- Dressed in the old light blue,
- We'll recollect our races,
- We'll to the flag be true,
- And youth will be still in our faces,
- When we cheer for an Eton crew,
- And youth will be still in our faces,
- When we cheer for an Eton crew.
- 8.
- Twenty years hence this weather,
- May tempt us from office stools,
- We may be slow on the feather,
- And seem to the boys old fools,
- But we’ll still swing together,
- And swear by the best of schools,
- But we’ll still swing together,
- And swear by the best of schools.
Ordinarily only the first, sixth, seventh and eighth stanzas are sung.
The traditional status of Eton as the training grounds for Britain's wealthy elite endowed the song with a peculiar cultural cachet. For instance, writer George Orwell, an Old Etonian himself, wrote in his famous autobiographical essay 'Such, Such Were the Joys' that "From the whole decade before 1914 there seems to breathe forth a smell of the more vulgar, un-grown-up kind of luxury, a smell of brilliantine and crème-de-menthe and soft-centred chocolates — an atmosphere, as it were, of eating everlasting strawberry ices on green lawns to the tune of the Eton Boating Song."