TalkAwhile - The Folk Corporation Forum

Been listening to "Rosemary's Sister". Lovely song, well performed. Little girl's younger sister gets killed in the blitz. The rest of the street seem to get over it. Rosemary, many years later, whilst waiting for the school to turn out and pick up her own daughter, decides that if there's "another one", then the end will be complete. I assume that means another war. But then, by way of apparent contrast, the narrator wonders what they'd say in Bethnal Street. As mentioned, previously, in Bethnal Street, after the tragedy described, they'd started off all anew. Which is a pretty good East End reaction. So what would they say, if confronted with the latter day Rosemary?

Isn’t it funny how we interpret songs in completely different ways.  I’ve always assumed that the line, “She knows if there’s another one the end will be complete,” meant that if Rosemary had another child then things would have come full circle.  But don’t take too much notice of me: I’m probably wrong – I often am!

I think of this song as being as much about families and how they cope with adversity as about war … mother of disaster, sister of our fate … father of confusion and brother of debate …

My mother in law was a child during the Blitz and lived around the corner from Bethnal Street. She shared a bed with her older sister and was so frightened she used to sleep with her little finger hooked through the loop on the back of her sister’s pyjamas.  Her childish reasoning was that if one of them were ‘taken’ they would both go together and not be alone.  I cannot imagine what it must have been like.  I have a huge respect for that generation.

Despite the criticisms that this song is over sentimental, I think it is worth much more.  

Mind you, I only have to hear the introduction and I'm off ...

... and when Simon starts to sing ... well ... that's it!

Oh, c'mon - it's not that bad.   ::)

 ;D

I must admit I have the same sentiments on all of KM:s points. It's often difficult to get the true meaning of a song lyric when it's not in your mother language, but my thoughts were also on another child. I have always felt that RS was a very sensitive song with a very earnest lyric that stood way above sentimentality, as we commonly define it. When I have been going to Fairport gigs the last 8 or 9 years I've always hoped that it would be included in the repertoire and I've been very happy that it's been played. And Simon sings- and plays- it beautifully! I hope it's still on the set list next time I see Fairport in a smaller context.

I love this song - I am always glad when Simon plays it.  

I tried looking up Bethnal Street on Google maps but it didn't seem to exist - (maybe it was bombed out of existence) .

I know that there is some criticism of the line about the doodlebugs flying and the blitz being at its height - because the doodlebugs came after the blitz had finished  - but I always think its a  song not a blinking history lesson !

Did a Bethnal Street exist?  I thought it was a made up name for the various streets in Bethnal Green that got hit by missiles and the Tube Station disaster of 1943?  All my cockney relatives are now sadly deceased so I can't ask them, but I would be interested to know if Bethnal Street existed.

You might well be right, Curt.  I am from the North East and husband wasn't born in the East End.  I've just heard my mother in law and other elderly relatives talking about street and road names from time to time and I thought I'd heard that one mentioned or something similar.  I'll see if I can find out.

There's one in Sheffield.

While we're on this kind of subject. is there a Cauldrum Street? With a steamie?

Ask Richard Thompson. He knows.

That's an interesting one that hadn't struck me. Another war? Or another child?

What do other people think?

My interpretation was that if there was another war, it would be nuclear bombs this time and therefore no chance for the survivors to get up and get on with it again.

I looked up Bethnal Street on a few old London Street index (for a laugh!)and can't find a reference only to
Bethnal Green and Bethnal Green Road. So probably as Curt says a made up name for the area.

There is no reference to London in the lyrics, so it could be set somewhere else  ??? Maybe Coventry, or even Shefield, where there is a Bethnal Street. Just a thought  :)

I like to think of the song as being more hopeful than that.  Maybe Rosemary is wondering if the people in Bethnal Street would approve of her ending because when at last the darkness clears and the sun comes shining through, you dust it off and start it all anew.

I'm guessing here, but Huw Williams, author, is probably Welsh and would seem to have no particular reason to write a song about Sheffield or Coventry.  On the other hand, the East End people are famous for their reaction to the Blitz.

I think Huw invented Bethnal Street because it sounds better than Bethnal Green Road and is meant to represent an area and an attitude.

Huw is Welsh, and currently plays with Crasdant.

I love this song, although can't listen to it or sing it without blubbing. I think it shows Simon at his best, both as a singer and an acoustic guitarist Was it originally a Simon solo number?

I have always assumed that the end means that there will be no survivors after another war.

Paul

It was on Simon's first solo album "Before Your Time".

I´m always in tears when they play it  :-[

...plucked some strings with this one, then!

Nice to see that people can still make their own entertainment  ;)

Another child, for sure. The war was only the catalyst in the song for bringing out the pathos which is the central theme IMHO. (Blimey, that sounds erudite - a long time ago since I got my Eng Lit A Levels!!!! ;D

 I remember Huw & Tony singing this at Cropredy in the 90's and saying that Rosemary was alive and living in Cwmbran at that time.

Assuming Rosemary was younger than the unfortunate five year old sister, she would have been say 3 in 1940. So, by 1987 she'd be 50 and would know presumably that she had, or had not had, "another one". Assume that the song's set in say 1967, when she's 30 collecting the first child from school.

There was still at that stage considerable anxiety about the threat of nuclear war with the Soviets/China.

I stick with the war theory.

And I still wonder what they'd say on Bethnal Street.

Having re-checked the lyrics http://www.conniedover.com/lyrics/somebody/rosemarys_sister.shtml, I think this is about another war. Here's what the final verse says:

And sometimes in the firelight in the silence where she sits
Her mind goes back to Bethnel Street, the darkness and the blitz
And she hears if there's another one, then the end will be complete,
Well, I wonder what they'd say in the Bethnel Street

Why would she hear if there's another child?

On an unrelated subject, the page shows that Connie Dover's CD was called Somebody (Songs of Scotland, Ireland and Early America).  So, did she assume Huw was Scottish, Irish or Early American?

The lyrics in the Connie Dover link, states Bethnel Street, but looking into the lyrics of Simon´s record, the street name is Bethnal. So there´s a misspelling in Connie Dover´s lyrics. I must admit that reading the lyrics through more closely now, I´ll agree that the another seems to indicate another war!

Odd, I'd always heard it as "And she fearsif there's another one...

Either way.

I always thought it was leaning towards another war, of any kind, the thought being internal to Rosemary it wouldn't really matter whether it was conventional or nuclear, just another blitz really.  She's just not sure if she'd have the strength to pick up and start again.

Wayyyy too deep for my first post for a couple of weeks...  Good thread though - and good song.  One of my favourites.

I thought it was 'and she KNOWS if there's another....' I think I'd go with the war idea. If you take the end of the two line together, it reads

Her mind goes back to Bethnal Street, to the darkness and the Blitz and she knows if theres another then the end will be complete.

So if there is another Blitz, then the end will be complete. Kinda a what goes around, comes around kinda thing.

Beautiful song, one of my favourites and I've just managed to get through the picky guitar bit at the begining without too many mistakes!  :D

You GIT Ollie, I've been trying to learn that for ages.  I can do about the first two bars!  Haven't got a hope of getting as far as where the tune starts!

Good on yer - one for the session at Croppers (if we can find it??!)

"The Blitz" being referred to is the second one, of 1944 when the V1 and V2 attacks were initiated. You'll have to research the comparative impact of this technology-driven assault against the nightly horrors of carpet-bombing by the Luftwaffe in 1940, but the damage to life and property was very real.... and led to Rosemary being evacuated to South Wales where she became friends with Huw's older relatives.

Guitarists tip:  It's quite hard to play it, as that clever Mr Nicol does, in D chord shapes and get the bass runs in.  Try C instead and shift the capo 2 frets higher - it's much easier!

Old bluffer.

Dropped in to see my mother in law yesterday.  She doesn't remember a Bethnal Street but remembers Bethnal Green Road.  It got her reminiscing about her own experiences of the Blitz and eventual evacuation; the Misses Emily and Eveline who owned the village shop and delivering groceries for them on her bike.  What an interesting hour!  Living history.

Here's a photo (taken from a BBC pack) which I often use with the kids when I teach about the second world war.  I think it embodies the spirit ...



[attachment deleted by admin]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-2_rocket

I am not sure that I am correct, I remember Richard Digance doing a excellent version of this on an ITV programme, I think it may have been on "Another Digance Indulgence". The quality of the lyrics shone through and Richards delivery gave it a really Authentic feel. That's if I didn't just dream the whole thing!

Funny that Nikki - the first time I heard Simon's version I thought to myself "Digance does that one"...  My Mum agreed with me too, that she'd first heard it from Digance.  We can't all be wrong, can we?