IN THE world of children's stories and nursery rhymes, there is
no such thing as innocence. What is left of a fairy tale once the
cultural historians and Freudians have picked at it, the linguists
and educational psychologists have a go at, such that even the
unselfconscious babble of the infant becomes an expression of
sociologically informed prejudice.
A fine example of this analytical dismemberment came in
Twenty Minutes: Are you sleeping, Brother John? (Radio 3,
Thursday of last week) in which Peggy Reynolds set out to discover
the secret of the song "Frère Jacques". Who was he, and
why do people around the world sing about him? To this end, we
heard from a folklorist, a neuroscientist, and some tuneful
Dominican friars, among others.
Origins first. The sensible money goes on the theory that it was
a satirical song, ribbing the Dominicans (or Jacobins) for their
laziness. For those who are ill-disposed towards the obvious
answer, there is the theory that it refers to a 17th-century
surgeon and fake friar who performed largely unsuccessful bladder
operations.
But then there is the issue of its simple melody, which
apparently has something to do with the way children perceive
harmony and melody as a patterned whole; and the linguistic unity
of the song across different cultures, which bears witness to
humanity's shared enthusiasm for something called "ablaut
reduplication" ("Ding, dang, dong", etc.)
All of this could be true. There may be something archetypal in
the song that encourages people to reinvent it as political satire
or protest song. We heard some obscene versions intoned by French
schoolchildren. But none of it acknowledges our propensity for
nonsense and vulgarity. Whatever the song, the childish mind will
invent new and subversive words. I wouldn't be surprised if
"Frère Jacques" originated in just this way, as a
didactic tune, set to new words by some cheeky schoolboys.
Schoolboy cheekiness was evident in at least one anecdote from
Choristers of the Coronation (Radio 4, Saturday), in which
veterans of the service 60 years ago recounted their experiences.
Rehearsing for a month at the Royal School of Church Music's HQ in
Croydon, a group of boys found time to earn some money on the side
by caddying at the neighbouring golf course.
The recollections were populated by pillow fights and barley
sugars; but, for all the expressions of gratitude for the
experience, this account of chorister life in the early 1950s gave
me a sense of relief that things have changed. Tyrannical
choirmasters and endless rehearsals - none of this would be allowed
any more.
A very different choral culture was explored in Creating
Pitch-Perfect (Radio 4, Monday of last week), which looked at
the Auto-Tune technology that makes singing stars out of the
tuneless. One spokesman justified it by saying that, throughout
history, we have always manipulated vocal acoustics - witness the
medieval cathed- ral. But a more honest view came from a
record-industry executive, who admitted that, before, he had to
find good singers; now, he just had to find good-looking
singers.