Selena, I'm super mad at you, because I had plans for this morning, plans that were not this. :PPP
Elusive St Germain George the 3rd has gone insane Philosophes Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Duke of Marlborough Voltaire, Defoe, Declaration Mercantilism, guillotine Enlightened absolutism Balance of power
We did not start the fire It was always burning as the world was turning We did not start the fire No, we did not light it, but we tried to fight it
Adam Smith, pamphlet Antoinette without a head More and more things to read Voila! Encyclopédie Victory with Washington Richelieu, but not that one Rococo, phlogiston Gulliver and Life of Johnson
We did not start the fire It was always burning as the world was turning We did not start the fire No, we did not light it, but we tried to fight it
Lady Mary, Culloden Charles the 12th and Potemkin Colonies, slave trade Émilie du Châtelet Johnson, lexicon Joseph, August the Strong Personal union Diplomatic Revolution
Hussars horseback Johann Sebastian Bach Winkelmann, Gluck, and Kant Silesia, Prestonpans Grand Tour, Mozart Oglethorpe, Petersburg Louverture, Pompadour Battle of Malplaquet!
We did not start the fire It was always burning as the world was turning We did not start the fire No, we did not light it, but we tried to fight it
Sans Souci, Romanovs Alchemy, Menschikov Kaufmann, Benedict Spanish Bourbons, Frederick Leopold, Valley Forge Time for some inoculation Treatise by Montesquieu Again a Russian palace coup
Edinburgh, Vienna Stanislaus and Crimea Bastille stronghold Tsarevitch ain't growing old Potsdam, Petersburg Chesma: Turks and ships burn Watch out, memoirs lie Versailles, the Sun King dies!
We did not start the fire It was always burning as the world was turning We did not start the fire No, we did not light it, but we tried to fight it
Catherine, Robespierre French is spoken everywhere Dnieper, Peter Polish partitions Maria Theresia Struensee, Philadelphia Muskets, Russians Recruiting tall Prussians Satirists, famous wits Treaty of Passarowitz Black plague, go away What else do I dare to say?
We did not start the fire It was always burning as the world was turning We did not start the fire No, we did not light it, but we tried to fight it
Here he comes: Bonaparte Hapless Damiens torn apart Hochkirch, Yorktown World turned upside down Bleeding counts as medicine Orlovs oust a sovereign The last of the Medici British navy on the sea
Changing sides in Savoy Cumberland and Fontenoy Minden, Dresden Habsburgs, cameralists Everywhere we see reforms Once-great Poland is no more Curse all these succession wars I can't take it anymore!
We did not start the fire It was always burning as the world was turning We did not start the fire But when we are gone, it shall still burn on and on and on
We did not start the fire It was always burning as the world was turning We did not start the fire No we did not light it, but we tried to fight it
It needs work, but I need to stop for now. Suggestions welcome!
And yes, I have ideas for a Frederician one, but again, I have OTHER THINGS TO DO. :PPP
I applaude you and present my Prussian-centric version, penned when stuck in the train from Munich to elsewhere:
Frederick One, Prussia, Hannover and Russia Karl of Sweden, Gottfried Leibniz, Augustus the Strong William Three, Gian Gastone, Periwigs and song Saxony, Northern War, Poland and Lithuania Petersburg, Scorched Earth, Countess Cosel, Marriage Jam Händel, “Agrippina” and the “Messiah”, Marlborough, Prince Eugene, Stuarts end with Anne as Queen, Sun King old, War in Spain, Habsburgs out and goodbye We didn't start the fire It was always burning, since the world's been turning We didn't start the fire No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it
Frederick William, Grumbkow, Soldier King and Gundling George the First, Bubble bursts, Traders in shock Voltaire, shorter hair, the Ruspanti, Moltke France now has a Regency, Spain’s King is a Frog Farinelli, Castrato, Mary Wortley Montagu Moll Flanders, Liliput, Bach and sons, George Two Orzelska, Dresden, porcellain, Tabacco Crown Prince Fritz, Paris Wits, English Marriage Project We didn't start the fire It was always burning, since the world's been turning We didn't start the fire No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it
Zeithain, planned escape, Lieutenant Katte, what a scrape Küstrin, Fredersdorf, Russian noble marries dwarf, Ice Palace, Force Vive, Émilie du Chatelet Gay men killed in Netherlands, Poland still in Saxon hands Christian Wolff, Pöllnitz, Franklin prints and flies kits Female Heir in Austria, Pragmatic Sanction goes not far FW dead, dead Emperor: Fritz invades Silesia Algarotti, Newton’s lore, Austrian Succession War We didn't start the fire It was always burning, since the world's been turning We didn't start the fire No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it
Diderot, Gottsched, Biche the dog gets kidnapped Culloden, 45, Charlie fled but still alive “Letters from Peruvia”, Fritz has Voltaire-mania Lissabon, dead Chatelet, Barbarina runs away Young Sophie becomes Catherine, en route to Russia from Berlin Epic bust up Fritz/Voltaire - let’s see how they further fare! We didn't start the fire It was always burning, since the world's been turning We didn't start the fire No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it
Mozart children, travelling, invading Fritz is back again World War Zero, Menorca, Austria versus Prussia Kolin, Seydlitz, Rossbach, no one has the last laugh Court flees soon to Magdeburg, Miracle of Brandenburg “What is Enlightenment?”, Mendelssohn, Lessing and Wilhelm von Dohm France in debts, Scottish vets, English colonies dodge tax Slaves get dumped into the sea, Poland partitioned into three Rousseau fans call liberty, what’s that Guillontine I see?
We didn't start the fire It was always burning, since the world's been turning We didn't start the fire But when we are gone It will still burn on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on We didn't start the fire It was always burning, since the world's been turning We didn't start the fire No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it We didn't start the fire It was always burning, since the world's been turning We didn't start the fire No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it We didn't start the fire It was always burning, since the world's been turning We didn't start the fire No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it
This is awesome! Clearly this song has addictive properties! And good job keeping it chronological, hats off to you. You can probably tell I was deliberately avoiding too many Fritz references, in hopes of doing one dedicated to him.
Cahn, your job is going to be to set these to 18th century-inspired music, and record yourself and your kids singing and playing, so we can upload the resulting performances to YouTube. *veg*
OMG both of you are AMAZING I bow down to you (more details on your awesomeness tonight when i have more time, hopefully)
WHY do you have to do this when i can't play!! i have ideas though :PP (ugh, but i can't pronounce anything! maybe while my hands are broken i should record myself singing it so i can get pronunciation pointers, it was very nice of the two of you to keep most of it anglicized ;) )
I know, I was thinking that! But I figured you could use the time to do the composition and singing parts, and add in instrumentals later. :D (I like volunteering other people for work, what can I say.)
i would really want to do the piano first, especially as that part has a pretty driving beat. It's easy to find the piano part at least, so i can start learning that now (i can do some learning without using my hands). and i definitely should practice singing it and figure out how to pronounce everything :P
Hmm, our keyboard does not have a "harpsichord" setting, which i would have liked for this. (the keyboard i had as a kid had a harpsichord setting, sigh.) But i guess it would not be horribly anachronistic to have a piano going, or possibly organ (though i think that might be a bit much). This keyboard also has a "strings" setting, which also might be a bit much.
eta: oh wait, maybe i can use a midi file. hmm. this may keep me busy for a while :)
As the line in the original goes "England has a new Queen", I knew what to rhyme Eugene with, and after some try-outs ("Annne is the last Stuart Queen") I found the satisfying version now in existence. :)
What I did was coyping the entire Billy Joel lyrics and then replacing them line for line with an 18th Century/ Frederician version, trying my best to match the number of syllables and rhyming scheme.
What I did was coyping the entire Billy Joel lyrics and then replacing them line for line with an 18th Century/ Frederician version, trying my best to match the number of syllables and rhyming scheme.
That's exactly what I did with the medieval lyrics, but I didn't finish matching before posting, which is why I'd like a chance to do another pass before we finalize.
Hiiiii now that I'm back home I am noodling around with this :D I have been spending entirely too much time trying to figure out digital audio -- I still haven't really figured out any of the hard parts that would make it sound decent, but at this point I have a reasonable working solution so that I can start practicing. Turns out, er, singing without lots of errors is harder than I thought! I now have a copy that's scribbled all over with things like "go from A to G here" and "PRACTICE THIS" :)
I've been adjusting wording slightly as I go :) but a couple of questions I had for the salon mind:
Ice Palace, Force Vive, Émilie du Chatelet
Should this internally rhyme, or is it OK that it doesn't?
Christian Wolff, Pöllnitz, Franklin prints and flies kits
So, this should be "kites," not kits, which kind of destroys the rhyme here; is there a better way to do this?
Slaves get dumped into the sea
OK, sorry, what does this refer to? (From my American-centric viewpoint, I keep wanting it to say "Tea gets dumped into the sea"...)
Also, I just want to reiterate that the Guillotine ending the song is just genius :D
Hiiiii now that I'm back home I am noodling around with this :D
Hiiii this is awesome to hear!
Turns out, er, singing without lots of errors is harder than I thought!
Omg, I had the same experience, and I wasn't even trying to carry a tune! I was just trying to pronounce the words right and get the same rhythm as the bardcore version. And it took surprisingly many tries to get it even mostly right! (Admittedly, it's a pretty fast-paced song, but still.)
I will leave poetic decisions to selenak :), but for historical background:
Slaves get dumped into the sea
Coming after "English colonies dodge tax," my brain wants to do the same as yours, *but*, I also happen to know that as part of the transatlantic slave trade, a lot of slaves did get dumped into the sea. Maybe there's a specific event Selena's thinking of that she will tell us about, but it was also just a *thing*. You died in the horrendous conditions of the crossing from Africa? Overboard your body goes. Okay, fine, probably better than keeping a rotting corpse on the ship. You were sick? Overboard, rather than infect the whole shipment. Injured and not likely to bring a profit upon landing? Not worth the cost of feeding you, overboard you go. You were a baby and your mother wasn't behaving like a proper submissive slave, but was trying to ~resist~? Overboard, pour encourager les autres! A baby won't make a big dent in the profit margin anyway.
The key here is that slavers were insured against drowned slaves, so anyone who went overboard could be replaced later. So the threshold for which it made economic sense to treat slaves as damaged merchandise and dump them in the Atlantic was appallingly low.
There's a reason I put "slave trade" next to "colonies" in my version. Lest we forget.
Poetic decisions later, but in addition to what you said, I was thinking of a very specific case, the Zong massacre, which in the long lung helped turning the tide against slavery in GB, where the owners of the ship which did the dumping were taken to court - not because they murdered 142 living but sick or otherwise deemed not profitable enough slaves, but for insurance fraud (as they wanted compensation from their insurance company, as was customary in "act of God" cases where the slaves actually did die of natural causes. This went through several instances, attracted a lot of publicity on both sides of the Atlantic and in the end was decided in the insurance company's favour.
ETA: also, the reason why I put this in was because it does symbolize the inhumanity of slavery and greed and I did want to include slavery in my version. So no Boston Tea Party as a replacement would do.
I'm thrilled that you are really really considering a musical rendition!
Should this internally rhyme, or is it OK that it doesn't?
I know that the e in "vive" is silent in correct French, but I mentally pronounce it incorrectly to rhyme with Chatelet, so "vivé" - but if you can't bring yourself to do it, it's okay otherwise as well.
Argh, kites, of course! Curse you, Franklin, for the flying the unrhyming kites. Hm, how about:
Christian Wolff, Pöllnitz, Franklin prints, lots of quips
Which is what we call an "unsauberer Reim", an unclean rhyme in German, but it's close enough.
I know that the e in "vive" is silent in correct French, but I mentally pronounce it incorrectly to rhyme with Chatelet, so "vivé" - but if you can't bring yourself to do it, it's okay otherwise as well.
I don't think I could bring myself to do it, but I leave that up to our singer and musician. :) This is also where I have to confess that my version, if you want it to follow the original scansion perfectly, requires pronouncing the 'e' in "Diderot"...but it probably still works if you want to pronounce it with two syllables, Cahn.
"Chatelet" I managed to fit in so that the meter's expecting two syllables.
Okay, revised version which fits the meter better. I sometimes had to sacrifice the rhymes, but I tried to keep couplets rhyming, at least. I also tried to copy the theme and even wording where possible.
Francis Stephen of Lorraine George the 3rd has gone insane Independence Incognito, Duke of Marlborough Whiff of grapeshot, Wolfgang Mozart Cameralism, Reign of Terror Sturm und Drang, Romanticism Liberum veto
Adam Smith, pamphlet Antoinette without a head Plenty here to read Pamela, Voltaire's Candide Victory with Washington Painting Emma Hamilton Rococo, phlogiston Johnson writes a lexicon
We did not start the fire It was always burning as the world was turning We did not start the fire No, we did not light it, but we tried to fight it
Lady Mary, Potemkin Charles the 12th and Bonnie Prince Colonies, slave trade Eugene on campaign Rousseau, Diderot Casanova, Crusoe Edward Gibbon Rothschild fortune made
Hussars horseback Johann Sebastian Bach Siege of Dresden, Rights of Man Telemachus, Caps and Hats Grand Tour, Corsica Prussian muskets, Oglethorpe Louverture, Pompadour Battle of Poltava!
We did not start the fire It was always burning as the world was turning We did not start the fire No, we did not light it, but we tried to fight it
Spanish Bourbons, Poniatowski Struensee, Stanislaus Leszczynski Savoy changing sides Painfully the Sun King dies Amber Room, Wollstonecraft Gulliver, Maurice de Saxe Treatise by Montesquieu Several Russian palace coups
Guillotine, Vienna French Encyclopedia Tsarevitch Alexei Émilie du Châtelet Potsdam, Petersburg Turk ships at Chesma burn Great Frost, too cold Panic, it's the Redcoats!
We did not start the fire It was always burning as the world was turning We did not start the fire No, we did not light it, but we tried to fight it
Salonistes, satirists French is spoken everywhere Famous wits, Old Fritz Saxony invasion Franklin's Philadelphia Giant soldier–mania Meissen, Versailles Executing Jacobites That's Tsar Peter building ships Scientific Pompeii digs Black plague, go away What else do I dare to say?
We did not start the fire It was always burning as the world was turning We did not start the fire No, we did not light it, but we tried to fight it
Porcelain, Bonaparte Hapless Damiens torn apart Silkworms, Hochkirch, Second round: Falkirk Bleeding counts as medicine Orlovs oust a sovereign Washout of the Medici British navy rules the sea
Pragmatic Sanction Fake memoirs are fiction Minden, Maxen Habsburgs, Brandenburg Joseph clawing back reforms Once-great Poland is no more Curse all these succession wars I can't take it anymore!
We did not start the fire It was always burning as the world was turning We did not start the fire But when we are gone, it shall still burn on and on and on
We did not start the fire It was always burning as the world was turning We did not start the fire No we did not light it, but we tried to fight it
"Pamela" is next to "Voltaire's Candide" for reasons best known to salon. :D Likewise, I think Fritz would appreciate rhyming and alliterating with "famous wits."
I lip-synced the results while listening to the bardcore version, and there are only a few deviations from meter, and I think all can be handled by stretching out a syllable or pronouncing all syllables with equal weight. This version is definitely easier to sing along to than my first draft.
It also slants American, obviously, where Selena slanted Prussian. I tried to minimize overlap between our songs, but I did borrow "porcelain" (good thinking!).
Yes this is much better! And ahahahaha I love the Pamela/Candide line :D
What about "Another Russian palace coup"?
(I am visiting family right now and don't have the stuff I need to experiment with the music, so no progress right now from my end. Going home soon though!)
Not only does it fit the meter better, but I'm pleased I managed to work in some catchier lines like:
Rousseau, Diderot, Casanova, Crusoe
I'd rather have "Defoe" than "Crusoe", but "Crusoe" near-rhymes with "Rousseau" (or at least they can be rhymed better when singing than speaking) and alliterates with "Casanova", so "Crusoe" it is!
What about "Another Russian palace coup"?
I had tried it, but it didn't fit "Seven papal regicides," having an extra syllable. You see, my whole MO was, "I have no idea how to create an earworm, but these people obviously do, so copy what they did as CLOSELY as possible!!"
That said, it works by itself, being iambic, and does rhyme better with "Montesquieu", so if you think it sounds better, go for it! (The singer gets a say in what sounds better. ;))
I am visiting family right now and don't have the stuff I need to experiment with the music, so no progress right now from my end.
This is good, because I'm still tweaking! (I wanted to tell you not to spend too much time practicing pronunciation on mine and to start with Selena's, because I had a feeling my second draft was going to be substantially different than my first, and it was!)
Reach out to me when you're ready to start practicing, and we can settle on a finalized version. This is going to be fun!
(Though I do sometimes feel like that Conan satire of GRRM doing being willing to do literally anything else besides finish the next book. Mildred: will do literally anything rather than finish writing about Peter Keith and Fredersdorf!)
Fritz definitely would. I'm also tickled about "Giant soldier–mania" - so FW did find his way into your version!
Fake memoirs are fiction
As we had plenty of opportunity to find out. Several times. BTW, as what do we count Henri de Catt? It's definitely RPF, but it's not a fake memoir in the sense that the fake Eugene/Austrian Trenck/Maintenon etc. memoirs are fake in that these are really the memoirs by the person whose name is on the title page, and he was Fritz' reader.
Yay for Emma Hamilton (and thus painter Romney) showing up in this version! I felt a bit guilty about not being able to work any of the Hervey stuff in, as I now have a soft spot for the entire mad clan. But then as you say, mine was Prussian-centric. I will say that Franklin shows up in mine, too, in the sole other line dealing with USian matters (in addition to the one about tax dodging). :)
It occurs to me he'd also appreciate near-rhyming with "satirists" two lines up. And invading Saxony in the next line. (Oh, Fritz.)
I'm also tickled about "Giant soldier–mania" - so FW did find his way into your version!
He did! You took Voltaire-mania, and I was pleased when I remembered FW, then was able to make the meter work by dint of using "giant" instead of "tall". (So many good ideas I had to discard because of uncooperative meter or rhyme.)
BTW, as what do we count Henri de Catt?
Good question. Fictionalized but not fake memoirs, maybe?
Yay for Emma Hamilton (and thus painter Romney) showing up in this version!
Yeah, it was a two-for-one deal, and I knew you'd like it! :D
I felt a bit guilty about not being able to work any of the Hervey stuff in
I feel guilty about not working in Maria Theresia! I tried in the first draft, but her name just doesn't match meter very well, nor is it a particularly good rhyme, nor is she recognizable with "Maria" or "Theresia" alone, "Queen of Hungary" is an insult (though I might include it in a Fritzian one, since him insulting her is part of their story), and "Holy Roman Empress" is way too vague. I tried, MT! Sorry your husband made it in and you didn't!
That makes me realize that I lost Catherine, too, and she's actually a better meter fit than "Potemkin" to replace "Saladin", and she's more significant. I think I might go ahead and make that substitution.
I will say that Franklin shows up in mine, too, in the sole other line dealing with USian matters (in addition to the one about tax dodging). :)
Indeed! You have some US references and I have some Prussian references (quite a few, actually, more than I realized). But I was actually out walking yesterday and listening to the bardcore version, while mentally composing replies to your and cahn's comments, and the line "Gustav at the opera" popped into my head as a possible replacement for "Franklin's Philadelphia." It doesn't rhyme with "soldier–mania" quite as well, but it is more salon-relevant, and gets us more representation of an under-represented country. You notice I managed to work in Charles the Twelfth, Poltava, and Hats and Caps, Gustav's assassination would round out the Swedish 18th century nicely. Though I guess technically it was a masked ball at the Opera House, not an actual opera? Do we know if any operas were performed/scheduled to be performed that night?
-would you pronounce "Liberum veto" as a latin phrase, that is with the e in veto being sort of a long a sound?
Lady Mary, Catherine Charles the 12th and Bonnie Prince
This doesn't really rhyme? Did you intend that?
-Okay, I had always thought the American pronunciation of "Rothschild" was with a short i sound, but google tells me that this is the German pronunciation and the American pronunciation is with a long i?? IDK, I think I like it with the short i better
-Tsarevitch Alexei - I would Americanize this as "tsarevitch alexi" -- ?
-would you pronounce "Liberum veto" as a latin phrase, that is with the e in veto being sort of a long a sound?
I would not, I would Anglicize it, since "veto" is such a common English word.
Lady Mary, Catherine Charles the 12th and Bonnie Prince
This doesn't really rhyme? Did you intend that?
First answer: yes, since the original (medieval) version I was riffing was:
Henry Tudor, Saladin Richard and the Winter King
and I figured "Bonnie Prince" was a good metrical and semantic match for "Winter King", and the near-rhyme of Catherine/Prince was as good as Saladin/King.
Second answer: But now that you force me to scrutinize it more, I see that "Richard" and "Winter" have more in common than I thought. (I got nothing on "Henry Tudor" and "Saladin", though.)
I suppose "Charles the Sixth" (MT's dad) would go better with "Bonnie Prince", but Charles the Twelfth is *way* more important and interesting to me. Meh!
-Okay, I had always thought the American pronunciation of "Rothschild" was with a short i sound, but google tells me that this is the German pronunciation and the American pronunciation is with a long i?? IDK, I think I like it with the short i better
See, I always learned it as "Roth's child", which Wikipedia tells me is the American way.
My history teacher who first introduced us to the family was named Mrs. Roth, so I always remember the pronunciation of that word, because the class instantly started making jokes about her child.
Now, since I learned a bit of German, it does hurt a little inside not to say "rot Schild", but I feel like I have to say "Roth's child" when speaking English, otherwise 1) it's too pretentious even for me, 2) no one will know what I'm talking about.
-Tsarevitch Alexei - I would Americanize this as "tsarevitch alexi" -- ?
See, I would not, because I was in skating fandom umpteen years ago, and my favorite skater was Alexei Yagudin, and his name consistently got pronounced "A-lek-say" by commentators, even in English. Example.
Which is why I rhymed it with my Anglicization of "Châtelet."
ETA: No, I'm wrong, it's not consistent. I'm rewatching some videos and it seems to be a mixture of A-lek-say and Alexi. Well, I clearly imprinted on the one, hence the rhyme. ;)
OK! -- I think my advisor used to say Alexi actually :) I'll maybe try to do something in between the two sounds (which is what the Russian sounds like to me anyway)
I listened to a Russian speaker and he says "Tsarevitch" with a "k" sound at the end -- I would say "Tsarevitch" with a "ch" sound at the end but then I realized I also have never actually heard it said out loud so this is probably just me anglicizing it on my own.
and the near-rhyme of Catherine/Prince was as good as Saladin/King
See, I feel like Saladin/King is a near-rhyme but that Catherine/Prince does not sound like a near-rhyme to me at all! I feel like n/ng sounds much more similar than in/ince. Hmm, maybe I'll make a poll about this :)
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timeasmymeasure
We didn't start the fire, 18th century version
Date: 2024-07-24 04:38 pm (UTC)Elusive St Germain
George the 3rd has gone insane
Philosophes
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Duke of Marlborough
Voltaire, Defoe, Declaration
Mercantilism, guillotine
Enlightened absolutism
Balance of power
We did not start the fire
It was always burning as the world was turning
We did not start the fire
No, we did not light it, but we tried to fight it
Adam Smith, pamphlet
Antoinette without a head
More and more things to read
Voila! Encyclopédie
Victory with Washington
Richelieu, but not that one
Rococo, phlogiston
Gulliver and Life of Johnson
We did not start the fire
It was always burning as the world was turning
We did not start the fire
No, we did not light it, but we tried to fight it
Lady Mary, Culloden
Charles the 12th and Potemkin
Colonies, slave trade
Émilie du Châtelet
Johnson, lexicon
Joseph, August the Strong
Personal union
Diplomatic Revolution
Hussars horseback
Johann Sebastian Bach
Winkelmann, Gluck, and Kant
Silesia, Prestonpans
Grand Tour, Mozart
Oglethorpe, Petersburg
Louverture, Pompadour
Battle of Malplaquet!
We did not start the fire
It was always burning as the world was turning
We did not start the fire
No, we did not light it, but we tried to fight it
Sans Souci, Romanovs
Alchemy, Menschikov
Kaufmann, Benedict
Spanish Bourbons, Frederick
Leopold, Valley Forge
Time for some inoculation
Treatise by Montesquieu
Again a Russian palace coup
Edinburgh, Vienna
Stanislaus and Crimea
Bastille stronghold
Tsarevitch ain't growing old
Potsdam, Petersburg
Chesma: Turks and ships burn
Watch out, memoirs lie
Versailles, the Sun King dies!
We did not start the fire
It was always burning as the world was turning
We did not start the fire
No, we did not light it, but we tried to fight it
Catherine, Robespierre
French is spoken everywhere
Dnieper, Peter
Polish partitions
Maria Theresia
Struensee, Philadelphia
Muskets, Russians
Recruiting tall Prussians
Satirists, famous wits
Treaty of Passarowitz
Black plague, go away
What else do I dare to say?
We did not start the fire
It was always burning as the world was turning
We did not start the fire
No, we did not light it, but we tried to fight it
Here he comes: Bonaparte
Hapless Damiens torn apart
Hochkirch, Yorktown
World turned upside down
Bleeding counts as medicine
Orlovs oust a sovereign
The last of the Medici
British navy on the sea
Changing sides in Savoy
Cumberland and Fontenoy
Minden, Dresden
Habsburgs, cameralists
Everywhere we see reforms
Once-great Poland is no more
Curse all these succession wars
I can't take it anymore!
We did not start the fire
It was always burning as the world was turning
We did not start the fire
But when we are gone, it shall still burn on and on and on
We did not start the fire
It was always burning as the world was turning
We did not start the fire
No we did not light it, but we tried to fight it
It needs work, but I need to stop for now. Suggestions welcome!
And yes, I have ideas for a Frederician one, but again, I have OTHER THINGS TO DO. :PPP
Re: We didn't start the fire, 18th century version
Date: 2024-07-24 09:38 pm (UTC)Frederick One, Prussia, Hannover and Russia
Karl of Sweden, Gottfried Leibniz, Augustus the Strong
William Three, Gian Gastone, Periwigs and song
Saxony, Northern War, Poland and Lithuania
Petersburg, Scorched Earth, Countess Cosel, Marriage Jam
Händel, “Agrippina” and the “Messiah”,
Marlborough, Prince Eugene, Stuarts end with Anne as Queen,
Sun King old, War in Spain, Habsburgs out and goodbye
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning, since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it
Frederick William, Grumbkow, Soldier King and Gundling
George the First, Bubble bursts, Traders in shock
Voltaire, shorter hair, the Ruspanti, Moltke
France now has a Regency, Spain’s King is a Frog
Farinelli, Castrato, Mary Wortley Montagu
Moll Flanders, Liliput, Bach and sons, George Two
Orzelska, Dresden, porcellain, Tabacco
Crown Prince Fritz, Paris Wits, English Marriage Project
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning, since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it
Zeithain, planned escape, Lieutenant Katte, what a scrape
Küstrin, Fredersdorf, Russian noble marries dwarf,
Ice Palace, Force Vive, Émilie du Chatelet
Gay men killed in Netherlands, Poland still in Saxon hands
Christian Wolff, Pöllnitz, Franklin prints and flies kits
Female Heir in Austria, Pragmatic Sanction goes not far
FW dead, dead Emperor: Fritz invades Silesia
Algarotti, Newton’s lore, Austrian Succession War
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning, since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it
Diderot, Gottsched, Biche the dog gets kidnapped
Culloden, 45, Charlie fled but still alive
“Letters from Peruvia”, Fritz has Voltaire-mania
Lissabon, dead Chatelet, Barbarina runs away
Young Sophie becomes Catherine, en route to Russia from Berlin
Epic bust up Fritz/Voltaire - let’s see how they further fare!
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning, since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it
Mozart children, travelling, invading Fritz is back again
World War Zero, Menorca, Austria versus Prussia
Kolin, Seydlitz, Rossbach, no one has the last laugh
Court flees soon to Magdeburg, Miracle of Brandenburg
“What is Enlightenment?”, Mendelssohn, Lessing and Wilhelm von Dohm
France in debts, Scottish vets, English colonies dodge tax
Slaves get dumped into the sea, Poland partitioned into three
Rousseau fans call liberty, what’s that Guillontine I see?
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning, since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
But when we are gone
It will still burn on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning, since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning, since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it
We didn't start the fire
It was always burning, since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it
Re: We didn't start the fire, 18th century version
Date: 2024-07-24 09:46 pm (UTC)Cahn, your job is going to be to set these to 18th century-inspired music, and record yourself and your kids singing and playing, so we can upload the resulting performances to YouTube. *veg*
Re: We didn't start the fire, 18th century version
Date: 2024-07-24 10:01 pm (UTC)WHY do you have to do this when i can't play!! i have ideas though :PP (ugh, but i can't pronounce anything! maybe while my hands are broken i should record myself singing it so i can get pronunciation pointers, it was very nice of the two of you to keep most of it anglicized ;) )
Re: We didn't start the fire, 18th century version
Date: 2024-07-24 10:03 pm (UTC)I know, I was thinking that! But I figured you could use the time to do the composition and singing parts, and add in instrumentals later. :D (I like volunteering other people for work, what can I say.)
Re: We didn't start the fire, 18th century version
Date: 2024-07-25 05:35 am (UTC)Hmm, our keyboard does not have a "harpsichord" setting, which i would have liked for this. (the keyboard i had as a kid had a harpsichord setting, sigh.) But i guess it would not be horribly anachronistic to have a piano going, or possibly organ (though i think that might be a bit much). This keyboard also has a "strings" setting, which also might be a bit much.
eta: oh wait, maybe i can use a midi file. hmm. this may keep me busy for a while :)
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Date: 2024-07-25 05:26 am (UTC)Frederick William, Grumbkow, Soldier King and Gundling
<3 Gundling!
Marlborough, Prince Eugene, Stuarts end with Anne as Queen
Oh, nice patter rhythm there
Zeithain, planned escape, Lieutenant Katte, what a scrape
<3
Algarotti, Newton’s lore, Austrian Succession War
Ha! I wouldn't have thought to rhyme those, but it works!
Young Sophie becomes Catherine, en route to Russia from Berlin
Epic bust up Fritz/Voltaire - let’s see how they further fare!
:DDDD
Slaves get dumped into the sea, Poland partitioned into three
Rousseau fans call liberty, what’s that Guillontine I see?
Ooooof, yeah!
Re: We didn't start the fire, 18th century version
Date: 2024-07-25 03:28 pm (UTC)As the line in the original goes "England has a new Queen", I knew what to rhyme Eugene with, and after some try-outs ("Annne is the last Stuart Queen") I found the satisfying version now in existence. :)
What I did was coyping the entire Billy Joel lyrics and then replacing them line for line with an 18th Century/ Frederician version, trying my best to match the number of syllables and rhyming scheme.
Re: We didn't start the fire, 18th century version
Date: 2024-07-25 03:35 pm (UTC)That's exactly what I did with the medieval lyrics, but I didn't finish matching before posting, which is why I'd like a chance to do another pass before we finalize.
Re: We didn't start the fire, 18th century version
Date: 2024-08-06 04:45 pm (UTC)I've been adjusting wording slightly as I go :) but a couple of questions I had for the salon mind:
Ice Palace, Force Vive, Émilie du Chatelet
Should this internally rhyme, or is it OK that it doesn't?
Christian Wolff, Pöllnitz, Franklin prints and flies kits
So, this should be "kites," not kits, which kind of destroys the rhyme here; is there a better way to do this?
Slaves get dumped into the sea
OK, sorry, what does this refer to? (From my American-centric viewpoint, I keep wanting it to say "Tea gets dumped into the sea"...)
Also, I just want to reiterate that the Guillotine ending the song is just genius :D
Re: We didn't start the fire, 18th century version
Date: 2024-08-06 09:25 pm (UTC)Hiiii this is awesome to hear!
Turns out, er, singing without lots of errors is harder than I thought!
Omg, I had the same experience, and I wasn't even trying to carry a tune! I was just trying to pronounce the words right and get the same rhythm as the bardcore version. And it took surprisingly many tries to get it even mostly right! (Admittedly, it's a pretty fast-paced song, but still.)
I will leave poetic decisions to
Slaves get dumped into the sea
Coming after "English colonies dodge tax," my brain wants to do the same as yours, *but*, I also happen to know that as part of the transatlantic slave trade, a lot of slaves did get dumped into the sea. Maybe there's a specific event Selena's thinking of that she will tell us about, but it was also just a *thing*. You died in the horrendous conditions of the crossing from Africa? Overboard your body goes. Okay, fine, probably better than keeping a rotting corpse on the ship. You were sick? Overboard, rather than infect the whole shipment. Injured and not likely to bring a profit upon landing? Not worth the cost of feeding you, overboard you go. You were a baby and your mother wasn't behaving like a proper submissive slave, but was trying to ~resist~? Overboard, pour encourager les autres! A baby won't make a big dent in the profit margin anyway.
The key here is that slavers were insured against drowned slaves, so anyone who went overboard could be replaced later. So the threshold for which it made economic sense to treat slaves as damaged merchandise and dump them in the Atlantic was appallingly low.
There's a reason I put "slave trade" next to "colonies" in my version. Lest we forget.
Re: We didn't start the fire, 18th century version
Date: 2024-08-07 06:04 am (UTC)ETA: also, the reason why I put this in was because it does symbolize the inhumanity of slavery and greed and I did want to include slavery in my version. So no Boston Tea Party as a replacement would do.
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Date: 2024-08-07 12:03 pm (UTC)Should this internally rhyme, or is it OK that it doesn't?
I know that the e in "vive" is silent in correct French, but I mentally pronounce it incorrectly to rhyme with Chatelet, so "vivé" - but if you can't bring yourself to do it, it's okay otherwise as well.
Argh, kites, of course! Curse you, Franklin, for the flying the unrhyming kites. Hm, how about:
Christian Wolff, Pöllnitz, Franklin prints, lots of quips
Which is what we call an "unsauberer Reim", an unclean rhyme in German, but it's close enough.
I already replied to the dumped slaves question.
Re: We didn't start the fire, 18th century version
Date: 2024-08-07 03:08 pm (UTC)I don't think I could bring myself to do it, but I leave that up to our singer and musician. :) This is also where I have to confess that my version, if you want it to follow the original scansion perfectly, requires pronouncing the 'e' in "Diderot"...but it probably still works if you want to pronounce it with two syllables, Cahn.
"Chatelet" I managed to fit in so that the meter's expecting two syllables.
Re: We didn't start the fire, 18th century version
Date: 2024-07-25 05:20 am (UTC)Rococo, phlogiston
LOLOLOLOL, Enlightenment and also salon joke! :D
Tsarevitch ain't growing old
heh!
Treatise by Montesquieu
Again a Russian palace coup
also loved this one! again, yeah! ...yeah, Russia was really something, wasn't it.
Re: We didn't start the fire, 18th century version
Date: 2024-07-25 07:16 pm (UTC)Re: We didn't start the fire, 18th century version
Date: 2024-07-26 12:13 am (UTC)Re: We didn't start the fire, 18th century version
Date: 2024-07-29 05:27 pm (UTC)Francis Stephen of Lorraine
George the 3rd has gone insane
Independence
Incognito, Duke of Marlborough
Whiff of grapeshot, Wolfgang Mozart
Cameralism, Reign of Terror
Sturm und Drang, Romanticism
Liberum veto
Adam Smith, pamphlet
Antoinette without a head
Plenty here to read
Pamela, Voltaire's Candide
Victory with Washington
Painting Emma Hamilton
Rococo, phlogiston
Johnson writes a lexicon
We did not start the fire
It was always burning as the world was turning
We did not start the fire
No, we did not light it, but we tried to fight it
Lady Mary, Potemkin
Charles the 12th and Bonnie Prince
Colonies, slave trade
Eugene on campaign
Rousseau, Diderot
Casanova, Crusoe
Edward Gibbon
Rothschild fortune made
Hussars horseback
Johann Sebastian Bach
Siege of Dresden, Rights of Man
Telemachus, Caps and Hats
Grand Tour, Corsica
Prussian muskets, Oglethorpe
Louverture, Pompadour
Battle of Poltava!
We did not start the fire
It was always burning as the world was turning
We did not start the fire
No, we did not light it, but we tried to fight it
Spanish Bourbons, Poniatowski
Struensee, Stanislaus Leszczynski
Savoy changing sides
Painfully the Sun King dies
Amber Room, Wollstonecraft
Gulliver, Maurice de Saxe
Treatise by Montesquieu
Several Russian palace coups
Guillotine, Vienna
French Encyclopedia
Tsarevitch Alexei
Émilie du Châtelet
Potsdam, Petersburg
Turk ships at Chesma burn
Great Frost, too cold
Panic, it's the Redcoats!
We did not start the fire
It was always burning as the world was turning
We did not start the fire
No, we did not light it, but we tried to fight it
Salonistes, satirists
French is spoken everywhere
Famous wits, Old Fritz
Saxony invasion
Franklin's Philadelphia
Giant soldier–mania
Meissen, Versailles
Executing Jacobites
That's Tsar Peter building ships
Scientific Pompeii digs
Black plague, go away
What else do I dare to say?
We did not start the fire
It was always burning as the world was turning
We did not start the fire
No, we did not light it, but we tried to fight it
Porcelain, Bonaparte
Hapless Damiens torn apart
Silkworms, Hochkirch,
Second round: Falkirk
Bleeding counts as medicine
Orlovs oust a sovereign
Washout of the Medici
British navy rules the sea
Pragmatic Sanction
Fake memoirs are fiction
Minden, Maxen
Habsburgs, Brandenburg
Joseph clawing back reforms
Once-great Poland is no more
Curse all these succession wars
I can't take it anymore!
We did not start the fire
It was always burning as the world was turning
We did not start the fire
But when we are gone, it shall still burn on and on and on
We did not start the fire
It was always burning as the world was turning
We did not start the fire
No we did not light it, but we tried to fight it
"Pamela" is next to "Voltaire's Candide" for reasons best known to salon. :D Likewise, I think Fritz would appreciate rhyming and alliterating with "famous wits."
I lip-synced the results while listening to the bardcore version, and there are only a few deviations from meter, and I think all can be handled by stretching out a syllable or pronouncing all syllables with equal weight. This version is definitely easier to sing along to than my first draft.
It also slants American, obviously, where Selena slanted Prussian. I tried to minimize overlap between our songs, but I did borrow "porcelain" (good thinking!).
Re: We didn't start the fire, 18th century version
Date: 2024-07-30 03:57 am (UTC)What about "Another Russian palace coup"?
(I am visiting family right now and don't have the stuff I need to experiment with the music, so no progress right now from my end. Going home soon though!)
Re: We didn't start the fire, 18th century version
Date: 2024-07-31 02:24 pm (UTC)Not only does it fit the meter better, but I'm pleased I managed to work in some catchier lines like:
Rousseau, Diderot,
Casanova, Crusoe
I'd rather have "Defoe" than "Crusoe", but "Crusoe" near-rhymes with "Rousseau" (or at least they can be rhymed better when singing than speaking) and alliterates with "Casanova", so "Crusoe" it is!
What about "Another Russian palace coup"?
I had tried it, but it didn't fit "Seven papal regicides," having an extra syllable. You see, my whole MO was, "I have no idea how to create an earworm, but these people obviously do, so copy what they did as CLOSELY as possible!!"
That said, it works by itself, being iambic, and does rhyme better with "Montesquieu", so if you think it sounds better, go for it! (The singer gets a say in what sounds better. ;))
I am visiting family right now and don't have the stuff I need to experiment with the music, so no progress right now from my end.
This is good, because I'm still tweaking! (I wanted to tell you not to spend too much time practicing pronunciation on mine and to start with Selena's, because I had a feeling my second draft was going to be substantially different than my first, and it was!)
Reach out to me when you're ready to start practicing, and we can settle on a finalized version. This is going to be fun!
(Though I do sometimes feel like that Conan satire of GRRM doing being willing to do literally anything else besides finish the next book. Mildred: will do literally anything rather than finish writing about Peter Keith and Fredersdorf!)
Re: We didn't start the fire, 18th century version
Date: 2024-07-30 07:13 am (UTC)Fake memoirs are fiction
As we had plenty of opportunity to find out. Several times. BTW, as what do we count Henri de Catt? It's definitely RPF, but it's not a fake memoir in the sense that the fake Eugene/Austrian Trenck/Maintenon etc. memoirs are fake in that these are really the memoirs by the person whose name is on the title page, and he was Fritz' reader.
Yay for Emma Hamilton (and thus painter Romney) showing up in this version! I felt a bit guilty about not being able to work any of the Hervey stuff in, as I now have a soft spot for the entire mad clan. But then as you say, mine was Prussian-centric. I will say that Franklin shows up in mine, too, in the sole other line dealing with USian matters (in addition to the one about tax dodging). :)
Re: We didn't start the fire, 18th century version
Date: 2024-07-31 02:04 pm (UTC)It occurs to me he'd also appreciate near-rhyming with "satirists" two lines up. And invading Saxony in the next line. (Oh, Fritz.)
I'm also tickled about "Giant soldier–mania" - so FW did find his way into your version!
He did! You took Voltaire-mania, and I was pleased when I remembered FW, then was able to make the meter work by dint of using "giant" instead of "tall". (So many good ideas I had to discard because of uncooperative meter or rhyme.)
BTW, as what do we count Henri de Catt?
Good question. Fictionalized but not fake memoirs, maybe?
Yay for Emma Hamilton (and thus painter Romney) showing up in this version!
Yeah, it was a two-for-one deal, and I knew you'd like it! :D
I felt a bit guilty about not being able to work any of the Hervey stuff in
I feel guilty about not working in Maria Theresia! I tried in the first draft, but her name just doesn't match meter very well, nor is it a particularly good rhyme, nor is she recognizable with "Maria" or "Theresia" alone, "Queen of Hungary" is an insult (though I might include it in a Fritzian one, since him insulting her is part of their story), and "Holy Roman Empress" is way too vague. I tried, MT! Sorry your husband made it in and you didn't!
That makes me realize that I lost Catherine, too, and she's actually a better meter fit than "Potemkin" to replace "Saladin", and she's more significant. I think I might go ahead and make that substitution.
I will say that Franklin shows up in mine, too, in the sole other line dealing with USian matters (in addition to the one about tax dodging). :)
Indeed! You have some US references and I have some Prussian references (quite a few, actually, more than I realized). But I was actually out walking yesterday and listening to the bardcore version, while mentally composing replies to your and
Re: We didn't start the fire, 18th century version
Date: 2024-08-20 05:38 am (UTC)-would you pronounce "Liberum veto" as a latin phrase, that is with the e in veto being sort of a long a sound?
Lady Mary, Catherine
Charles the 12th and Bonnie Prince
This doesn't really rhyme? Did you intend that?
-Okay, I had always thought the American pronunciation of "Rothschild" was with a short i sound, but google tells me that this is the German pronunciation and the American pronunciation is with a long i?? IDK, I think I like it with the short i better
-Tsarevitch Alexei - I would Americanize this as "tsarevitch alexi" -- ?
Re: We didn't start the fire, 18th century version
Date: 2024-08-20 04:00 pm (UTC)I would not, I would Anglicize it, since "veto" is such a common English word.
Lady Mary, Catherine
Charles the 12th and Bonnie Prince
This doesn't really rhyme? Did you intend that?
First answer: yes, since the original (medieval) version I was riffing was:
Henry Tudor, Saladin
Richard and the Winter King
and I figured "Bonnie Prince" was a good metrical and semantic match for "Winter King", and the near-rhyme of Catherine/Prince was as good as Saladin/King.
Second answer: But now that you force me to scrutinize it more, I see that "Richard" and "Winter" have more in common than I thought. (I got nothing on "Henry Tudor" and "Saladin", though.)
I suppose "Charles the Sixth" (MT's dad) would go better with "Bonnie Prince", but Charles the Twelfth is *way* more important and interesting to me. Meh!
-Okay, I had always thought the American pronunciation of "Rothschild" was with a short i sound, but google tells me that this is the German pronunciation and the American pronunciation is with a long i?? IDK, I think I like it with the short i better
See, I always learned it as "Roth's child", which Wikipedia tells me is the American way.
My history teacher who first introduced us to the family was named Mrs. Roth, so I always remember the pronunciation of that word, because the class instantly started making jokes about her child.
Now, since I learned a bit of German, it does hurt a little inside not to say "rot Schild", but I feel like I have to say "Roth's child" when speaking English, otherwise 1) it's too pretentious even for me, 2) no one will know what I'm talking about.
-Tsarevitch Alexei - I would Americanize this as "tsarevitch alexi" -- ?
See, I would not, because I was in skating fandom umpteen years ago, and my favorite skater was Alexei Yagudin, and his name consistently got pronounced "A-lek-say" by commentators, even in English. Example.
Which is why I rhymed it with my Anglicization of "Châtelet."
ETA: No, I'm wrong, it's not consistent. I'm rewatching some videos and it seems to be a mixture of A-lek-say and Alexi. Well, I clearly imprinted on the one, hence the rhyme. ;)
Yay music in progress! \o/
Re: We didn't start the fire, 18th century version
Date: 2024-08-20 09:17 pm (UTC)I listened to a Russian speaker and he says "Tsarevitch" with a "k" sound at the end -- I would say "Tsarevitch" with a "ch" sound at the end but then I realized I also have never actually heard it said out loud so this is probably just me anglicizing it on my own.
and the near-rhyme of Catherine/Prince was as good as Saladin/King
See, I feel like Saladin/King is a near-rhyme but that Catherine/Prince does not sound like a near-rhyme to me at all! I feel like n/ng sounds much more similar than in/ince. Hmm, maybe I'll make a poll about this :)
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