(uk.music.folk was going through one its quieter patches when someone decided it would an appropriate place to post a football chant. I amused myself by concocting a mock-academic analysis.)

Newsgroups: uk.music.folk
Subject: Re: Hey nonny nonny
From: Dick Gaughan <dickg (@) dickalba.demon.co.uk>
Date: 2001-11-24 10:00:45

In <3bffce2b.3435415@news.ukf.net> on Sat, 24 Nov 2001 16:46:52 GMT, dominic (@) fansfirst@totalise.co.uk.spamtrapp (The Hoop Haters) wrote:

>We are fulham, super fulham, we are fulham FFC
>we are fulham, super fulham, we are fulham fjuck chelsea.

And today, class, we are studying the influence of the traditional ballad form on the post-modernist tendency in Sarf Lannon tribal spontaneous contemporary composition.

The important features to note here are a) the invitation to the listener in the opening phrase to identify with the tribe, obviously a simple development from the familiar "Come all ye", and b) the adoption of the balladic device of repetition to heighten tension and expectation, given added potency with the use of the superlative and also the slight variation at the end of the first line, which is quite brilliantly structured to include a slight rhythmic hiatus, and finally achieving fulfillment with the denouement of the final variation, the oft-celebrated "punch line", which reinforces the initial sense of identification by the explicit targetting and characterisation of those outwith the tribe, i.e., "Not-Us".

You will also note the Nordic influence in the use of the "fj" spelling, a truly fascinating example of how primitive racial memory can survive within an urban environment. You might find it illuminating to compare this with the use of Nordic symbolism in the works of Wagner and those of DC Thomson.

Now, for your homework, I'd like you each to submit a dissertation on the mythological references within this piece, paying special attention to any Indo-European motifs and ignoring Freudian elements, which will be the subject of later lessons.

--
DG

 

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