In 1968, the Welsh singer Tom Jones released a song called ‘Delilah’. Written by Barry Mason and Les Reed, it tells the story of a man who passes by the window of his girlfriend’s house only to find her shagging another man. He hangs around the house all night until his girlfriend emerges from the house, laughing in his face, whereupon he stabs her to death, as you do. Anyway, it’s a very popular song at Wales rugby union matches, primarily because it’s usually sung by Tom Jones and once you’ve got a few pints of Brains SA on board, there’s a good sing a long to be had. But now the song is regarded as “problematical” by the Principality Stadium, which has banned choirs from singing it and removed the song from the half-time playlist. Is this the so-called ‘cancel culture’, ‘political correctness gone mad’, ‘wokery’ or is is simply nothing to get worked up about?
I have no dog in this fight, not least because I am not a big fan of dog-fighting, and have no real feelings either way. I remember the song from the late 1960s when I had no idea what the lyrics were about. I just heard, “My, my, my, Delilah. Why, why, why, Delilah” and some of the other lyrics and thought nothing of them. Even when I became familiar with the section that goes, “She stood there laughing, I felt the knife in my hand and she laughed no more,” I didn’t think, well, what an absolute bastard. In fact, until more recently, I didn’t think anything much of it at all. But even when I did learn what the song was all about, I thought, well, that’s a made up story. It’s very unlikely that anyone will hear the song and then decide to stalk their girlfriend, wife, partner or whoever, before plunging the knife in the following morning. Anyone who is going to do that will probably not require the encouragement of Tom Jones’ booming voice to encourage them.
Whether it’s an appropriate song to sing at a major sporting event is another matter, but what cannot be denied is that the song has a great hook and sounds sensational when sung at large events. Clearly, the Principality Stadium feels it is but just because they’ve stopped choirs singing it and removed it from the playlist doesn’t mean fans won’t sing it and if they do, it’s surely up to them?
I find the song Swing Low Sweet Chariot, which is sung by rugby union fans at Twickenham far more troubling, specifically because of its close association with slavery and the oppression of the black race. The history of the song is explained in this piece from The Independent:
“The song was first formally published in the 1870s for the Fisk University Jubilee Singers after being written by Wallace Willis, a Native American slave before the American Civil War. The all-black choir toured the US and Europe and staged concerts that helped spread spirituals both nationwide and overseas. In the following decades the anthem was adopted by choirs in the United Kingdom, but in the 1950s it became a symbol of the American civil rights movement as black people in the US fought for equality.”
That, I do find troubling. I am sure there was no malice intended when the song became popular in many rugby clubs where it was accompanied by very rude hand movements but knowing its history I can see why people like Maro Itoje, the black English rugby union player finds it “uncomfortable”. (It is also fair to point out that Itoje adds that he doesn’t feel it should be banned at Twickenham.) I’m equally unlikely to play rugby union for England than I am to go to Twickenham to watch a game, but Itoje’s “uncomfortable” comment means I know where I stand. I wouldn’t ban it either, but as time goes by and we learn about history, particularly the difficult bits, the song will be confined to history and gradually fade away.
In my view, concerns about the lyrics and meanings of both songs represent wokeness in the traditional and positive sense of the word which is “aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues.” Why on Earth would you not want to be woke? You’d be an avid Daily Mail reader and GB News viewer if you weren’t and who’d want to be that? We live and learn and evolution of the mind takes care of the rest. I prefer the Sensational Alex Harvey Band version, anyway.
