Night Mail

[flyfifer51]

Grierson, Auden and Britten - what a line-up! A classic that still stands up today.

[electriczoom6000]

i dont know why but the song sound scary

[flyingdan111]

Great stuff. Haven't seen/heard this for years but it's so incredibly evocative of a time when we were less well connected. Being less well connected brings a far greater sense of excitement when connections do occur, and this is so brilliantly captured by Auden in this poem. Superb.

[shredlessmarmalade]

we used this as part of an inspiration for a peice of theatre on my uni course and we watched this video. I took it seriously, but at the same time I kept thinking Auden would make a badass rapper. :P LONG LIVE THE POSTAL SERVICE!

[nolicnotrut]

Rappers eat your hearts out.

This is brilliant!

[456Ral]

Not trying to be rude or anything but how old are you?

[bathsideboy]

@456Ral

My age is irrelevant but I'm well over 60.

Just enjoy the posting.

[bathsideboy]

I first saw this about 60 years ago, shown at school by a visiting film unit and I was absolutely thrilled by this piece.

It really does get you chugging in your seat, dont it. It would be well worth a revival, remixed or not.

[JackSFC17]

Surely this is the first ever hip hop song?

Pure brilliance. One day I want to make a hard version.



[mickaelx99]

I watched this in class yesterday... best rap ever. Someone needs to do a remix.

[Cazkumali]

whats this song called?

[bathsideboy]

@Cazkumali It is a poem by W. H. Auden specially written for Night Mail, a 1936 documentary film about a London, Midland and Scottish Railway mail train from London to Scotland, produced by the GPO Film Unit.

[electriczoom6000]

@Cazkumali the night mail

[Dippeh]

It's a great piece of poetry, but what I adore about this great bit of the film (the main reason I watched it again during my studies) was the pace of the narrator, he speaks slowly, with the same tone and feeling of a steady train, which later speeds up almost to heartbreak point, only to come down the hills into Scotland, at which point the narrator becomes more frank, tired, slows down again, and the ending lines are as philosophical as a civil servant could be about their place in the world.

[cogidubnus1953]

Beautiful

[onclemarcus]

Amazing!

[ZXC5000]

what a beautiful thing

[CaptBubble]

The music was specially written by Sir Benjamin Britten and the drummer was the late, celebrated Professor James Blades O.B.E.

[UrbanSwagger]

Surely this was the inspiration for the David Bowie's "African Night Flight."

[bathsideboy]

I can definitely see the parallel but as far as Bowie's "inspiration" is concerned it would be a question you would have to put to him.

[andyinoregon]

Great posting. Taking us to another place, another time, and all to the wonderful rhythyms of Auden's poem.

[danlefou]

The drummer is playing the four beats of coach wheels over rail joints, the strings are playing the 'Royal Scot' class loco's three-cylinder exhaust, and there's a guy rapping pentameters over it all.

And, guess what - it works, brilliantly! What a classic.

[andyinoregon]

Thanks for the new details, and I should have known better than to put a second "y" in rhythms in my first comment.