Kelly’s Eye

LIKE John Lennon’s Imagine, Swing Low, Sweet Chariot is a dirge, or at least the version sung by rugby fans. Give me the Guinness-fuelled sentimentalism of Ireland’s Fields Of Athenry any day (though I acknowledge that’s a possible consequence of the sometimes divided loyalties resulting from my heritage). But for the first time in my life, I might join in next time I hear Swing Low.

The news that England’s Rugby Football Union is questioning whether the song is any longer appropriate, in light of the hysterical cacophony provoked by the Black Lives Matter movement, comes as less of a shock these days than seeing the Archbishop of Canterbury in a church.

Don’t kid yourself about the “debate” the RFU is calling for either.What its anxious bosses really want is for it to be swiftly and quietly consigned to that thing we now judge only by the blind arrogance and sanctimony of our present times: history.You will point out in vain that Swing Low probably began life as one of those gospel songs with which slaves, devoid of any other rights, could communicate the subversive message of freedom.

Or that Nazi Germany (which would have grudgingly admired the BLM’s ideological humourlessness) banned it as “undesired and harmful”. Or that it was later dusted off and embraced by the 1960s civil rights movement in the US.

Or that UB40 once recorded a version of it.

I don’t suppose most fans lustily declaiming it at Twickenham instantly associate the song with the group that had a hit with Red Red Wine any more than they do with slavery.

But even if they do make the link, the vast majority are perfectly capable of enjoying Swing Low for its current association without condoning racism, because – unlike the BLM fanatics – they can hold more than one thought in their head simultaneously.