Top of the world pops
QUESTION Was The Wolfe Tones’ A Nation Once Again once voted the world’s favourite song? A NATION Once Again, written in the 1840s by Thomas Osbourne Davis, is an irish republican anthem recorded in 1964 by The Wolfe Tones, who named themselves after Theobald Wolfe Tone, an 18thcentury irish revolutionary.
it topped a 2002 poll for The Top Ten Songs Of All Time, conducted as part of the BBC World Service’s 70th anniversary celebrations. Votes were received from 153 countries. The winning song’s opening verse gives an idea of its flavour: ‘I read of ancient freemen For Greece and Rome who bravely stood Three hundred men and three men; And then I prayed I yet might see our fetters rent in twain, And Ireland, long a province, be A nation once again!’
This irish rebel ballad narrowly edged out the indian patriotic song Vande Mataram, based on a poem by Bankim Chandra Chatarji, performed by various artists. The patriotic Pakistani pop song Dil Dil Pakistan, by Vital Signs, was at No 3, and the theme from a Bollywood version of The Godfather, Rakkamma Kaiya Thattu, by llayaraaja, at No 4.
The Tamil Tiger song Poovum Nadakkuthu Pinchum Nadakkuthu, by Thirumalai Chandran, about the oppression of the Tamils in Sri Lanka, came in at No 5, followed by Ana wa Laila (Me And Laila), a popular favourite by iraq’s biggest pop star, Kadhim al-Saher.
The Nepalese love song Reetu haruma Timi hariyali Basant hau Nadihruma Timi Pabitra Ganga hau by Arun Thapa was at No 7; No 8 was Cher’s Believe; No 9 the Punjabi pop song Chaiyya chaiyya by A. R. Rahman; and at No 10 was Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody.
As with many of these polls, top artists such as The Beatles, the Rolling Stones and elvis Presley missed out because their
vote was split between various hits. europe’s top tune was Wind Of Change by the Scorpions, a song many associate with the fall of the Berlin Wall. it was narrowly followed by The Ketchup Song by Spanish sisters Las Ketchup.
The Girl From ipanema by Antonio Carlos Jobim was the favourite in the Americas and Caribbean. Solo le Pido a Dios by Argentinian singer Leon Geico was No 1 in Latin America, and the Swahili classic Malaika was Africa’s top song.
Caroline Howard, Chesterfield, Derbys.
QUESTION The TV programme Ice Road Truckers on Channel 5 featured a driver named Darrell Ward, who was killed in a plane crash in August. What happened? DARRELL WARD joined ice Road Truckers for season six in 2012. Launched in 2007, ice Road Truckers follows longhaul drivers on seasonal routes crossing frozen lakes and rivers in remote Arctic territories in Canada and Alaska.
Ward quickly became a fan favourite for his fearlessness on the treacherous routes and his compassion in helping other drivers, including his rivals. he was an outdoor sports enthusiast who enjoyed hunting, fishing, camping and dirt-biking. he was the passenger in a single-engine Cessna 182 that crashed last summer on approach to Rock Creek Airport when he was en route to film the pilot for a documentary-style show involving the recovery of plane wrecks. Pilot Mark M. Melotz, 56, was also killed. Melotz had bought the Cessna just two days earlier.
The National Transportation Safety Board is handling the investigation, but isn’t due to report until next year.
it offers this description of the crash, which occurred at 2.45pm local time on August 28: ‘The witness stated that when the airplane was about 40ft above the runway and preparing to land, it suddenly veered 90 degrees to the right, in what he estimated to be a 30 degree bank angle.
‘The airplane subsequently collided with a stand of trees that bordered the runway on the north, then impacted the ground before coming to rest upright on the shoulder of an interstate highway. Shortly thereafter, a fire erupted, which consumed the forward two-thirds of the airplane.’
Jack Daley, Sheffield.
QUESTION Does anyone know the words of a song/poem that was popular in the Fifties and contained the lines ‘He combed his hair with an engine wheel and cried with toothache in his heel’? FURTHER to the earlier answer, in her dotage, my late mother struck up songs from her days in a West end chorus.
her rendering of this Black Minstrel song that traced the life of Dan Tucker was more bawdy than those offered so far: ‘Now young Dan Tucker was a very clean man Washed his face in a frying pan The frying pan was made of brass Large enough to wash his . . . High dingle-dangle, dingle-dangle dey Cutest little charger that ever slept on hay. When he grew older he did a silly trick Slid down the banisters And paralysed his . . .’ The final verse ended with a word rhyming with ‘Tucker’.
Mrs Faith Wills, Long Melford, Suffolk.
IS THERE a question to which you have always wanted to know the answer? Or do you know the answer to a question raised here? Send your questions and answers to: Charles Legge, Answers To Correspondents, Scottish Daily Mail, 20 Waterloo Street, Glasgow, G2 6DB. You can also fax them to 0141 331 4739 or you can email them to charles.legge@dailymail.co.uk. A selection will be published but we are not able to enter into individual correspondence.