Let me start with Rudyard Kipling....of whom my favorite verse in all of his writing is...."You're a better man than I am....Gunga Din."....ah but that's another story. It is said that Kipling himself once summered in our small town....in the home of a friend luminary of his....this maybe two blocks from where I am sitting.
They had a term for it in England....that came from Kipling....oh a hundred or more years ago....Gentlemen-Rankers. Essentially it described rich college-age young men who matriculated to university and then wasted their time in bars and other forms of entertainment....they....then admitting their serious errors of judgment....would join the military as enlisted men....not officers as they should have been....and they would work their way back up. There were other modes of becoming known as a gentleman-ranker....the most famous of which would be T. E. Lawrence....otherwise known as....Lawrence of Arabia. Well that's the best that I understand it anyway.
Let me segue to America....and Yale University....circa 1907 or 1909. There were young men....rich through their families....who also liked to spend time in the college bar....(I could write a book on that mentality).....so as a lark....they adapted the older poem by Rudyard Kipling into a song....which has over the past century made its way into many movies....and even part of the theme song of a television show. The Royal Air Force....RAF....during WWII....adopted it as its own....as a camaraderie theme in difficult times.
The essence of the poem and the song is regret. You would....and will laugh at the song if you pull it up on your computer....it might be a good gag to sing at Karaoke...but to me....when I hear it....which isn't often....but for some odd reason was this morning....it is a lament for evangelicalism....for us high and mighty children of the King....lambs of the flock....who have lost our way....prodigals who went for the money....and followed a false prophet and pied piper....and now are living....or will soon be living....in regret and remorse!
You can google all the lyrics of the Whiffenpoof Song if you wish....but here is the last stanze....that was actually sung by popular crooner Rudy Vallee...on the Ed Sullivan Show.....in 1949....of which you can also Google.
We are poor little lambs
Who have lost our way
Baa! Baa! Baa!
We are little black sheep
Who have gone astray
Baa! Baa! Baa!
Gentlemen songsters off on a spree.....(Kipling's words were....Gentlemen-rankers)
Damned from here to eternity
God have mercy on such as we
Baa! Baa! Baa!
