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    Let's All Go Down The Strand

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    Marko Slaviček
    The document discusses the British music hall song 'Let's All Go Down the Strand' written in the late 19th century, describing its lyrics and popularity. It details how the song was inspired by the Strand in London and describes attempts to persuade others to visit the area, becoming popular with soldiers in World War 1. A band later covered the song.

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    Let's All Go Down The Strand

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    Marko Slaviček
    65 views3 pages
    The document discusses the British music hall song 'Let's All Go Down the Strand' written in the late 19th century, describing its lyrics and popularity. It details how the song was inspired by the Strand in London and describes attempts to persuade others to visit the area, becoming popular with soldiers in World War 1. A band later covered the song.

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    The document discusses the British music hall song 'Let's All Go Down the Strand' written in the late 19th century, describing its lyrics and popularity. It details how the song was inspired by the Strand in London and describes attempts to persuade others to visit the area, becoming popular with soldiers in World War 1. A band later covered the song.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    65 views3 pages

    Let's All Go Down The Strand

    Uploaded by

    Marko Slaviček
    The document discusses the British music hall song 'Let's All Go Down the Strand' written in the late 19th century, describing its lyrics and popularity. It details how the song was inspired by the Strand in London and describes attempts to persuade others to visit the area, becoming popular with soldiers in World War 1. A band later covered the song.

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    Let's All Go Down the Strand - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.

    org/wiki/Let%27s_All_Go_Down_the_Strand

    Let's All Go Down the Strand


    "Let's All Go Down the Strand" is a popular British
    music hall song of the late 19th and early 20th centuries,
    written by Harry Castling and C. W. Murphy. It was first
    performed by Castling, and was published in 1909. It was
    inspired by the Strand, a street in Westminster, Central
    London, that in the late 19th century became a centre for
    theatres, hotels and music halls. The song has three verses
    describing people trying to persuade others to abandon their
    current plans to "go down the Strand". The first verse is
    about a group of tourists planning a trip to Germany, the
    second about prisoners in jail and the third about sailors
    returning with Ernest Shackleton from a polar expedition.
    The song was popular with British soldiers in the First
    World War. A refrain of "have a banana", not included in the
    published lyrics, was often interposed after the first line of
    the chorus. Sometimes "Gertie Gitana" was sung instead,
    leading to the use of "Gertie" as rhyming slang for the fruit.
    1909 sheet music, published in the
    A version was released by rock band Blur in 1993.
    United States

    Song
    The song is inspired by the Strand, a street in Westminster, Central London. During the late
    19th century the Strand was transformed from a refuge for beggars, gamblers and frauds to a
    respectable leisure venue with theatres, hotels and music halls.[1]

    It was written by music hall performer Harry Castling and composer Charles William Murphy.
    The song was first sung by Castling in the 1890s.[2][3] According to music hall historian Richard
    Anthony Baker, the song developed after Castling and Murphy left the Lyceum Theatre together,
    and headed towards Waterloo Bridge when Castling suggested "Let's go down the Strand". He
    later maintained that, as soon as he said the words, he realised it would make a good song title.
    Adding the word "all", they wrote the song, with Castling later saying that "both the words and
    the music came to us as though we had been singing them all our lives."[4]

    The lyrics of the 1909 version describe a group of six tourists meeting in Trafalgar Square for a
    planned trip to continental Europe. One of them, Jones, advises the others to "stay away from
    Germany, what's the good of going down the Rhine?"[3] and in the chorus tries to persuade
    them to stay in London: "let's all go down the Strand" as "that's the place for fun and noise, all
    among the girls and boys". The second verse describes a group of 25 prisoners confined in
    prison and ordered to exercise; one, Burglar Ben, proposes to their warden that they instead
    visit the Strand.[3] The third and final verse describes the Lord Mayor of London welcoming
    back an Ernest Shackleton expedition to "the Pole" (Shackleton had taken part in the 1901-04
    Discovery Expedition and led the 1907-09 Nimrod Expedition, both in the Antarctic but never
    reached the South Pole).[3][5] The Lord Mayor proposes that he throws a banquet at Mansion
    House but one of Shackleton's sailors asks the explorer if they can instead "go down the
    Strand".[3]

    1 of 3 09/01/2022, 14:44
    Let's All Go Down the Strand - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let%27s_All_Go_Down_the_Strand

    Impact
    The refrain "have a banana!", sung after the first line of the chorus, is a later addition to the
    song, though it is known to have been sung in the 1890s. The origins of the refrain are
    unknown, though it helped to drive sales of the fruit.[2][6][7] Sometimes "Gertie Gitana" (a music
    hall entertainer) was substituted for the refrain, leading to "Gertie" becoming Cockney rhyming
    slang for banana the usage of which continues to the modern day.[8]

    The phrase "let's all go down the Strand", particularly to mean making a visit to the theatres
    there, became a popular phrase among the British working class.[9] The song, and in particular
    its chorus, was popular with Londoners.[3] "Let's All Go Down the Strand" was popular with
    British soldiers in the First World War, alongside other music hall favourites such as "It's a
    Long Way to Tipperary" and Charles Whittle's "We All Go The Same Way Home".[10] The men
    of a London battalion are recorded as having sung it when up to their knees in mud near Ypres
    in 1917.[3]

    The song was a music hall hit for Charles Whittle,[11] and for Harry Fay in 1910.[12] It gave
    Whittle his first major success and became one of his most popular songs, though in later life he
    grew to hate the song as it was requested so often.[13][14] John Betjeman used the title of the
    song for a television documentary made for Associated-Rediffusion in 1967.[15] The same year,
    Margaret Williams used it for a stage comedy.[16] The English rock band Blur recorded a cover
    of "Let's All Go Down the Strand" that was released as the B-side of one format of their 1993 EP
    "Sunday Sunday".[17]

    References
    1. Bailey, Peter (2017). "Review of Murder, Mayhem and Music Hall: The Dark Side of
    Victorian London" (https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/victorianstudies.59.2.25). Victorian
    Studies. 59 (2): 361. doi:10.2979/victorianstudies.59.2.25 (https://doi.org/10.2979%2Fvictori
    anstudies.59.2.25). ISSN 0042-5222 (https://www.worldcat.org/issn/0042-5222).
    JSTOR 10.2979/victorianstudies.59.2.25 (https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/victorianstudi
    es.59.2.25).
    2. Martin, Andrew (26 April 2012). Underground, Overground: A Passenger's History of the
    Tube (https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Underground_Overground/vh3n5WD_YqsC).
    Profile Books. p. 82. ISBN 978-1-84765-807-4.
    3. Pegler, Martin (20 August 2014). Soldiers' Songs and Slang of the Great War (https://www.g
    oogle.co.uk/books/edition/Soldiers_Songs_and_Slang_of_the_Great_Wa/M5aHCwAAQBA
    J). Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 92. ISBN 978-1-4728-0929-2.
    4. Baker, Richard Anthony (2014). British Music Hall: An Illustrated History. Barnsley: Pen &
    Sword. p. 152. ISBN 978-1-78383-118-0.
    5. "Ernest Shackleton" (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ernest-Henry-Shackleton).
    Britannica. Retrieved 20 December 2021.
    6. Thurlow, Clifford (1995). The Amazingly Simple Banana Diet (https://www.google.co.uk/book
    s/edition/The_Amazingly_Simple_Banana_Diet/l_JG9a_fq_gC). Maximilian Thurlow. p. 26.
    ISBN 978-1-899830-00-8.
    7. Moran, Joe (12 June 2006). "A significant fruit". New Statesman (page 22).
    8. Partridge, Eric (2006). The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English:
    A-I (https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_New_Partridge_Dictionary_of_Slang_an/4
    YfsEgHLjboC). Taylor & Francis. p. 856. ISBN 978-0-415-25937-8.

    2 of 3 09/01/2022, 14:44
    Let's All Go Down the Strand - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let%27s_All_Go_Down_the_Strand

    9. Seaman, L. C. B. (November 2002). Victorian England: Aspects of English and Imperial


    History 1837-1901 (https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Victorian_England/Dc6HAgAAQ
    BAJ). Routledge. p. 417. ISBN 978-1-134-94791-1.
    10. Errington, Philip W. (26 March 2008). John Masefield's Great War: Collected Works (https://
    www.google.co.uk/books/edition/John_Masefield_s_Great_War/YQTMDwAAQBAJ).
    Casemate Publishers. p. 203. ISBN 978-1-78340-905-1.
    11. Mander, Raymond; Mitchenson, Joe (1965). British Music Hall: A story in pictures. London:
    Studio Vista. p. 129.
    12. Heffer, Simon (21 September 2017). The Age of Decadence: Britain 1880 to 1914 (https://w
    ww.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Age_of_Decadence/4pbUDQAAQBAJ). Random
    House. p. 243. ISBN 978-1-4735-0758-6.
    13. Krishnamurthy, Aruna (14 December 2016). The Working-Class Intellectual in Eighteenth-
    and Nineteenth-Century Britain (https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Working_Clas
    s_Intellectual_in_Eighte/Au64DQAAQBAJ). Routledge. p. 289. ISBN 978-1-351-88033-6.
    14. Jolson, Harry (11 January 2013). Mistah Jolson (https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Mis
    tah_Jolson/Lrp8CgAAQBAJ). Read Books Ltd. p. 107. ISBN 978-1-4474-8555-1.
    15. "Betjeman's London: Let's All Go Down the Strand" (https://web.archive.org/web/200901160
    00908/http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/526134). BFI. Archived from the original (http://ftvdb.bfi.
    org.uk/sift/title/526134) on 16 January 2009. Retrieved 18 December 2008.
    16. Williams, Margaret (1967). Let's All Go Down the Strand (https://books.google.com/books?i
    d=T6oaAQAAMAAJ). London: Evans Plays. ISBN 9780237494858.
    17. Roach, Martin (6 August 2015). Damon Albarn - Blur, Gorillaz and Other Fables (https://ww
    w.google.co.uk/books/edition/Damon_Albarn_Blur_Gorillaz_and_Other_Fab/Eya3DwAAQB
    AJ). Bonnier Zaffre. p. 83. ISBN 978-1-78418-791-0.

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    This page was last edited on 9 January 2022, at 12:26 (UTC).

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    3 of 3 09/01/2022, 14:44

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