Songs
Kipling's text was adapted for the song "On the Road to Mandalay" by Oley Speaks (among others). The song was popularised by Peter Dawson. It appears in the album Come Fly with Me by Frank Sinatra.
The song is published with only first, second and last verse of the poem, with the chorus; although singers sometimes omit the second verse. The Kipling family objected to Sinatra's version of the song. When the album was initially released in the UK, the song "French Foreign Legion" replaced "Mandalay", whilst apparently the song "Chicago" (and "It Happened in Monterey" on some pressings) were used in other parts of the British Commonwealth. Sinatra sang the song in Australia, in 1959, and relayed the story of the Kipling family objection to the song. In 2008, in the Family Guy episode Tales of a Third Grade Nothing, Frank Sinatra Jr. and Seth MacFarlane spoofed the song.
There is also a song of Russian singer Vera Matveeva "On the road to Mandalay" translated by E. Polonskaya.
Read more about this topic: Mandalay (poem)
Famous quotes containing the word songs:
“How learned he bitter songs of lost Iambe,
Or that a cup-shaped breast is nothing vile?”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)
“So do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks to God the Father at all times and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
—Bible: New Testament, Ephesians 5:17-20.
“And songs climb out of the flames of the near campfires,
Pale, pastel things exquisite in their frailness
With a note or two to indicate it isn’t lost,
On them at least. The songs decorate our notion of the world
And mark its limits, like a frieze of soap-bubbles.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)