Download London Bridge Is Falling Down
Karla Ganger
There's more than one version for the lyrics, but the main version (if not all of them) point in the direction of: 1. London Bridge is falling down. 2. Solution is presented. 3. Another problem rises. 4. Solution is presented. 5. Another problem rises. And so on.
Then again, London Bridge kept partially falling down for centuries after the Romans left Britain in the fifth century. It crumbled in 1281 (due to ice damage), 1309, 1425 and 1437, and then there was a devastating fire in the seventeenth century.
My knowledge of YouTube "London Bridge Is Falling Down" music videos is both unrivaled and unfortunate. I have watched at least 25 versions a combined total of at least 1,000 times. I could blame my kids for choosing the same bedtime songs every night. Actually, I do blame them. They're the reason I can tell you which versions of London Bridge have goofy sound effects, which have nasal vocals, which have flying pigs, which have animation lacking any sense of proportion, which have pleasing instrumentation, and which have cars falling off the bridge (exciting! according to a four-year-old). In other words, I am uniquely qualified to tell you why most London Bridge videos are so terrible.
Here's the plot of most of these videos: "Uh, My Fair Lady?" "Yes?" [English accent, always.] "London Bridge is falling down." "Oh, is she now? Well run along and build her up again." [Building commences and ends.] "My Fair Lady?" "What now?" "I'm afraid it's falling down again." "Oh, bother."
But that's just it. It's not a bother to My Fair Lady at all. The bridge keeps falling down and getting built up, but My Fair Lady just doesn't care. She carries on. She's completely not bothered, or, in modern parlance, she is unbothered. She doesn't care about the bridge. That means I don't care about the bridge, either. I wonder, "Why are we so caught up in this bridge, anyway, if its falling down brings no consequences?" We shouldn't be caught up. We shouldn't be wasting our time.
St. Olaf's Saga, written several hundred years later (in about 1230), is the earliest account of the bridge's collapse, which may have been the historical antecedent for the English nursery rhyme "London Bridge is falling down." It became more popular with the publication of Samuel Laing's translation of the Heimskringla in 1844 (revised and reissued in 1889). There, he renders the skaldic verse quoted by Snorri as "London Bridge is broken down / Gold is won and bright renown!" (XII). By the time the Heimskringla was republished by Everyman's Library in 1964 (after several previous editions, beginning in 1915), the lines have been changed to "London Bridge is broken down / By thee, O warrior of renown" (XII), the editor freely admitting in her introduction that "The verses have been much revised." To be sure, a more accurate translation is "You broke the bridge of London / Stout-hearted warrior," but it is curious that the revision still is attributed to Laing, who died in 1868.
The Times is being a little disingenuous, for this is nothing new. Bridges are always in need of repair, and an earlier London Bridge was actually pulled down by Vikings in boats in 1014. I remember that in the 1970s Hammersmith Bridge was always being closed to traffic because so much of it was rusted through. Bridges in general have limited lifespans or suffer from poor engineering, as we saw in Genoa, where 43 people were killed when their suspension bridge collapsed.
Basically it's... falling down, and we have to find a way to repair it. There's a verse that proposes a solution, then there's a verse that explains why the previously mentioned solution isn't adequate, repeat multiple time and it gives you the full song.
This is an old piano piece I dug up from years ago (again) that I finally decided to salvage and finish. It's a little rough around the edges but I think that goes without saying with this kind of harmonic style/language. Although I did not actually intend this to be fully atonal - it is quite dissonant and not for the faint of heart! (I mean the bridge is falling down after all - right? LoL)
It's not the usual kind of variations form, but I think it works for the subject matter. After all, the bridge is indeed falling down, or has fallen down. It's just down there now. On the bottom of the river.
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