From Here to Eternity

An appreciation of Kipling

Regular readers of this column know that I am a fan of the British AI freedom-fighting heroine, Amelia. But now I am grateful to Amelia for an entirely different reason.

A channel called Epochalypse (a word referring to 03:14:07 UTC on January 19, 2038 when 32 bit computers’ second counter passes 2,147,483,647 seconds and start running into the negative) began using Amelia to make videos of traditional British songs. As someone writing a book set in 1809, I found these quite both charming and interesting.

Then Epochalypse began to make videos of Amelia singing Kipling poems.

And I love them.

A new Epochalypse Kipling video dropping is now a highlight of my week.

I had known a bit about Kipling. We started in First Grade with Just So Stories, and in the 1990s, I had a tape of Leslie Fish singing a few of his poems. And I knew John had named his character Atkins after Tommy Atkins from Kipling’s poem Tommy.

Oh, and he wrote my favorite of all poems, The Fairies' Siege.

But I had no idea how many poems he had written or what an impact they had had on English-speaking culture.

For instance, I knew the phrases a rag, a bone, and a hank of hair and that it was related to women. It is used by Fred Astaire in a movie my husband likes. But I had no idea that it was from a Kipling poem called The Vampire that inspired a film in 1915 called A Fool There Was. The star of that film Theda Bara. From it was coined the word Vamp for a seductive, destructive woman.

Nor did I realize that the movie title From Here to Eternity came from a Kipling poem. It comes from the line “Damned from here to eternity” from the Kipling poem Gentleman Ranker.

I have now listened to this dozens and dozens of times…and had to look up quite a number of phrases from it. A Gentleman Ranker is a gentleman who has been disgraced and forced to enter the military by enlisting instead of becoming an officer. (I think one reason I like it so much is that I have a gentleman ranker character that may someday appear in a book, but I had not known there was a term for it.)

I am just fascinated with Kipling’s poetry now and how wise some of it is. I will share some of my favorites below, but here is the playlist for all Epochalypse’s Kipling and traditional songs.

(If the AI videos are not your thing, you can just listen to the poetry without watching. Some are worth watching. Definitely watch The Gods of the Copybook Headings!)

Gentleman Ranker:

My favorite of all…possibly my favorite music video ever…Amelia meets Kipling meets A-Ha imitating the movie Altered States: The Gods of the Copybook Headings:

A Smuggler’s Song — I absolutely love this one. I was reading a book about Cornish Smugglers when it came out.

The Stranger is a rather eerie song that has made me think quite a bit. I am not sure I agree with him entirely, but some of the points are uncomfortably accurate.

IF — perhaps Kipling’s most famous poem:

This one is really good and touching: Gunga Din:

Tommy — the poem the character Atkins in The Golden Age is named after.

A favorite of mine from the Leslie Fish days — The Female of the Species:

The visuals don’t really match on this, but it’s such a good poem: Dane-Geld:

There are many, many more, and one of my favorites has not been done yet, but the last one I will put here is my favorite of all poems. It is the only one I think Epochalypse did not do very well. There’s something much more eerie and astonishing going on in this poem that is shown here, but… The Fairie’s Siege.

And now:

Gentleman Rankers (1)

To the legion of the lost ones, to the cohort of the damned,
To my brethren in their sorrow overseas,
Sings a gentleman of England cleanly bred, machinely crammed, (2)
And a trooper of the Empress, if you please.
Yea, a trooper of the forces who has run his own six horses,
And faith he went the pace and went it blind,(3)
And the world was more than kin while he held the ready tin, (4)
But to-day the Sergeant’s something less than kind.

We’re poor little lambs who’ve lost our way,
Baa! Baa! Baa!
We’re little black sheep who’ve gone astray,
Baa—aa—aa!
Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree,
Damned from here to Eternity,
God ha’ mercy on such as we,
Baa! Yah! Bah!

Oh, it’s sweet to sweat through stables, sweet to empty kitchen slops,
And it’s sweet to hear the tales the troopers tell,
To dance with blowzy housemaids at the regimental hops
And thrash the cad who says you waltz too well.
Yes, it makes you cock-a-hoop to be “Rider” to your troop, (5)
And branded with a blasted worsted spur, (5)
When you envy, O how keenly, one poor Tommy (7) living cleanly
Who blacks your boots and sometimes calls you “Sir”.

If the home we never write to, and the oaths we never keep,
And all we know most distant and most dear,
Across the snoring barrack-room return to break our sleep,
Can you blame us if we soak ourselves in beer?
When the drunken comrade mutters and the great guard-lantern gutters
And the horror of our fall is written plain,
Every secret, self-revealing on the aching white-washed ceiling,
Do you wonder that we drug ourselves from pain?

We have done with Hope and Honour, we are lost to Love and Truth,
We are dropping down the ladder rung by rung,
And the measure of our torment is the measure of our youth.
God help us, for we knew the worst too young!
Our shame is clean repentance for the crime that brought the sentence,
Our pride it is to know no spur of pride,
And the Curse of Reuben holds us till an alien turf enfolds us (8)
And we die, and none can tell Them where we died.

We’re poor little lambs who’ve lost our way,
Baa! Baa! Baa!
We’re little black sheep who’ve gone astray,
Baa—aa—aa!
Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree,
Damned from here to Eternity,
God ha’ mercy on such as we,
Baa! Yah! Bah!

1 Gentleman Ranker — a gentleman serving as an enlisted man, often due to disgrace

2 machinely crammed — as in cram school, had schooling crammed into his head to pass exams, not to understand.

3 Went it blind — acted without concern for the future

4 Ready tin — this one I knew, money.

5 “Rider” to your troops — being praised for being the best horseman

6 blasted worsted spur — a worsted wool spur sewn on a soldier’s uniform to indicate superiority in riding. (Sources seem to differ as to whether this was a compliment or mockery.)

7 Tommy — a soldier. Like G. I. Joe being the American soldier.

8 Curse of Ruben — Ruben lost his right as the eldest born of Jacob when he slept with one of his father’s women.

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For more about Amelia, check out her anthology! Stories by myself and other delighteful authors:

Amelia: Counterrevolution

The UK gambled.

The UK lost.

The right people won.

That didn’t backfire at all.

In a critical moment for British society, the UK government created, not a video game, but a propaganda tool intended to prevent youth from being “radicalized.” In the most stunning of unintended consequences, that game introduced to the world Amelia, now a digital icon for the conservative ideas the creators feared as having too much influence.

Amelia appeared in the UK, but her appeal is worldwide, and she has appeared in Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Sweden, and the US. She provides an international symbol for anyone who wishes to stand for individual liberty and the rights of the nation-state against the surveillance society which threatens to overrun us.

Amelia: Counterrevolution is an anthology of Tales from the Lemurverse, celebrating irony, farce, and the embrace of Western civilization, culture and history that the Amelia meme has now triggered world-wide. In Amelia: Counterrevolution, readers will find a varied, entertaining approach to the latest internet phenomenon.

See Amelia: Counterrevolution on Amazon

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