The complicated story of Swing Low, Sweet Chariot needs to be taught and honored Andy Bull | Sports

E.Before it became a focal point in the cultural wars, there were all sorts of stories about why, how and when the Twickenham crowd sang Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. For a long time it should have started as a spontaneous celebration of Chris Oti’s hat trick against Ireland in 1988. Then a researcher showed footage of fans who sang him in Middlesex Sevens in 1987 when Martin Offiah played for Rosslyn Park. Which fits because his nickname “Chariots” was Offiah. In the past few weeks it seems to have become something like the official story. But the truth is not so neat.

Take this from an Ivor Turnbull article published in Tatler on November 26, 1966: “One of the more pleasant vocal traditions of West Park Bar in Twickenham has disappeared due to the authorities’ decision to share the old 30 yards – long pole in something like a cell block. After a big game, the West Bar has always been the meeting point for the most resolutely cheerful fans and accounts for a fair share of the 20,000 pints consumed after an international match.

“Sooner or later a group, Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, started to sing, and in about a minute the several hundred customers who were already shoulder to shoulder were swaying as one man. Billy Graham would have loved it together. “

So you’ve been singing Swing Low in Twickenham since at least the mid-1960s.

The song’s true origins go back a hundred years and they are quite dark, although it is often attributed to a Choctaw freed named Wallace Willis. Arthur Jones, emeritus professor of music, history, and culture at the University of Denver, explains: “I know that there is a story about Wallace Willis, but there is only oral evidence in the tradition that this song is a slave song was. and Wallace probably learned it that way. “

Jones describes Swing Low as a signal song: “On one level it is about people who hope that they can escape their misery by going to heaven on this imaginary chariot, but another clear meaning is the idea that the chariot is a metaphor for the escape to freedom. “

Jones has been singing these songs since childhood. He founded the Spirituals Project to preserve and revive it. He doesn’t know anything about rugby and didn’t know Swing Low was adopted by England fans until a journalist told him about it in 2017. “When I first heard that I was shocked, I was told that people were singing it in pubs and that it had evolved some blue connotations, and if that was true, I felt really disrespectful. “

It is true there are a number of idiotic gestures that sometimes went along with the song. It is also true that you rarely, if ever, see fans using them more.

Jones says there are “extremists who say that if you are not black you cannot sing these songs”. He disagrees. “It’s ridiculous. I feel like if the fans sing the song, if their team scores, if they know where they come from and want to borrow it, if it’s a fun, positive thing for them, that’s fine. But if people vehemently distort their story or claim that it’s theirs, it’s really disrespectful. ”

It couldn’t be forbidden anyway (although the NSDAP put it on a list of “unwanted and harmful” songs). “You can’t contain something that has so much cultural power,” says Jones. “It has to be shared, and even if you don’t want to share it, it will be shared.”

Swing Low has this power. Because of this, it has been sung by so many people, including Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash and Joan Baez. “Most of these artists would recognize that they love to sing it, but it’s a song that comes from the African-American tradition of slave songs,” says Jones. “This is important. One of the reasons why this topic is so delicate is that one of the few things that African-Americans can claim to own their culture, like songs, stories, and games that originally didn’t involve money. So people who take them are very sensitive. It’s like taking everything away from us.

“Music develops, it changes. We have African American opera singers who sing Puccini and Mozart, but they treat these songs with respect, they recognize the origins and they honor the roots of the music. “

That is among the inflammatory headlines, beyond all the back and forth of opinions, the crux of it. The Rugby Football Union commercialized this song and benefited from it. While reviewing its use, you could also look at some other things. For example, check out if they should do more to honor forgotten black international Jimmy Peters. For 118 years, Peters was the only black man who played for England. There are still unanswered questions as to whether the prejudice he was facing shortened his international career.

Take a look at why the 14-member RFU board, although the English team is more diverse than ever, does not have a single BAME member and why there is only one black person among the 61 on the RFU council. Take a look at why Sport England’s recent poll for Sport For All found that Asian and black communities in youth and adult rugby in England were significantly under-represented compared to other ethnic groups.

The RFU wants to improve “education and awareness” for swing low. It’s easy – consult experts like Jones, put badges, bring out films, and remove sponsored banners. The more important part is far more difficult and enforces the structural change that honors the spirit of the song.