First things first, it was really hard to actually find a version of this song. Most of the results were the completely unrelated Zeppelin — who, you’ll recall were actually just a bunch of nerds; we’ve been over this — song.
The song, also called Over the Hills and Far Away, that I was looking for is a traditional British song that dates back to at least the 17th century. As is almost invariably the case with folk music, the exact lyrics of the song vary wildly, but the most common version is tied into the British campaigns during the Napoleonic Wars — going “over the hills and far away” referring to fighting on the continent:
“O’er the hills and o’er the main
Through Flanders, Portugal and Spain.
King George commands and we obey
Over the hills and far away.”
The version of the song I found is a cover based on the version arranged by John Tams for the Sharpe series — perhaps most famous as the one series Sean Bean doesn’t die in…
It’s a little slower and more introspective, and not quite shamelessly, nationalistical “Rule, Brittania” or “War is a great adventure” as other versions of the song. All in all, it feels more resigned to fight for King and Country than eager to fight for King and Country.
It makes sense. The song is old enough that the prevailing societal attitude was “War is awesome, let’s go do some!” (a brilliant turn of phrase I’ve borrowed from the blog A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry). Being written in a post-World Wars era, the original Sharpe novels were written in a very different context, and even if the characters in the novel still think War is awesome and want to go do some, the readers probably don’t…
The more sombre, resigned tone is actually pretty much in keeping with Sharpe’s cynical but badassful character.
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