You are in: >What is the BBC World Service signature tune? The tune 'Lilliburlero', is generally considered to be the signature tune of BBC World Service.

Preceded by the announcement 'This is London', it is played on the BBC World Service before the five-minute World News bulletins. The current version was arranged by David Arnold, who has composed most of the new themes for the World Service, and has been recorded in digital format to replace the previous version, which was in use for over 30 years. We regret that we are not able to supply copies or audio files of either the new or the old versions of the tune (or of other BBC World Service theme music), but some information about 'Lilliburlero' follows: LILLIBURLERO- A Brief History The tune used as the World Service in English signature for the news since 21st November 1955 is most commonly known as Lilliburlero. It started life as a jig with Irish roots, whose first appearance seems to be in a collection published in London in 1661 entitled 'An Antidote Against Melancholy', where it is set to the words 'There was an old man of Waltham Cross'. It was arranged for polite society by the English composer Henry Purcell in 1689, and has been published in his keyboard work 'Musick's Handmaid'. In 1687, however, the tune was set to different words, at a time when the Roman Catholic King James II was becoming increasingly unpopular.

May 10, 2017. Bbc World Service Lilliburlero Purcell. Lilliburlero - The Full Wiki. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Gioteck Vx-1 Drivers. Lillibullero is a march that sets the. Lord Thomas Wharton. Henry Purcell. Although Purcell published. Lillibullero in his compilation Music's Handmaid. BBC World Service - Intros over the years. Born in London in 1659, Henry Purcell was the son of a musician in the retinue of Charles II, and it was royal service that was largely to be his world as well. By the time he was 10 he was a chorister at the Chapel Royal, and in 1673, when his voice broke, he became for a while an unpaid assistant to the keeper of the king's.

These were satirical verses with the Irish Gaelic-based word 'Lilliburlero' as a refrain, referring to the appointment to the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland of General Talbot, just created Earl of Tyrconnel. In this guise, the song was subsequently adopted by William of Orange as a marching tune for his Protestant troops. Lilliburlero's military association was rekindled in the Second World War, when it was played on the BBC Home Service programme 'Into Battle' in 1943, and as a result was chosen as the regimental march for the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME).

At the same time it was chosen as the theme tune for our Chinese Service (by the poet and critic William Empson), before being poached by the English network, (then called the General Overseas Service). The version of Lilliburlero now heard replaces the version by BBC music producer David Cox which was in use for 30 years. Lilliburlero has always been a controversial tune for the BBC to employ as an anthem.

In 1972, the poet Robert Graves wrote a letter to 'The Times' newspaper complaining about the use of the tune in light of its anti-Catholic connotations. It survives, however, and remains one of the world's most distinctive tunes, recognised everywhere as the signature of BBC World Service. BBC WORLD SERVICE ANNUAL REVIEW PROGRAMME INFO Register for our e-guide to radio programmes. The latest political, social, cultural and sporting developments in Africa.

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Age: Fifty-one this month (but see below). First broadcast January 1943.

Frequency: Twenty times a day, 365 days a year. Duration: Seventeen seconds. 'Lilliburlero' is the signature tune - the 'station ident' - of the BBC World Service in English, and is heard regularly by about 30 million listeners around the world. What's the idea? Picture it: it's nearly news time, and across the globe the expectant millions are twiddling their dials in search of the Truth. Suddenly the old, familiar tune cuts through the shortwave fuzz, and they know they've found it.

Navionics Gold Xl9 23xg+download. They're tuned to the BBC. But this name..? 'Lilliburlero' is an old Irish ballad. The original Irish of the refrain went 'an lile ba leir e ba linn an la', meaning 'the lily was triumphant and we won the day'. The words were sung by the triumphant Protestant armies of William of Orange in 17th-century Ireland, the lily being William's symbol.

Strangely the tune has often also been sung by Catholics, with different words. 'Ho] brother Teague]' goes one distinctively Irish version, predicting: 'he that will not go to Mass shall look like an ass', and it too ends triumphantly: 'by Creish and St Patrick, the nation's our own'. By this century the song was firmly back in Protestant hands.

One Belfast variant goes: 'Slitter, slaughter, Holy Water/ Scatter the Papishes every one.' Needless to say, the BBC's version carries none of these messages. So how does it sound? Cocky, jaunty, Imagine The Archers on the warpath. The first recorded instance of the tune is 1540, in a book of Dutch psalm melodies. Purcell is one of a gaggle of composers who have arranged it.

Who had the idea of using it for the BBC? William Empson, poet and scholar, who was head of the Kuoyu (Standard Chinese) Service during the war. The tune was then taken over by the English-language service, where - except for a brief interregnum from 'John Peel' (D'ye ken, etc) - it has stayed. (Empson, by the way, would surely have known the slang meaning of 'Lily Boleros', current last century and attested in Joyce - as in: 'a nice pair of Lily Boleros...' .) Enough of that. What exactly happens on the radio? Let's take the 1600hrs news bulletin.

At 1500hrs 59 minutes and 34 seconds the continuity announcer says: 'This is London.' 'Lilliburlero' then plays for 17 seconds, and this is followed immediately by the Greenwich Time Signal (the 'pips').

Finally, at 1600hrs precisely, the announcer says: 'Sixteen hundred hours Greenwich Mean Time', and in another studio the newsreader starts reading the World News. 'Lilliburlero' is stored on a central computer and comes up automatically. The announcer opens a fader at the right moment, and the entire world sighs. Is it popular? Expatriates weep when they hear it.

In 1969 the Vice-President (later President) of Kenya, Mr Daniel Arap Moi, asked for a tape of it for 'private listening'. A BBC memo records that a tape was duly provided, 'as attractively boxed and labelled as our resources allow'.

There have always been dissenters, however. The poet Robert Graves objected during a long correspondence on the subject in the Times in 1972, but the BBC remained adamant.

'Lilliburlero', the Director of Programmes, External Broadcasting, replied to Graves, 'has come to signify... Not the heat of old battles but the impending ritual of the BBC news. William of Orange may have collared the tune in the 17th century. I think we have established squatters' rights in the 20th.' What of the 21st century? Some Bush House radicals would like to see it go, but they're a small minority.

The Editor of World Service in English wants a stereo re-recording of the current 1970 arrangement, but is secretly suspected of wanting to rearrange the tune himself. World Service TV may have made the tune unrecognisable in their new electronic jingle, but on radio 'Lilli' seems set to stay.

The bottom line: is it any good? It serves its purpose wonderfully. It is also a great institution.

Dermot Clinch For more on the BBC's place in the world, see page 18. (Photograph omitted) • More about: • • • •. How to disable your ad blocker for independent.co.uk Adblock / Adblock Plus • Click the Adblock/Adblock Plus icon, which is to the right of your address bar.

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