One Panel #553: The Song of the Blackhawks

From Blackhawk: "The Song of the Blackhawks" by Richard French, Military Comics #8 (March 1942)

Am I cheating? You tell me. But I think it's worth it. At the end of the Blackhawks story in Military #8, the comic proposes a music sheet for the song the Blackhawks sing when going into battle or returning victorious. Now you can play it on your favorite instrument! Let me know how it goes.

Comments

Charles Izemie said…
I didn't have any instrument at hand to try this, but I went it over in my mind, and it comes across as a bit of a second-rate Sigmund Romberg.

Mind you, I couldn't help a mental image forming of Terry Jones and the Fred Tomlinson Singers dressed as the Blackhawks singing it in harmony. Suddenly it sounds much better – possibly with a reprise solo sung by the Bicycle Repair Man.
Charles Izemie said…
Oh... Oh...

Was this a case of my being slow on the uptake? Wouldn't be the first, or even the four-hundred-and-eleventh time.

So, instead of starting with a fourth down, we go fourth up, then the triplets as written, but instead of falling down to the tonic, we jump seven up to the tonic.

And then we know what comic books young master Johnny Williams read as boy.

"But I think it's worth it." Sneaky you always are, young Siskoid.
Siskoid said…
I wrote this weeks ago and I can't remember my joke. Explain it to me?
Charles Izemie said…
Ah. It's only that the "Hawkah, we are the Blackhawks" bit is virtually identical with the Star Wars main theme. The two long notes go up in Star Wars, down in the Blackhawks, but still the same notes, only the direction changes.

I assumed you were referring to this coincidence? (Admittedly, there's only so much you can do if you starting point is a fanfare...)
Siskoid said…
Haha, I don't know music enough to be THAT clever!
macsnafu said…
I just came across Song of the Blackhawks by accident, and I, too, was struck by the similarity to the Star Wars theme. Only Williams can tell us if he was a Blackhawk fan. And to think that Richard French wrote that in 1941!