Cows and Bubbles

I'm forever blowing bubbles,
Pretty bubbles in the air.
They fly so high,
Nearly reach the sky,
Then like my dreams,
They fade and die.
Fortune's always hiding,
I've looked everywhere,
I'm forever blowing bubbles,
Pretty bubbles in the air.

It may be my unfortunate imagination, but isn't this very rude?

I looked up the lyrics because I was wondering why Caroline chose BubbleCow as the name for her exciting new venture, of which more later, but first I discover from Wikipedia that I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles (who she?) was written the year after the end of WWI.

Coincidentally, I wrote an extended essay during my BA on the music hall songs of the Great War to see if they kept in step with the general attitudes of the soldiers in the trenches. The belief among the soldiers was that the civilians had no comprehension of what they endured.

To illustrate: these are the words the soldiers of the Royal Sussex Regiment sang to their regimental march Sussex by the Sea on the retreat from Mons in 1914. It is early on in the war when national fervour for the cause at home was still high:

Good old Sussex by the sea, I've shit 'em.
Dear old Sussex by the sea, I've shit 'em.
You can tell them all that they know fuck all
In Sussex by the sea.’

A later example of the soldiers' aspirations still make me laugh/cry given their circumstances:

I don’t want to be a soldier,
I don’t want to go to war.
I’d rather stay at home,
Around the streets to roam,
And live on the earnings of a well-paid whore.

I remember spending many a happy day in the reading room at the Imperial War Museum leafing through endless song sheets in my research for the essay.

So why BubbleCow?

The answer is blindingly obvious. The Smaile family evidently spent their holidays in Denver, Colorado.

Cow Bubble Tower at the Peoples Fair, Denver, CO 2007

For the benefit of those who still don't know of BubbleCow, it is a company whose aim is to help fresh, writerly talent open the publisher's door. They offer a number of services from helping you perfect your synopsis to improving your manuscript to a complete mentoring/hand holding and neck massage service. The only qualification is, I should imagine, knowing their standards, you do have to be able to write. You cannot blow bubbles without some Fairy Liquid in the mix.

I am very excited for her. Truly, deeply. There is nothing more exciting than starting a new business and Caroline deserves great success.