I see that the British media is reporting on the “secret plan” for the Queen’s death. The last time this came around, at least one news outlet mentioned a specific obscure instrumental that would most likely be played. The title had a set of brackets, something like “Riot in the Nursery (Reveb Mix)” or the like.
At that time, I found it on YouTube and many people commented on the report that this piece of music was the one mentioned in the press. Now I cannot find trace nor remembrance of it.
“Every station, down to hospital radio, has prepared music lists made up of ‘Mood 2’ (sad) or ‘Mood 1’ (saddest) songs to reach for in times of sudden mourning. ‘If you ever hear Haunted Dancehall (Nursery Remix) by Sabres of Paradise on daytime Radio 1, turn the TV on,’ wrote Chris Price, a BBC radio producer, for the Huffington Post in 2011. ‘Something terrible has just happened.’”
So it’s not as if that’s the official music to play when it happens, but an example of music that sets the right mood.
The Brits seem to take this sort of thing seriously. I read somewhere that newly hired newsreaders are expected to get a black suit tailored and to keep it ready in their office. And one newsreader got shit for not wearing a black necktie on the event of a royal death
It isn’t “The Brits” who take this seriously, it’s the people who control the mainstream broadcasting and print media who will make sure that this is the biggest news story since VE Day. Tens of millions of UK citizens will actually not give a shit.
It definitely will be, I’ve been saying for years that the vast majority of people in the UK can’t imagine how strongly it will affect them (which, to be fair, totally contradicts what I wrote in my previous post). But what I’m really trying to say is that the BBC et al will impose an extremely heavy sombreness (witness their response to the death of Prince Philip) which will absolutely fail to reflect the wide variety of emotions that people are actually feeling.
That’s what I was thinking. After singing “God save the Queen” for their whole lives, I wonder if anyone will slip up and sing it that way after she dies.
There was a deluge of criticism that they responded to Philip’s death by switching radio to a single common news stream, which necessarily became very repetitive and full of the usual rolling-news speculative dross. TV schedules were also re-jigged around obituary biographies and the like. Commercial channels dropped a lot of its daytime ads for cheap funerals and the like, but mostly kept to their scheduled programming.
So I would guess there’s been some re-thinking going on at the BBC. I’d imagine the formal announcement will indeed close with the (instrumental only) national anthem, but after that who knows.
