ABSTRACT
Chapter 4 illustrates the ways in which constitutionalists and revolutionaries competed over the symbolic value of nationalist songs between 1913 and 1921, with a focus on the 1918 general election. It also analyses how music facilitated political and revolutionary activity, focusing on problematising the narratives of inspiration, epiphany and resistance that often characterise nationalist narratives. Although music’s relationship with radicalism was not as mechanical as a mental trigger for national awareness, it nevertheless provided participatory cultures that reaffirmed the beliefs and the communal identities of those to whom nationalism appealed. Thus, in the activities and propaganda of paramilitary and political campaign groups, radical music was ever present.
