ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that the 'clamour' of a melody that was associated with instances of social and individual disorder could act as the bearer of radical ideology, in a wide range of texts and contexts, and over a long period of time. Stuart Hall made a distinction between the dominant ideas prevailing at any time and what he called residual and emergent ideologies. Since all representation is interpretation, this applies to dramatic performances like The Charnwood Opera as well as satire like The Coney Warren. However, in addition to looking backward to historical rights, both the drama and the song look forward to the continuing struggle. Tracing the word 'derry' back to a line in the mid-sixteenth-century comedy Ralph Roister Doister, the Oxford English Dictionary dismisses it as 'a meaningless word in the refrain of popular songs'. The chapter shows how important the connotations of melodies are in studying songs of resistance.
