YMMV / The Ballad of Johnny Longstaff

• Alternate Character Interpretation: Maybe Robbie Robson was really giving Johnny a Secret Test of Character. Perhaps listing all the bad consequences of war was his way of working out if Johnny was a naive idiot who just wanted glory, or a man determined to do what was right.
• Awesome Moments:
  • The end of "Robson's Song". The eponymous Robson has spent the entire song listing reasons why Johnny shouldn't go to fight in the war. Most of them very valid. At the end he asks if Johnny has anything to say. He replies "My name is Johnny Longstaff. I want to go to Spain."
  • Lewis Clive rallied his men to swim across a river, rescued a man from drowning and then went back to get his gun. He definitely earned his Memetic Badass status.
• Awesome Music: The entire sixteen songs! The trio have been known to get standing ovations whenever they perform.
• Funny Moments:
  • Any time 'Johnny' interrupts David Eagle to scold him for saying something naughty on stage.
  • "Hostel Strike" has Johnny's last straw, where he calls out the cook for how awful the food tastes - and it starts a strike! Johnny didn't even know what a strike was.
  • When Lewis Clive gets to heaven, he's told to wait at the gates by St Peter. So he dives down to hell just to torment the Fascists some more. God remarks to Moses...
  "There'd be no need to part the sea/If Lewis Clive had swam for me..."
  • Johnny was apparently a horrible driver in later life. He defended himself saying he learned to drive while in a tank in the Spanish Civil War.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • "Ta-ra to Tooting" overall. Despite the boys going off to war and certain death for a lot of them, Johnny just looks back nostalgically on young men who were free and going off to do what was right. Even though he faced horrors in Spain, the memory is still a fond one.
  • Lewis Clive is first said to just love life - his name is rhymed with "couldn't wait to be alive" and "isn't it great to be alive" at first. But after saving his men, it becomes "he swore he'd keep us all alive".
  • Although David Guest died in battle, he remained as good-hearted as he'd been as a child. His last words were telling them to leave him so they could help others.
  • Johnny being asked if fighting in the war was worth it, as they lost. He responds absolutely - because it encouraged other people to fight and win World War II.
• Iron Woobie: Johnny's life was not easy - starving from the age of ten, working from fourteen, and fighting in war from age seventeen! He just got on with everything and took it in stride.
• Nausea Fuel: Johnny had to march barefoot as soon as he got to Spain, describing his feet bleeding as he got to a snow line.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • Robbie Robson only features as a character in his own song, but he helps set up the page image quote.
  • Lewis Clive is such a Memetic Badass that his song is one of the most memorable.
• Tear Jerker:
  • "Lewis Clive" is a mostly upbeat Refuge in Audacity song. But after detailing the Awesome Moment above, the song turns very bittersweet.
  "Oh how we miss his shining smile/And his arms that swam for miles/Oh Lewis Clive, will swim no more...Lewis Clive, how we wish you were alive..."
  • Despite "Ta-ra to Tooting" being heartwarming, there is a sadness to it as well. Essentially it was the last time these Fire-Forged Friends would be together.
  • The real Johnny's bitter narration that the men who served in the war didn't get glory at all. Just trauma and heartbreak.

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