My name is Michael Flanders, this is Donald Swann. We write songs: I write the words, he writes the music. And that two grown men can make a modest living by such means you may feel is an apt reflection on the decadence of the times in which we live.
The Partnership
Ask any Briton whether they know the songs of Flanders and Swann and most will look blank. Start singing the chorus to The Hippopotamus Song and they will, in all probability, join in. A song which is only a few decades old seems to have acquired folk status.
To their credit, the duo retained throughout their stage career an air of bemusement: they seemed as intrigued by their success as they were by the …
Please log in to
consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing
institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on
campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we
offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If
you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal
subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.
5751 words
Citation: Price, Christopher. "Flanders and Swann and the Music-Hall Tradition". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 19 October 2018 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=19521, accessed 19 June 2025.]
