Gunga Din
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Gunga Din (1892) is one of Rudyard Kipling's most famous poems, perhaps best known for its often-quoted last line, "You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!"[1]
The poem is a rhyming narrative from the point of view of a British soldier, about a native water-bearer who saves his life. Like several other Kipling poems, it celebrates the virtues of a non-European while portraying a colonial infantryman's view of such people as being of a "lower order".
[edit] Film
The poem inspired a 1939 swashbuckler film from RKO Radio Pictures starring Cary Grant, Victor McLaglen, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Joan Fontaine, and Sam Jaffe in the title role.
[edit] Influence
The name 'Gunga Din' is sarcastically used[citation needed] in the musical instrument world; brass instruments, particularly bugles, of low or questionable quality produced in India are often called 'Gunga Din' horns, as well as 'junkers,' or more appropriately, 'wall-hangers.'
"The Ballad of Gunga Din" was recorded by Jim Croce in 1966. The song appears on the albums Facets (1966) and The Faces I've Been (1975).
"Gunga Din" is also the title of a 1969 song by The Byrds written by Gene Parsons.
The band UFO on their's album "Flying" (1971) at the end of the title-track, taped backwards the last lines of the poem
The Gunga Din Highway is also a novel by Frank Chin, the polemical Chinese-American playwright and fiction writer who deals with themes of "authentic" Asian-American identity.
The famous last line is also used in a song titled "Gunga Din" on the 1998 solo album Dreamcatcher by Deep Purple vocalist Ian Gillan.
The movie was also referenced in a song by Bob Dylan called You Ain't Goin' Nowhere[2].
The alternative rock band Bloodhound Gang's 1995 song "Legend in My Spare Time" included the lines, "When I'm feelin' Oriental, I gotta rub my chin, I'm gonna hold my water in like I'm Gunga Din."
2003-2004 Presidential campaign song ending in: "Your a better man than he is, Howard Dean."
The song That's The Way Love Is, written and performed by popular vocalist Bobby Darin, (recorded 1958) features the lyrics: "If you come up with the answer / You're a better man, sir, / Than I, Gunga Din."
