It repeats itself frequently; contains lots of strings of numbers with no seeming releationship to each other, it's likely nationalistic German or eastern European anyway. Early 20th century I'd guess, perhaps into WW2. I can't say I've heard it in 1984, but it would certainly be fitting.
Can you hum it? Open your phone's YouTube app, click the search bar, then the mic, and swap it from "voice" to "song". You can then hum and depending how close you can get the tune, it will sometimes figure out what song you are attempting. Mixed results.
August 06, 2025, 08:27 PM
sigmonkey
"Boots" Rudyard Kipling
"the meaning of life, is to give life meaning" ✡ Ani Yehudi אני יהודי Le'olam lo shuv לעולם לא עוד
August 06, 2025, 08:30 PM
Ronin1069
**EDITED**
I and my modern ways have been humbled by the Monkey. Well done sir, I won’t pollute this thread with my trickery.
___________________________ All it takes...is all you got. ____________________________ For those who have fought for it, Freedom has a flavor the protected will never know
ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ
August 06, 2025, 08:33 PM
amals
quote:
Originally posted by sigmonkey: "Boots" Rudyard Kipling
Damn. There you go again. How do you know stuff like this? I didn't know that, and I like Kipling.
August 06, 2025, 08:36 PM
Herkdriver
quote:
Director Danny Boyle and the creative team chose this nearly 120-year-old recital for its intense psychological effect—it’s so unnerving that the U.S. military’s SERE training used it to break down captives through sheer monotony and mental stress
Yep. This poem is permanently stuck in my head.
"I, however, place economy among the first and most important republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared." Thomas Jefferson
August 06, 2025, 08:42 PM
mojojojo
Whoa. Flashback time. The last time I heard that I was locked in a 3x4x5 cell at SERE School. It played incessantly for hours over and over and over.
Icarus flew too close to the sun, but at least he flew.
August 06, 2025, 08:53 PM
sigmonkey
quote:
Originally posted by amals:
quote:
Originally posted by sigmonkey: "Boots" Rudyard Kipling
Damn. There you go again. How do you know stuff like this? I didn't know that, and I like Kipling.
My brain is weird like that. I can still remember the recordings listened to from 7th grade English of Silas Marnier, The Telltale Heart, The Cask of Amontillado, Gung Din and more.
Movie quotes (and in some cases almost entire movie dialogue), and my daughters are the same way, so we ended up "re-enforcing" some dialogs, and actually carried on conversations in "Movienese".
"the meaning of life, is to give life meaning" ✡ Ani Yehudi אני יהודי Le'olam lo shuv לעולם לא עוד
August 06, 2025, 09:00 PM
amals
I had all that in English, too. Gunga Din was my favorite poem as a kid; I would recite it with an English accent. But I never heard "Boots".
August 06, 2025, 09:04 PM
Rey HRH
quote:
Originally posted by amals:
quote:
Originally posted by sigmonkey: "Boots" Rudyard Kipling
Damn. There you go again. How do you know stuff like this? I didn't know that, and I like Kipling.
You’ve never heard of the infinite monkey theorem? You put an infinite number of monkeys in front of an infinite number of typewriters for an infinite amount of time, they would almost surely type any given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare.
Sigmonkey was one of the monkeys.
"It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life – daily and hourly. Our answer must consist not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual." Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning, 1946.
August 06, 2025, 09:13 PM
SpinZone
Damn, the Monkey, for the win, in 21 minutes. SIGforum, for all your needs.
“We truly live in a wondrous age of stupid.” - 83v45magna
"I think it's important that people understand free speech doesn't mean free from consequences societally or politically or culturally." -Pranjit Kalita, founder and CIO of Birkoa Capital Management
August 06, 2025, 09:57 PM
Tailhook 84
quote:
Originally posted by mojojojo: Whoa. Flashback time. The last time I heard that I was locked in a 3x4x5 cell at SERE School. It played incessantly for hours over and over and over.
Oh yeah! I remember that wasn't a very fun time. Neither was the screaming baby for a few hours after "Boots".
"The Truth, when first uttered, is always considered heresy."
August 07, 2025, 12:36 AM
cparktd
First thing I thought of was Red Skeletons “Frogs” Set to the Boots cadence.
I should have paid closer attention in my English lit class...
August 07, 2025, 08:23 AM
Herkdriver
quote:
Originally posted by Tailhook 84:
quote:
Originally posted by mojojojo: Whoa. Flashback time. The last time I heard that I was locked in a 3x4x5 cell at SERE School. It played incessantly for hours over and over and over.
Oh yeah! I remember that wasn't a very fun time. Neither was the screaming baby for a few hours after "Boots".
The baby! I almost forgot about that one. Almost...
"I, however, place economy among the first and most important republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared." Thomas Jefferson
August 07, 2025, 08:56 AM
sourdough44
I went through Warner Springs back in the late 80’s, December. It got very cold at night in those hills, very cold. I really didn’t care for it. I don’t mind ‘survival school’ & training, it was the other parts of the ordeal.
I think one could repel most miscreants, play that ‘boots’ on a loudspeaker, continuous loop over your house. Of course you may end up a little nutty yourself.
August 07, 2025, 09:10 AM
myrottiety
quote:
Originally posted by sigmonkey: "Boots" Rudyard Kipling
Yup. First time I heard it was a Jocko Podcast with him reading it.
Train how you intend to Fight
Remember - Training is not sparring. Sparring is not fighting. Fighting is not combat.
August 07, 2025, 09:50 AM
RogueJSK
quote:
Originally posted by mjlennon: It repeats itself frequently; contains lots of strings of numbers with no seeming releationship to each other
Those recited numbers are the number of miles they had to march each day.
August 07, 2025, 01:13 PM
akcopnfbks
quote:
Originally posted by sourdough44: All great. Another strange one is the theme sing to ‘Man in the High Castle’.
Man in the High Castle theme song is Edelweiss, originally written for The Sound of Music. It was/is a protest against the German (Nazi) annexation of Austria. It's a popular children's bedtime song (My grandmother & mother sang it to me, and my wife and I sang it to all four of our kids when they were young).
The Vikings there song is "If I Had a Heart" by Fever Ray (not real name, which I don't know). A Swedish musician.
_________________________ "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than omnipotent moral busybodies" ~ C.S. Lewis
