Music Blogs

It's the film that inspired a million tears. Even now, a supposedly fully-grown Famethrowa is liable to get misty-eyed at the thought of the end game in "Watership Down", as those heroic, valiant bunnies are savaged by that massive rabbit's psychotic hit-squad. Well, today news reaches us that it wasn't just General Woundwort who was hell-bent on the destruction of one of nature's cutest creations. Because Mike Batt, who composed the elegiac, seminal music for the film, is said to have recently launched a bloody rampage of his own.

Of all people. Batt become internationally acclaimed (and very rich, presumably) in 1978, with the release of the animated film and its accompanying theme song "Bright Eyes", which he wrote for Art Garfunkel and went on to sell one million copies, becoming the biggest single of 1979. Apparently his private Surrey residency was recently infested by wild rabbits, prompting a mass cull by a marksman, which Batt is now said to feel terrible about. So he should. Without the help of these animals, his lavish country pile would probably belong to someone else.

"His estate was over-run by lots of rabbits. He deeply regretted it but he had to do it", said his spokeswoman of the massacre. Meanwhile, a friend suggested, rather unrealistically: "Mike hopes that they have moved ten miles to the West, near Newbury, where Andrew Lloyd Webber owns the real Watership Down as part of his country estate." Wishful thinking, I'm afraid. Perhaps Mr Batt should have taken a look at this tear-jerking clip before ordering such a dastardly execution. Hazel must be hopping in her grave...