Vera Lynn
Dame Vera Lynn, DBE (born March 20, 1917) is a British singer whose career flourished during World War II, when she was nicknamed "The Forces' Sweetheart". She is best known for the popular songs "We'll Meet Again", written by Ross Parker and Hughie Charles, and "The White Cliffs of Dover", words by Nat Burton, music by Walter Kent. She is one of the last surviving major entertainers of the war years.
Biography
Lynn was born Vera Margaret Welch in East Ham, London. Later she adopted her grandmother's maiden name Lynn as her stage name. She began singing at the age of seven. Her first radio broadcast, with the Joe Loss Orchestra, was made in 1935. At this point she was being featured on records released by dance bands including Loss's and Charlie Kunz's. In 1936 she made her first solo record on the Crown label, "Up the Wooden Hill to Bedfordshire". This label was soon swallowed up by Decca. After a short stint with Loss she stayed with Kunz for a few years during which she waxed several standards. She later moved to the aristocrat of British dance bands, Bert Ambrose.
Lynn married clarinettist and saxophonist Harry Lewis in 1939, the year World War II broke out. In 1940 she began her own radio series, "Sincerely Yours", sending messages to British troops stationed abroad. In this radio show she and a quartet performed the songs most requested to her by soldiers stationed abroad. She also went into hospitals to interview new mothers and send messages to their husbands overseas. She toured Burma and gave outdoor concerts for soldiers. In 1942 she recorded the Ross Parker/Hughie Charles song "We'll Meet Again" while making the film of the same name. The nostalgic lyrics ("We'll meet again, don't know where, don't know when, but I know we'll meet again some sunny day") had a great appeal to the many people separated from loved ones during the war, and it became one of the emblematic songs of the wartime period.
After the war, her "Auf Wiederseh'n Sweetheart" became the first record by a British artist to top the US charts, doing so for nine weeks, and she appeared regularly on Tallulah Bankhead's US radio programme "The Big Show". "Auf Wiederseh'n Sweetheart", along with "The Homing Waltz" and "Forget-Me-Not" gave Lynn a remarkable three entries on the first UK Singles Chart, a top 12 (which contained 15 songs owing to tied positions).
Lynn's career flourished in the 1950s, peaking with "My Son, My Son", a number-one hit in 1954. It was co-written by Eddie Calvert. In early 1960, Lynn left Decca Records, with whom she had been for nearly 25 years, and joined EMI. There, she recorded for EMI's Columbia, MGM and HMV subsidiaries.
Lynn was appointed an OBE (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) in 1969 and a DBE (Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in 1975. She sang outside Buckingham Palace in 1995 in a ceremony marking the golden jubilee of VE Day. Lynn, then 78, decided to go out on a high as this is her last known public performance. In 2002 at the age of 85 she became the president of the cerebral palsy charity SOS and hosted a celebrity concert on their behalf at Queen Elizabeth Hall in London.
In 2004 abstract body artist Joanna Jones received permission and a grant to use the White Cliffs of Dover as the location for one of her body paintings. Dame Vera spoke out against this, stating: "I don't see how it can be publicity for Britain – it might be publicity for the artist. People coming to Britain, especially for the first time, expect to see the white cliffs of Dover, they don't expect to see an art display, do they!" [1]
England's VE Day ceremonies in 2005 included a concert in Trafalgar Square in which Vera Lynn made a surprise appearance. She made a speech praising the veterans and calling upon the younger generations to always remember their sacrifice.
"These boys gave their lives and some came home badly injured and for some families, life would never be the same. We should always remember, we should never forget and we should teach the children to remember."
Recordings by Vera Lynn
- 1935
- "The General's Fast Asleep"; "No Regrets"; "When the Poppies Bloom Again"; "I'm in the Mood for Love" (Rex Records); "Sailing Home With The Tide" (Rex Records); "Thanks A Million" (Rex Records)
- 1936
- "Heart Of Gold" (Rex Records); "A Star Fell Out Of Heaven" (Rex Records); "Crying My Heart Out For You" (Rex Records); "It's Love Again" (Rex Records); "Did Your Mother Come From Ireland?" (Rex Records): "Have You Forgotten So Soon?" (Rex Records); "Everything Is Rhythm" (Rex Records)
- 1937
- "When My Dream Boat Comes Home" (Rex Records); "Goodnight, My Love" (Rex Records); "All Alone In Vienna" (Rex Records)
- 1939
- "We'll Meet Again"
- 1940
- "Careless"; *"Until You Fall in Love"; "It's a Lovely Day Tomorrow"; "When You Wish upon a Star"; "Memories Live Longer Than Dreams"; "There'll Come Another Day"; "{There'll Be Bluebirds Over} The White Cliffs of Dover".
- 1941
- "Smilin' through"; "When They Sound the Last All Clear"; "Yours"; "My Sister and I"; "I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire".
- 1942
- "You're in my Arms".
- 1948
- "You Can't Be True, Dear" (1948); "Again".
- 1952
- 1954 onwards
- "My Son, My Son" (UK number 1, 1954); "The Homing Waltz"; "Forget Me Not"; "Windsor Waltz"; "Who Are We"; "A House With Love In It"; "The Faithful Hussar (Don't Cry My Love)"; "Travellin' Home"; Hits Of The Sixties (album); "By the Time I Get To Phoenix"; "Everybody's Talking"; "The Fool On The Hill".
Films
- We'll Meet Again (1942)
- Rhythm Serenade (1943)
- One Exciting Night (1944)
Trivia
- Pink Floyd wrote a song called "Vera" for their 1979 album The Wall; in the film based on the album, a Christmas song by Vera Lynn is played over the opening credits.
- Pink Floyd also recorded a live version of The Wall called Is There Anybody Out There? The Wall Live 1980-81, where before the concert starts, Vera Lynn's 'We'll Meet Again' can be heard in the background just before the Master of Ceremonies gives his introduction.
- In Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, her song We'll Meet again, with visual effects of nuclear explosions, is the closing title.
- Her song 'We'll Meet Again' is also played outside of The Tower of Terror in Disney World, as of 2001-present.
- 'We'll Meet Again' can be heard at the end of the episode of the Futurama episode 'A Big Piece of Garbage'
- She has written two autobiographies. "Vocal Refrain" in 1970, and "We'll Meet Again" in the early 1990s.
- A Vera Lynn is cockney rhyming slang for a skin, which is a cigarette paper.
- Vera Lynn went to what is now called Brampton Primary School in Masterman Road, East Ham
References
- Vera Lynn, Vocal Refrain, 1975, W.H. Allen, London.
- R. Cross, We'll Meet Again
- List of British pop musicians of the 1940s