The songs that Mum tended to reference were from her pre-war youth here in South Yorkshire and also from World War II itself. How many times did I hear her launch into "The White Cliffs of Dover" in the kitchen? It's a song that we had played over the crematorium sound system at her funeral in 2007. She would have approved of that.
In her prime, she had a strong and tuneful voice. When you have a voice like hers, it is as if you are in possession of a special musical instrument that might crack or wither if you forgot to practise playing it every few days.
This week I found myself singing one of Mum's favourite songs. I had not thought about it in years. It was a music hall song and a little mischievous. It first saw the light of day in 1913, eight years before Mum was even born. I believe it speaks of more innocent times. It is unlikely that Kendrick Lamar or Stormzy would or could ever record a similar song in this current decade.
It's "Hold Your Hand Out You Naughty Boy!"by the Manchester songwriter Charles William Murphy. This is the first verse with the chorus, followed by a rendition I found on YouTube...
Those tunes helped people to keep up the morale.
ReplyDeleteThat's a cute song which I have never heard of before.
ReplyDeleteMusic can do so much for us, and I imagine that most of us associate certain songs with specific people, places or events in their lives. Some work like a time machine, taking you back to a certain time in your life. I have several that for me are Scarborough, summer 2006, a holiday with Steve that I will always treasure particularly.
ReplyDeleteI have the original vinyl recording of Joan Littlewood's production of
ReplyDeleteOh, What A Lovely War ! It opened at the Theatre Workshop in London 1963.
Naughty Boy is one of the songs in this legendary First World War drama.
Known as the mother of modern theatre, Ms Littlewood also produced
A Taste of Honey written by 18-year-old Shelagh Delaney from Salford.
Len Deighton, who died in March aged 97, purchased the film rights to
Lovely War using his own money.
After a dispute with director Richard Attenborough he removed his name from
the film's credits.
Deighton writes about casting the film in an afterword to his novel Close-Up,
now a Penguin Modern Classic.
Younger readers can watch the final scene of Oh, What A Lovely War (1969)
on YouTube.