Vera Lynn - where are you?

Subject: Vera Lynn - where are you?
From: CBjames
Date: 15 Oct 00 - 07:36 PM

Number One Daughter came home with the music class assignment to scour the parent's music collections for stuff her grade six class can learn & sing in a concert for the veterans on Armistice Day.

"Ahah!" said I, "Good project!" Then went to Digitrad Database and found all MY favourite anti-war songs; got the lyrics; got the music - realised finally that "Johnny I hardly knew ye" and "The band played waltzing Matilda" , while very good and moving songs probably weren't what the Grade Sixes wanted to sing to the vets.

I did go back and find some stuff in the Digitrad that I remember growing up with around campfires as the air force issue I am. "I've got sixpence" and "Bless 'em all".

Even managed to find the words to "We'll meet again" on MusicWorld but not the music.

If anyone has a line on links to words & midi files for Vera Lynn songs - I would appreciate knowing about them. Particularly interested in music for "We'll Meet Again" and music & lyrics for "White Cliffs of Dover".

Thanks

james.

Subject: World War II Song Site
From: Joe Offer
Date: 15 Oct 00 - 08:01 PM

Hi, James - here's a MIDI and WAV recording of We'll Meet Again. Click here for the main page of the site, which also includes "White Cliffs of Dover.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Vera Lynn - where are you?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Oct 00 - 08:07 PM

Here's one they might like too A nightingale sang in Berkeley Square

Subject: RE: Vera Lynn - where are you?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Oct 00 - 08:09 PM

But the version youi want to hear is John Kirkpatrick's!

Subject: RE: Vera Lynn - where are you?
From: GUEST,CBjames
Date: 15 Oct 00 - 08:38 PM

Hey Joe - Thanks!!! I got the midi for "we'll meet again". Still working on "White Cliffs" but I'll bustle aroound on it some more on my own first. If I can't make it work, I'll post again or send you a "PM" - just learned how to do that

You seem a very knowledgable guy - both for where to look and how to do it. I have a bunch of technical questions. But I will have to leave them for now. I can't get to the mudcat except on weekends.

Thanks again. Will pursue.

McGrath - So how do I hear KirkPatrick's version?

james.

Subject: RE: Vera Lynn - where are you?
From: Noreen
Date: 15 Oct 00 - 08:51 PM

A quick google search came up with this reference to John Kirkpatrick's CD which includes said item. I'd love to hear it- yet another CD for the wish list!

Noreen

Subject: RE: Vera Lynn - where are you?
From: CBjames
Date: 15 Oct 00 - 09:04 PM

McGrath -

Thanks for the words for "Nightingale Sang". I agree excellent choice. Already had it, actually, in a Manhattan Transfer songbook. And it was already identified - even though the wife said she'd never heard of it till I started butchering it on the piano. - What does she know? She didn't grow up with the Air Force.

The reminder of Perry Como was pretty startling and pleasant. He was the old fogey that the parents loved when I was the age my daughter is now.

I have been meaning to ask - you probably have answered this often when I have not been in attendance. Where exactly IS Harlow?? (Down the road from Shady Grove?)

Thanks again.

jb

Subject: RE: Vera Lynn - where are you?
From: John in Brisbane
Date: 16 Oct 00 - 01:00 AM

You'll find the main tune for White Cliffs at http://www.cadets.net/pacific/wcdall.mid

There is a prologue which Vera sings, but like most of these for older songs we don't tend to hear the complete versions these days.

Regards, John

Subject: RE: Vera Lynn - where are you?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Oct 00 - 06:02 AM

Glad you like Nightingale CB, it's ann oddly powwerful song. There's a film, or maybe it's a story I read, where there's an injured pilot in a damaged warplane singing it over the intercom to the girl in the control tower, as he's trying to make it home, only he doesn't quite manage to finish it. That's the feeling it has for me.

Another one which you might look for is "Coming in on a Wing and a Prayer". But I couldn't find that.

Harlow - we are on the border between Essex and Hertfordshire, in England, on the Essex side, but with more natural links to Herts. Here is a councio websirte with pictures and so forth. We're looked down upon by our neighbours because we're a "New TOwn" built in the years after the war.and here's a song I wrote about it

Subject: RE: Vera Lynn - where are you?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Oct 00 - 06:04 AM

Here's the link to Harlow, which went walkabout just then.

Subject: RE: Vera Lynn - where are you?
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 19 Mar 20 - 07:07 PM

Vera Lynn turns 103 today.

Subject: RE: Vera Lynn - where are you?
From: BobL
Date: 20 Mar 20 - 03:06 AM

Until the present pandemic, WW2 was possibly the last time the whole country had its backs to the wall. You never knew who'd survive and who wouldn't. Young fit men (and to a lesser extent women) were called away to serve overseas, with a real possibility that they might never come back, or might return physically or mentally damaged, or return to find their home and/or their loved ones gone. Against such a background, optimistic songs such Miss Lynn's were understandably popular.

Perhaps it's time for a revival.

Subject: RE: Vera Lynn - where are you?
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 20 Mar 20 - 04:48 AM

When I saw her in today's birthdays, i wondered when the Govt would wheel her out!
RtS

Subject: RE: Vera Lynn - where are you?
From: Mr Red
Date: 20 Mar 20 - 05:14 AM

King Boris would love to, he is desperate for any good news, on several fronts!

She has too much gravitas to be meddling in politics, I reckon.

Subject: RE: Vera Lynn - where are you?
From: GUEST,Starship
Date: 20 Mar 20 - 10:44 AM

I doubt she'd want anything to do with Boris or his ilk.

Subject: RE: Vera Lynn - where are you?
From: oldhippie
Date: 21 Mar 20 - 08:25 PM

She recorded a nice version of "Whose Garden Was This"

Subject: RE: Vera Lynn - where are you?
From: The Doctor
Date: 22 Mar 20 - 07:47 AM

If you haven't found everything yet, the book you want is 'Bless 'em all' by Denis Gifford. It has twenty songs, including We'll meet again, White Cliffs, Run, Rabbit, Run, Hang out the washing, and Lilli Marlene. There's a number of copies on ebay at present, and not all at silly prices.

Subject: RE: Vera Lynn - where are you?
From: leeneia
Date: 23 Mar 20 - 11:46 AM

The first post here was made 22 years ago, so the show has probably been put on already. But if anybody is looking for a songs for nowadays, there's "Till We Meet Again."

Smile the while you kiss me sad adieu,
When the clouds roll by I'll come to you,
Then the skies will seem more blue,
Down in lovers lane my dearie,
Wedding bells will ring so merrily,
Every tear will be a memory,
So wait and pray each night for me,
Till we meet again.

Subject: RE: Vera Lynn - where are you?
From: The Sandman
Date: 23 Mar 20 - 02:38 PM

Doctor, hope you are keeping well.

Subject: RE: Vera Lynn - where are you?
From: The Doctor
Date: 25 Mar 20 - 05:32 AM

Sandman
So far so good. I'm confined to barracks for twelve weeks, together with my wife, but there are worse things.

Subject: RE: Vera Lynn - where are you?
From: The Sandman
Date: 26 Mar 20 - 06:50 PM

bit better here, keep well and keep singing

Subject: RE: Vera Lynn - where are you?
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 26 Mar 20 - 09:23 PM

"If you haven't found everything yet, the book you want is 'Bless 'em all' by Denis Gifford. It has twenty songs, including We'll meet again, White Cliffs, Run, Rabbit, Run, Hang out the washing, and Lilli Marlene. There's a number of copies on ebay at present, and not all at silly prices."

My 91-year-old mum is in a residential home a few miles from us, but, sadly, I can no longer visit. Up to a few weeks ago she was the star of the occasional singalongs, though deafer than Beethoven and with a rasping voice. We sing all those songs you mention here and I'm getting to know all the words. The trouble is, my mum is convinced that she's in tune as opposed to the other twenty-odd people who are all out of tune...

Subject: RE: Vera Lynn - where are you?
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 26 Mar 20 - 09:48 PM

A little off subject but my father was in the RAF in India during the war. Vera Lynn asked him to dance and he turned her down as he was shy.... he always regretted it and talked of it many times over the years before his death.