We’ll Meet Again—Murfin Home Confinement Music Festival 2020

We'll Meet Again sung by Vera Lynn

We’ll Meet Again, like other World War II separation songs seems especially apt as we miss physical contact with loved ones during our Coronavirus isolation.  But the most beloved of all British wartime songs and its revered singer Vera Lynn has officially been turned out for new duty during the current crisis.

The first British sheet music for We'll Meet Again surprisingly did not feature Vera Lynn or an explicit war time context. That was quickly remedied in subsequent issues. 

We’ll Meet Again was written by English songwriters Ross Parker and Hughie Charles in1939, the earliest day of the war.  It quickly became popular with the troops on their way to a doomed defense of France that ended with the evacuation of Dunkirk.  Lynn sang the song on radio and everyone one with a phonograph in the United Kingdom wanted a copy. And she sang it hundreds of time in personal appearances for soldiers, sailors, and airmen encouraging them to join her on the final choruses.  In 1943 she took it to the screen in a British Columbia pictures film. 

Lynn sharing tea with soldiers and sailors from a YMCA special train car.  The troops adored her.

For some reason Columbia did not heavily promote the movie in the U.S. and her famous recording only got to #29 on this side of the pond, though singers like Dinah Shore covered it.  In fact most Americans best remember record as the song Slim Pickens rides a nuke to doomsday in Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 Dr. Strangelove or How I Stopped Working and Learned to Love the Bomb.

We'll Meet Again and Vera Lynn were invoked by the Queen in her rare special TV broadcast about the Coronavirus emergency.  Just 9 years younger than Lynn, she was herself a World War II veteran.

The indestructible Lynn sang the song in London on the 60th anniversary of VE Day in 2005.  On April 5, 2020, Queen Elizabeth II referenced the song in a rare televised address that aired on the BBC in which she expressed her gratitude for the efforts people are taking to mitigate the Coronavirus pandemic and acknowledged the severe challenges being faced by families across the world. The Queen, of course, was a young Princess was an Army lorry driver during the War.   The reference spurred a cover by Katherine Jenkins with Lynn on a video screen to benefit the National Health Service (NHS) charities, which made it to # 72 on the UK Singles Chart.  Then in May Lynn’s original recording was re-released for the 75th anniversary of VE-Day reached #55.

Still hale and hearty 103 year old Dame Vera took the attention graciously.

Revisiting Ballyhoo Over a Brit Baby

Trying hard to look like a suburban couple, mom and pop brought baby George home from the hospital.

Note—Perusing the archives, I came across this post from five years ago, July 23, 2013.  Ordinarily, a post like this linked to a news item probably would not be recycled.  But recent events including the hoopla over a Royal wedding, more bouncing babes, and a literal fancy pants christening have demonstrated that the fawning attention lavished on the Royals has only intensified.  Besides, I was in particularly high snark mode when this was posted.

Forget all of those al Qaeda big wigs, the ones the White House bragged about when originally bagged, who were busted out of Abu Ghraib Prison in a made-in-Hollywood rescue operation.  Forget about a mere Pope swarmed by crowds in Rio de Janerio in what looked like an old Fiat from a seedy car rental outfit.  Forget poor Detroit, its bones about to be picked clean and sold to the highest bidder to be ground up for chicken feed.  Forget it all.

Apparently the only thing of importance that happened on Monday was that Mrs. Mountbatten, an elderly World War II veteran (truck driver) living on the public doll was presented a fine baby great grandson.

OK, I get it that the old gal styles herself as Queen Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God Queen of this Realm and of Her other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith.  She’s held a steady sinecure she will not give up since 1953; likes matching pastel broad brimmed hats, suits, and purses; and is awfully fond of Corgis.

The baby’s mum is a pretty and pleasant young woman out of central casting named  Kate who is hitched to a balding gent who might get his Grandmother’s job if she would ever do the decent thing and pack it in and giver her aging son a crack at it first.  Then, sometime near the dawning of the 22nd Century if everyone lives as long as the old woman—whose own mother lasted until she was 101—the unsuspecting newborn might get it in turn.

Assorted Royals doing what they do best--pose.  Ask the gent's how they earned all of those medals, I dare you.

Some Brits are reportedly excited that the Hanover/Windsor Dynasty is secure for generations.  These Brits style themselves monarchists, or in the opinion of many members of the embarrassingly lower classes, Twits.

On this side of the ocean, where we fought to wars to get rid of those parasites and keep them out, you would think that the birth would be of no particular interest.  You would be wrong.  Apparently huge swaths of the tabloid purchasing American public, including those who grab their news from the wire racks at Wal-Mart while dressed in leopard print outfits six sizes too small, love the Royal family as much as the Kardasians and Honey Boo-Boo rolled into one.  So do generations of young girls infected at birth with Disneyprincesitis, an incurable affliction.

With a keen eye for their core demographic, the American media went all out with coverage of the birth, which consisted mostly of pictures of crowds outside a rather run-down looking hospital building, yammering British talking heads, and frequent clips of the baby’s dead grandmother.  And no one could go more than three minutes without breathlessly reporting that the babe is The Future King of England.

Meaning no ill will to the little nipper, that is a hell of a thing to wish on any kid.  Better he should grow up to muck out sewers, or in deference to the family tradition of government employment, be a junior clerk in a minor ministry.

When I think of the future King of England, I don’t think of current Prince in Waiting or baby’s father, a noted model of comic opera uniforms.  I think of an old song my Wobbly pals and I used to sing well after midnight when the table at Glascott’s Groggery in Chicago was strewn with empty pitchers of beers and littered with shot glasses.  As the hour of closing neared, our throats raw from hours of singing old Union ballads, Irish Rebel songs, anarchist ditties, and obscure folk songs, someone would invariable start the following song, which we would bellow loudly enough to rattle the windows at Buckingham Palace.  It went like this.

                          

Although William, Duke of Normandy who knocked off the local monarch in 1066 was sometimes called The Bastard King for his questionable lineage, the song seems most closely to describe Edward III of England and Philip V of France who engaged in a dust-up over the French throne called the Hundred Years War.  Here Edward is making kissy face with Philip V's father Philip IV.  Who queen Hortense was is anybody's guess.

Bastard King of England

Sung to the tune of The Irish Washerwoman

Oh, the minstrels sing of an English King

Of many long years ago,

He ruled his land with an iron hand,

Though his mind was weak and slow.

He loved to hunt the royal stag,

Around the royal wood,

But better by far he loved to sit,

And pound the royal pud.

Chorus

He was lousy and dirty and covered in fleas,

The hair on his balls hung down to his knees,

And he had his women in twos and threes.

God bless the Bastard King of England.

Now the Queen of Spain was an amorous Jane,

And a sprightly wench was she,

She longed to fool with the royal tool,

From far across the sea.

So she sent a royal message,

With a royal messenger,

To invite the King of England down,

To spend the night with her.

Chorus

Now ‘ol’ Philip of France he heard by chance,

Within his royal court,

And he swore, “She loves my rival best,

Because my tool is short,”

So he hurried off to Spain,

Where he did the deed again,

To give the Queen a dose of clap,

To pass it on to the Bastard King of England.

Chorus

When news of this foul deed was heard,

Within the royal halls,

The King he swore by the royal whore,

He’d have to Frenchman's balls.

He offered half the royal purse,

And a piece of the Queen Hortense,

To any British subject,

Who could do the King of France.

Chorus

So the noble Duke of Middlesex,

He took himself to France,

He swore he was a fairy,

So the king let drop his pants,

Then on Philip’s dong he slipped a throng,

Leaped on his horse and galloped along,

Dragging the Frenchman back,

To merry old England.

Chorus

When the returned to London town,

Within fair England’s shores,

Because of the ride King Philip’s pride,

Was stretched a yard or more.

And all the whores in silken drawers,

Came down to London town,

And shouted round the battlements,

“To hell with the British Crown.”

Chorus

And Philip alone usurped the throne,

His scepter was his royal bone,

With which he ditched the Bastard King of England.

Chorus

Well, just maybe a little historical error crept into the song.  But we liked its spirit.  Consider it yer lullaby, kid.

Much to Celebrate—Canada at 150

The official logo of the Canada sesquicentennial celebrations. 

Both the U.S. and our neighbor to the north are gearing up for our big national celebrations this weekend.  Our Independence Day isn’t until next Tuesday, but in most places a lot of the celebrating will be done over the weekend.  Here in Crystal Lake, for instance, we have out big parade on Sunday and the fireworks that evening, all connected to our outdoor community party and carnival the Lakeside Festival.  But across the border they are celebrating Canada Day this very day.  That’s the official birthday of the nation and this year it is a big one—their sesquicentennial.  Naturally there will be even more than the usual hoopla up there.

Americans are usually so consumed with ourselves that we don’t notice the party next door.  But this year a lot of us are peeking over the backyard hedge with unabashed envy.  We are in the throes of an endless national train wreck with a drunk engineer at the throttle.  We have more to be ashamed of than to gloat over.  We have the Cheeto-in-Charge and a kleptocracy in Congress.  They have Justin Trudeau, a leader so cool he greets refugees at the airport, wears rainbow Eid Mubarak socks to a Gay Pride Parade, and half of his Cabinet are women.  Enough said about that.

Without the smothering security of American Presidents, popular Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his family marched in the Toronto Pride Parade and mingled freely with the crowds.

Canada Day commemorates the uniting of the British colonies of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Canada into a federation of four provinces—the former colony of Canada being divided into the provinces of Ontario and Quebec upon Confederation.  The new entity also gained new status with in the Empire as the Dominion of Canada with expanded powers of local political control and governance.  It most definitely was not the creation of an independent nation state.  The Crown and British Parliament maintained control over foreign affairs, and had to approve constitutional changes.  An appointed Governor General, then still selected from the ranks of British nobility sat a head of the quasi state for the sovereign monarch in London.

Since then Canada has incrementally gained authority of those other areas via the Statute of Westminster which made Canada a co-equal nation united under a common Sovereign and the Constitution Act of 1982 which “patriated” the Constitution—gave Canadians full authority over it.  

Canada also has added the rest of Britain’s North American possessions—occasionally against their will.  There are now ten provinces and three Territories in the North—sparsely populated Yukon and Northwest Territories and the recently created First Nation dominated Nunavut.

Sir John A. Macdonald, architect of the Dominion of Canada and its first Prime Minister.

The creation of the Dominion of Canada fulfilled the vision of John Alexander Macdonald who became the first Prime Minister and powerful leader of the long dominant Conservative Party.  He served from 1867 to 1873 and returned to power in 1878 to lead Canada until his death in 1891, a total of 19 years as head of government.

The official inauguration of the Dominion was announced by ringing of the bells of the Cathedral Church of St. James in Toronto and was marked by “bonfires, fireworks and illuminations, excursions, military displays, and musical and other entertainments.”

The following year Governor General Charles Stanley the Viscount Monck invited Canadians to celebrate the anniversary of the British North American Act.  Celebration became annual but was not made official until 1879 when June 1 was decreed Dominion Day.  The holiday was renamed Canada Day—not without controversy—in 1982 when the Constitution Act went into effect. 

 

Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, the father of the current leader, and Queen Elizabeth II sign the Constitution Act.

Celebration today will be as exuberant as the Canadian character allows.  Queen Elizabeth, who has visited several times including for formal signing of the Constitution Act, is this time represented by Prince Charles and Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall.  The Royal Couple was greeted with suitable pomp this morning on Ottawa’s Parliament Hill by Prime Minister Trudeau and Governor General David Johnston.  Large crowds were enthusiastic despite rain.  Days of hoopla are planned from coast to coast.  It will be the biggest party Canada has thrown since the Vancouver Winter Olympics in 2010.

There are, however, dissenters.  Quebec nationalism has never gone completely away and things like a royal visit tend to rankle some feathers as symbolic of Anglophone domination.  But the biggest ruckus comes from First Nation peoples who regard Canada Day as nothing more than a celebration of settler colonialism.  On top of that the popular and liberal Trudeau after making gestures of respect and reconciliation with the native peoples declared his full support for continued tar sands exploitation and pipe line projects that encroach on un-ceded First Nations land.  Demonstrations and acts of resistance are expected across Canada. 

Indigenous protestors erected a teepee on Parliament Hill just days before the Canada Day Festivities.  Prime Minister Trudeau acknowledged in his speech today.

And don’t expect effusive congratulations from the U.S. government which is headed by thin skinned megalomaniac who had his feelings hurt by the Prime Minister and is deeply jealous of his popularity on both sides of the border.  Official American recognition will be as cool and minimal as diplomatic politeness will allow. The Resident did manage to squeeze in a morning Tweet of congratulations and a shout out to “My new found friend Prime Minister Trudeau.”  This may be one of the tweets sent by staff. And don’t be surprised if the he does stage some boorish slap later.

Hey, we’re really sorry about that.  Can the rest of us come to the party?

Revisiting The Inevitable Umber of the Mushroom Cloud

Note:  This ran here a year ago.  I think its worth another spin.

August 6 is always, inevitably, the day a city full of human beings was obliterated by the first use of an atomic weapon.  No matter what else happened on this date, it is always Hiroshima Day. 

I don’t think my daughters’ generation, or my grandchildren have any idea how we were shaped and warped by the long shadow of that mushroom cloud.  To those of us who came into awareness in the years after The Bomb was dropped and as a Cold War heated up nuclear war, seemed as inevitable as Christmas.  Maybe more so.

I don’t mean to whine about it.  The school children who were burned into shadows in Japan and those who somehow survived with the long, lingering pain of radiation poisoning were the real victims, not the privileged kids of the people who unleashed the power of the sun in the air over a city going about its mundane business.  Our nightmares and little terrors were of little consequence by comparison.  Perhaps they were no more than we deserved.

***

In 1953 we had recently relocated to Cheyenne, Wyoming.  My twin brother and I were four.  I, at least, was becoming aware of the world in odd ways.  My mother, who had grown up in grinding poverty even before the Great Depression, was star struck by the new pretty young Queen Elizabeth, who had just been coronated  with all of the pomp the British can muster, which is plenty.

Our coffee table was littered by Life, Look, The Saturday Evening Post and other magazines that captured the details of the fairy tale event.  I loved those pictures and my mother’s excitement over them.  But on the back pages of those same magazines were pictures of mushroom clouds and worried looking men in uniforms.

About the same time we got our first TV and a signal could finally get to Cheyenne, relayed by microwave towers, from Denver.  There were three hours of snowy TV a day and twenty-one of a test pattern with an Indian head in the middle.  We would stare at that pattern waiting to the shows to come on.  Mostly 15 minute musical programs, boxing three nights a week, Milton Berle, and I Love Lucy.  But there was news, too.  Mostly a guy who looked like an insurance salesman reading behind a desk.  One in a while a picture would loom up behind him.  Very often it was one of those daunting mushroom clouds.

Who knows how the mind of a curious four year old works?  I do know that the first dream that I ever remember, and snatches of it are vivid in my mind to this day, involved the pretty young queen in her fairy tale coach,  that ominous cloud, and rockets going straight up and then coming straight down on the other side of a river.  And I was on the side of the river they came down on.

A year or so later we moved into an old house on Bent Avenue just a few blocks from the state Capitol building.  It had a nice, big back yard with trees, a row of old lilac bushes that formed wonderful caves, and a little lean-to shed by the garage that we made our play house.  To add to the wonder, my dad brought home a loading palate and put it up in the spreading branches of an ancient plum as a tree house for us.  He put up a railing around it and nailed boards to the trunk to help us climb the maybe three or four feet to where the branches fanned out to nestle the platform.

He imagined that we would play Cowboys and Indians there, our main pastime.  But I immediately had another use entirely for it.  I scrambled to find the toy binoculars that I had gotten at Frontier Days.  And then I made it my job to climb into that tree house every day and scan the sky with those binoculars…for Russian bombers.  And I did it every day for most of a summer, not just for a few minutes, but sometimes for hours.

In 1958 Cheyenne’s Francis E. Warren Air Force Base became a Strategic Air Command (SAC) post.  Over the course of two years 24 Atlas Intercontinental Ballistic Missile launch pads were built scattered over the Wyoming, Colorado, and Nebraska plains around the city.  It became the first operational ICBM base in the country in 1959.

It was cause of considerable local pride that because of these missiles, Cheyenne had become one of the Top Ten Nuclear Targets in the event of what seemed to many to be an inevitable war with the Soviet Union.

By this time we had moved out to a new ranch style house near the edge of town along the long run way of the airport.  We went to recently constructed Eastridge Elementary School.  Across the road from the school was a large vacant track filled with tumbleweed, thistle, and button cactus.  We called it a prairie.

More frequently than we had fire drills, we had air raid drills.   In some places children were taught to cringe under their desks.  But since we were so close to the primary blast zone, that was thought be inadvisable.  Luckily, we were told, we had the field right across the road.  In case of an air raid, we were taught to file calmly out of the building, cross the street and lay down in the weeds with our hands clasped behind our heads.  We were not to look up or move.

When the bomb would go off, the theory was, that the power of the blast would “roll over” us and we would be safe from collapsing buildings.  I wondered, lying there one day as ants crawled up my legs and began biting me in unpleasant places, wouldn’t the fire ignite the prairie and roast our supine little bodies?

I became obsessed with nuclear war as the Cold War heated up to a fevered pitch.  By the early ‘60’s I had gotten caught up in the fallout shelter craze and was unsuccessfully begging my father to build our own bunker in the back yard.  Failing that, on the very day President Kennedy announced the Blockade of Cuba in 1962, I was at the state Civil Defense headquarters scooping up preparedness pamphlets.  I even devised a Civil Defense plan for Carey Junior High School, which, much to my own surprise was adopted by the school and even used district wide.  They didn’t have anything better.  The authorities probably knew we were all doomed anyway and that playing at preparedness would make the kids feel safer.

What does it mean to grow up with that level of intimate involvement with the shadow of the bomb?  It would take a team of psychiatrists to figure it out.

Eventually it made me a guy who very much wanted to stop that war…and any war that might lead to that war…before it ever happened.