A bit of vintage.

I love things from the past. It fascinates me to think of how people lived. And I find a lot of the music from many years before I was born more pleasing to my ear than what is supposedly the music of "my" generation.

I was driving to the Lowe's today (needed a new filter for the furnace WHICH THEY DID NOT HAVE IN THE SIZE I NEEDED - boo, Lowe's), the title "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" popped into my head.

I knew it as a WWII era British song, but had only heard the Manhattan Transfer version of it (which is very good, but is not of the same vintage as the original song).

A quick search of YouTube turned up Vera Lynn, songstress of WWII Britain (and, from what I remember reading of her, she did a great deal for the morale of the British people during the Blitz and afterward, some say almost as much as Churchill did.)

Normally I am not as big a fan of female singers than I am of male singers - the higher pitched voices are not as pleasing to my ear, and so often it seems women's voices sound a bit thin to me.

But I like Dame Lynn's (yes, she was later named a Dame of the British Empire) singing.

And amazingly, she is apparently still alive!

So here are a few Vera Lynn treats for those of you who may be unfamiliar:



This is the song that first made me look her up - A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square (Yes, spelled Berkeley but pronounced Barkley. It's a British thing, like "clerk" being pronounced "clark," I guess)



One of the archetypal songs of the war years - "White Cliffs of Dover." I can imagine thousands of Britons longing for peace and for life to return to "normal," while withstanding the privations of rationing and the horror of the Blitz, listening to this song and hoping and praying for the war to come to a good end.



Another well-known song, "We'll Meet Again." Probably better known to folks of my generation as the ending song (and a sadly ironic one at that) from Dr. Strangelove.

You know, I love these war-era songs; I love what they represent - people trying to remain cheery and hopeful. Perhaps, yes, it is whitewashing a bit, being a bit Pollyannish. But I think human beings NEED that kind of hope, to walk around knowing they will meet their loved one who is currently in the overseas armed forces again. To remember a time of peace and happiness and maybe if it wasn't really the Golden Era the song makes it out to be - I still think I prefer to gild the past a little during hard times, and hope that the future will be good again, rather than mire in the present unhappiness.

I think most of the "ordinary folks" of most countries like and need this kind of thing; we live on hope better than we can live on despair. We would rather sing of the simple beauties of our countryside or the quiet pleasures of peacetime life than we would sing of how terrible things are now.