Take Me Back To Dear Old Blighty

			The lyrics of this Australian edition substitute local names for the English cities in the original. Image source: National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov.au/nla. mus-an10792823-s1-e-cd
Images courtesy of Gart T. Westerhout, http://osugimusicaltheatre.com
Author’s collection.	Take Me Back To Dear Old Blighty / 19820400-005 / George Metcalf Archival Collection /© Canadian War Museum	Author’s collection.	Author’s collection.

A.J. Mills, Fred Godfrey & Bennett Scott — London: Bert Feldman, Star Music; New York; Toronto: Chappell; Melbourne: Dinsdales’, 1916.

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Listen to a 1916 recording by Florrie Forde.

Take Me Back To Dear Old Blighty — a phrase so famous that it finds a place in the Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations — was a favourite of the British Tommies on the Western Front. Indeed, the song’s association with World War One is almost iconic. Noël Coward borrowed Blighty for his sprawling 1931 stage production Cavalcade, about British life in the first two decades of the twentieth century. In the Academy Award-winning 1933 film version, however, Coward dropped Blighty in favour of another Godfrey song, Take Me Back To Yorkshire [1910], for a scene set on an Edwardian seafront. In his follow-up film This Happy Breed (1944), directed by David Lean, Coward favours Blighty once again, having returning Tommies sing it as the camera pans over the London streets of 1919 from high above in the film’s opening sequence.

Blighty has been used in several other films as well. It was interpolated in the Errol Fynn film Let’s Make Up [also known as Lilacs In The Spring] (1956); in The L-Shaped Room (1962), Australian actress Cicely Courtneidge, playing an aging Music Hall star, belts it out in army tunic and cap. In the 2006 film Flyboys, British airmen are heard singing it in their barracks in France.

Though both Florrie Forde and Ella Retford sang the song with great success, effervescent Dorothy Ward, wife of Music Hall star and songwriter Shaun Glenville, was the one who introduced it. In a newspaper article, Miss Ward reminisced:

Then [in 1916] came Take Me Back To Dear Old Blighty, which Fred Godfrey wrote in my house at Hampstead. I was due to sing it at Liverpool the next day, and there was no time to get the band parts written, so Godfrey himself came up with me and accompanied me on the piano. (Ward 1932.)

In an undated interview, Godfrey had a more modest recollection:

At the old Oxford Music Hall there was a show called “Blighty.” Bennett Scott, A.J. Mills and I were going by, and one of us suddenly said “What an idea for a song!” Four hours later it was all finished, and the whole country was singing it soon afterwards. I got — not very much.

Blighty became the greatest hit of Fred Godfrey’s early career. Years later, around 1930, he was induced to appear on the Variety stage with Irish tenor Tom E. Finglass. The act featured Godfrey’s best-known chorus songs — with Fred on piano, an ever-present fag hanging from his lip — and Blighty was their big finish. After their 11 November [1930], appearance at the Exeter Hippodrome, the local newspaper’s reviewer gushed,

The presence on stage of Fred Godfrey, the author of “Take Me Back To Dear Old Blighty,” gave rise to scenes of remarkable enthusiasm at Exeter Hippodrome last night, and the audiences at both houses revelled in the popular war-time chorus, the singing of which, however, was tinged with a feeling of sadness. Rarely, if ever, has there been a more unique occasion at the Hippodrome. Apart from the atmosphere engendered by the appearance on the stage on Armistice Night of the man who wrote a ditty that will always be associated with memories of the war, the popularity of many other songs composed by Fred Godfrey was made manifest, these including “Who Were You With Last Night?” and “Down Texas Way.”

 

Recordings

The length of the list of known Blighty recordings attests to the song’s popularity over the more than 90 years since it first captured the public’s ear. One of the more unusual, and moving, versions is that of British blues singer Kevin Coyne, on his 1978 LP Dynamite Daze. Another unexpected tribute came in 1986 from the influential British rock band The Smiths, who quote a snippet of Cicely Courtnedge’s recording of Blighty at the start of The Queen Is Dead, voted 15th-best album of all time in a “Music of the Millennium” poll conducted by HMV, the BBC’s Channel 4, The Guardian newspaper, and London radio station Classic FM.

Dorothy Ward (Regal G-7398, 1916)

F.W. Ramsey (Regal G-7404, 1916)

Courtland & Jeffries (HMV B-760, 1916)

J. Norrie (Clarion 970, 1916 [cylinder]; Clarion 171, 1916)

Florrie Forde (Zonophone 1725, 1916)

———, in “Selection of Old Time Hits” (Rex 8093, 1933)

Harry Cove & Will Thompson (Coliseum 1013; Coliseum 1022)

Hay & Croft (Scala 1022)

Stanley Kirkby (The Winner 3085, 1916)

The Band Of H.M. Irish Guards, cond. by Chas. Hassell (The Winner 3113, 1916)

Arthur Fields (Columbia A-2451, 1917)

The Two Filberts (Jumbo 1501, 1917)

The Unity Quartette (Columbia 2742, 1917)

Jamieson Dodds, in “Service Songs” (Columbia 2767, 1917)

Robert Carr (Clarion 185, 1917)

Alan Turner (HMV 216020-A, 1918)

Robins & White (Scala 938, 1927?)

Community Singing, in “Song Memories Of The War” (HMV B-2637, 1927)

Community Singing, in medley (HMV C-1601 [12"], 1928)

Band of H.M. Welsh Guards, in “Popular War-Time Marching Songs” (Broadcast 365, 1928)

Band of H.M. Life Guards, in “Community Song Selection” (Broadcast 430, 1928)

The London Orchestra; dir. by John Firman, in “Communityland — Selection” (Zonophone 5313, 1929)

Charles “Nat” Star & His Band, in “Songs Of The Western Front” (Sterno 561, 1929)

Harry Davidson & His Orch., 1930s?; reissued on compact disc & cassette tape “Harry Davidson” (Evergreen Melodies C77 [disc], E77 [tape], 2002/03 catalogue)

Ella Retford, in “Ella Retford Songs Medley” (Regal Zonophone MR-205, 1930); reissued on LP “The Greatest Music Hall Bill Ever Assembled” (Music For Pleasure MFP-1146, ca. early 1960s); reissued on cassette “Playing The Halls 1” (Evergreen Melodies EVR9, 1991); reissued on compact disc “Top Of The Bill” (Pearl PAST CD 9753, 1992)

Debroy Somers Band, in “War Marching Songs” (Columbia DX-112, 1930)

Jack Hylton & His Orchestra, in “Tommies’ War Time Memories” (HMV C-1888, 1930; Victor 130815-A, 1930)

———, in “Jubilee Cavalcade” (HMV C-2744, 1935)

Imperial Vocal Medleys, in “Echoes of 1914 — Army Songs” (Imperial 2464, 1930)

The Jolly Old Fellows, in “Dug-Out Ditties” (Regal MR-193, 1930)

Will Evans & Company, in “Khaki Memories (A Song Scena)” (Edison Bell Winner 5282, 1931)

Noël Coward, in “Cavalcade Vocal Medley” (HMV C-2431, 1932)

Don Porto’s Novelty Accordion Band, in “Recollections Of 1914-1918” (Eclipse 813, 1933)

Gracie Fields, in “Old Soldiers Never Die” (Rex 8618, 1935)

Primo Scala’s Accordion Band, in “Carry On Melodies” (Rex 9635, 1938)

Lew Stone & His Band; Sam Browne, vocal, in “Songs the Tommies Sing” (Decca F-7278, 1939)

Sidney Thompson’s Old-Tyme Dance Orchestra, in “Marine Four Step Communityland March Medley” (Parlophone R-3580, 1951)

Verdi and Jimmy Silver & His Music, on LP “Party Time At The Astor Club” (Decca LK-4290, 1958)

Cicely Courtnedge, from soundtrack of film The L-Shaped Room (1962), interpolated by The Smiths on compact disc “The Queen Is Dead” (Rough Trade Rough CD96, 1986)

Carl Tapscott Singers, on LP “Pack Up Your Troubles” (RCA Camden CASX-2527, 1964)

Warren Mitchell, with Bill Shepherd, His Orch. & Chorus, on LP “Alf Garnett Sings Songs Of World War I” (Allegro ?, 1967?)

The Concert Band & Chorus Of The R.A.A.F., directed by Sqd. Ldr. R.A.Y. Mitchell, on LP “30 Smash Hits Of The War Years” (Crest WAR-39/45, 1974); reissued on compact disc & cassette tape “Songs Of Britain” (Evergreen Melodies C84 [disc], E84 [tape], 2002/03 catalogue)

Barry O’Dowd & The Strand Singers, on LP “English Pub Songs” (Axe AXS 516, 1976 re-issue of earlier Australian release)

Kevin Coyne, on LP “Dynamite Daze” (Virgin V2096, 1978; reissued on compact disc, Virgin CD12096, 1991)

Diamond Accordion Band, on LP “Your Favourite Singalongs, Vol. 2” (Emerald Gem GES-1229, 1980s)

Connor, on compact disc “The Magic Wurlitzer, Vol. 1” (Prism PLATCD 31, 1992)

Film Interpolations

This Happy Breed (1944); Let’s Make Up [also known as Lilacs In The Spring] (1956); The L-Shaped Room (1962); Flyboys (2006)

Stage Interpolation

Cavalcade. Opened 13 October 1931, Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London; 405 performances.