Episode 18: Laughing at Life, track by track! "We'll Meet Again"
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IN THIS EPISODE:
In this week's episode, we talk about our interpretation of the World War II favorite "We'll Meet Again," Johnny Cash's version, and some more beautiful clarinet work from Anat Cohen. Oh, and there is a bit of fond reminiscing about cuddling in the studio. You've been warned (bow-chicka-wow-wow).
A SONG FOR THE AGES
The music of WWII carries a special poignancy for those who lived through it. This Washington Post article by Fred Barbash on British songstress Dame Vera Lynn shines a light on how meaningful and powerful a song can be:
To fully fathom the meaning of Vera Lynn to the British, you have to picture a British soldier, in the depths of Britain’s despair at the outset of World War II, hunkered down somewhere in North Africa, wondering how, if ever, it would end and whether, if ever, he’d get home.
“We were very lucky,” said one such soldier, William Pitcher, in a 1996 oral history. “All the war, even the worst of times, we had a good short wave radio system. In fact, I can remember it was desert, we’d, in the nighttime, on Saturday nights when Vera Lynn come on we’d get the radio off the truck and we’d cover ourselves up with tarp and turn it on. And we’d listen to Vera sing to the troops on a Friday night, on the radio.”
Vera Lynn singing for (and, it appears, with) the troops in WWII.
WHERE TO BUY LAUGHING AT LIFE:
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DEEP CUTS FROM THIS EPISODE:
Johnny Cash's version, like ours, includes some sweet clarinet.
The classic version by Great Britain's Vera Lynn. Fun fact: Decca released a compilation of Lynn's wartime recordings to commemorate her 100th birthday, and she became the oldest person to ever have an album chart! Truly timeless.