TAKE ME BACK TO DEAR OLD BLIGHTY
Created on 26/12/2021Latest update on 03/04/2023
Artist: Dorothy Ward
Author: Arthur Mills/Fred Godfrey/Bennett Scott
Label: Regal
Year: 1916
She was married to Music Hall star and songwriter Shaun Glenville and claimed Fred Godfrey wrote this at her home in Hampstead. Next day she sang it in Liverpool, and as the band arrangements weren't written out yet it's just Fred we hear at the piano. Major WW I singalong hit among British Tommies. Remained popular ever since servicemen during WW II reclaimed it as their own.
Covers:
- 1916:
F.W. Ramsey [also for Regal]
- 1917:
Florrie Forde [hit UK]
- 1917:
- 1918:
- 1920:
Lou Bandy [as Neem Mij Mee Naar Scheveningen]
- 1930:
Ella Retford [hit UK]
- 1930:
- 1932:
- 1935:
- 1939:
Lew Stone [vocal: Sam Browne]
- 1962:
Cicely Courtneidge [in film The L-Shaped Room]
- 1963:
Jimmy Shand [in medley]
- 1978:
Kevin Coyne [on Dynamite Daze]
- 1986:
Smiths [on The Queen Is Dead (Take Me Back To Dear Old Blighty); used part of Cicely Courtneidge's version in the intro]
