London Pride

Originally uploaded by GinnyRED57.

Last night I enjoyed a tasty glass of Fuller’s London Pride, as planned, and then photographed it and uploaded it to Flickr. Then this morning I was listening to a radio essay by Scott Simon on NPR called “The Resilience of London — and Londoners.” It was one of Simon’s best ever, right up there with his dispatches from Sarajevo.

The piece ended with an old song by Noel Coward called “London Pride.” It was scratchy sounding and creaky in the joints, but it had something to say about the strength Londoners found to cope with the Blitz and defy the bombs. It would be interesting to hear what might result if someone took this song and mashed it up into something punk/rap/skatalicious.

I’m wondering – what came first, the song or the beer?

There’s a version of it with soprano Catherine Bott that was performed at a Spitalfields Hospital concert available as an MP3 here.

‘Catherine Bott, totally unexpected in lighter twentieth century repertoire, divulges new facets of her talents … Noel Coward’s London Pride closes the album on a subdued but heroic note, leaving us in admiration of singer and pianist in one of this year’s most enjoyable discs to have come my way’ (Fanfare, USA)

Very nice and a complete triumph. Duly snagged for my www.iTunes.com collection.