VERA LYNN - FORGET ME NOT

FORGET ME NOT TODAY

VERA LYNN

SONGWRITER: JOHNNY MAY; BILL SINCLAIR & JOHNNY REINE

COUNTRY: U. K.

ALBUM: THE FORCES’SWEETHEART ULTIMATE

LABEL: MONO RECORDING

GENRE: POP

YEAR: 1952

Dame Vera Lynn DBE (born March 20, 1917 in East Ham, Essex, England) is an English singer and actress. She was born Vera Margaret Welch. When she began performing in public at age seven, she adopted her grandmother's maiden name (Lynn) as her stage name. Her first radio broadcast, with the Joe Loss Orchestra, was in 1935. At this time she was being featured on records released by dance bands including those of Loss and of Charlie Kunz.

She was popular during World War II. Her best known songs are We'll Meet Again and The White Cliffs of Dover.

Lynn has given much of her time and energy to working with charities for former military servicemen, disabled children, and breast cancer. She is still admired by veterans of the Second World War. She was named the Briton who best exemplified the spirit of the twentieth century in 2000

Forget Me Not is a song that was recorded by Vera Lynn in 1952. It charted at a peak position of number five on the UK Singles Chart.

The mere mention of Vera Lynn's name evokes images of London skies filled with a barrage of balloons, and Britons riding out the German blitz in shelters and underground stations. England's sweetheart during the trying times of World War II, Lynn was still in her twenties when she took on that role. She was born Vera Margaret Welch in London's East Ham, to Bertram and Annie Welch, one year before the close of the First World War. She began singing as a girl of seven, also studying dance as a child. She later took her maternal grandmother's maiden name as her stage name, and her natural, unaffected vocal style and charm brought Lynn early success on the radio. At age 18, she was singing with Joe Loss' orchestra, and she'd also begun recording for the Crown label. By the end of the '30s, after stints working for Charlie Kunz's and Bert Ambrose's bands, Lynn got her own radio series. This event coincided with the end of what was known as the "Phony War," that period in which men were being conscripted and sent overseas, re-armament rushed, and nightly blackouts imposed, but no shots fired or bombs dropped. The shooting war started in 1940, and it was around that same time that Lynn became the host of the BBC radio program Sincerely Yours; the show became incredibly popular with overseas servicemen who missed their girlfriends, and her regular songs included such hopeful/heartsick ballads as "White Cliffs of Dover," "We'll Meet Again," "Wishing," and "Yours," which were taken to heart by the British public. Her recordings -- now done for Decca Records, which had absorbed the Crown label some years before -- all sold well, and Lynn also made several films during the war years, appeared in a stage revue, and sang for troops in Asia. Her sentimental brand of pop music was regarded as a huge help to morale, with Lynn herself virtually a national treasure.

Forget me not today

Though I am far away

Just let my memory stay

Safe in your heart

Parting brings sorrow

Hope for tomorrow

Sweetheart, what e'er betide

Let true love be our guide;

Until I'm by your side

Forget me not!

Forget me not today

Though I am far away

Just let my memory stay

Safe in your heart

Parting brings sorrow

Hope for tomorrow

Sweetheart, what e'er betide

Let true love be our guide;

Until I'm by your side

Forget me not!

Until I'm by your side

Forget me not!