"The Lambeth Walk" is a song from the 1937
musical
Musical is the adjective of music.
Musical may also refer to:
* Musical theatre, a performance art that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance
* Musical film and television, a genre of film and television that incorporates into the narr ...
''
Me and My Girl'' (with book and lyrics by
Douglas Furber
Douglas Furber (13 May 1885 – 20 February 1961) was a British lyricist and playwright.
Furber is best known for the lyrics to the 1937 song " The Lambeth Walk" and the libretto to the musical '' Me and My Girl'', composed by Noel Gay, from whic ...
and L. Arthur Rose and music by
Noel Gay
Noel or Noël may refer to:
Christmas
* , French for Christmas
* Noel is another name for a Christmas carol
Places
* Noel, Missouri, United States, a city
* Noel, Nova Scotia, Canada, a community
* 1563 Noël, an asteroid
*Mount Noel, Briti ...
). The song takes its name from a local street,
Lambeth Walk
Lambeth Walk is a street in Lambeth, London, England, off Lambeth Road. It was at the heart of a working-class residential area and there was a street market.
The area was originally developed with wells and a recreation ground. Houses fol ...
, once notable for its
street market
A marketplace or market place is a location where people regularly gather for the purchase and sale of provisions, livestock, and other goods. In different parts of the world, a marketplace may be described as a ''souk'' (from the Arabic lang ...
and
working-class culture
Working-class culture is a range of cultures created by or popular among working-class people. The cultures can be contrasted with high culture and folk culture, and are often equated with popular culture and low culture (the counterpart of high ...
in
Lambeth
Lambeth () is a district in South London, England, in the London Borough of Lambeth, historically in the County of Surrey. It is situated south of Charing Cross. The population of the London Borough of Lambeth was 303,086 in 2011. The area expe ...
, an area of
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
. The tune gave its name to a
Cockney
Cockney is an accent and dialect of English, mainly spoken in London and its environs, particularly by working-class and lower middle-class Londoners. The term "Cockney" has traditionally been used to describe a person from the East End, or ...
dance made popular in 1937 by
Lupino Lane
Henry William George Lupino (16 June 1892 – 10 November 1959) professionally Lupino Lane, was an English actor and theatre manager, and a member of the famous Lupino family, which eventually included his cousin, the screenwriter/director/actr ...
.
The story line of ''Me and My Girl'' concerns a
Cockney
Cockney is an accent and dialect of English, mainly spoken in London and its environs, particularly by working-class and lower middle-class Londoners. The term "Cockney" has traditionally been used to describe a person from the East End, or ...
barrow boy
''Barrow boy'' is a British expression with two meanings, occupational and social. Street traders since the 19th century (and perhaps earlier) sold seasonal goods (especially vegetables) from two-wheeled barrows. London street traders were called c ...
who inherits an earldom but almost loses his Lambeth girlfriend in the process. It was turned into a 1939 film ''
The Lambeth Walk
"The Lambeth Walk" is a song from the 1937 musical '' Me and My Girl'' (with book and lyrics by Douglas Furber and L. Arthur Rose and music by Noel Gay). The song takes its name from a local street, Lambeth Walk, once notable for its street mark ...
'' which starred Lane.
Dance craze
The choreography from the musical, in which the song was a show-stopping
Cockney
Cockney is an accent and dialect of English, mainly spoken in London and its environs, particularly by working-class and lower middle-class Londoners. The term "Cockney" has traditionally been used to describe a person from the East End, or ...
-inspired extravaganza, inspired a popular walking dance, performed in a jaunty strutting style. Lane explained the origin of the dance as follows:
When the stage show had been running for a few months, C. L. Heimann, managing director of the Locarno Dance Halls, got one of his dancing instructors, Adele England, to elaborate the walk into a dance. "Starting from the Locarno Dance Hall,
Streatham
Streatham ( ) is a district in south London, England. Centred south of Charing Cross, it lies mostly within the London Borough of Lambeth, with some parts extending into the neighbouring London Borough of Wandsworth.
Streatham was in Surrey ...
, the dance-version of the Lambeth Walk swept the country."
[ The craze reached Buckingham Palace, with ]King George VI
George VI (Albert Frederick Arthur George; 14 December 1895 – 6 February 1952) was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until his death in 1952. He was also the last Emperor of Ind ...
and Queen Elizabeth attending a performance and joining in the shouted " Oi" which ends the chorus.
The fad reached the United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
in 1938, popularized by Boston-based orchestra-leader Joseph (Joe) Rines, among others. Rines and his band frequently performed in New York, and the dance became especially popular at the "better" night clubs.
As with most dance crazes, other well-known orchestras did versions of the song, including Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and leader of his eponymous jazz orchestra from 1923 through the rest of his life. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Ellington was based ...
's. The dance then spread across America, and to Paris and Prague. Mass Observation
Mass-Observation is a United Kingdom social research project; originally the name of an organisation which ran from 1937 to the mid-1960s, and was revived in 1981 at the University of Sussex.
Mass-Observation originally aimed to record everyday ...
devoted a chapter of their book ''Britain'' (1939) to the craze.[
In Germany, big band leader Adalbert Lutter made a German-language adaptation called that quickly became popular in swing clubs. A member of the ]Nazi Party
The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...
drew attention to it in 1939 by declaring The Lambeth Walk "Jewish mischief and animalistic hopping", as part of a speech on how the "revolution of private life" was one of the next big tasks of National Socialism
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hit ...
in Germany. However, the song continued to be popular with the German public and was even played on the radio, particularly during the war, as part of the vital task of maintaining public morale.
In Italy, the song was popularized by Dino Di Luca
Dino Di Luca (5 May 1903 - 11 May 1991), also billed as Dino Diluca, was a leading Italian actor of both stage, screen and television. He was active in both Italy and the United States of America from the 1930s through the 1960s.
Biography
Dino D ...
and the Trio Lescano
The Trio Lescano was a female vocal group singing in Italian from 1936 to 1950, originally consisting of Hungarian-Dutch sisters Alessandra Lescano (Alexandrina Eveline Leschan; 1910–1987), Giuditta Lescano (Judith Leschan; 1913–1976) and Ca ...
in an Italian version titled .
In 1942, Charles A. Ridley of the Ministry of Information made a short propaganda film, ''Schichlegruber'' ''Doing the Lambeth Walk''">'sic''''Doing the Lambeth Walk'', which edited existing footage – including comical 'backstepping' – taken from Leni Riefenstahl
Helene Bertha Amalie "Leni" Riefenstahl (; 22 August 1902 – 8 September 2003) was a German film director, photographer and actress known for her role in producing Nazi propaganda.
A talented swimmer and an artist, Riefenstahl also became in ...
's ''Triumph of the Will
''Triumph of the Will'' (german: Triumph des Willens) is a 1935 German Nazi propaganda film directed, produced, edited and co-written by Leni Riefenstahl. Adolf Hitler commissioned the film and served as an unofficial executive producer; his na ...
'' to make it appear as if they were goose-stepping and skipping to "The Lambeth Walk". The propaganda film was distributed uncredited to newsreel companies, which would supply their own narration. Joseph Goebbels
Paul Joseph Goebbels (; 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German Nazi politician who was the ''Gauleiter'' (district leader) of Berlin, chief propagandist for the Nazi Party, and then Reich Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to 19 ...
placed Ridley on a Gestapo
The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe.
The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...
list for elimination if Britain were defeated.
One of photographer Bill Brandt
Bill Brandt (born Hermann Wilhelm Brandt; 2 May 1904 – 20 December 1983)Paul DelanyBill Brandt: A Life was a British photographer and photojournalist. Born in Germany, Brandt moved to England, where he became known for his images of British ...
's best-known pictures is "Dancing the Lambeth Walk", originally published in 1943 in the magazine ''Picture Post
''Picture Post'' was a photojournalistic magazine published in the United Kingdom from 1938 to 1957. It is considered a pioneering example of photojournalism and was an immediate success, selling 1,700,000 copies a week after only two months. ...
''.
Both Russ Morgan
Russell Morgan (April 29, 1904 – August 7, 1969) was an American big band leader and arranger during the 1930s and 1940s. He was best known for being the one of the composers of the song "You're Nobody till Somebody Loves You", with Larry Stock ...
and Duke Ellington
Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and leader of his eponymous jazz orchestra from 1923 through the rest of his life. Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Ellington was based ...
had hit records of the song in the United States.
Cultural impact
"The Lambeth Walk" had the distinction of being the subject of a headline in ''The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'' in October 1938: "While dictators rage and statesmen talk, all Europe dances – to The Lambeth Walk."
In the film '' The Longest Day'' (1962), about the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944, this song is sung by glider troopers of Major John Howard
John Winston Howard (born 26 July 1939) is an Australian former politician who served as the 25th prime minister of Australia from 1996 to 2007, holding office as leader of the Liberal Party. His eleven-year tenure as prime minister is the s ...
in a glider on its way to capture Pegasus Bridge.
The composer
A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music.
Etymology and Defi ...
Franz Reizenstein
Franz Theodor Reizenstein (7 June 191115 October 1968) was a German-born British composer and concert pianist. He left Germany for sanctuary in Britain in 1934 and went on to have his teaching and performing career there. As a composer, he succ ...
wrote a set of ''Variations
Variation or Variations may refer to:
Science and mathematics
* Variation (astronomy), any perturbation of the mean motion or orbit of a planet or satellite, particularly of the moon
* Genetic variation, the difference in DNA among individua ...
on the Lambeth Walk'', each variation a pastiche of the style of a major classical composer. Notable are the variations in the styles of Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical ...
, Chopin, and Liszt
Franz Liszt, in modern usage ''Liszt Ferenc'' . Liszt's Hungarian passport spelled his given name as "Ferencz". An orthographic reform of the Hungarian language in 1922 (which was 36 years after Liszt's death) changed the letter "cz" to simpl ...
.
1899 song by Alec Hurley
An earlier, different song titled "The Lambeth Walk" (composed in 1899 by Edward W. Rogers) was popularised by music hall
Music hall is a type of British theatrical entertainment that was popular from the early Victorian era, beginning around 1850. It faded away after 1918 as the halls rebranded their entertainment as variety. Perceptions of a distinction in Bri ...
singer Alec Hurley (1871–1913).
References
Bibliography
* Ariane Mak, "Danser la Lambeth Walk ou les formes de folklorisation de la culture cockney. Étude et revisite de l’enquête du ''Mass Observation''",
Mil neuf cent. Revue d'histoire intellectuelle
', n° 35, 2017.
External links
* - Movietone Newsreel using Charles A. Ridley's footage edited from "Triumph of the Will"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lambeth Walk
1937 songs
Songs from musicals
Songs about London
Songs with lyrics by Douglas Furber
Songs with music by Noel Gay
Dance in England
Novelty and fad dances