At the start of
the album THE QUEEN IS DEAD, the first thing heard is a partial recording of
a lady leading a sing-along of an old English army song, TAKE ME
BACK TO DEAR OLD BLIGHTY, ("Blighty" is slang for England):
"Take
me back to dear old Blighty!
Put me on the train for London town!
Take me over there,
Drop me ANYWHERE,
Liverpool, Leeds, or Birmingham, well, I don't care!
I should love to see..."
The lady's voice is abruptly cut off as the album's
opening song, THE QUEEN IS DEAD, begins. A
search of the lyrics for the original version of TAKE ME BACK TO DEAR OLD BLIGHTY
reveals that the people in the song who wish to be taken back to England are stationed in France:
TAKE ME BACK TO DEAR OLD BLIGHTY
Jack Dunn, son of a gun,
over in France today,
Keeps fit doing his bit up to his eyes in clay.
Each night after a fight to pass the time along,
He's got a little gramophone that plays this song:
Take me back to dear old
Blighty!
Put me on the train for London town!
Take me over there,
Drop me ANYWHERE,
Liverpool, Leeds, or Birmingham, well, I don't care!
I should love to see my
best girl,
Cuddling up again we soon should be,
WHOA!!!
Tiddley iddley ighty,
Hurry me home to Blighty,
Blighty is the place for me!
Bill Spry, started to fly,
up in an aeroplane,
In France, taking a chance,
wish'd he was down again.
Poor Bill, feeling so ill, yell'd out to Pilot Brown:
"Steady a bit, yer fool! we're turning upside down!"
Take me back to dear old
Blighty! ...
(Written by A.J. Mills, F. Godfrey and B. Scott in 1916).
Correspondingly, Princess Diana would die in France and have to be "taken back to dear old Blighty" for burial.
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The particular audio of TAKE ME BACK TO DEAR OLD BLIGHTY chosen by Morrissey to start the THE QUEEN IS DEAD was extracted from the 1963 film, THE L-SHAPED ROOM.
THE L-SHAPED ROOM is the story of a woman who has moved from France to England,
played by actress Leslie Caron who was born on July 1st.
Likewise, Diana’s body had to be moved from France to
England and Diana was also born on July 1st.