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May 3, 2011

We'll Meet Again


One of my favorite satirical movies is "Dr. Strangelove" starring Peter Sellers, George C. Scott and a host of other great actors. The movie ends with an all out nuclear war - fantastic atomic explosions, billowing mushroom clouds - and a haunting refrain.

"We'll Meet Again" played at the end of the movie was sung by Dame Vera Lynn who was accompanied by a few hundred men of the RAF. I ran across this video of the song. This lovely, sentimental tune is from a different age, almost a different world.



Sometimes I feel that I was born twenty years too late. I miss my father's generation, the innocence, the music, the trust...

16 comments:

The Duke of Oil said...

Liberal’s feel very optimistic and hold lots of hope for president Obama as a peacemaker and for as a domestic policymaker, and a symbol of hope Barack Obama ‘s name "Obama" is also the name of a new mood.

They see "Obama" as a symbol because his name the name for a wind of change, but you can say the very same for a Fart.

GoodnightVienna said...

There's definitely a lack of trust between politicians and the people - the politicians have done nothing to earn it. In many ways we've been constantly betrayed over the past few decades (vote for one thing, get another). Sadly, the innocence will never return, Sig; we live in a knowing world now.

Undergroundpewster said...

Yup, that song has been my fav for a long, long time. I recall when Pink Floyd referenced it in "The Wall."

"Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn
Remember how she said that
We would meet again
Some sunny day
Vera! Vera!
What has become of you
Does anybody else in here
Feel the way I do?"

Sniff...

Doom said...

Interesting. Vera Lynn has come up a number of times but always in context that I missed, never having seen the show and what I could find of her music didn't seem to connect in any other way, if I hadn't heard this one (knowingly, as I certainly have heard it). She has been an loose end for... decades.

How odd that simply missing a movie can lead to such an seemingly intractable lack of understanding. Now that I know her part, I might have to track down the movie and... connect some dots. Thanks.

As for peace bringers and makers? If the bible is correct, these are the people we should throw out into the night. Even the sincere ones are problematic. The secular world will use secular means to deal with imbalances. Interlopers can no more change what needs to happen than a physicist can psychically suspend gravity. Chamberlain.

McGonagall said...

Yep - a great movie - one of my favourites. As for Vera and those days of innocent patriotism - they were only innocent because the people were ignorant. Churchill tried to get France to form a union with Britain just before they capitulated. The Duke of Windsor conspired with the Nazis to get his throne back. Rudolf Hess flew to my hometown in the middle of the war to try to get the local duke to persuade the British elite to join with the Nazis against the Soviets.

Were we better off not knowing that the world was run by liars, thieves, and psychopaths? That our patriotism was not shared by our leaders? That having won the war our patriotism would be considered surplus to requirements and rebranded racism? That our culture would be trashed, our sovereignty traded away, and our identity redefined to something more fitting for the New World Order's agenda?

My mother told me when she was in her eighties that her generation welcomed death as the world they knew and had grown up in was already gone ... and they didn't like what had replaced it.

sig94 said...

Duke - we all see through the lens of our world view. For liberals, atheists and socialists it is a very different and troubling perception. As a Christian I see all things under God's control, no matter how difficult or hopeless. My hope does not rest in man because men are fallible, vain, greedy and feckless; even other believers. We are all born of the same weak, frayed cloth.

WoFat said...

Vera had English teeth.

sig94 said...

GV - I guess the innocence is lost at even earlier ages now. Even the very young are cynical and worldly. I remember how I perceived the world at 12 yoa and it was like a kindergarten kid of today. My grandson was sexually propositioned by one of his female classmates in the second grade. The. Second. Grade.

God help us.

sig94 said...

Pewster - Thanks. I gotta listen to that song now. I admit, Pink Floyd was never a favorite band of mine.

sig94 said...

Doom - there is a certain element of resignation to the inevitable - what will be will be I suppose. The Muslims are very, very much into that and for that very same reason they allow their society and social infrastructure to collapse into ruin.

But still, there is trust based on who God is and what He does, not on who's the current President or Prime Minister.

sig94 said...

McG - you sound bitter and I don't blame you a bit. I get the same way at times - too many times to tell the truth. I have to run to Psalms 73 - A psalm of Asaph.
1 Surely God is good to Israel,
to those who are pure in heart.
2 But as for me, my feet had almost slipped; I had nearly lost my foothold.
3 For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
4 They have no struggles; their bodies are healthy and strong.
5 They are free from common human burdens; they are not plagued by human ills.
6 Therefore pride is their necklace; they clothe themselves with violence.
7 From their callous hearts comes iniquity; their evil imaginations have no limits.
8 They scoff, and speak with malice; with arrogance they threaten oppression.
[...]
16 When I tried to understand all this, it troubled me deeply
17 till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny.
18 Surely you place them on slippery ground; you cast them down to ruin.
19 How suddenly are they destroyed, completely swept away by terrors!
20 They are like a dream when one awakes; when you arise, Lord,
you will despise them as fantasies.

Maybe it's sour grapes and all McG - but rest assured, they'll get theirs.

sig94 said...

WoFat - English dental hygiene is NOT the envy of the civilized world.

Kid said...

Sig, Ditto, Ditto, Ditto, and DITTO!

I own this movie on VHS and DVD.

It's fantastic but requires a mature sophisticated viewer who deeply understands governments and the cold war.

Kid said...

A little trivia: The SAC guys were pretty pissed that Stanley Kubrick got the design of the B-52 cockpit so close to the real thing.

sig94 said...

Kid - no kidding? Mebbe Kubrick's people had access to older military cockpit designs like the B-47.

http://www.boeing.com/history/boeing/b47.html

Kid said...

The way I heard it, they sat around and figured it out.