Hidden Treasures (The Very Best Of)

When Dame Vera Lynn’s daughter, Virginia Lewis-Jones, recently moved out of the family home – the house in Ditchling, East Sussex, where Dame Vera Lynn had lived with her husband, the saxophonist and clarinettist Harry Lewis, for nearly 40 years – she donated the entire collection of her mother’s records to The British Library. Archivists have been sorting through the extensive collection of discs and tapes with a fine-tooth comb ever since. Amongst these records, a set of three silver-coloured aluminium master discs were discovered. Two of the discs are labelled by hand with the song titles, 'What a Difference a Day Makes' and 'Spring Don't Mean a Thing to Me' and the other is unlabelled. Using specialist equipment, musicology experts at the British Library were able to listen to these masters and identify them as audition tapes, confirming that these are the first recordings in existence of a voice that went on to become one of the most recognisable, reassuring and beloved voices in the history of music.

Disc 1

We’ll meet again

There’ll be Bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover

What a Difference a Day makes

Wish me luck as you wave me goodbye

Auf Weiderseh’n Sweetheart

As Time Goes By

When you wish Upon a Star

A Nightingale Sang in Berkley Square

Sailing

From the Time You Say Goodbye

Dream

Wishing (Will Make it So)

Travellin’ Home

Harbour Lights

When I Grow too Old to Dream

How Green was my Valley

Home Sweet Home

 

 

Disc 2

It’s Home

Spring don’t mean a thing

I Hate Myself (for being so mean to you)

It’s a Lovely Day, Tomorrow

When the Lights go On Again

You’ll Never Know

Faraway Places

Yours

I’ll Pray for You

The Bell’s of St Mary’s

Close to You

Goodnight Children, Everywhere

I Hear a Dream

Shine on Harvest Moon

The Woodpecker Song

Someone’s Rocking my dreamboat

White Christmas

 

 

Disc 3 

 

What a difference a day makes (original)

Vera Lynn Selected (original)

Home (original)

Spring don’t mean a thing (original)

I Hate Myself (for being so mean to you) (original)

When You Wish Upon a Star (feat. Cynthia Erivo)

(There’ll be Bluebirds over) the White Cliffs of Dover feat. Alexander Armstrong

Auf Weiderseh’n Sweetheart – 2017 version

I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles – 2017 version