Lay Down Your Arms ANNE SHELTON

Anne Shelton was a big, big star back in the 1940s and 50s. This song was a UK #1 hit for the lady in 1956 and was engineered by the legendary Joe Meek.

[garyhargreaves]

From an era when people really knew how to sing. A fabulous voice.

[chriscamichel]

I was eight but knew every word and would march whilst I sang it😊

[ianhall-dixon]

Childhood memories stirred by this song

[christineanne]

one of my mum's faves. thought i'd better give you a thumbs up! where is everyone!!

[malcolmphillips]

This song was released around the time the Suez Crisis. My parents were angry that the US insisted the British & French forces withdraw from Suez. Then this song suggested that British soldiers should lay down their arms! Never!!

[philipnorris]

I have never been a soldier; if I had, this is one order that I would have been 100% happy to DISobey---in the words of another great hit song: "I'll be a bachelor boy until my dying day".

[rubyhenderson]

This song was banned....it was said to encourage young men to avoid call up to the Armed Forces ! It still managed to get to the top of Hit Parade ! 🤗

[robertcunningham]

Beautiful old song I think from the first world war ❤❤❤

[carollawrence]

My dad always preferred Anne Shelton to Vera Lynn x

[neilcam]

Just watching a film about the argie invasion of port Stanley in the Falklands and the honourable surrender of the governor. I was a sub for Hong Kong commercial radio news st the time so remember a lot of the events from agency copy and the stories we wrote based on it. Most memorable was the attack on the British fleet by French super etendard fighter bombers and the exocet missiles they carried. On that night I was working with an Israeli., Richard Adhikari, who turned the boring news agency copy into exciting stories, beating the government radio station news. When the Argentinians surrendered, I was in the newsroom with Portuguese/Chinese news director Gerry Xavier, who liked the opening paragraph of one despatch, from a British correspondent at the scene, so much that he insisted we use it for our story ... The union jack once more flies over government house ....

[Buzzer]

The sound of marching feet was actually produced by Joe Meek shaking a box of gravel.

[johnlawrence]

This was in the days when the British Army was an army of occupation in what was then West Germany. BAOR co-hosted with the Light Programme a two hour record request programme every Sunday in which this record made regular appearances. It was also the period when every U.K. male teenager was obliged to serve two years in the armed forces - after which they could pretend they had been real soldiers in WW2 like their Dads

[MrThessalonikiman]

This song explains explicitly the baby boom after the war.

[ericlees]

joe meek used stones in a box to get the marching sound

[michaelharrison]

Ah, England before it was given away.

[trevorwest]

Is this song about the end of ww2 or a smaller scuffle around that time?

[rodrollingstone]

Before anyone gets too anti-French/anti-foreigner and Brexit angry: the words and music are by two Swedes, Ake Gerhard and Leon Landgren, and a naturalised ex South African Englishman (Paddy Roberts), 1956.

[williamf]

The true Forces sweetheart - for the woking class soldier - Vera was fine for the posh officers - the everyday soldiers prefered Anne

[johnmiller]

I wish my ex wife was like this instead she cheated while I was deployed. They really don't make em like that anymore

[johnnypoker]

I know this song by the Three Kaye Sisters