1956 Anne Shelton: Lay Down Your Arms

Every so often the media will pick up on a jokey story of a letter or postcard being delivered thirty or forty years after it was actually posted, usually with a Royal Mail spokesman taking some perverse pride in the fact it turned up at all. I kind of regard 'Lay Down Your Arms' as part of the same phenomena, a song that slipped through some wormhole in time from pre-Blitz to 1956. Set to a strident military march, 'Lay Down Your Arms' is pure gangshow material, a rousing blast to the troops 'over there'. Or perhaps not all that rousing - Shelton articulates the lyrics with the prissy aggression of a frigid Brown Owl barking out instructions to a troupe of unruly Brownies; 'Lay down your arms and surrender to mine' - the poor sod at the end of that doesn't sound like he has much say in the matter and her domination makes Vera Lynn sound like Shakira. I have no doubt that Shelton and her songs kept the home fires burning through Britain's darkest hour, but shoehorned into 1956 it looks as anachronistic as a new build house with an outside toilet.