Benjamin Britten's Cabaret Songs (1937–1939) were witty, popular-style songs created for a cabaret singer Hedli Anderson, written with poet Wystan Hugh Auden and influenced by contemporary revue music. They weren't published until 1980, years after their creation and Britten’s death.
Britten and Auden had a pivotal, intense, and ultimately fractured relationship from 1935 to 1942, marked by brilliant collaborations like Paul Bunyan and On This Island, driven by Auden’s mentorship and efforts to guide the younger Britten in accepting his sexuality. This led to significant musical and personal growth for the composer, but ended in a permanent quarrel after Britten met Peter Pears.
The four surviving songs (“Tell Me the Truth About Love,” “Funeral Blues,” “Johnny” and “Calypso”) offer a rare mixture of wit, poignance and social commentary, served in a lighter, humorous style.
LOVE IS CONFUSING YET FASCINATING.
Some say that Love's a little boy
And some say it's a bird,
Some say it makes the world go round
And some say that's absurd:
But when I asked the man next door
Who looked as if he knew,
His wife was very cross indeed
And said it wouldn't do.
Does it look like a pair of pyjamas
Or the ham in a temperance hotel,
Does its odour remind one of llamas
Or has it a comforting smell?
Is it prickly to touch as a hedge is
Or soft as eiderdown fluff,
Is it sharp or quite smooth at the edges?
O tell me the truth about love.
I looked inside the summer-house;
It wasn't ever there;
I tried the Thames at Maidenhead,
And Brighton's bracing air.
I don't know what the blackbird sang,
Or what the tulip said;
But it wasn't in the chicken-run,
Or underneath the bed.
Can it pull extraordinary faces?
Is it usually sick on a swing?
Does it spend all its time at the races,
or fiddling with pieces of string?
Has it views of its own about money?
Does it think Patriotism enough?
Are its stories vulgar but funny?
O tell me the truth about love.
Your feelings when you meet it,
I am told you can’t forget;
I‘ve sought it since I was a child
But haven’t found it yet.
I’m getting on for thirty-five,
And still I do not know
What kind of creature it can be
That bothers people so.
When it comes, will it come without warning
Just as I'm picking my nose?
Will it knock on my door in the morning
Or tread in the bus on my toes?
Will it come like a change in the weather?
Will its greeting be courteous or rough?
Will it alter my life altogether?
O tell me the truth about love.
LOVE IS LOSS. LOVE IS DEVASTATING.
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Tie crêpe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
LOVE IS REJECTION. LOVE ENDURES.
O the valley in the summer where I and my John
Beside the deep river would walk on and on
While the grass at our feet and the birds up above
Whispered so soft in reciprocal love,
And I leaned on his shoulder; "O Johnny, let's play":
But he frowned like thunder and he went away.
O the evening near Christmas as I well recall
When we went to the Charity Matinee Ball,
The floor was so smooth and the band was so loud
And Johnny so handsome I felt so proud;
"Squeeze me tighter, dear Johnny, let's dance till it's day":
But he frowned like thunder and he went away.
Shall I ever forget at the Grand Opera
When music poured out of each wonderful star?
Diamonds and pearls they hung like ivy down
Over each gold and silver gown;
"O Johnny I'm in heaven" I whispered to say:
But he frowned like thunder and he went away.
O but he was as fair as a garden in flower,
As slender and tall as the great Eiffel Tower,
When the waltz throbbed out down the long promenade
O his eyes and his smile they went straight to my heart;
"O marry me, Johnny, I'll love and obey":
But he frowned like thunder and he went away.
O last night I dreamed of you, Johnny, my lover,
You'd the sun on one arm and the moon on the other,
The sea it was blue and the grass it was green.
Every star rattled a round tambourine;
Ten thousand miles deep in a pit there I lay...
But you went away.
LOVE IS URGENT. LOVE IS A PRIORITY.
Driver drive faster and make a good run
Down the Springfield Line under the shining sun
Fly like an aeroplane, don’t pull up short
Till you brake for Grand Central Station, New York.
For there in the middle ofthewaiting-hall
Shouldbe standing theone that Ilove best of all,
If he’s not there to meet me when I get to town,
I’ll stand on the side-walk with tears rolling down.
For he is the one that I love to look on,
The acme of kindness and perfection,
He presses my hand and he says he loves me
Which I find an admirable peculiarity.
The woods are bright green on both sides of the line,
The trees have their loves though they’re different from mine.
But the poor fat old banker in the sun-parlour car
Has no one to love him except his cigar.
If I were the Head of the Church or the State,
I’d powder my nose and just tell them to wait,
For love’s more important and powerful than
Even a priest or a politician!
WHAT IS LOVE TO YOU? 💘