She Was Only 22 When She Recorded a Little Song About Saying Goodbye. It Became the Sound of a Whole War

In 1939, as Britain was going to war, a young singer named Vera Lynn went looking for new songs at the music publishers on London’s Denmark Street. She was just 22.

Songwriter Hughie Charles gave her two songs he had written with Ross Parker. One of them was a gentle little tune about saying goodbye.

“We’ll meet again, don’t know where, don’t know when. But I know we’ll meet again, some sunny day.”

She recorded “We’ll Meet Again” that same year, and it became the song of a generation.

When British soldiers were asked to name their favorite performer, Vera came out on top. They called her “the Forces’ Sweetheart.”

She had her own radio show, “Sincerely Yours,” where she sang the songs the soldiers asked for and sent messages to the men overseas from the families waiting at home. Every show ended with “We’ll Meet Again.” Letters from servicemen poured in, about 1,000 a week.

Some critics said her songs were too sentimental for fighting men. Vera didn’t agree. A song like this, she said, reminded the boys “of what they were really fighting for.”

She traveled as far as Egypt, India and Burma to sing for the troops.

The song never went away. In 2009, at 92, she became the oldest living artist to have a No. 1 album in Britain. And in April 2020, Queen Elizabeth II used the words of her song to comfort the nation: “We will meet again.”

Dame Vera Lynn died that June, at 103.

“I’m told that schoolchildren today still learn the words to We’ll Meet Again,” she once wrote. “That thrills me.”

Who does this song make you think of? Share it with someone you can’t wait to see again.