You’ve heard of grandma getting run over by a reindeer, but not the Beatles getting run over by a grandma. That’s what happened in England this week when 92-year-old Dame Vera Lynn topped the Arctic Monkeys and the Beatles to top the British charts.
Yeah, really.
Lynn, who is now Britain’s oldest living chart-topper, accomplished this feat with her retrospective “We’ll Meet Again – The Very Best of Vera Lynn.” The “Forces’ Sweetheart” is best known for the title track song “We’ll Meet Again,” a tribute to British soldiers fighting in World War II, which she released 70 years ago. The song, one of the most famous of the era, is also famously used in Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 classic movie “Dr. Strangelove,” and both singer and song are referenced in the Pink Floyd song “Vera” from “The Wall.”
Lynn’s album, which reached No. 2 the previous week behind the Arctic Monkeys’ “Humbug,” topped the British rockers in week three. The Beatles scored 17 records in the Top 100 with their new remastered editions, but none sold more than the compilation disc.
Lynn, who was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II in ’75, continues to support the military even today, speaking with the press encouraging them to support the British fighters in Afghanistan. In 2002, she also became the president of the cerebral palsy charity SOS.
Image by Nicki courtesy of Wikipedia.