From the Broadway musical ' My Fair Lady'.

From Robyn on Patreon in 2023
This song is from the LP of the Musical “My Fair Lady” which was the first long-playing record I got to know and love. I was 4 or 5 years old: it seeped into my primal consciousness along with “Rock Around The Clock” and “Love Is Strange”.

I’m not a great fan of the Royals, but when I was about 5 the news that the Queen was scheduled to drive past my Uncle’s house near Chepstow on the Welsh Borders seemed a pretty big deal. My mother’s family was certainly impressed. How did they know, I wonder? They bought flags to wave, anyway.

I was staying with my grandparents in the nearby Forest of Dean and wanted to put on a show. So I decided to serenade Her Majesty with selections from “My Fair Lady”. I thought she’d appreciate “Why Can’t The English Learn To Speak?” and “Get Me To The Church On Time” (as quoted by Bowie in ‘Modern Love’) which were both on the upbeat side.

I practiced my songs, and I practiced sticking flags in the hedge outside my grandparents’ house. The Union Jack looked good against the dark evergreen leaves. I sang loud, and as I was outdoors nobody stopped me. From this distance in memory, I have no idea how much of the songs I memorised.

The Royal morning arrived and my granddad drove us round to my Uncle’s house in Tutshill. What my family had not really factored in, however, was that the house was situated on a blind corner: very little of the road was visible from outside it. We duly stuck our flags in the hedge, and stood at the gate of the little pebble-dash house on the narrow backroad outside the Gloucestershire village. It was a cloudy morning. I don’t remember waiting long, but I do remember feeling excited: it was my first taste of pre-gig adrenaline. Would Her Majesty wind down her window and listen to me sing?

Without warning two police motorcycles flashed around the bend to our left and vanished a second later to our right. Then a big black car (much like the vehicle Bob Dylan is standing next to awaiting the nearby River Severn ferry in the “No Direction Home” poster) followed it, perhaps a fraction slower. The Queen was in there but I don’t think we made eye contact. Maybe she acknowledged us with a Royal wave: I furiously shook my flag but before I could even open my mouth to start serenading her, the big black car had taken her around the bend.

Britain is the hub of disappointment:

“Never mind, luv - better next time.”
"Oh well, mustn’t grumble.”
“Sorry, we’re closed.”

These are the mantras that I learned early. What could we do? We gathered up our flags and trailed indoors.

I continued to listen to “My Fair Lady” and eventually hit the harder stuff: The Beatles, The Stones, and Dylan himself. But my favourite songs from that LP are actually the gentler ones, and here’s a version of one of them, recorded on a rainy morning in Cardiff, a little way up the road from Chepstow.

What did I learn? That monarchs turn sharp corners sometimes, but a hedge won’t let you down…

Lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, music by Frederick Loewe
Voice and guitar, RH. Piano and shaker, Charlie Francis.
Recorded and mixed by Charlie at Stwdio Penty.