BBC in Dorian Mood

The London Star ran a cartoon showing a frail BBC selection committee studying scores and saying, "Remember, we must be fraightfully, fraightfully robust." British Broadcasting Corp. had decided that it was time for its crooners to get tough. BBC announced that henceforth it would turn a deaf mike to: 1) "any form of anemic or debilitated vocal performance by male singers"; 2) "any insincere or oversentimental style of performance by women singers"; 3) "numbers which are slushy in sentiment or contain innuendo"; 4) "numbers based on tunes borrowed from standard classical works."

This latest austerity, explained the Corporation, had long been meditated. Surveys had indicated that the public was fed up with luscious thrushes and loving lullabies. Let dance music be virile, BBC ordained--but not unrefined.

Most of the press said "Hear! Hear!" and so did many band leaders. The Yorkshire Post declared: "Drivel and snivel, in days of challenge and strain, may almost be classed as a minor form of Fifth Column activity." Said the Times, with a reminiscent rumble of thunder: "The nation is in the Dorian mood: it has a mind to hear something strong, full-throated and vital."

Others questioned the right of BBC, itself often assailed as schoolmarmy, to judge what is debilitated and what is not. One plausible jest was that the German radio would build up its British audience (as pre-war Radio Luxembourg had) by establishing a black market in crooners.

Loudest squallers were music publishers. They thought BBC's edict was directed primarily against songs (mostly U.S.) that, by moaning about unfaithful sweethearts, were likely to make members of expeditionary forces homesick and jealous. A prize example is the current hit Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree (TIME, June 15), in which the singer melodiously complains that he has just had information from a friend (not a relation) that an uninducted neighbor next door was making pleasant woo with a charming creature who might be the girl he left to go to war.

Others mentioned were Miss You, Someone's Rocking My Dreamboat, and Somebody Else is Taking My Place--all from the U.S.

Nobody objected when BBC also banned Deep in the Heart of Texas from Music While You Work programs, which go into British war factories. Reason: workers robustly beat out the clapping sequences with their hammers, sometimes damaged their machines.

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