The Lyrics of Noël Coward

'I can only assume that the compulsion to make rhymes was born in me,' declares Noel Coward in the very opening line of his introduction to this book, originally published in 1965. His statement is certainly proved throughout this compilation of over 250 lyrics from his musical shows, operettas and revues. Arranged in decades from the '20s to the '60s, the songs inevitably include such classics as 'Mad About the Boy', 'Mrs Worthington', and 'Mad Dogs and Englishmen', the rhythm and lyrics of the latter having formed in Coward's mind during a drive in 1930 from Hanoi to Saigon. Born in Teddington, Middlesex, in 1899, Coward lived through both world wars and witnessed the decline of the British Empire, and his strong awareness of Englishness shines through his lyrics with songs such as 'There's Always Something Fishy About the French' and 'Don't Let's be Beastly to the Germans'. Coward's introductory notes to each decade are honest and informative. The '40s, much of which he spent travelling throughout the world to entertain Allied troops, he considers his most productive lyric-writing years. In the '50s he writes of his misgivings about playing the Desert Inn in Las Vegas owing to the quintessential Englishness of his material and performance, but subsequently found his enormous success 'one of the most gratifying and stimulating experiences of my life'. This is a great book to browse through rather than read from cover to cover. Coward admits to having been enchanted by Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear, and his confidence in his own verse reflects much of the delightfully nonsensical and irreverent rhymes of these predecessors. While some lines, such as 'Kleine Pupchen, Boop oop adoop-chen', might strike a reader as excruciatingly awful, others such as, 'And with hot bottles at our toes, We cosily in bed repose', leap from the pages with enviable simplicity and charm. (Kirkus UK)