"Lilli Marlen" (German spelling) is a song I grew up and there cannot be very many people in the English and German speaking worlds that have never heard of it. Even as a child, I always loved to hear
Marlene Dietrich singing it and I knew the first verse of the English version of
Lilli Marlene by heart. Wilfried Drygala, much to the surprise of
Brian Kelly and myself, decided one fine day to take this, somewhat for the
Idle Fellows inappropriate song into our repertoire. I well remember some autumn day in 1984 spending almost a whole Saturday afternoon learning Wilfried's lyrics for "Lilli Marlen" by heart while taking a hot bath at the same time.
On turning solo I was obliged to find the melody for my concertina which I duly came across in
Busking for Special Occaisions. The music is accredited to Norbert Schultze.