Cowardly Lyin'

If Memory Swerves, ‘twas on this day in history, December 16, 1899, that English playwright, composer, actor and gadabout Sir Noël Coward made his grand entrance from the orchestra pit, if you will, arriving on the scene in Tuddington with sleigh bells on. The son of a piano salesman, Noël attended dance academy as a young boy and his theatre career would span six decades, over the course of which he published some 50 plays, many of which he starred in himself, and hundred of songs, not a one I can point to (other than “Mad Dogs & Englishmen,” which we’ll get to momentarily). My Internet patrols inform me that Coward was known as much for his personal styling—”a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise”—as he was his plays, which might explain why I know next-to-nothing about the man. Oh, I know he was the darling of London’s theatre district, I know that he put the “boy” in “flamboyant” and that his name is mentioned with breathless reverence along with other famous English playwrights like Eugene O’Neill, Patty Chayefsky and John R. Powers; however, outside of these fact-ish-oids, I don’t recall witnessing his brilliance onstage or in a picture house or cabaret. In fact, I was drawering a big fat blank on birthday boy Noël Coward—was that really his last name, Coward, and what about the bloody umlauts over the “e”?—until the curators at YouTube dropped a Christmas present in the station house in-basket, a “Cowardly” song ditty that has made believers of us all! Entitled “Mad Dogs & Englishmen,” ‘twas appropriated by cock-knocking comedic bluesman John Belushi, himself a rather mad dog, but ‘twas originally all Citizen Cowardice’s; if you’re unfamiliar with his work, march down to the listening station at your nearest Blue Village Vinyl record shop and demand an introduction. Call it your “First Noël.”