By The Landlord
“We have an earthly Cave, our Bodies, to go into by consideration, and cool ourselves: and … we have within us a torch, a soul, lighter and warmer than any without: we are therefore our own Ombrellas and our own Sunnes.” - John Donne, Letters, 1609
“A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back when it begins to rain.” – Robert Frost
“Don't let a man put anything over on you except an umbrella.” – Mae West
“Poised on its edge a woman's hat, red flowered, and umbrella, furled... Envoy: Love me, love my umbrella.” – James Joyce, Giacomo Joyce, 1914
“The mind is like an umbrella. It's most useful when open.” – Walter Gropius
“Going around under an umbrella interferes with one's looking up at the sky.” – Jerzy Kosinski
“I'm not like Puff Daddy, I hold my own umbrella.” – Penelope Cruz
“Who am I that I have to sing under an umbrella? These people are my fans, and if they can stand in the rain to hear me sing, I can stand in the rain.” – Bobby Darin
Increasingly required in a world of unpredictable climate-change extreme weather, they've been a human tool for thousands of years, from Ancient China, Egypt, Greece, to Rome and Mexico, to ubiquity in every village, town and city across the world. From heavy wood frames with palm fronds, feathers, animal skins, later silk, oil-paper and canvas, from the highly crafted and individualised to the mass produced, lightened to aluminium, plastic and nylon into folding and telescopic designs, they've been a status symbol of the privileged to an everyday possession, historically moving in and out of fashion, variously reviled and admired, and also a practical expression for human relationships, of the selfish and selfless, of the solitary and sharing.
Like me, you might have mixed feelings about the umbrella. It can be handy yet ungainly, it shelters and yet in a storm can turn inside out and become a liability. When used at an event, such as a music festival it is great for the user but annoying for anyone else, impeding our view of the stage, or potentially poking you in the eye. And it is certainly no good when riding a bike.
Yet the umbrella is also a possession that can also become publicly shareable and bring us together. Friendships and romances can be made under an umbrella in a sudden downpour. And who hasn't found one on a train or bus or shop, and ended up borrowing it, or keeping it? Ask in any department store about your left behind black collapsible, and you'll likely find dozens in lost and found. The life of a common umbrella is fluidly itinerant, it passes at random through strangers' hands like a coin or dollar note.
So then, whatever the weather wherever you are, it's time to gather together under the shelter of our bar parasols in umbrella terms to see how they are used in song titles and lyrics, as literal or metaphorical use. Carry your own, but ultimately they are here to share.
We generally think of umbrellas for rain shelter but etymologically, and for thousands of years, they were only really ever used for sun, from the Latin umbra for shade and in the English language, the word as derivative ‘ombrella’, was first written down by the poet John Donne as quoted above. The French parasol comes from the Latin parare for shelter, and while sol of course means sun, but you can also have, less commonly, parapluie for rain, and a paraneige to shield from snow, but of course, all of such uses had been in hand for thousands of years, especially in the far east.
Umbrellas, or ombrellas, were really more sun shades when they arrived in Europe. Soon after John Donne’s mention, Thomas Coryat's Crudities, published in 1611, about 150 years before the umbrella was introduced and started to go up in England, noted their use in Italy, particularly on horseback:
“And many of them doe carry other fine things of a far greater price, that will cost at the least a duckat, which they commonly call in the Italian tongue ombrellas, that is, things which minister shadowve to them for shelter against the scorching heate of the sunne. These are made of leather, something answerable to the forme of a little cannopy, & hooped in the inside with divers little wooden hoopes that extend the umbrella in a pretty large compasse. They are used especially by horsemen, who carry them in their hands when they ride, fastening the end of the handle upon one of their thighs, and they impart so large a shadow unto them, that it keepeth the heate of the sunne from the upper parts of their bodies.”
Here also are a few inspiring historical images and paintings from ancient umbrellas and parasols, some dating back to 3500 BCE to Europe in the 17th century. Up to his point, umbrellas and parasols can generally be seen to be held by servants and slaves for the sole benefit of the powerful and privileged. In a parallel form, the umbraculum is a piece of papal regalia and insignia, once used on a daily basis to provide shade for the His Holiness. Back first though, to Ancient Egypt, China and beyond …
Gimme shelter: And Ancient Egyptian umbrella used as sunshade and fan
A Terracotta Army carriage with an umbrella securely fixed to the side, from Qin Shihuang's tomb, c. 210 BC
Bas-relief of the Persian king Xerxes I (485–465 BC) at Persepolis
Japanese hand and hat umbrellas oin rain by Utagawa Kunisada
Couple under umbrella in snow by Suzuki Harunobu
Sheltered by a cherub: Madonna dell'Ombrello, by Girolamo dai Libri, 1530
French Chancellor Pierre Séguier with an umbrella hoisted above his head, by Charles Le Brun, 1670
Hold still, slave: Marchesa Elena Grimaldi, by Anthony van Dyck, 1623
There have been many inventors, movers and shakers in the evolution of the umbrella, but among the key figures in making it a more universal possession includes London's mid-18th century traveller and philanthropist and stylish dandy Jonas Hathaway. Before his time, parasols and umbrellas were only seen as accessories for women and the more privileged and wealthy at that, but this trend-setter was often seen with his own. Publicly mocked, and reviled by coach drivers who saw him a threat to business for transport on rainy days, he was subject to attack and was almost run over on occasions, and even used his own umbrella as a weapon (perhaps as a forerunner to those who later fitted daggers into their own bespoke brollies such as on The Avengers ...). Eventually the umbrella took off, leading to popularity and a whole new industry, giving rise to suppliers such as James Smith & Sons, a shop that's still in existence since 1815, and found on New Oxford Street in London.
The New Oxford Street, London shop of James Smith & Sons, founded in 1830
Umbrella parts
In the evolution of design, collapsible and telescopic designs have seen many iterations in the early 20th century, from the pocket foldable in Uraiújfalu, Hungary by the Balogh brothers in 1923. Hans Haupt's pocket umbrella in 1928 apppeared the same year as Viennese sculpture student and designer Slawa Horowitz, who one day wrote that "'It happened [that] one May morning, a cold and rainy day, I armed myself with a big umbrella and muttered to myself, 'Why on earth must I carry this utterly clumsy thing? Can't they invent a small folding umbrella which could be easily carried in a bag?’”
Horowitz eventually fled the Nazi invaders as a refugee to Singapore, then Australia. But she had a least received a patent on 19 September 1929 for her pocket umbrella known as he "Flirt", manufactured by Austrian company "Brüder Wüster" and their German associates Kortenbach & Rauh. In Germany, the small foldable umbrellas were produced by the company Knirps, which became a synonym in German for all small foldable umbrellas.
A few more images from art and history to inspire you…
Political cover? A meeting of Umbrellas by James Gillray, 1782
Rain ... Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Umbrellas, 1883
Sun … John Singer Sargent, Morning Walk, 1888
Slim shady? A hand-coloured photo in Shanghai with octagon-shape umbrella, c. 1930s
Cor blimey! It’s only Mary Poppins’ statue in Leicester Square …
Street shelter …
And finally, as we are a bar, don't forget the cocktail umbrella, perhaps evolving from sticks and leaves, with the idea of keeping ice and drinks cool in hot locations.
Drink shelter
So then, it’s time to get shady, or stay dry, and offer up your hopefully colourful and clever umbrella song ideas to share. Who will hold it all up to make into playlists? Let’s see. As usual, last orders deadline is 11pm on Monday UK time, for playlists published next week. Please put up yours now …
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