| Fanlight Fanny | |
| Cover: | File:Fanlight Fanny.jpg |
| Type: | single |
| Artist: | Clinton Ford |
| B-Side: | "Dreamy City Lullaby"[1] |
| Released: | 1962 |
| Recorded: | 1962 |
| Genre: | Traditional pop |
| Length: | 2:49[2] |
| Label: | Oriole Records - CB 1706 |
| Producer: | John Schroeder[3] |
| Prev Title: | Too Many Beautiful Girls |
| Prev Year: | 1961 |
| Next Title: | What More Can I Say |
| Next Year: | 1962 |
"Fanlight Fanny" is a song written in 1935 by George Formby, Harry Gifford and Fred E. Cliffe, and recorded by Formby in May that year.[4] Another notable version was released in 1962 by Clinton Ford.
The original recording by George Formby was released on Decca Records (F5569) on 29 May 1935.[5] The song also appeared in Formby's 1939 film Trouble Brewing,[6] in which it bore an additional verse. It tells the tale of a tawdry, West End-based woman of a certain age, full with alcohol and shoplifted goods, trying to earn a living in a Soho night spot, where she is "Fanlight Fanny the frowsey night-club queen".[7]
The version recorded by Clinton Ford in 1962 had accompaniment by the 'George Chisholm All Stars'.[8] It also, with permission, had added new words written by Ford.[9] "Fanlight Fanny" was Ford's third UK chart hit and his most successful single, reaching 22 in the UK Singles Chart in March 1962. It spent ten weeks in that chart.[10] [11] His album Clinton Ford, also known as Clinton Ford Sings Fanlight Fanny (1962), peaked at number 16 in the UK Albums Chart.[10] [12]
Ford later recorded the Wally Lindsay-penned "Fanlight Fanny’s Daughter" (1963),[1] a track also released as a single, albeit with less success.[13] In 1968, on Ford's album Clinton The Clown (re-released in 1970 on Marble Arch Records), the song's character reappeared as "Fan-Dance Fanny", a renaming and re-recording which had a small change in lyrical content.[14] With the passage of six years, Fanny wore "dustbin lids on her chest" rather than her earlier "saucepan lids".[13]
Formby's original version was used on the soundtrack to the 2008 horror film Chemical Wedding.[15]