Hedli Anderson Hedli Anderson Antoinette Millicent Hedley Anderson (1907–1990) was an English singer and actor. Known as Hedli Anderson, she studied singing in England and Germany before returning to London in 1934. Anderson joined the Group Theatre, and performed in cabaret and in the initial productions of plays by W. H. Auden, Christopher Isherwood and Louis MacNeice. She married MacNeice in 1942; the couple had one daughter. They separated in 1960. Among the composers and lyricists who wrote songs for her were Auden, MacNeice, Benjamin Britten, Elisabeth Lutyens and William Alwyn. Auden's "Funeral Blues" (also known as "Stop all the clocks", later
Funeral Blues Christopher Isherwood. The 1938 version was written to be sung by the soprano Hedli Anderson in a setting by Benjamin Britten. This version was first published in the anthology "The Year's Poetry, 1938", compiled by Denys Kilham Roberts and Geoffrey Grigson (London, 1938). Auden then included it in his book "Another Time" (New York, 1940) as one of four poems headed "Four Cabaret Songs for Miss Hedli Anderson"; the poem itself was titled "Funeral Blues" in this edition. (Auden never gave the poem any other title.) The text in the British edition of "Another Time" has a misprint, showing "woods"