Trust is hard to come by. Honesty is in short supply. Trump is back on Twitter… This song is about secrets, lies, and spies…
-Damian Lewis at The Tabernacle London, London Jazz Festival, November 2022
The feedback has been fantastic since we launched Damian Lewis’s Song of the Week series back in July. It seems that the fandom has really been enjoying the deep dives into the personal stories behind Damian’s songs. So, a BIG thank you for reading! If you missed the previous posts, you can catch up with them here.
Today, we spotlight “Never Judge A Man By His Umbrella,” a spy-themed song that Damian wrote for his debut album, Mission Creep.
ENJOY!
As someone who follows Damian very closely, I recognized immediately what the song was about when he mentioned at his first-ever gig at Omeara London that “Never Judge A Man By His Umbrella” was about spies. At the time, his upcoming mini-series A Spy Among Friends was in post-production. Having already read the book on which the series is based, I knew the main characters—Kim Philby and Nicholas Elliott—and that Never Judge A Man By His Umbrella was the memoir written by Damian’s character, Nicholas Elliott. Damian briefly touched on the series and shared a fun detail: Nick Murphy, the series’ director and a friend of Damian’s who is also a fellow Liverpool fan, was in the room with us!
During his UK tour, following the acclaim received by A Spy Among Friends on ITVX, Damian began sharing more details about the story behind his song. Cambridge was the final stop on his tour, and it was particularly amusing when he asked the crowd if they’d ever heard of Kim Philby, given that he was a member of the infamous Cambridge Five spy ring! Philby betrayed his country, his family, and his lifelong friend Nicholas Elliott, whom Damian portrayed in the mini-series.
After being excommunicated, Philby moved to Moscow and destroyed his liver with vodka. In a final attempt to reconcile, he invited Elliott to meet in Berlin. Although colleagues warned Elliott that Philby was very clever and might manipulate him, Elliott, like a jilted lover, decided to go for one last conversation. Waiting for Philby at the bar where they were supposed to meet, Elliott hesitated and ultimately left, leaving behind an umbrella—a gift Philby had given him years earlier, inscribed with the letters “KP” and “NE.”
Later, Elliott wrote a memoir titled Never Judge A Man By His Umbrella, which Damian adopted as the title of his song. But when you listen to the lyrics, it becomes clear that the song is about Kim Philby—Nicholas Elliott’s best friend—an infinitely charming, stylish, very British gentleman whom his family, friends, and colleagues at MI6 absolutely adored. Yet, he ultimately revealed himself to be one of the most infamous spies in history.
“His manners were exceptional: he was always the first to offer you a drink, to ask after your sick mother and remember your children’s names.” (A Spy Among Friends, p. 19)
And the song initially presents the man as the perfect husband, the ideal colleague, and a trustworthy friend…
He wears a suit and nice tie
Takes breakfast with his nice wife
Puts a hat on to go to work
Says goodbye to the poochie first
Turns around and blows a kiss
Says he loves her, and he’ll be home by sixHis people bring him coffees
They love him in the office
He’s the water cooler number one
A man a-wit, a man a-charm
His secretary’s in love with him
She dreams all night of making love to himHe’ll buy you a drink, and he’ll buy ’em all ni-ight
He don’t spill a drop when he falls off his stool
He’ll jump on a planе and he’ll head for the fi-ight
You’ll lovе him, you’ll miss him, you’ll feel like a fool
Never judge a man by his umbrella
Kim Philby’s charisma made everyone adore him, his friends and colleagues want to be like him, or they actually wanted to be him. Philby effortlessly made worshippers out of people. It is quite something, in my opinion, that Nick Elliot bought the exact same umbrella that Philby carried and James Angleton, who later became the head of the counterintelligence in the CIA, bought the exact same homburg hat that Philby wore!
Going back to the friendship between Elliott and Philby: Even when they did not overlap in their stations, the two of them were always in touch and shared secret information with each other. And it seems that since they could not talk to anyone, even to their wives, about the secrets they carry, these spies had a very intimate social circle where they watched cricket, shared a lot of secrets and a lot of drinks. They all had the same cricket-watching, marmalade-eating, Times of London-reading upper class background which the song beautifully captures as follows…
He goes to the cricket
His knowledge is prolific
Marmalade to start his day
The Times of London and he’s on his way
He’s down the stairs, he’s underground
And then he’s gone, he’s a-nowhere to be found
Ha! How come this perfect family man, perfect colleague, and perfect friend a-nowhere to be found?!?! But he kissed his wife and told her that he’d be home by six??!?
Well, it all started with two MI6 officers, Donald MacLean and Guy Burgess (who lived in Philby’s basement in DC for a while!) defecting to Moscow in 1951, Philby’s close relationship with them put a target on his back. But Nick Elliott, who believed Kim Philby could do no wrong, was determined to help him in every way he could.
“Within MI6, Elliott swiftly emerged as Philby’s most doughty champion, defending him against all accusers and loudly declaring his innocence. Philby was his friend, his mentor, his ally, and in the world inhabited by Nicholas Elliott, that meant he simply could not be a Soviet spy. This was a friendship Elliott prized above all others; he saw MI5’s accusations not just as a test of that bond but as an assault on the very values of the secret club they had joined in the heat of war. Elliott was standing up for an innocent man “guilty only of an unwise friendship” ; and in his own mind, he was also defending his tribe, his culture, and his class.” (A Spy Among Friends, p.167)
So it was all about Nicholas Elliott, an upper-class MI6 agent, who finds it impossible to believe that a fellow member of his “tribe”—his best friend—could actually be a traitor. For Elliott, Philby was just a victim of an “unwise friendship” with McLean and Burgess. The song goes on to brilliantly depict Elliott’s poor judgement about Philby.
He’s got a friend called Arnold
Who gets ‘im into trouble
They whisper, “he’s a Russian spy”
One of us? Don’t make me smile!
He’s a man a-charm, a man a-wit
And he said he loved her and he’d be home by six
Our own Gingersnap cites Never Judge A Man By His Umbrella one of her most favorite songs on Mission Creep. In her words:
“Damian’s campy pitch change on the word ‘six’ when he sings “says he loves her and he’ll be home by six” is everything!”
When the evidence ultimately came about about Philby being a Soviet spy, Nick Elliott, now utterly enraged and humiliated by his friend’s treachery, demanded to go and confront Philby himself…
…and though Philby confessed to Elliott, he delayed signing a confession and fled to Moscow, and was granted Soviet citizenship. Elliott should have been infinitely disappointed to discover that he was the one who had an “unwise friendship.”
And the song finally reveals who that charming, stylish, adorable gentleman really is…
He’ll give you a kiss but look over your shoulder
He’ll hand you a pillow while hiding a knife
He’ll love that your friendship is thirty years old
He’ll kiss all your children
But he’ll be kissing your wife
Never judge a man by his umbrella
I said never judge a man by his umbrella
During a guest appearance on BBC Radio WM, host Dax Hale told Damian that Never Judge a Man by His Umbrella has gotta be the song title of the year, and we concur! And here is Damian performing the song at Hoxton Hall in March 2023.
“She knew that he was perhaps going to do this show. She had said to him, ‘Oh I know Guy, I worked with Guy years ago’. And then sadly Helen, as we know, passed away before we started the show. I was really surprised Damian was going to continue on and do it, but he did. And he said to me,’Well, no, Helen said to me ‘you better f***ing do the show”.
“So there was something in a way, I think – he may not agree with this at all, but from my point of view – I felt like I was bonded with him a little bit because of having worked with Helen all those years ago. And I loved her, I thought she was wonderful, and a great actress, and she was a great spirit to be around. So it was easy for us to kind of feel like we were old mates.”
If you have not seen the critically acclaimed A Spy Among Friends yet, it is now available for streaming on MGM+ Amazon Channel, Britbox Apple TV Channel , MGM Plus Roku Premium Channel, MGM+, Philo, BritBox, and BritBox Amazon Channel. And my detailed episode recaps are here.
