Musical Munitions

A songwriter cannot make as much money out of a war as a munitions manufacturer. But if he hits the jackpot, he can do pretty well. (Songwriter George M. Cohan's Over There sold 2,000,000 copies during World War I.) Soldiers are choosy about their songs. By last week British tunesmiths had turned out a tremendous stack of war songs, were waiting to see which ones would click. Most of these musical munitions were rousing, morale-boosting ditties (The Handsome Territorial, The Girl Who Loves a Soldier, We Must All Stick Together, Here We Go Again, etc.) hip-hip-hooraying the soldier's life. Others (Adolf, You've Bitten Off More Than You Can Chew, by Annette Mills, writer of Boomps-a-Daisy, and The Man Who Looks Like Charlie Chaplin) poked ridicule at the enemy. Two songs with different tunes and publishers but similar words (I'm Sending You the Siegfried Line To Hang Your Washing On and We're Gonna Hang Out the Washing on the Siegfried Line) were already the centre of a furious copyright brawl.

But while Britain's tunesmiths tightened up their tom-toms, Britain's soldiers bull-doggishly continued to croon such old sweet favorites as Roses of Picardy, Pack Up Your Troubles In Your Old Kit Bag and There's A Long, Long Trail, dusted off such hardtack tidbits as:

If the Sergeant drinks your rum, never mind,

If the Sergeant drinks your rum, never mind.

He's entitled to his tot,

But he's drunk he bloody lot.

If the Sergeant drinks your rum, never mind.

I want to go home,

I want to go home.

I don't want to go to the front any more,

Where the bullets they sing and the

whizz-bangs they roar.

Take me over the sea,

Where the Allemande can't get at me.

Oh! my! I don't want to die--

I want to go home.

Up to last week the contemporary song hits most widely sung by British troops were far from martial. Besides Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho (TIME, Sept. 25) they were: 1) the Beer Barrel Polka; 2) Little Sir Echo, current U. S. hit, a favorite song of U. S. Campfire Girls; 3) South of the Border, with its nostalgic refrain:

She was a picture in old Spanish lace;

Just for a tender while I kissed the

smile upon her face,

For it was "Fiesta" and we were so gay,

South of the border down Mexico Way.

So soft, indeed, were the tones of the British Army's crooning that they caused audible snorts in the letters-to-the-editor columns of Britain's press. These by-Gad-sirs huffed that U. S. jazz and crooners had sapped the grand traditions of martial music. Said they: "The whole difference [between 1914 and now] is that then we called men 'lads' and now we call lads 'men.' . . . Little Sir Echo is in waltz time, and no army ever waltzed its way to victory."

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