GERMAN SUBJECT

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 137, 18 March 1940, Page 7

GERMAN SUBJECT

"BEER BARREL POLKA" AUTHOR ROYALTIES AWAIT CZECH One of the luckiest men in the WO rkl—yon might think—would be the composer of the Iso. 1 song-hit of the war—"Beer Barrel Pollui." This is the tunc that the Canadians and the Australians sang as tlicy marched ashore in England, the tunc has gone one better than J. ipperary" by becoming the out-and-out favourite, not only with British troops but with "Jerry" as well. Sincc it was introduced into Lngland from America in .June it has sold l,i)00,000 gramophone records and nearly 1,000,000 copies of sheet music. And the irony of it all is that the young man who composed the tune —really three different tunes in one, all fascinating—will not get any ol the British royalties until the Avar is over. For lie is now a German. When he wrote the music in 1934 he was a Czech, and the song was a heart-throbbing ballad called 'Skoda Lasky' ("Pity of Love"). It was when the tune reached Amcrica that two fresh hands got to work on it, pepped it up into a quick foxtrot. Walclmir A. Timm invented its new title,, and Lew Brown replaced the old lyric about love with a new one about beer —"Roll out the Barrel . . . ." Both, unlike poor Vejvoda, are drawing huge royalties. And the English publishers say that the song has caught on in all parts of the world. "The composer will get his enormous royalties after tiie war,, for they were being paid into the funds of an international publishing rights organisation and kept for him —or at least for the original Czech jjublisher—a Mrs Hoffman."'