Songs the Soldiers Used to Sing

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 874, 18 January 1930, Page 18

Songs the Soldiers Used to Sing

The History of “Mademoiselle from Armentieres” . . . Tunes that Banished Melancholy T is ust as essential it has been said, ' ' •' ■ 1 ? that a soldier know how to ns that he should . carry rifles and know how to shoot them. Never was the truth of this statement so fully realised by our military authorities or so thoroughly demonstrated by our soldiers, as during the World "War (writes Mr. E. A. Dolphl. Hundreds of song leaders were scattered throughout the camps and thousands of young voices joined nightly in singing time honoured favourites. These songs and the countless parodies and ballads that sprang up out of the soldier's own experiences lessened his hardships and lightened his load when pack-straps cut cruelly into tired muscles and rifles grew' heavier with every step. Foremost and unforgettable among the genuine soldier compositions, of course, is the ballad of the famous “Mademoiselle From Armentieres” (pronounced by the soldiers gis Armenteers). It was the folk-song of two armies—a song whose authors were as numerous as its singers. Few knew' the facts of its origin or realised that its central figure was other than a creature of soldier fancy. In the beginning she was simply a mademoiselle from Armentieres, a sort of Madelon, who spent her days in a laundry and her evenings in the Chat Noir Cafd. And there, in the summer and autumn of 1915, British soldiers of the 50th Nurthumbrian Division met her and sang her praises in a British Army ballad of more than 40 stanzas that had been used by Kitchener’s men in the Sudan in 18S3. The song was popularised by the divisional show troop and soon spread throughout the British Expeditionary Force. Long before the w'av ended, however, the mademoiselle hailed from many a town in France and the ballad that Tommy had made for her had been adopted and greatly changed and lengthened. It had become a vehicle for comment not only on the mademoiselle herself, hut also on everything else, from the activities of the Y.M.C.A. to the courage of the commanding generals. Although many soldier songs of the World War originated with the infantryman—-after all, “there is something very provocative of song in the rhythm of marching feet” —it is in the songs of aviators that one finds most vividly revealed the reckless courage and devil-may-care spirit of those who made and sang them. Turn time back 11 years. The scene is the officers’ messroom of an aviation field a few miles behind the lines in France. The windows are carefully blanketed to prevent stray beams of light from reaching the eyes

of prowling German bombers, and the air is blue with tobacco-smoke and perfumed with the odour of wine. A pink-cheeked lad who, two short hours before in a sunset patrol, had bagged his third Fokker after having his fuselage riddled with bullets, accedes to the insistent clamour for a song. Tossing off the contents of his glass, he picks up a nearby guitar, strikes a few introductory chords, and begins to sing an Air Force variant of “Wrap Me Up in My Tarpaulin Jacket”: Oh, a handsome young airman lay dying, And as on the airdrome he lay, To mechanics who ’round him came sighing These last parting words he did say: “Take the cylinders out of my mid-riff, The connecting rod out of my brain: Take the cam-shaft from under my backbone And assemble the engine again.” Another song which had many aviation stanzas, but which was widely sung by infantrymen and artillerymen as well, was “I Want To Go Home.” The original version is credited to Lieutenant Gitz Rice of the Canadians. An amusing ditty, as devoid of romance and high sentiment as is modern warfare itself, the song nevertheless served on one occasion to bolster the courage and quiet the nerves of a battery of artillery that was under fire for the first time. Some of the gunners, rather nervous and shaken, were inclined to seek shelter and leave their guns. Suddenly they heard singing and upon looking around saw their big lieutenant, who had been a star football man, walking up and down in the open and singing this song in a high, quavering voice:— I want to go home! I want to go home! The whizz-bangs they whistle , the cannons they roar; 1 don’t, want to stay here any more! Oh, take me over the sea 'Where the' Germans can’t get at me — Oh, my! I’m too young to die! I want to go li-o-ni-e I This ridiculous performance of their

officer came at just the psychological moment. Taut nerves found needed relief. Men broke into peals of laughter and the battery’s moral w., saved. As a rule the genuine soldier's compositious voiced the singer’s pride in his regiment or branch of service or dealt amusingly with food and shelter, the enemy and the daily ex. perieuces in barracks and bivocac" But, on occasions, his officers did not escape being the subject of his song Iu its unrefined state “I’ll Tell Yon Where They Were”—a song that like some of the others, came from the British —was pretty hard on the “higher-ups.” It afforded great emotional relief to the buck privates, however, for in its widely sung stanzas they frequently said the things about their superiors that they could not say to them, r In this way the song relates that the colonels were “way behind the lines,” the majors were "flirting with the mademoiselles,” the captains were “down in the deep dug-out,” and tha sergeants were “drinking up the privates’ rum,” while the poor privates themselves were "up to their necka in mud!” The following parody on "SUrer Threads Among the Gold,” entitled, "Darling, I Am Coming Back,” wae eloquently expressive of the soldisr’i feeling at the prolongation of war:— Darling, I am coming back. Silver threads among the black; How that peace in Europe near*. I'll be homo in seven years, m pop in on you some night With my whiskers long and white; Home again with you once more. Say by ninetecn-ticcnty-four. * * * War is hell, but peace is worse; When the real war comes — oh, well, I'll rush in, I will—like hell!