WHEN SOLDIERS SING

New Zealand Listener, Volume 6, Issue 134, 16 January 1942, Page 5

WHEN SOLDIERS SING

Their Songs Are About Almost Anything But War And Glory

i ll AVE you ever wondered what the song of this war is going to be-the song that will be heard with the war films in ten years’ time or whenever it is? Once we fondly hoped it might be "We'll Hang Out Our Washing on the Siegfried Line," but that now seems to belong to another era and another. war. At the moment "Roll Out the Barrel" or " The Quartermaster’s Store," has as good a chance as any other popular ditty of becoming the favourite song of this war. \ It goes without saying that popular war songs vary from country to country. The French prefer to sing about their sweethearts, As they rode to war in the reign of Louis XIV their hearts apparently were happy and they sang: " Within my loved one’s garden The laurels are in bloom, in bloom.’ Last war the French sang " Madelon," while the Tommies preferred " Mademoiselle from Armentieres." The Germans, who could be wistfully sentimental before they became Nazis, liked to sing about not coming back. This was a song popular with the soldiers who fought under Frederick the Great: " Morning red, morning red, Very soon shall I be dead. Soon I'll hear the trumpet sound That I shall be underground I and many comrades too." When the Prussians fought Napoleon they lamented: "T had a faithful comrade, a better You could not find." The good comrade gets killed of course, and then: " My hand I cannot give you, But as long as I live, you Will be my g00d comrade." They used to sing it, even quite recently, at the funeral of German soldiers. The American Taste What about the Americans? Well, what they delight in are songs about their_ homes. The Confederate anthem in the American Civil War, "I Wish I Were in Dixie" had nothing whatever to do with the war, it was written by a Northerner for a Nigger Minstrel Show, but it was at least about a home in Dixieland. When the Americans do sing about their cause, we can see the Puritan strain coming out — the same strain that made Cromwell’s Ironsides chant "Let God Arise and Let His Enemies be Scattered." The Northerners sang "John Brown’s body Lies a mould’ring in the Grave. His soul goes marching on." They sang "Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching," and "Shouting out the battle

cry of Freedom." In their more human moments they might descend to: " Good-bye, little girl, good-bye, Don't cry, little girl, don’t cry. In my uniform so blue, I'll come marching back to you. Don’t cry, little girl, don’t cry." Incurable Optimists The British soldier, when he sings about war at all, and generally he does not, chooses something that expresses his philosophy that "war is a beastly business, but we’ve got to make the best of it, and ef course we’re sure to win." When Elizabeth was Queen and Philip of Spain sent his Armada to sea, the English soldier-sailors sang: "Sing with my mouth. Sing with my heart Loth to depart. Loth to depart. Though friends together can’t remain Yet loth to depart, sing once again." Which is exactly the gist of what they sang in 1914, "We don’t want to lose you, but we think you ought to go," and in 1940 "Your King and Country. want you. " The British soldier is an incurable optimist. He is always looking on the bright side and every cloud has a silver lining. He likes to pack up his troubles in his old kit-bag or hang his washing on the Siegfried Line. In the Crimean War there seems to have been a lot of cheering, perhaps because there was so little to cheer about. "Cheer boys, cheer, that all the world may hear, For our soldier and our sailor lads afar. May God his mercy ,send them And heaven itself defend them And send them back in triumph from the war." There are no illusions about glory in the British soldiers’ choice of song. On the contrary, this might have been heard in 1900: "When you’ve shouted Rule Britannia, When ‘you've sung God Save the Queen, When you've finished killing Kruger with your mouth, Will you kindly drop a shilling in my little tambourine For the gentleman in khaki ordered South." And in the days of good Queen Bess we might have met: " Here we be, soldiers three, Lately come from the low countrie | With never a penny of money."

Sentiment And Ridicule With all his optimism and his lack of illusions it is not surprising that the British Tommy has also his sentimental moments. We find him reflecting that: ' "There's a long long night of waiting Until my dreams all come true,

Till the day that I’m returning Down that long, long trail with you." We have also heard him farewelling Leicester Square and reminding Tipperary where his heart may still be found, 6 Then there is the ridiculous side, never quite forgotten by the British soldier, seldom observed by any other, In 1804, while Napoleon was preparing invasion at Boulogne, the King’s men sang this popular ditty: "We be the King’s men, hale and hearty, Marching to meet one Buonaparty, If he be seasick, says No, No! We shall have marched for noth-ing-O." One hundred and ten years later the words were: "We are Fred Karno’s army No earthly use are we. . , And when we get to Berlin the ; Kaiser he will cry, Mein Gott, Mein Gott, what a terrible lot to send to Germany, The British marched out of Yorktown in 1782, after surrendering to George Washington, singing:

" Provision now is grown so dear In every country town; A man can scarcely get his bread, The world’s all upside down." On The Women’s Side One mustn’t forget the woman’s aspect of the question: "O where and O where is my Highland laddie gone, He’s gone to fight the French for King George upon the throne, And it’s oh in my heart that I wish him safe at home." That was in the Seven Years’ War and a woman’s feelings have not altered much since then. It is fairly safe to venture a prediction that this war’s most popular song will not be about Adolf, the ridiculous, or Dunkirk the glorious, that it "will not be "Wings Over the Navy" or " The King is Still in London." It is the nature of all soldiers always to try to get away from war-even if only in thought-and that’s why "Roll Out the Barrel" and " Kiss Me Good-night, Sergeant-Major" will remain more popular with the fighting man than "We Shall Prevail."