SONGS OF THIS WAR

New Zealand Listener, Volume 8, Issue 185, 8 January 1943, Page 10

SONGS OF THIS WAR

None As Popular As Last Time

and music), will be interested in some remarks made recently in London by Leslie Boosey, the well known music publisher. We quote from the "Piano Maker, Music Seller, and Radio Retailer,’ by the courtesy of Charles Begg and Co., Wellington. "Speaking at the annual luncheon of the Performing Rights Society, the chairman, Leslie Boosey, said that the country needed people to write its popular tunes as well as to build its aeroplanes and tanks. So far, no one song had caught the popular imagination as did "Tipperary" or "Keep the Home Fires Burning," in the last war. To-day the most popular song was "I’ll Walk Beside You," but, curiously enough, there were three older songs which were now enjoying very great popularity. The first was Adams’ "Holy City," published nearly 60 years ago; the next, Parry’s "Jerusalem," which was nearly as old; and the third, "Bless This House," published about 16 years ago. "There is, I believe, a direct connection between their popularity and the war," said Mr. Boosey. "In the first two cases, they express an ideal which lies deép in the minds of the vast majority of the people, and the third is an unconscious prayer in this time of danger. So I give this hint to composers, authors, and my brother-publishers to-day-this war is a war of the mind and the spirit, which the last war never was. It is a clash between two different ways of thought; one might say between good and evil. For that reason, ‘the sentiments of the people do not find their expression in the things of everyday life as they did in the last war. "If there is really to be a popular song which will give an outlet to the people’s feelings in this war, it will have to have three attributes: "(1) It must be completely sincere; (2) it must be utterly without bombast and vain-glory; and (3) it must express in a way which does not make the man in the street feel self-conscious the hopes and ideals which we have in us to-day." ; Music in Factories Speaking of the use of music as an aid to production in factories, Mr. Boosey said its value was recognised by all who had investigated the question, though CC of war songs (words

there still were people who questioned the right of the composer to be paid for his work. Happily, the society could maintain with complete confidence that it was entitled by law to collect fees for the use of music in factories, and in this it was supported by legal judgments of outstanding importance, For the labourer was worthy of his hire, whether he were a composer or a munitions worker, And whatever the legal position might prove to be, and they were prepared to test their contentions in the Courts, the moral claim of the composer was incontestible. And what did industry have to pay for the right to use copyright music in factories? Actually, it worked out at one penny a year per employee for an hour’s music a day.