Songs The Soldiers Sang

New Zealand Listener, Volume 10, Issue 240, 28 January 1944, Page 8

Songs The Soldiers Sang

HE songs New Zealand soldiers, sailors, and airmen have heard and sung in this war, are being collected now for Army Archives, as part of the work of the Inter-Services War History Committee. The man whose job it is to obtain these songs, authenticate them, and file them away for future reference is Flight-Sergeant T. J. Kirk-Burnnand, formerly connected with the NBS and the R.N.Z.A.F. Band, in New Zealand, and with the entertainment unit that eventually became the Kiwi Concert Party in the Middle East. The Listener interviewed him the other day and saw some of his collection of manuscript paper, ragged sheets bearing words or music or sometimes both, and his copy of the Fascist Song Faccetta Nera, written, for the Abyssinian Campaign, which he found in a Cairo music store. So far, he told us, the collection contains 102 songs, all except 30 or so being the work of New Zealanders. The Second N.Z.E.F, has produced the verses, and sometimes the music too, for about 50 songs that its men remember and associate with certain occasions or certain units, and the men of the R.N.Z,A.F. have among them produced about 20 songs of their own, all of which are being written down and preserved. The object of the collection is not merely to gather up the songs or verses-to-fit-tunes that New Zealanders have made for themselves, but to include all the songs that are associated with the war in the minds of men who went overseas. Thus the Italian Canzone dei Legionari, "Faccetta Nera," comes within its scope, because it became know at first as a "Free French" song sung in a cafe in Malika Farida, a street in Cairo. Flight-Sergeant Kirk-Burnnand told us that he found an Italian version of the same tune in the Papasian Music Store in Cairo, and realised that the "Free French" song was in fact a song addressed by Italians to the Abyssinians. A Song from Greece Then there was the song that some New Zealanders first heard sung by some Greek children playing among the pines at Hymettus, near Athens, to the tune of the "Woodpecker Song" (originally Italian):

You are mad, Mussolini, and so are all your people: You and your Italy tremble at all the khaki, The Rain will come into your tents, The Greeks will advance to meet you. . .».. and once again the blue and white banner of Greece ‘ Will tly over Rome. On a very ragged piece of paper, but one that is much prized by its owner, is the Polish Infantry Brigade Song by Hemar, called "Karpack Brygada." It was first broadcast from the studios of the Egyptian State Broadcasting station in Cairo during a concert that is one of Flight-Sergeant Kirk-Burnnand’s pleasantest memories, ‘The New Zealanders were there with a small party of Maoris and the tenor Tiny Rex, The

English were represented by one of the BBC’s leading baritones, and there was a Russian tenor too. A Polish bassbaritone who had formerly been on the operatic stage in Milan sang the song, "Karpack Brygada," with trumpeters from a Polish Band adding effects and a famous. piano-accordion virtuoso named Giannini. Sayeeda Bint Sayeeda Bint is one song that every New Zealander in the Middle East (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) knows, he told us, Some members of the Maori Battalion were at a Casino one night, and were displeased with a film that was being shown, so they began singing Sayeeda Bint for their own amusement. The rest of the audience preferred it to the film too, and soon the Maoris found themselves required to get up on the stage and entertain the others. Sayeeda Bint means, roughly, "Hello Girl": Sayeeda Bint, I like your manner: To be with you would be my one desire When you are dancing in your yashmak With your nails all tinted henna. To the other Bints I'll say Anna muskeen me fees falloos. Apart from these songs that have found their way into the common currency, the collection will also include the various unit songs. "Every battalion has its own individual musical associations and some of their own songs are pretty good." Pakeha And Maori A song about the 25th Battalion was written (with words and music by Captain G. Colledge, who was later to take charge of the entertainment unit, and Major Coppard of Auckland provided one for the 24th Battalion. The Maori Battalion, as might be expected, produced the greatest number, and the story of all its adventures between Syria and Tunisia has been told in song by Sergeant H. Grant, M.M. Each company of the Maori Battalion had its own song, and B Company sang (to a wellknown tune) verses on the theme Live and Love another day For to-morrow we may be gone. Probably one of the earliest original songs written for New Zealand soldiers was Terry Vaughan’s "We're AntiTanks": No jinks or pranks, we’ve gunners in our ranks Who will strafe you from the flanks and from the fore. Beware! The N.Z.A. will carve you up and ask for more, For we are Anti, very Anti-Tanks. These words were written by J. Fullerton, and the song was sung by members of the New Zealand Anti-Tank Brigade that was formed in London soon after the war began. Most of the songs already collected are light and humorous, said FlightSergeant Kirk-Burnnand. He produced one of his own favourites, a song sung by the Engineers with the chorus: In Matruh, in Matruh In my fleabound bugbound dugout in Matruh I can hear those Iti bombers as they circle round at night In my fleabound bugbound dugout in Matruh. ~ Not all the music made by New Zealanders overseas has been in the form of songs. One man in the Middle East was writing an oboe quintet, of which Archives. hope to secure a copy, and there are various piano compositions of a more serious nature than the popular songs, and some of these have been broadcast in Cairo. Buglers have also devised their own calls, and Flight-Ser-geant Kirk-Burnnand has not forgotten the trumpeter who proceeded to "swing" the Reveille, bright and nearly in the morning. "The O.C. went out to give him hell," he said, "but the chap made such a good job of it he let him go on. The fellows used to look forward to it after that."