Other Days

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 437, 7 November 1947, Page 18

Other Days

TATION 2ZB’s Dusty Labels session fits in well with that mood of gentle nostalgia characteristic of Sunday evenings, when we surrender oufselves gladly to the tunes we used to dance to and the songs they used to sing at us in the days when the thing that looked like a trumpet blew far fewer soul-animating strains than now.,. But last Sunday’s session went even further back-to the days of the First Great: War,: thus achieving an antiquarian value without losing its sentimental appeal. Songs such as "When Father Jointed the Territorials’" and "Kaiser Bill is a Merry Old Soul" have tarnished with time, since, like the last war’s "We'll Hang Out Our Washing on the Siegfried Line" they are too closely linked to date and mood to have any universality. But the greater number of the songs were concerned with the simple valid emotions of the longing for peace, homecomings, and reunionssongs such as "Till "the Boys Come Home" and "When the Bells of Peace

are Ringing." Perhaps, therefore, considered purely as entertainment, this session of Dusty Labels was not up to the standard of its predecessors, since it was bound to remind listeners that right sentiments are no guarantee of desired results.