SONGS THAT SOLD THE WAR

So I brought in our producer, Nina Earnest, to share some of those World War I-era songs.

NINA EARNEST: Well, hi, guys.

JOANNE: Hi!

ED: You going to walk us through or march us through those songs.

NINA EARNEST: Hmm. Marching may be more appropriate, but not at first.

So I talked to a music professor named Kristean Griffith, and she has studied the songs of World War I. And she told me that you can chart the popularity of the war through popular music at the time. Between 1914 and ’15, you can see some really strongly anti-war positions in the sheet music of the time.

Now, the thing to note about music from the 19-teens is that there wasn’t a ton of recording happening, so where you would actually see a hit song would be in sheet music sales. And of course, that makes sense, because people were playing music in the home rather than necessarily listening on a photograph.

If a song sold a lot of sheet music, it was probably more likely to be recorded. So between 1914 and 1915, you see a lot of songs that are reflecting a pacifist moment, including “I Didn’t Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier.”

[MUSIC – “I DIDN’T RAISE MY BOY TO BE A SOLDIER”]

I didn’t raise my boy to be a soldier. I brought him to be my pride and joy. Who dares to place a musket on his shoulder, to shoot some other mother’s darling boy?

NINA EARNEST: So this song was considered to be a smash hit. It sold over 700,000 copies within eight weeks.

BRIAN: Wow. I didn’t know we had that many pianos in the country.

NINA EARNEST: There were a lot of pianos.

BRIAN: There were a lot, obviously.

NINA EARNEST: A lot of music to be played.

But the thing is, if that song was this popular in 1915, then that shows you how popular the anti-war message was. People did not want to get involved with that European conflict with the archdukes and the emperors and whatever else. They wanted their sons to be home safe.

And it’s very important that this is a mother saying, do not send my child to war. They say, “do not dare to put a musket on his shoulder.”

ED: Yeah. “I raised him to be my–”

NINA EARNEST: Pride and joy.

ED: Pride and joy.

BRIAN: What’s so striking is, it’s important to remember that those mothers couldn’t vote in national elections.

ED: Well, that seems so powerful, so deeply rooted in mother love, you wonder how that could change. Well, what happened, Nina?

NINA EARNEST: What happens is, we go to war?

BRIAN: And is it fair to say the music industry was perhaps a little worried about not getting with the program?

JOANNE: Wouldn’t it be more accurate to say they were eager to get with the program?

NINA EARNEST: Yeah, I think it’s more that they were eager to get with the program. They knew where American public opinion was going, and they wanted to reflect that in their music and in their songs.

So here’s an example called “America, Here’s My Boy,” from 1917.

[MUSIC – “AMERICA, HERE’S MY BOY”]

America, I raised a boy for you. America, you’ll find him staunch and true.

JOANNE: Well, obviously, that’s bringing to life in a real powerful emotional way this turnaround that we’re talking about.

NINA EARNEST: And Griffith has an interesting take on this.

KRISTEAN GRIFFITH: You’ll hear the lyric say, “place a gun upon his shoulder,” which is the same position of the lyric in the 1915 song– “who dares to place a musket on his shoulder.”

So that line, in that exact position of the chorus– the third line of the chorus– is a direct rebuttal of that anti-war position.

NINA EARNEST: “I Didn’t Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier” was so popular– and obviously the anti-war message was so popular– that the sheet music industry, the recording industry, scrambled to hide that fact, or to kind of leave it aside that this had been their content that had been so popular.

So instead, you see different titles emerging that are a riff on “I Didn’t Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier,” but just tweaked a little bit.

JOANNE: Give us some examples.

NINA EARNEST: “I’d Be Proud to Be the Mother of a Soldier.” “It’s Time for Every Boy to Be a Soldier.” And “What if George Washington’s Mother Had Said, I Didn’t Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier.”

And my favorite, “I Didn’t Raise My Dog to Be a Sausage.” If that’s a German comment, I’m not sure. I couldn’t find the conformation on that, but I suspect.

BRIAN: I’m guessing it is.

JOANNE: I suspect.

I really also want to touch again on something, Brian, that you said a little while back, because– “mother, mother, mother, mother, mother,” and they can’t vote.

ED: It’s so disturbing, the language going from “I didn’t raise my son to be a soldier” till “here, take my son.”

JOANNE: “Here’s my boy.”

NINA EARNEST: The other song that– I think most people still know this song from World War I– is called over there, with the famous line “the Yanks are coming, the Yanks are coming.” And I think this really highlights that this was a moment of America turning a leaf, from an isolationist country to one that is actively involved in the world.

[MUSIC – “OVER THERE”]

Over there, over there, send the word, send the word to over there, that the boys are coming, the boys are coming, the drums rum-tumming everywhere.

JOANNE: This, particularly “Over There”– I know that that’s maybe, in a sense, the most famous song that we’re listening to– but my grandfather used to sing these songs.

BRIAN: Really?

JOANNE: He was born in America, but he was about 13, 12, 13, 14, when these songs were big. And I was so surprised when these songs started playing.

It actually kind of made me tear up, because it was such a throwback, suddenly, to my grandfather. He’s been dead maybe 30 years at this point. But that was such a big part of him.

And that drove home for me, you know, about music. And that is, of course, music touches you on a level that engages you and pulls you in. And in a war effort, that’s vitally important for the populace.

But wow, my grandfather– it grabbed him, and so powerfully that I still felt it in the 1970s.

BRIAN: It lasted multiple generations, just as America’s entry into the war did in some ways.

NINA EARNEST: So that’s really interesting. And then, of course, what we have as the war ends in November of 1918, and America is part of the winning side, but then you hear different kinds of music coming out. I think a lot of post-war anxieties start to pop. One that is key, even though it, again, is a very jaunty tune, is, “How Ya Gonna Keep ’em Down on the Farm?”

[MUSIC – “HOW YA GONNA KEEP ‘EM DOWN ON THE FARM”]

How ya gonna keep ’em down on the farm, after they’ve seen Par-ee? How ya gonna keep ’em away from Broadway, jazzing around and painting the town?

NINA EARNEST: They’re saying, what are they going to do? These guys have gone off to exciting places. They’ve been to “Par-ee.” What are they going to do when they come back here?

And Griffith has an interesting take on this.

KRISTEAN GRIFFITH: Soldiers maybe will, quote, “never want to see a rake or plow. And who the deuce can parlez-vous a cow?” Are some of the questions that the lyrics ask. And you see these concerned parents on the front of the cover, and it’s sort of presented in a parental perspective. What’s happening to these boys that are returning?

[MUSIC – “HOW YA GONNA KEEP ‘EM DOWN ON THE FARM”]

They never want to see a rake or plow. And who the heck can parlez-vous a cow? How ya gonna keep ’em down on the farm after they’ve seen Par-ee?

NINA EARNEST: Right, so we hear two anxieties. Will these soldiers want to come back and be farmers– which America, of course, needed, probably more then than now. And also, African-American soldiers who have been given more opportunities and more liberties coming back from that experience, and how people are wrestling with those tensions.

BRIAN: You know, frankly, Nina, worrying about how to keep them on the farm was the least of the worries that Americans had to deal with in 1919.

ED: And I thought I heard a third tension in there, which was, basically, this is one young person to another, basically saying, how are they going to keep us down on the farm, now that we’ve seen “Gay Par-ee”?

You know, there’s a kind of, we’ve seen the world now, and we’re not going to be able to be put back in the same box.

JOANNE: You know, what’s really interesting to me about that song is, it’s a refrain that you hear, in a sense, throughout American history, that’s a reflection of the ways in which America feels a little insulated from the rest of the world.

You know, I mean, in the 18th century, Thomas Jefferson was worried that if you sent young men overseas, they’d never want to come home again, or they’d look down on their nation when they came home. So some of this is an inherently American– are we as good as they are over there? I don’t know.

NINA EARNEST: Yeah, Joanne, and it wasn’t just American soldiers being seduced by European culture. US soldiers also introduced American culture to Europeans.

The best example of this is the aptly named James Reese Europe. He was a well-known bandleader who served in an all-black regiment from Harlem, and he was also commander of his regiment’s band, which toured all over France during and after the war. He’s credited with introducing early jazz to Europeans.

So Will Hitchcock talked about America becoming a global political actor during World War I. But this is also the moment that American music became a global phenomenon.

WILL HITCHCOCK: Yeah, Nina, it’d be great if we could actually hear that music, but we weren’t able to secure the rights for it.

Fortunately, people can go online and listen to it all. And when they do, I think people will be struck by the big difference between the earlier music, the wartime music that struck people so powerfully, and this new music that’s going to become America’s great cultural contribution to the world in the coming decade.

JOANNE: Thanks to Kristean Griffith, a music professor at Southwestern Oklahoma State University.