| Contents |
"When this crazy world is sane again": the setting for the songs -- "I hear America singing": but who wrote all those songs? -- "Over here": prewar isolationism, patriotism, and preparedness -- "Chin up! cheerio! carry on!": the allies and us -- "G.I. jive": the draft, enlistment, and army life -- "Johnny, get your gun again": from national pride to axis-bashing -- "There's an F.D.R. in freedom": the war's faces and places -- "In the army, in the navy, in the marines": saluting the services -- "Don't forget there's a war going on": pitching in and coping on the home front -- "Arm in arm": wartime romance -- "A boy in khaki, a girl in lace": the servicemen away, their girls back home -- "It's been a long, long time": victory, homecomings, the world after the war. |
| Abstract |
Poet Rod McKuen once observed that "1939-1945 was a terrible time for the world, but it was a glorious time for songs and fighter pilots." Anyone who was alive during World War II remembers with fondness the music of the period. Such songs as "I'll Be Seeing You," "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy," "It's Been A Long, Long Time, " and "Praise The Lord And Pass The Ammunition" became standards that are still around today. But what's most amazing about the popular songs of the war years is just how many there were. World War II was one of the most fertile periods of American popular songwriting; it was also the heyday of such "big bands" as those of Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, and Harry James, and of such vocalists as Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Dinah Shore, Kitty Kallen, and, of course, the Andrews Sisters. This outpouring of music included romantic ballads, rhythm numbers, dance tunes, and novelty songs, and the war itself occasioned the writing, publishing, recording, and performance of thousands of war-inspired songs. Professionals wrote virtually all of the wartime songs we still sing today, but thousands of other numbers were written by inspired (or not-so-inspired) amateurs--men, women, and even children eager to express their patriotism through lyric and melody. |
