Thank you, all those who have served in our military!
When I went Googling searching my memory for songs appropriate to Veterans Day, I found I had pretty much the same problem I had looking for appropriate Memorial Day songs--lots and lots of lists of patriotic songs, but not so many that highlighted servicemen and -women. So I thought I would present serviceman Irving Berlin's complaint about army life during WWI, "Oh, How I Hate To Get Up in the Morning":
Video posted by MuricaForever
Since I've already written about Irving Berlin in posts about "White Christmas" and "Easter Parade," I thought I'd just bring you Irving Berlin himself, singing his own song. And now here's what he had to say about writing it:
The song was enormously popular among his fellow doughboys, and gave then-Sergeant Berlin an idea: Why not pull out all the theater people in the army and put on a show? It could boost morale, and also raise money for other morale-raising projects. Major General J. Franklin Bell bit, Yip! Yip! Yaphank was born, and Irving Berlin spent the rest of his stint in the army writing, producing, and performing--and sleeping as late as he liked.
The song, by the way, later appeared in The Ziegfeld Follies of 1918 and the WWII stage musical This is the Army, which, like Yip! Yip! Yaphank, used soldiers who were stage folk in civilian life and was used to boost morale and raise money. The latter was the basis for the 1943 film This is the Army (from whence the above clip came), which, among others, starred--wait for it--Ronald Reagan.
Happy Veterans Day!
___
*Philip Furia, Irving Berlin: A Life in Song, p. 79.
Since I've already written about Irving Berlin in posts about "White Christmas" and "Easter Parade," I thought I'd just bring you Irving Berlin himself, singing his own song. And now here's what he had to say about writing it:
There were a lot of things about army life I didn't like, and the thing I didn't like most of all was reveille. I hated it. I hated it so much I used to lie awake nights thinking about how much I hated it. [But] I wanted to be a good soldier. Every morning when the bugle blew I'd jump right out of bed, just as if I liked getting up early. The other soldiers thought I was a little too eager about it, and they hated me. That's why I finally wrote a song about it.*
The song was enormously popular among his fellow doughboys, and gave then-Sergeant Berlin an idea: Why not pull out all the theater people in the army and put on a show? It could boost morale, and also raise money for other morale-raising projects. Major General J. Franklin Bell bit, Yip! Yip! Yaphank was born, and Irving Berlin spent the rest of his stint in the army writing, producing, and performing--and sleeping as late as he liked.
The song, by the way, later appeared in The Ziegfeld Follies of 1918 and the WWII stage musical This is the Army, which, like Yip! Yip! Yaphank, used soldiers who were stage folk in civilian life and was used to boost morale and raise money. The latter was the basis for the 1943 film This is the Army (from whence the above clip came), which, among others, starred--wait for it--Ronald Reagan.
Happy Veterans Day!
___
*Philip Furia, Irving Berlin: A Life in Song, p. 79.
Always enjoyed that song, thanks for bringing it to us. That it ended up not only bringing a smile to so many but also did so much good
ReplyDelete—excellent reminder.
Aw, thank you!
DeleteThe Library of Congress has a couple of songs which might be relevant:
ReplyDelete"Back from the War" by Jacob Silbert, and "Der Judische Ligionerie" by Joseph Rumshinsky. They are both in Yiddish, which strongly suggests that the composers were Jewish.
Forgot to put in the links: https://www.loc.gov/item/jukebox.4596/ and https://www.loc.gov/item/jukebox.10247
ReplyDeleteCool! Thank you! Something for next time.
Delete