DO WORLD WAR TWO SONGS...."CARRY YOU BACK?"

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"WHEN THE LIGHTS GO ON AGAIN, ALL OVER THE WORLD..."
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"THERE'LL BE BLUEBIRDS OVER THE WHITE CLIFF'S OF DOVER..."
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"There'll be bluebirds over the White Cliffs of Dover,
Tomorrow, just you wait and see...
There'll be love and laughter
And peace ever after...

I'm a fifth grader in La Casita School, eating my oatmeal and toast; the time is 7:30 a.m. I'm leaving for school in 30 minutes. The year is 1944 and there's a war on. Has been for a long time. I'm listening to Clovis radio, KICA , and they're playing "Bluebirds over..." and I'm humming right along with it. Always do. I know all the WWII songs and their words by heart, and can sing them. (I still can, 68 years later.)

You had to have lived through that war to totally understand and "appreciate it," so to speak. There is an excellent documentary out there, put out by U. of Colorado about 30 years ago, titled "You Are What You Were When." To kids like us, growing up in the "Big One," it was a critical and unforgettable experience in our lives.  I guess we will always be a little bit, of what we were "when", during that momentous time.

Whenever today, I hear a song from that era---maybe in an old movie, old record, or on an "oldie" station, it carries me back--- to those days and helping with the war effort. We were always involved in the "drives" for old rubber tires, aluminum, tin foil, paper, bacon grease, or iron. We scavenged neighborhoods, attics, backyards, farms, old lake beds, and all around the edge of town---for all manner of junk needed in the war effort!

Any song from that era reminds me also of building model airplanes, drawing them covertly in class, reading "Dave  Dawson in the R.A.F.," and reading the comics about Joe Palooka fighting the Nazis in France. It reminds me of hot summer days, sitting in the shade of the elm trees in the front yard, playing,  and watching B17 bombers drone lazily around the edge of Clovis. I am reminded of war movies like "Mrs. Miniver," "Back to Bataan," "The Fighting Sullivans," and "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo."

Yes, it's the songs that touch our memories, our hearts, and our emotions...and that carry us back....Do you remember, and can you sing---

"Praise the Lord, and Pass the Ammunition"

"Coming In On A Wing and A Prayer"
"Rosie the Riveter"
"I Left My Heart At the Stage Door Canteen"
"Deep In the Heart of Texas"
"Let's Remember Pearl Harbor"
"Don't Fence Me In"
"Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy," (Andrew Sisters)
"Ac-cent-tchu-ate the Positive"

As far as the troops were concerned, "Lili Marlene," a German poem, set to music in 1938, became a favorite of the Afrika Korps; and then also the British in N. Africa; it was translated into English and thus was said to be the favorite song of the war for the fighting men. (at least in that theater.)

By 1940, over 96% of urban U.S. households had one or more radios. Listeners, numbering into the millions, were hearing WWII tunes over and over. Nostalgic songs, love songs, and songs of hope, were heard all across the United States, and anywhere in the world where the troops had radios. Songs like:

"When the Lights Go On Again"
"I'll Be Seeing You"
"Sentimental Journey"
"As Time Goes By," ("Casablanca")
"Long Ago and Far Away"
"I Don't Want To Walk Without You"
"I'll Get By, As Long As I Have You"
"You Belong To My Heart"
"Stardust"
"I'll Walk Alone"
"I'll Be With You In Apple Blossom Time"
"Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree With Anyone Else But Me"
"God Bless America"

Bing Crosby was in his heyday and in addition to all the nostalgic ballads, he recorded what perhaps may have been the best-loved song of the war, though a seasonal song.  Bing introduced "White Christmas," (by Irving Berlin) on his Kraft Music Hall Show, on Christmas Day, 1941. It was sung throughout the war---its mix of nostalgia, melancholy,  memories of home and better times, appealed strongly to the American people.

 "White Christmas" was at the top of the Billboard charts for many weeks in 1942, and returned a number of times in later years. Guiness Book of Records says that Crosby's  version of the song is the single best-selling single of all time---with an estimated 50 million sold world-wide. Some of Bing's lighter WWII numbers are listed below:

"Yankee Doodle Dandy"
What Do You Do In the Infantry?"
"Shoo Shoo Baby"
"Sundays, Mondays, Or Always"
"Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby?"
"Bless 'Em All"

Perhaps, of all the music, nothing epitomizes that era better than hearing a Glenn Miller swingy, catchy tune:

"Chattanooga Choo Choo"---1941
"Juke Box Saturday Night"---1940
"Elmer's Tune"---1941
"Tuxedo Junction"---1940
"String of Pearls"---1942
"In the Mood"---1940
"Pennsylvania 6-5000"- 1940
"That Old Black Magic"---1943

A number of movies of that era were named with WWII song titles. Others used the songs within the movies themselves. The quintessential example I think of, is the unforgettable opening scenes of the great movie "Twelve O'Clock High," starring Gregory Peck and Dean Jaegger. The beginning of the movie shows Jaegger, a veteran of the Eighth Air Force, who served his WWII days at an English base in the countryside. The old veteran airman has returned to visit his base, and we see him bicycling through a village, spotting an old "Pirate" figurine in a shop window, and enthusiastically purchasing it. It just happened to be the "mascot" that sat on the mantel in the officers' club during the war.

Then proceeding on his trip down memory lane, he cycles into the English countryside carrying the beloved mascot in his bicycle basket. Riding along a dirt road alongside the old WWII B17 airfield, he stops, looks out across the field, now grown up with weeds in the crevices of the concrete and along the edges. He meditates. The long-unused field is deserted...and empty...to us...

But not to Jaegger, who is seeing things in his memory---things that happened twenty years ago, in that incredible costly effort to defeat Hitler. He is hearing men's voices---far off---they are blending beautifully as only male voices can...listen, they are singing...

"We're poor little lambs who have lost our way,
Baah, baah, baah,
We're little black sheep who have gone astray,
Baah, baah, baah."
(It's the guys at the officers club, harmonizing...)

(He is hearing, again, far off...)
"Don't sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me,
Anyone else but me, anyone else but me,
Oh, no, no, no,
Don't sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me,

 'Til I come marching home!"

Suddenly he, and we, hear airplane motors cranking, far away in time, and they get louder...and louder...We are suddenly looking at what was really happening in 1944 in real time, and the movie is on!

Space forbids that we go deeply into the British people's  war songs. They had a good many "zany" and insulting songs for the enemy, such as "We'll Hang Out Our Washing On the Siegfried Line!"

Three of their most popular songs were:
"A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square"
"When the Lights Go On Again"
and Vera Lynn's ever popular: "We'll Meet Again."

"When the Lights Go On Again," is characterized as a "non-aggressive" song of hope and better times for the whole world.

"When the lights go on again,
All over the world
And the boys are home again,
All over the world,
And rain and snow may fall
From fhe skies above;
A kiss won't mean 'goodbye'
But 'hello' to love.

When the lights go on again
All over the world,
And the ships will sail again
All over the  world,
Then we'll have time for things like wedding rings
And free hearts will sing,
When the lights go on again
All over the world!"

One of the most-loved songs of the British and many of the "Yanks" that were over there  in Britain, preparing for D-Day, was:

"We'll meet again
Don't know where
Don't know when,
But I know we'll meet again
Some sunny day!"

A respected CHS classmate of mine, said to me last year, something like this: "Remembering WWII and teaching about it in school, are not popular anymore."

There is a saying: "Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it."
Someone once said: "The only thing worse than remembering, is forgetting."

Maybe just remembering the SONGS  is a way of remembering....gently.

There'll Be Bluebirds Over the White Cliffs of Dover, Kate Smith

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDaZgUjoniY&feature=youtube_gdata_player

                            When the Lights Go On Again, Vera Lynn
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMkjKyn7NEY&feature=youtube_gdata_player

                            We'll Meet Again, Vera Lynn

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHcunREYzNY&feature=youtube_gdata_player

                              In the Mood, Glenn Millerhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyxKJD-52Po&feature=youtube_gdata_player

                             White Christmas, Bing Crosby
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8swRkzkO2s&feature=youtube_gdata_player

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BY MIL
9/17/12