SONGS

Cultural historians and music scholars note the absence of a defining anthem to the Second World War. Missing was an “Over There,” a “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” or a “La Marseillaise.” Not to say that countries didn’t try to find one. In 1942, the Chicago Daily Times held a “War Song for America” contest. Out of eight thousand entries, the best was a forgettable trench tune entitled “Mud in His Ears.” The Soviet Union in 1943 sought a new national anthem. Of more than two hundred entries from composers and poets, nobody won.⁶⁴

At best, music and the war had an uneasy relationship. The Japanese government forbade the playing of Western songs and promoted native patriotic ballads such as “Wife on the Home Front” and “Rise, Imperial Army.” Germany’s Reich Chamber of Culture vilified jazz tunes as the “impudent swamp flowers of Negroid pandemonium.” Nazis also brutally repressed the German “Swing Youth” movement, burning songbooks, confiscating albums, and jailing dancers.⁶⁵

Governments also capped production of record albums to save war-vital wax and shellac and restricted the sales of consumer electronics, including radios and phonographs. What laws failed to destroy, combat often finished off. Bombs and shells crushed dance clubs, concert halls, instrument factories, and music companies. German soldiers entered the historic home of Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky in November 1941, and to keep warm, they threw piles of rare original sheet music into a burning stove.⁶⁶

Yet music prospered nonetheless. In the dead of Russian winters, musicians played in unheated venues, bedecked in overcoats and fingerless gloves. British and American communities resurrected the dance marathons of the Great Depression. In private, Japanese citizens played forbidden ballads about love and sadness. Among the litany were numerous standouts, some of which remained popular to the present. Listed below are the most common songs of the era, based on amount of orchestral and vocal group performances, radio and jukebox play, sheet music and record sales, and longevity through the war.⁶⁷

1. “WHITE CHRISTMAS” (1942)

At the apex of his long and prolific career, songsmith Irving Berlin crafted flag-waving tunes for the war effort. Yet his most popular hit possessed neither patriotic intent nor lofty aspirations. Written almost as an afterthought for the movie Holiday Inn, “White Christmas” found life in the smooth baritone of Bing Crosby and a huge audience in the South Pacific.⁶⁸

U.S. soldiers, stuck in fierce fighting and stifling jungles, immediately took to the song’s imagery of home, winter solitude, and peace. It was also an instant classic back in the states, winning the 1942 Academy Award for best song and selling millions of copies in sheet music and recordings. Crosby’s rendition alone sold nearly twenty million albums. It became the longest-running song in the history of the American radio program Your Hit Parade, the number-one-selling song in the United States for decades, and rivaled the eighteenth-century German creation of “Silent Night” as the most endeared Yuletide composition ever made.⁶⁹

To date, “White Christmas” has sold nearly two hundred million copies worldwide, in more than thirty languages.

2. “LILI MARLEEN” (1938)

A sonnet written in 1915 by a German soldier before he set off for the Russian front, its simple stanzas described an all-too-brief love affair of a soldier and his “Lili Marleen.” In 1938, Hans Leip’s words were set to a soft and heartfelt melody, and Swedish singer Lale Anderson introduced it to a marginally interested German population. In 1941 the sweet romantic ballad became a surprise favorite of Wehrmacht soldiers stuck in North Africa. Nearby British and Australian troops of the Eighth Army became fond of it as well, often singing it in its native tongue.⁷⁰

Uncomfortable with the thought of their troops harmonizing in German, the British government asked famous lyricist Tommy Connor to fashion the tune into English. Eventually almost every language in Europe had its own version, with the French rendition becoming particularly popular. Many Americans got their first taste in the aptly titled 1944 movie Lili Marlene, starring German-born bombshell and ardent American patriot Marlene Dietrich. Hardly offended at the world adopting at least a piece of their culture, Germans played the song on national radio almost every night for three years.⁷¹

The music of “Lili Marlene” would return to the silver screen in 1961 as a paradoxical score piece in the film Judgment at Nuremberg.

3. SHOSTAKOVICH’S SEVENTH “LENINGRAD” SYMPHONY (1941)

Most symphonic composers continued to produce in spite of the war, although their new works were often about past epochs of violence: Jericho, the French Revolution, and the American Civil War. Some chose to write music about the current crisis. Grief-stricken by the Nazi reprisals at Lidice, Czech composers crafted no fewer than a dozen symphonies dedicated to the slaughtered city. A few harkened toward tomorrow, quite literally in the case of Dutch-born Gunnar Johansen, who claimed to have finished his PEARLHARBOR Sonata just hours before the fateful attack.⁷²

One shy benevolent man, Dmitri Shostakovich, produced a synthesis of past memory, present misery, and future hope and inspired half the world with his music’s inherent force. His Seventh Symphony, depicting the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, won him instant international fame and music immortality.

Just thirty-four years old in 1941, Shostakovich and his family were trapped with three million others in Leningrad, bombed, shelled, and surrounded by the German army. As food and any reasonable hope of survival began to run out, the composer began to write a symphony. Three movements were completed in a matter of weeks. After he was flown out of the besieged city by order of the Soviet government, Shostakovich completed the fourth and final movement in an abandoned schoolroom in Moscow.⁷³

First performed in the Russian capital, the Leningrad Symphony began with a long sullen march, followed by a drone of heavy instruments, with piccolos and flutes whispering in fragile defiance. The piece concluded with all sections charging forth with a host of major chords, pronouncing a lasting triumph of light over darkness. The seventy-minute opus soon played to packed audiences in Britain, Hungary, Poland, France, and the United States.

Shostakovich’s likeness graced the cover of Time. He became an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an object of adoration to the Russian people, and a hero to the antifascist movement.⁷⁴

The Soviet air force smuggled sheet music for Shostakovich’s Seventh back into besieged Leningrad. An orchestra was assembled, including musicians hastily pulled from the front, and on August 9, 1942, the symphony played to a live audience, including the German army who heard via loudspeakers blasting from inside the city.

4. “CH’I LAI” (1933)

Because of the Japanese invasion, China’s ballads of protest and patriotism were one and the same. Several folk songs were somehow adept at celebrating the simple life while promoting harsh reprisals against foreign attackers. The popular “Farmer’s Song” insisted, “Our ancient nation must arise and rid the fields of the weeds.” In “Husband Goes to War,” a female voice assured, “If, alas, you meet your death, your hero soul will cry us on.”

Most common were marching songs, many of which were rather direct in their message, such as “Wrath of the Warrior” and “Song of the Guerrillas.” By far the most popular was “Ch’I Lai” (“March of the Volunteers”). Written as the theme song to the filmChildren of the Dark Clouds, the lyrics proclaimed: “China’s masses have met the day of danger…Brave the enemy’s gunfire. March on! March on!”⁷⁵

A young man from southwest China named Nieh Erh wrote the melody for “Ch’I Lai.” In 1934, he went to Japan to study music and write more patriotic songs. The following year, just before he planned to leave, the twenty-four-year-old was found dead in a body of water.

5. “CHATTANOOGA CHOO CHOO” (1941)

In a patriotic push to manufacture jingles as fast as weapons, tune-smiths often faltered in quality. Tin Pan Alley’s products were less than riveting. For example, a Post-PEARL HARBOR pep tune proclaimed, “You’re a sap, Mr. Jap, to make a Yanky cranky. Uncle Sam…is gonna spanky.”⁷⁶

Most nationalistic songs, cheesy or not, had the unromantic rhythm of a military march. More attractive to the general populace were the swing and sway of the big bands, inviting patrons to dance to songs of enchantment. No band was internationally bigger than the Glenn Miller Orchestra, and its biggest hit was a stylish, churning boogie called “Chattanooga Choo Choo.”

Premiered in the movie Sun Valley Serenade, the tune dominated jukebox sales, a “nickel nabber” extraordinaire that became the highest grossing RCA Victor seller of all time and the first gold record ever, selling more than a million copies by 1942.⁷⁷

Miller went on to serve in the U.S. Army Air Force, achieving the rank of captain in the official capacity of band leader. He and his uniformed orchestra toured the United States and overseas, doing more than eight hundred live and radio shows, playing hits such as “Chattanooga Choo Choo,” “In the Mood,” “That Old Black Magic,” and “Pennsylvania 6-5000.” But Miller did not finish his tour of duty. On December 15, 1944, he boarded a plane for a flight from England bound for Paris to make arrangements for an upcoming performance. Taking off in foggy weather, the aircraft disappeared somewhere over the English Channel and was never seen again.

In selecting his U.S. Army Air Force orchestra, Miller rejected a nineteen-year-old pianist named Henry Mancini, future composer of the “Pink Panther Theme,” “Moon River,” and the score to the film The Glenn Miller Story.

6. “GOD BLESS AMERICA” (1918)

If the United States were to choose a commanding officer of morale for the war, Russian-born Irving Berlin (whose real name was Israel Balin) would have made the short list. Among his repertoire of hits were “Arms for the Love of America,” “Any Bonds Today?” and “Song of Freedom,” from which he contributed all royalties to charity. He created, wrote, produced, and starred in a musical revue called This Is the Army, featuring a cast of hundreds of enlisted personnel. The show toured the United States and overseas, raised millions of dollars for the Army Relief Fund and British War Charities, and became a movie. His songs and shows earned him the U.S. Medal of Merit and a Medal of Honor.⁷⁸

But the one patriotic tune for which he was best known was the ballad “God Bless America,” written long before the Second World War and debuted on Armistice Day in 1938. Simple, brief, with a grandiose crescendo, its lyrics paid homage to an idyllic and expansive countryside. After 1941, it played consistently before or after radio programs, public functions, and sporting events. The tune became a virtual second national anthem. One young listener recalled, “We listened to the radio and heard Kate Smith sing ‘God Bless America’ more times than we recited the Lord’s Prayer or Pledge of Allegiance in school each morning.” In keeping with his practice of donating royalties of patriotic tunes, Berlin gave every penny he earned on the song to the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts of America.⁷⁹

Berlin composed and played purely by ear. In all his 101 years of life, he never learned to read or write music.

7. “THERE’LL ALWAYS BE AN ENGLAND” (1939)

After learning of the astounding success of “God Bless America,” a London publicist asked a pair of songwriters, Hughie Charles and Ross Parker, to compose a British equivalent. Borrowing heavily from Irving Berlin’s references to placid fields and wholesome folk, the two managed to pump out “There’ll Always Be an England” in about three hours, but the song failed to take off.⁸⁰

Months later, while Hitler invaded Poland, Britain braced for attack. A buzz developed around an obscure nationalistic ballad about country lanes and fields of grain, and the song became a full-fledged hit when King Charles VI mentioned it in a somber radio message to his subjects. Sheet music flew off the shelves. BBC airwaves rang with its cheery chords. The title appeared on bumper stickers in Canada, and Londoners sang it in bomb shelters: “There’ll always be an England, and England shall be free, if England means as much to you, as England means to me.”⁸¹

The drag of the ensuing PHONY WAR period diminished its luster, but the syrupy refrain made a comeback with the BATTLE OF BRITAIN in 1940. By 1942, it played less often than romantic songs like “The White Cliffs of Dover” and Hughie Charles and Ross Parker’s own “We’ll Meet Again,” but “England” matured throughout the war to be an old standard of the Commonwealth.⁸²

In tribute to the occasion, British schoolchildren once again bellowed the lyrics of “There’ll Always Be an England” at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953.

8. “THE HORST WESSEL SONG” (1930)

Like their opponents, Germans preferred sentimental classics, jazz, and pop tunes to brash, banging martial compositions. Amid personal dreams and the daily grind, “Awake, German Fatherland” and “Tomorrow We March” simply lacked the appeal of a good dance number or love song, such as “Do You Remember the Beautiful May Days?” Even in the darkest hours, citizens of the Reich cared for “No More Beautiful Death in the World” before “Deutschland Über Alles.”⁸³

But in the Third Reich, orchestral works by the German masters (Hitler preferred Wagner) and military ensembles were the order of the day. Dominant among the latter was “The Horst Wessel Song.”

Wessel was a twenty-three-year-old member of the Nazi Sturmabteilung, the SA, a.k.a. “Brownshirts.” In his spare time he wrote marching tunes and attended rallies. He also bullied Communists, until one came to his apartment and shot him (his compatriots maintained he was struck down in a street brawl). When Wessel subsequently died weeks later, Nazi propaganda director Joseph Goebbels hailed him as an angelic martyr and adopted one of the deceased’s poems, originally titled “Raise the Flag on High,” as the official anthem of the Nazi Party.⁸⁴

The drum-tinged vocal-dominated tribute to belligerence received numbingly repetitive play on state radio and in official assemblies. The music may have been lifted from an old Salvation Army tune, but the imposed words were far from charitable: “SA men march with bold, determined tread, Comrades felled by Reds and Ultras in fight, March at our side, in spirit never dead.”

By 1942, many Germans were clearly unenthused with such nationalist themes and the constant reminders of war. Fearing he was going to lose his audience completely, Goebbels mandated a return to light music, which soon took up 70 percent of programming. From then on, Horst’s march played infrequently, but extreme departures like jazz remained verboten (forbidden).⁸⁵

Because of its connection with the Nazi Party, it is currently illegal to sing or play the “Horst Wessel Song” in the Federal Republic of Germany.

9. “DON’T SIT UNDER THE APPLE TREE” (1939)

East and West, some of the most popular songs centered around three themes: love, loneliness, and a plea for abstinence. The Chinese sang “Wait for Me,” French voices echoed “Wait for Me, My Love,” and English singers assured “I’ll Be Seeing You” and “I’ll Walk Alone.” A favorite German hit was “Come Back to Me,” while Russians asked “Are You Waiting?” Topping them all in circulation was the peppy American ditty “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree (with Anyone Else but Me).”⁸⁶

Written in 1939, the earnest tune became the rage when the Andrews Sisters sang it in the 1942 movie Private Buckaroo. Number one on Your Hit Parade from October 1942 to January 1943, no other war-related tune in the United States spent as much time at the top as the one that asked a sweetheart to wait “until I come marching home.”⁸⁷

Unfortunately for Americans and everyone else, many lovers did not wait. Years of separation, uncertainty, and a sense of fatalism placed exceptional stresses on relationships. By necessity, military training for most armed forces included lectures and films on sexual hygiene. Socially transmitted diseases were major contributors to unit casualties, and many women left behind also pursued physical companionship.

Americans received “Dear John” or “Dear Jane” letters confessing infidelity. Germans wrote of “suitcases” (secret lovers). In countries where divorce was permitted, separations doubled over the course of the war. In Britain, illegitimate births more than doubled, and separations filed because of alleged adultery quadrupled. But songs of faithfulness remained popular for the duration.⁸⁸

The International Red Cross in Geneva had a department to handle divorces for prisoners of war.

10. “AH! LA PETIT VIN BLANC” (1943)

Call it pragmatism, call it denial, but most citizens in occupied France tried to make the best of a bad situation, to create a sense of security in a very insecure time. Vichy culture embodied this pursuit by glorifying traditional male-female roles, villages, rural life, folk art, and music.

Sounding this retreat into the past was the most popular melody of the occupation era, “Ah, La Petit Vin Blanc,” sung by the general of joie de vivre, Maurice Chevalier. Paying grand homage to a little bottle of white wine, a romantic getaway in the countryside, and bright carefree optimism, the leisurely waltz was just one of many French songs with a blatantly escapist theme.

Countering was an artistic resistance of sorts. Citizens were attentive to double entendres within lyrics, poems, or plays, searching works for anti-German messages. In reality, most works did not have such hidden meanings. Artists such as Spanish exile Pablo Picasso and playwright Jean-Paul Sartre continued to produce works high in emotional content but evasive in political meaning. Music was generally submissive as well. Frenchmen may have sung the resistance march “Le Chant des Partisans” in public after liberation, but before that time, “La Petit Vin Blanc” had already sold 1.5 million copies of sheet music.⁸⁹

For playing to German audiences, Maurice Chevalier was later accused of being a collaborator, an affront he shared with thousands of other conspicuously cooperative French citizens, including the mistress of a German officer, Coco Chanel.