Songs and Music of World War II
Songs of the Phony War1
Most historians place the beginning of World War II (WWII) at the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. For the other nations soon
Songs and Music of World War II
Songs of the Phony War1
Most historians place the beginning of World War II (WWII) at the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939. For the other nations soon to be involved, France and Great Britain (who would become the Allied), a pause of several months followed their Declaration of War on September 3, 1939. The two opposite sides relied on their respective lines of fortification, the Ligne Maginot on the French side, the Ligne Siegfried, on the German side. In the early months the war was mostly spent as a sitting war, where loudspeakers rather than canons were aimed at the opposite side. Garrison in the forts had the leisure to dry their laundry in open air, and the French public caught that spirit in a song which quickly became popular:
Nous irons pendre notre linge sur la ligne Siegfried
Pour sècher le linge voici le moment.
Nous irons pendre notre linge sur la ligne Siegfried
Le beau linge à maman, les vieux mouchoirs et les ch'mises à papa.
En famille on lavera tout ça.
Nous irons pendre notre linge sur la ligne Siegfried
Si on la trouve encore là.
Nous irons pendre notre linge sur la ligne Siegfried.
We will hang our laundry on the Siegfried Line
This is the moment to dry the laundry.
We will hang our laundry on the Siegfried Line
mom's pretty linnen, the old handkerchiefs and daddy's shirt.
All in the family we will wash all that.
We will hang our laundry on the Siegfried Line
If it is still around.
We will hang our laundry on the Siegfried Line.2
In Ostende (a Belgian resort on the North Sea) on New Year's Eve 1939, in the presence of the Belgian minister Marcel-Henry Jaspar, the local band played this song, even though Belgium was at that time strictly neutral. Never mind, everyone cheered and asked for several encores.3 Soon, the arrival in France of the British Expeditionary Corps was an occasion to revive old favorites of World War I: The Rose of Picardy and It's a Long Way to Tipperary (translated this time as: Traversant la Manche une seconde fois..-Crossing the Channel a second time).
Other French songs downplayed the determination and the military preparedness of Germany. They were aired by loudspeakers over the lines, more to reassure the French soldiers than to frighten or demoralize the enemy. This of course brought a false sense of security to the people and contributed to the Allied collapse when the German army bypassed the Maginot line by invading the Low Countries in May-June 1940.
Sadness of Soldiers Away from Home
As war went on, soldiers on both sides felt the sorrow of being away from home. We go now to the Libya-Egypt theater, where Italians, and later Germans fought the British. Far from their home, the German soldiers listened for comfort to a German-speaking radio station located in the Balkans. There, as the cool night fell on the desert, the draftees of the Afrika Corp listened over and over to Lili Marlein, a song written in Hamburg in 1915 by Hans Leip at the age of 22 while on his way to the front line. Robert Schultse's new melody composed just before WWII in 1938, for this older World War I text, quickly became the most popular song in Germany:
Vor der Kaserne vor dem großen Tor
Stand eine Laterne, und stebt sie noch davor,
So woll'n wir uns da wieder she'n
Bei der Laterne wolln wir stehn,
Wie einst Lili Marleen, wie einst Lili Marleen.
After their victory at El Alamein, soldiers of General Montgomery's British Eighth Army, in particular Tommie Connor, rendered the song in English as follows:
Underneath the lantern by the barrack gate,
Darling I remember the way you used to wait.
Twas there that you whispered tenderly
that you loved me. You'd always be
My Lili of the lamplight-My own Lili Marlene.
Time would come for the roll call
time for us to part. Darling I'd caress you
and press you on my heart.
And there 'neath that far-off lantern light
I'd hold you tight, we'd kiss good night
My Lili of the lamplight-My own Lili Marlene.4
As the German fortunes of war faded, a curious French version quietly circulated in occupied France and Belgium. In this writer's memory, it started as:
Près de la caserne quand le jour s'enfuit,
La vieille lanterne s'allume et luit.
Un soldat Allemand vint à passer.
Je lui ai demandé: « Pourquoi pleures-tu? »
et il m'a répondu:
« Eh, oui, nous sommes foutus.
Eh, oui, nous sommes foutus. »
By the barracks as the day was flying by
The old lantern would light up and glow.
A German soldier came by,
I asked him, “Why do you cry?”
and he answered me:
“Oh, yes, we are all doomed.
Oh, yes, we are all doomed.”
While Jazz and Blues were banned in Germany as decadent during the war, the musical tradition of the Jazz Français flourished in Paris, with "Le Hot Club de France," and artists like Ray Ventura and many others. Occupying German soldiers often made up their most avid audience.
Serious Music is a Serious Matter in Germany
Jazz was not the only type of musical taboo in Germany. "Jewish Music" was not 