Yup, it's an Ira Gershwin song. This is from The Complete Lyrics of Ira Gershwin.

YOUNGER GENERATION
(Ira Gershwin, 1943)

If I eat too much jam
Mother look how young I am;
Father dear, please recall
That at one time you were small.
If I'm hard on my clothes
And I do not wipe my nose,
Parents dear, please recall
That at one time you were small.

Tiddle-ee-um Tiddle-ee-um,
Tiddle-ee-um, tum, tum, tum, tum.
We're the younger generation
and the future of the nation.

If I look, as I pass,
Into every looking glass,
Parents mine, have no fears,
Just go back some twenty years.
If I play out of doors
And don't help with kitchen chores,
Parents mine, have no fears,
Just go back some twenty years.

Tiddle-ee-um Tiddle-ee-um...

If to school I am late,
Please don't scold and agitate;
Parents dear. isn't it true,
One time you were that way too?
If I make too much noise
And I hit back at the boys.
Parents dear, isn't it true,
One time you were that way too.

Tiddle-ee-um Tiddle-ee-um...

Parents dear, use your tact.
If you don't like how we act,
Do not fret, do not mourn -
Is it our fault we were born?
Please forgive all we do
For someday we'll suffer, too,
When in turn we shall groan
At some children of our own.

Tiddle-ee-um Tiddle-ee-um.....


published 1943.
Music adapted from a traditional Russian melody. Earlier title: "How Young I Am"

from the 1943 movie, The North Star.

www.settling-the-score.com says this:

The North Star is one of a handful of movies from 1943 specifically made to generate pro-Soviet sympathy. Playwright Lillian Hellman's dialogue hammers home the film's propagandist message in her story about a Ukrainian collective farming village fighting back against Nazi occupation. Hellman came under attack for her unrealistic portrayal of Soviet conditions.

That being said, with its topnotch cast (including Walter Huston, Anne Baxter, Walter Brennan, Erich von Stroheim, Dana Andrews and newcomer Farley Granger) and a typically first rate production from producer Samuel Goldwyn, the film is an interesting cross between war film and operetta. And therein lies the fascination for film score fans.

Aaron Copland's score features familiar harmonies that sound as much at home on the American plains as they do on the Ukrainian steppes. Copland based the songs for the first half of the film on authentic Russian folk songs. Ira Gershwin provided the lyrics and the results are interesting to say the least.

The songs and dances were added much to Hellman's displeasure. To prove that her screenplay was not a libretto, she published her script herself. The "Song of the Guerillas" provides the most stirring melody and plays a significant role in Copland's vigorous underscoring as the villagers fight back against the Nazis.of the battle scenes.

Variety praised the score as "further indication of the advancing maturity of film music....The music based on Russian themes is so authentic as to be capable of deceiving even the experts into thinking them genuine." Elliott Carter wrote: "At every point, the intelligence and the personal elevation of Copland's music is recognizable." The New York World-Telegram called it "some of the finest movie music of the season. Aaron Copland has caught a folk song (though not particularly Russian) quality in his music."

PM magazine claimed that Copland's score "will be more talked of than his scores for Of Mice and Men and Our Town," but it has been forgotten over the years, much like the film. Because Copland did not arrange an orchestral suite of the music, as he did for portions of the two earlier films, the music has been absent from the concert hall. "Song of the Guerrillas," "Younger Generation," and "No Village Like Mine" were published as vocal works, but they have not become part of the standard repertoire.

It wasn't until 2001 that a suite from the film was first heard. As conductor Jonathan Sheffer says in his CD liner notes for Celluloid Copland, which includes the suite, "Copland's music...takes the artistic high ground, supplying Russian-flavored heroic choruses and battle scenes of the likes of Prokofiev's music for Alexander Nevsky."

Though The North Star was a hit financially, time was not kind to it. Along with Song of Russia and Mission To Moscow, it was part of a trio of propaganda films that came under fire from the House Un-American Activities Committee. Following the war, when relations with the Soviet Union had turned to ice, The North Star was re-edited with a less favorable view toward the Russians and retitled Armored Attack, making this strange film even stranger.

I guarantee you there is no other film quite like The North Star. And Aaron Copland's score adds to the unique quality of this one-of-a-kind film.

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Also see the NY Times film review.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2KZXO1psNc