The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #4264   Message #22966
Posted By: Gene
04-Mar-98 - 03:30 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: I Didn't Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier
Subject: Lyr Add: I DIDN'T RAISE MY BOY TO BE A SOLDIER^^^
Found this a few years back at the local library.

I DIDN'T RAISE MY BOY TO BE A SOLDIER
Words, Alfred Bryan. Music, Al Piantadosi.
New York: Leo Feist, Inc., 1915.

1. Ten million soldiers to the war have gone
Who may never return again;
Ten million mothers' hearts must break
For the ones who died in vain
Head bowed down in sorrow, in her lonely years,
I heard a mother murmur thro' her tears:

CHORUS: "I didn't raise my boy to be a soldier,
I brought him up to be my pride and joy.
Who dares to place a musket on his shoulder,
To shoot some other mother's darling boy?"
Let nations arbitrate their future troubles,
It's time to lay the sword and gun away.
There'd be no war today, If mothers all would say,
"I didn't raise my boy to be a soldier."

2. What victory can cheer a mother's heart,
When she looks at her blighted home?
What victory can bring her back
All she cared to call her own?
Let each mother's answer in the years to be,
"Remember that my boy belongs to me!"^^^