Songs about World War I

Subject: RE: Songs about World War I
From: The Borchester Echo
Date: 30 Jun 06 - 10:27 AM

Dick Gaughan's Why Old Men Cry isn't so much about WW1 but about the futility of seemingly wasted lives through the ages. True, the song opens with an account of how the author's grandfather died from the effects of gas but it is recalled as the grandson walks Flanders fields himself. It continues in anger at his father's bitterly hard life as an exploited Scottish miner yet ends with a beacon of hope on the breathtaking walk from Garve to Ullapool:

I looked into the future
Saw a people proud and free
As I looked along Loch Broom
Out to the sea

In this it differs from Ian Campbell's The Old Man's Song (in the Digitrad) which is sometimes (though hasn't yet been here) described as a WW1 song by being a little more positive than I don't know how to change it but by christ we've got to try. DG has the vision. Comes of being an outlaw and a dreamer.

Re: Remembrance Day At The Cenotaph, Leon Rosselson no longer does the 'Remember Biafra' verse in case no-one does.

Subject: RE: Songs about World War I
From: The Shambles
Date: 30 Jun 06 - 10:16 AM

I did not until today that prior to the USA entering the conflict, WW German agents (amongst many other dirty tricks) were responsible for introducing Anthrax into the horses exported from the US for the allied forces.

Subject: RE: Songs about World War I
From: Fiolar
Date: 30 Jun 06 - 09:55 AM

Don't forget "Salonika".
Extract from:
"Me husband's in Salonika;
I wonder if he's dead.
I wonder if he know's,
He's got a kid with a foxy head."

Subject: Lyr Add: ADMIRAL DUGOUT (C. Fox Smith)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 30 Jun 06 - 09:26 AM

It does get noisy around here sometimes. But we might as well bait this thread with another World War 1 sample from C. Fox Smith:

ADMIRAL DUGOUT

He had done with fleets and squadrons, with the restless, roaming seas,
He had found the quiet haven he desired,
And he lay there to his moorings with the dignity and ease
Most becoming to Rear-Admirals (retired).
He was reared 'mid "Spit and Polish," he was bred to "stick and string" —
All the things the ultra-moderns never name:
But a wind blew up to seaward, and it meant the Real Thing,
And he had to slip his cable when it came.

So he hied him up to London, for to hang about Whitehall,
And he sat upon the steps there soon and late:
He importuned night and morning, he bombarded great and small,
From messengers to Ministers of State.
He was like a guilty conscience, he was like a ghost unlaid,
He was like a debt of which you can't get rid,
Till the Powers that Be, despairing, in a fit of temper said,
"For the Lord's sake give him something" — and they did!

They commissioned him a trawler with a high and raking bow,
Black and workmanlike as any pirate craft,
With a crew of steady seamen very handy in a row,
And a brace of little barkers fore and aft.
And he blessed the Lord his Maker when he faced the North Sea sprays,
And exceedingly extolled his lucky star,
That had given his youth renewal in the evening of his days
(With the rank of Captain Dugout, R.N.R.).

He is jolly as a sandboy, he is happier than a king,
And his trawler is the darling of his heart,
(With her cuddy like a cupboard where a kitten couldn't swing,
And a scent of fish that simply won't depart).
He has found upon occasion sundry targets for his guns,
He could tell you tales of mine and submarine,
Oh the holes he's in and out of, and the glorious risks he runs
Turn his son (who's in a Super-Dreadnought) green.

He is fit as any fiddle, he is hearty, hale and tanned;
He is proof against the coldest gales that blow.
He has never felt so lively since he got his first command,
(Which is rather more than forty years ago).
And of all the joyful picnics of his wild and wandering youth,
Little dust-ups 'tween Taku and Zanzibar,
There was none to match the picnic, he declares in sober sooth,
That he has as Captain Dugout, R.N.R.

Notes:

From SEA SONGS AND BALLADS 1917-22, edited by Cicely Fox Smith, published by Houghton Mifflin Co., New York, US, © 1924, p. 125-127.
First appeared in the magazine PUNCH on April 4, 1917. Also printed in SMALL CRAFT, © 1917.

Here we have tribute to an old retired admiral, who during World War 1 has successfully persuaded the Admiralty to let him do his part in the war, even if it's to be the captain of a modest armed trawler.

Gordon Morris (UK) has adapted this poem for singing, and has recorded it with Peter Massey on FULL SAIL: Inside the Lid, © 2002. In my opinion Morris has done a good job with his adaptation. Be warned, though, that the recording is not uniformly up to this caliber. "The Convalescent" is another World War 1 poem from C. Fox Smith that Morris has successfully adapted.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Songs about World War I
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 30 Jun 06 - 08:45 AM

I got shouted at for suggesting that Skipy.
It is too old apparently.

Subject: Lyr Add: WHERE THERE'S REST FOR HORSE AND MAN
From: skipy
Date: 30 Jun 06 - 08:40 AM

WHERE THERE'S REST FOR HORSE AND MAN or HOME LADS HOME

Overseas in India the sun was setting low
With tramp of feet and jingle as I heard the gun-teams go
But something seemed to set me a dreaming as I lay
Of my old Hampshire village at the quiet end of day

And it's home, lads home, all among the corn and clover
Home lads home, when the working day is over
Where there's rest for horse and man when the longest day is done
And we'll all go home together at the setting of the sun

Proud thatch with gardens blooming with lily and with rose
The river flowing past them, so quiet as it goes
White fields of oats and barley and the elderflower like home
And the sky a gold at sunset and the horses going home

Captain Cox and Traveler, I see them all so plain
With tasseled ear-flaps nodding all along the leafy lane
Somewhere a bird is calling and the swallow flying low
And the lads all sitting sideways and singing as they go

Gone is many a lad now and many a horse gone too
All those lads and horses from green fields that I knew
For Dick fell at Givenchy and Prince beside the gun
On that red road to glory a mile or two from Munn

Gray lads and shadowy horses, I see them all so plain
I see them and I know them and I call them each by name
While riding down from Swanmore with all the West a-glow
And the lads all sitting sideways and singing as they go

And it's home, lads, home, with the sunset on their faces
Home lads, home to those quiet happy places
Where there's rest for horse and man when the longest day is done
And we'll all go home together at the setting of the sun

sung by David Jones about World War I
The original words to "Home Lands Home" were written by a Hampshire
Soldier during the First World War. Sarah [Morgan] found them in a
magazine, edited them, and wrote a tune. The places mentioned are in
Hampshire, just north-west of Portsmouth --- From the sleeve notes for
the first Bread and Roses album (DRGN 881).

On the sleeve notes for Mick Ryan's musical drama "A Day's Work" the song
is credited as being written by Fox-Smith with music my Sarah Morgan.
Skipy

Subject: RE: Songs about World War I
From: GUEST,Nicholas Waller
Date: 30 Jun 06 - 07:36 AM

Al Stewart's Manuscript looks at the runup to war:

Oh the lights of Saint Petersburg come on as usual
Although the air seems charged with a strangeness of late,
Yet there's nothing to touch
And the Tsar in his great Winter Palace has called for the foreign news
An archduke was shot down in Bosnia, but nothing much

And my grandmother sits before the mirror in the days before the war
Smiling a secret smile as she goes to the door
And the young man rides off in his carriage, homeward once more
And the sun sets gently on England.

And his Fields of France is about the air war:

A single biplane in a clear blue sky
1917, no enemy was seen
High above the fields of France

Oh she looks
But there's nothing to see
Still she looks
Saying come back to me

Subject: Lyr Add: THE REAPER (Bill Caddick)
From: Mr Fox
Date: 30 Jun 06 - 07:27 AM

Seek out the Home Service's live album 'Wild Life' - I think it's still available. It's on Fledg'ling records FLED 3001. The medley The Reaper/Scarecrow/Battle of The Somme is devastating:

THE REAPER
(Bill Caddick)

So now it's done once more the shining field
Has gone to feed the Reaper's blade
All silent now, the stubble it lies still
With blood red poppies overlaid
"Where are my sons" the mother cries
Just hardly grown yet gone away
"Away, away" the Reaper sighs
Cut down like corn on an autumn day
So once more the seed of life is sown
And in the loving earth is laid
But it's never done once more the young men all
Have gone to feed the Reaper's blade

Scarecrow
(John Tams)

I see the barley moving as the mowers find their pace
I see the line advancing with a steady timeless grace
And there's passion in their eyes and there's honour in each face
As they scythe down the castles and the courts

Blame it on the fathers, blame it on the sons
Blame it on the poppies and the pain
Blame it on the generals, blame it on their guns
Blame it on the scarecrow in the rain

I smell the smoke of stubble as the harvest is brought down
I see a fire burning as it purges all around
I see a field turned to ashes and the only living sound
Is the skylarks as they try to reach the sun

I see the barbed wire growing like a bramble on the land
I see a farm turned to a fortress and a future turn to sand
I see a meadow turn to mud and from it grows a hand
Like a scarecrow that is fallen in the rain

Subject: RE: Songs about World War I
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 30 Jun 06 - 06:28 AM

Christmas in the Trenches by John McCutcheon is good, but for a British audience there are a few anachronisms and Americanisms that can be altered.
(Hope I don't get shouted at again. Do you have anger problems?)

Subject: RE: Songs about World War I
From: Cats at Work
Date: 30 Jun 06 - 06:22 AM

Cornwall Songwriters production of Unsung Heroes is all about WW1 and the gardeners fron heligan who went off to fight and didn't come back. It has 14 songs each of which cover a different aspect of the war. If you are at Dartmoor Festival you can catch it there, or in Torrington before the very last performance on 27th August in the Lost gardens of Heligan. All songs are on the Cd and dots are in the book which are available from any of the Songwriters [Jon Heslop, Lucy Burrow, Mike O'Connor, Roger Bryant, Ron Openshaw] or via the internet from Mike O'Connor at Lyngham House Music. The songs are definitley worth checking out.

Subject: RE: Songs about World War I
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 30 Jun 06 - 06:09 AM

Agree Rhiannon. I know he prefers "Kestrel", from which he takes his Mudcat name, but "Don't let the music die" is MY favourite one. A song of hope in the midst of the carnage of WW1.

Subject: RE: Songs about World War I
From: Zany Mouse
Date: 30 Jun 06 - 06:04 AM

Bob is being modest. He wrote one of the best songs about WW1 around.

Rhiannon

Subject: RE: Songs about World War I
From: Hovering Bob
Date: 30 Jun 06 - 06:02 AM

As Kitty has said Les Sullivan has written a number of excellent songs about WW1 and several of these will be included in "The Flanders Experience" a show I've written, with the help of several others, about WW1 in Flanders.
"The Flanders Experience" is actually the name of the folk festival that I run each year in early November taking folk enthusiasts over to the WW1 battlefields , museums and memorials in the Ypres Salient.
I hire 'Talbot House' in Poperinghe, the original 'Everyman's Club' started by the Rev. Tubby Clayton, which is still there and maintained as it was 90 years ago.
From the interest generated by the festival several of the participants have written songs; Les Sullivan, as already mentioned, Mike Sparks, Pete Chapman and myself just for starters.
If you would like more information on these songs or "The Flanders Experience" itself, PM me and I'll be pleased to supply what I have.

All the best,

Bob H.

Subject: Lyr Add: THE SEEDS OF MORE (Roger Gall)
From: The Shambles
Date: 30 Jun 06 - 05:38 AM

The Seeds Of More

All around the tears were falling
As they waved young men goodbye
For brave, they hear their country calling
For the cause prepared to die

Soon, they'll return home to 'Blighty'
For they're sure to turn the tide
With the help of God almighty
Who they're told is on their side

No place for the faint hearted
Off to the war to end all wars
But nothing's solved, when wars are started
They only sow the seeds of more

Back to a home that's fit for heroes
Never to go to war again
But for the ruling families, in their death throes
The world will never be the same

For the Empire and it's dominions
For it's the whole world they're to save
But was it worth the lives of millions
To ensure Britannia, rules the waves?

No place for the faint hearted
Off to the war to end all wars
But nothing's solved, when wars are started
They only sow the seeds of more

Those that kept the home fires burning
Watch as dreams all fall to dust
But the lesson's there for learning
Take care where, you place your trust

A trigger pulled in Sarajevo
Loaded at the treaty of Versailles
Now fires another salvo
Do another fifty million die?

No place for the faint hearted
Off to the war to end all wars
But nothing's solved, when wars are started
They only sow the seeds of more

Roger Gall 1994

Subject: Lyr Add: DEATH OF A SOLDIER (Ron Trueman-Border)
From: Geordie-Peorgie
Date: 30 Jun 06 - 05:22 AM

Ron Trueman-Border's "Death Of A Soldier"

DEATH OF A SOLDIER

He was court-martialled one morning in May
There on the battlefield they dragged him away
The charge was desertion. He was sentenced next day
In the year of our Lord, Nineteen Fifteen

His name was McMichaels. His age, 20 years
A ragged foot soldier in the bold Grenadiers
Like a million before him, just a boy volunteer
Sent to fight for his king and his country

The church bells will ring and the ravens will sing
And the rifles will sound in the square-o
And by the old barracks wall a soldier will fall
Far from the green fields of old England

With the big guns a-roaring, the smoke in his eyes
He kept the late watch - midnight to sunrise
And while death danced around him and screams rent the skies
Like a statue he stood there 'til morning

The dawn brought the nightmare on home to him then
Shell-shocked, he wandered past the wounded and slain
And on to Jerusalem he walked in the rain
Leaving all, but the madness, behind him

The church bells will ring and the ravens will sing
And the rifles will sound in the square-o
And by the old barracks wall a soldier will fall
Far from the green fields of old England

The sergeant-at-arms took his rifle away
When they found him days later in a ditch-water grave
He had his arms round a dead man, a German they say
And he was singing "The Rose Of Trelawney"

His Mother is weeping, his sweetheart the same
For death and dishonour, a grave with no name
Just the Lily-Of-The-Valley for all England's shame
And who'll mourn the death of this soldier

The church bells will ring and the ravens will sing
And the rifles will sound in the square-o
And by the old barracks wall a soldier will fall
Far from the green fields of old England

On the albums "Trust" by Ron Trueman-Border and "Angels" by George Wilson

Subject: RE: Songs about World War I
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Jun 06 - 05:05 AM

Jon Heslop's 'Poor Murdered Men'

Lucy Burrow has written several, including 'All is Quiet on the Western Front' and 'The Tree On the Battlefield' [Battlefield Tree]

on a more general war theme, Mick Ryan's 'The Man that I did Kill' (not sure if that's the correct title, but based on a poem by Thomas Hardy [The Man He Killed])

Eric Bogle (again) 'All the Fine Young Men'

Subject: RE: Songs about World War I
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 30 Jun 06 - 05:02 AM

Sorry, I thought you had a historical interest.

Subject: RE: Songs about World War I
From: Matt_R
Date: 30 Jun 06 - 04:50 AM

"As Abby says, why ignore the period songs"


BECAUSE I WANT TO, GODDAMMIT.

Subject: RE: Songs about World War I
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 30 Jun 06 - 04:17 AM

As Abby says, why ignore the period songs?

When This Lousy War Is Over.

Never Mind.

Cicely Fox-Smith poems have been mentioned. Home Lads Home makes a fine and moving song.

Also Kipling. His Gethsemane is an emotional little piece which can be sung. I do it to Derwent Water Farewell.

Keith.

Subject: RE: Songs about World War I
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 30 Jun 06 - 03:50 AM

If you are interested in songs of the opposite side:

Author: Olt, Reinhard.
Title: Krieg und Sprache : Untersuchungen zu deutschen Soldatenliedern                        
       des Ersten Weltkriegs / von Reinhard Olt.
Published:    Giessen : W. Schmitz, 1980-1981.
LC Call No.:   PT553.O44 1980

In the second volume of his thesis the author gives the entire collection of soldiers' songs as preserved in the German Folksong Archive (Deutsches Volkslied-Archiv)

Subject: RE: Songs about World War I
From: Paul Burke
Date: 30 Jun 06 - 03:27 AM

Leon Rosselson's Remembrance Day... mind you, that's a period piece in itself, with its mention of Biafra.

Subject: RE: Songs about World War I
From: Matt_R
Date: 30 Jun 06 - 02:18 AM

Thanks peoples

Subject: RE: Songs about World War I
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 29 Jun 06 - 10:04 PM

Graham O'Callaghan has recorded a fantastic arrangement of 'From Severn by the Somme' which was written by Martin Graebe. He is accompanied by Rob Harbron a fantastic concertina player ex-Dr Faustus and now with English Acoustic Collective. It really is a haunting, lump in the throat song .... and he sings it much better than Martyn Wyndham-Read before anyone starts ....Apparently Graham was given the song by Martin himself and asked if he would learn it and sing it. It takes an unusual angle from the point of view of a man who has to stay at home as he is unfit to join up because of a heart condition but then watches his loved one go to war as a nurse and who eventually gets killed in action herself!

Brilliant .... one not to be missed

Subject: RE: Songs about World War I
From: GUEST,Gerry
Date: 29 Jun 06 - 08:28 PM

Why Old Men Cry, by Dick Gaughan. Lyrics [also] here.

Subject: RE: Songs about World War I
From: Declan
Date: 29 Jun 06 - 07:57 PM

"No Man's Land" was the original title of Eric Bogle's song and it is mentioned in the opening thread.

Niamh Parsons & Graham Dunne's latest CD "The Old Simplicity" features two songs about WW1. John Connolly [John Condon] is the story of an Irish Boy of 14 who lied about his age to join the British army and was killed shortly after arriving on the battlefields. 1917 is the story of a French prostitute and the soldiers who visited her.

Subject: RE: Songs about World War I
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 29 Jun 06 - 07:44 PM

I'm sure you already know this one, but since I don't see it mentioned anywhere in this thread: Willie McBride [No Man's Land] (also known as The Green Fields Of France).

Subject: RE: Songs about World War I
From: CeltArctic
Date: 29 Jun 06 - 07:39 PM

Speaking of war poetry, my favourite is from "Rhymes of a Red Cross Man" by Robert Service. Many of his poems were obviously written with contemporary tunes in mind; you can almost hear the tunes in the background when you read them.

Moira

Subject: RE: Songs about World War I
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 29 Jun 06 - 07:28 PM

Just thought of another one: The brilliant "1917" (subtitle/refrain "Tonight The War Is Over") written by David Olney and sung by Emmylou Harris & Linda Ronstadt on their duo CD "Western Wall".

The central narrator is a world-wise but compassionate French streetwalker who is about to go upstairs with yet another scared young soldier on a night's leave, and she knows she can only give him a few hours' comfort before he has to back again, probably to die. It's a GREAT song, not well enough known.

He speaks to me in schoolboy French
Of a soldier's life inside a trench
Of the look of death and the ghastly stench
I do my best to please him

Subject: RE: Songs about World War I
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 29 Jun 06 - 07:13 PM

Staying with Peter Bellamy: Tommy

Kipling's own son died in the war and it was a loss he never got over.

Subject: RE: Songs about World War I
From: stallion
Date: 29 Jun 06 - 07:06 PM

Kipling / Bellamy

Cholera Camp
Danny Deever
Follow Me 'Ome

Subject: Lyr Add: FAREWELL TO ANZAC (Cicely Fox Smith)
From: Charley Noble
Date: 29 Jun 06 - 07:05 PM

Here's an example of one of the C. Fox Smith poems:

FAREWELL TO ANZAC by Cicely Fox Smith

Oh, hump your swag and leave, lads, the ships are in the bay —
We've got our marching orders now, it's time to come away —
And a long good-bye to Anzac Beach — where blood has flowed in vain
for we're leaving it, leaving it, game to fight again!
But some there are will never quit this bleak and bloody shore —
and some that marched and fought with us will fight and march no more;
their blood has bought til Judgment Day the slopes they stormed so well,
and we're leaving them, leaving them, sleeping where they fell.

Leaving them, leaving them — the bravest and the best —
leaving them, leaving them, and maybe glad to rest!

We did our best with yesterday, tomorrow's still our own —
But we're leaving them, leaving them, sleeping all alone.
Ay, they are gone beyond it all, the praising and the blame
and many a man may win renown, but none more fair a fame;
They showed the world Australia's lads knew well the way to die;
and we're leaving them, leaving them, quiet where they lie.

Leaving them, leaving them sleeping where they lie —
Leaving them, leaving them, in their glory and their pride.
Round the sea and barren land, over them the sky —
Oh! We're leaving them, leaving them, so quiet where they lie.

Notes:

From a book of World War 1 poetry called WAR VERSE, edited by Frank Foxcroft, published by Thomas Y. Crowell Co., New York, US, © 1918, pp. 153-154, and originally printed in the magazine "The Spectator."

This poem focuses on the abandonment of the disastrous Gallipoli campaign in 1916. Thousands of Australian troops were mowed down by the Turks, and their were bitter recriminations resulting from this failed invasion.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Songs about World War I
From: captainbirdseye
Date: 29 Jun 06 - 07:04 PM

Tommy's Lot, written by Dominic williams, recorded by Dick Miles, is a very moving song

Dick miles

Subject: RE: Songs about World War I
From: Abby Sale
Date: 29 Jun 06 - 07:01 PM

But Matt R, why overlook the period ones. The Great War was a great shock to those involved. The songs sung often had deep meaning, not just a theme to get your song printed/recorded.

I think one of the best 'most certainly relates the battle of the Somme
and is on the same Roberts/Barrand CD cited above AND is a Song of the Week this week since the battle of the Somme was July 1, 1916: "Hanging From the The Old Barbed Wire."

You could sing it with a guitar or an electric glockenspiel if you wanted.

Subject: RE: Songs about World War I
From: SINSULL
Date: 29 Jun 06 - 05:43 PM

http://www.melodylane.net/ww1.htm

Subject: RE: Songs about World War I
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 29 Jun 06 - 05:08 PM

If you enter WWI in the search box for Digitrad, you'll come up with about 40 or so.

Subject: RE: Songs about World War I
From: Greg B
Date: 29 Jun 06 - 05:04 PM

A couple of aviation ones:

A handsome young airman lay dying
And as on the airdrome he lay
To mechanics who 'round him came sighing
These last parting words he did say:
"Take the cylinders out of my kidneys,
The connecting rods out of my brain;
The crankshaft out of my backbone
And assemble the engine again.
(On the DT... a parody of Streets of Laredo)

And of course:

The bells of hell go ting-a-ling-a-ling
For you but not for me
For me the angels sing-a-ling-a-ling
Death holds no fear for me
Oh death where is thy sting-a-ling-a-ling
Where is they victory?
The bells of hell go ting-a-ling-a-ling
For you but not for me
-- In the DT but slightly different

(I've actually sung the latter when feeling a bit 'puckered'
up in the cockpit of an airplane, and find that it does really
help. Best done alone, though...passengers just don't quite
understand.)

Subject: RE: Songs about World War I
From: Zany Mouse
Date: 29 Jun 06 - 04:58 PM

Or you could read the Lynne McDonald books. They consist of accounts from the poor sods in the trenches.

Rhiannon

Subject: RE: Songs about World War I
From: bobad
Date: 29 Jun 06 - 04:57 PM

Oh! Frenchy was written in 1918, it is an English music hall type song that is light hearted and patriotic. It has been transcribed from a wax cylinder recording by the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project of the University of Southern california at Santa Barbara, a great source for music of this era.

If you have an interest in reading about WWI, I would like to recommend a book titled "Three Day Road" by Joseph Boyden, a historical novel that is largely set in the trenches of France.

Subject: RE: Songs about World War I
From: Zany Mouse
Date: 29 Jun 06 - 04:45 PM

Oh, yes, you're absolute right. I didn't read the name of the thread properly. Plenty around.

Rhiannon

Subject: RE: Songs about World War I
From: Snuffy
Date: 29 Jun 06 - 04:43 PM

But that's World War II, as is The D-Day Dodgers, another capable of moistening the eyes.

Subject: RE: Songs about World War I
From: Zany Mouse
Date: 29 Jun 06 - 04:36 PM

Keith Marsden's Normandy Orchards has me in tears.

Rhiannon

Subject: RE: Songs about World War I
From: Charley Noble
Date: 29 Jun 06 - 02:45 PM

You also might check out the poetry anthologies of the day such as WAR VERSE, edited by Frank Foxcroft; the 7th edition is most complete. Cicely Fox Smith also composed dozens of poems relating to World War 1, some of which have been recorded. Check out her page on the Oldpoetry website: Click here for website

She wrote a number of poems focused on the merchant sailors encountering the German submarines, commerce raiders, and mines, and a few others dealing with Gailipoli, the battle on the Western Front, and convalesing.

Most of her poems are readily adapted for singing, and the notes to the poems reference any recording that I and the other editor are aware of.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: Songs about World War I
From: andyval
Date: 29 Jun 06 - 02:43 PM

Maginot Waltz - Ralph McTell

Subject: RE: Songs about World War I
From: Les from Hull
Date: 29 Jun 06 - 02:31 PM

You really don't have to look any further than Mudcat.

Thiepval, words by Micca, Music by Linda Kelly

Subject: Lyr Add: VALLEY OF THE SHADOW (Paul Clark)
From: CeltArctic
Date: 29 Jun 06 - 02:19 PM

I got this off of a John Roberts and Tony Barrand album:

VALLEY OF THE SHADOW
By Paul Clark (for a play called 'Days of Pride' produced in 1981)

Our great attack had failed
We'd nothing left to give.
The wounded hanging on the wire
Had little time to live.
The German shells came screaming down
To shred them as they lay
Abandoned in the Valley of the Shadow.

The battle ground that night
Would look as bright as day,
As fairy flares turned blackness
Into bitter lifeless gray.
The twisted shapes that once were men
In senseless patterns lay--
The tenants of the Valley of the Shadow.

The torn and shattered fields,
The bits of wire and steel;
No blade of grass, nor leaf, nor tree
To make the place seem real.
An Ancient traveler passing by
Just couldn't help but say,
"This surely is the Valley of the Shadow."

Let pictures of this scene
Be hung on every wall
In rooms where Governments decide
When men should stand or fall.
We'd never go to war again
If leaders had their say,
While looking at the Valley of the Shadow.

Subject: Lyr Add: MARGARITA (Harvey Andrews)
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Jun 06 - 02:04 PM

MARGARITA
By Harvey Andrews

They're playing our song, Margarita.
Dance it this last time with me.
It won't be long, Margarita.
Soon I’ll be overseas.
Let me know that you'll care,
When I’ve gone over there.
They're playing our song, Margarita.
Dance it this last time with me.

Kiss me again, Margarita.
Give me a memory of you.
They say in France, Margarita,
One more push, we'll be through.
Yes, I’ll write, but where from?
All they'll say is 'the Somme'.
So kiss me again, Margarita.
Give me a memory of you.

It's a new world, Margarita.
We'll build when it's through.
In that new world, Margarita,
We'll be wed, me and you.

My old great aunt, Margarita,
She'd been blind thirty years,
Would tell me of young Margarita,
Of her man and her tears.
She would say, "He was tall.
There's his picture on the wall."
My old great aunt, Margarita,
She'd been blind thirty years.

She would ask, "Is he smiling?"
I would stare at the frame,
But the sun was there, shining
Through her window again.
Where that sun always shone,
He had faded and gone,
But she would ask, "Is he smiling?"
I would say, "He's the same."

It's a new world, Margarita.
We'll build when it's through.
In that new world, Margarita,
We'll be wed, me and you.

They're playing our song, Margarita.
Dance it this last time with me.
It won't be long, Margarita.
Soon I’ll be overseas.
Let me know that you'll care,
When I’ve gone over there.
They're playing our song, Margarita.
Dance it this last time with me.

Subject: RE: Songs about World War I
From: Herga Kitty
Date: 29 Jun 06 - 01:54 PM

Mariella Frostrup's Open Book on BBC Radio 4 this afternoon (repeat from Sunday) featured "Private Peaceful" - a collaboration between Michael Morpurgo and Coope, Boyes and Simpson. Les Sullivan has written several songs about WW1, including the Roses of No Man's Land and Menin Gate. Also Robb Johnson's Cold in the Trenches Tonight. and his double "Gentle Men" CD.

Kitty

Subject: RE: Songs about World War I
From: MMario
Date: 29 Jun 06 - 01:50 PM

Dancing at Whitsun

Subject: Songs about World War I
From: Matt_R
Date: 29 Jun 06 - 01:19 PM

I've been recently looking for songs about World War I, as I am obsessed with the horror of the trench fighting, millions dead and shattered peace of the early 1900s. I'm not really looking for period songs, but latter-day looks back, either folk or rock genres. I know most of the big ones:

And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda

Christmas in the Trenches

No Man's Land

England 1914

The Writing of Tipperary

Sgt. MacKenzie

Butcher's Tale (Western Front 1914)

Does anyone have any others?