The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #5550   Message #2292714
Posted By: GUEST,Joseph de Culver City
19-Mar-08 - 12:53 PM
Thread Name: 'Mother Songs' of the tear-jerker variety
Subject: Lyr Add: I DIDN'T RAISE MY BOY TO BE A SOLDIER
Brack& mentioned 'Pal of My Cradle Days'

What about this WWI anti war song:

I DIDN'T RAISE MY BOY TO BE A SOLDIER
(Al Piantadosi and Alfred Bryan)

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 trouble,
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."

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


My dad's uncle [Al. Piantadosi) composed the music for both songs and many others.