songs & internment of enemy aliens

Subject: Songs re internment of 'enemy aliens'
From: Felipa
Date: 10 Jan 11 - 09:29 AM

Many of you will know that many people of German and Austrian (including Jews and opponents of Nazism) or Italian nationality who were interned in the UK (and in some cases sent on to internment camps in Canada or Australia) during World War II and that in the USA many Japanese citizens were interned.

The internees produced camp newsletter and organised classes and other activities. I'd like to know of any songs either composed by internees or composed about them - during the war or afterwards.

Subject: RE: songs & internment of enemy aliens
From: Jack Campin
Date: 10 Jan 11 - 09:55 AM

I believe there are poems by Kurt Schwitters, written when he was interned on the Isle of Man.

Subject: RE: songs & internment of enemy aliens
From: Midchuck
Date: 10 Jan 11 - 09:57 AM

"Manzanar" by Tom Russell.

On both "Box of Visions" and "The Long Way Around," IIRC

*************************************

He said my name is Nakashima
And I'm a proud American
I came here in '27
From my homeland of Japan

And we picked your grapes and oranges
Made some money, bought a store
Until 1942
Pearl Harbor and the war

Came those relocation orders
They took our house, the store, the car
Then they drove us to the desert
To a place called Manzanar

The Spanish word for "apple orchard"
Though we saw no apple trees
Just the rows of prison barracks
And barbed wired boundaries

And we dream of apple blossoms
waving free beneath the stars
Till we wake up in the desert
the prisoners of Manzanar
Manzanar...

Fifty years, they've all but vanished
And now I am an old man
But I don't regret the day
That I came here from Japan

But on moonlit winter nights
I often wish upon a star
That I'd forget the shame and sorrow
That I felt at Manzanar

And we dream of apple blossoms
waving free beneath the stars
Till we wake up in the desert
the prisoners of Manzanar

Subject: RE: songs & internment of enemy aliens
From: Jack Campin
Date: 10 Jan 11 - 10:37 AM

A quick google suggests there are a few songs about the sinking of the Arandora Star.

Subject: RE: songs & internment of enemy aliens
From: Bob the Postman
Date: 10 Jan 11 - 11:53 AM

Maria Dunn's In The Shadow Of The Rockies, set to a Ukrainian folk tune, deals with the internment of Ukrainians in Canada during WW I.

Gordon Carter's CD Diary Of A Coal Town has a song called "Yorkshire Boy" which tells the story of the son of a Vancouver Island coal miner. Here are the words to the third verse:

I worked for a while at the Japanese mill
I was the white kid on the crew
Till the war came and they shipped them out
In 1942
I can't forget their sorrowful eyes
And the sadness of that time
When the vultures came for what was left
And robbed those people blind

Subject: RE: songs & internment of enemy aliens
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 10 Jan 11 - 01:13 PM

Any songs from the internees themselves?

Subject: RE: songs & internment of enemy aliens
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 10 Jan 11 - 02:26 PM

I have one about strawberry farmers in Washington that I can't remember the tune to and one about oyster pickers in WWII and it mentions the Japanese and Germans being taken to camps. mg

Subject: RE: songs & internment of enemy aliens
From: Jack Campin
Date: 10 Jan 11 - 02:53 PM

Schwitters in England

Not very folky, I guess.

Subject: RE: songs & internment of enemy aliens
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 10 Jan 11 - 03:11 PM

Linda Allen has written one about Bainbridge Island I think...and there is Kari's piano by James Keelaghan?? mg

Subject: RE: songs & internment of enemy aliens
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 10 Jan 11 - 03:14 PM

I can't recall precisely, but didn't Woody Guthrie write any songs about interned aliens in America? It was certainly something he had strong feelings on.

Subject: RE: songs & internment of enemy aliens
From: Jack Campin
Date: 10 Jan 11 - 03:22 PM

Two poems about his internment by Schwitters:

Merzbook

"Enemy Alien" and "Howler Monkeys in Midlothian Prison". And the poems about exile in Norway before that.

Subject: RE: songs & internment of enemy aliens
From: Stewie
Date: 10 Jan 11 - 06:40 PM

Here's a good'un from James Keelaghan:

Kiri's piano.


--Stewie.