Anti-war songs from WWI

Subject: Lyr Add: ON SUNDAY I WALK OUT WITH A SOLDIER
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 23 Dec 13 - 09:51 AM

The following song was mentioned by Flewruby above as the source for the tune of "I Don't Want to Join the Army":

These lyrics, without a title, come from Gender and Power in Britain, 1640-1990 by Susan Kingsley Kent (London: Routledge, 1999), page 275:

On Sunday I walk out with a soldier.
On Monday I'm taken by a tar.
On Tuesday I'm out
With a baby Boy Scout;
On Wednesday, with a Hussar.

On Thursday I gang oot with a Kiltie.
On Friday, the captain of the crew.
But on Saturday I'm willing,
If you'll only take a shilling,
To make a man of any one of you.

A couple of other books say the title is "On Sunday I Walk Out with a Soldier" and that it was sung by Gwendolen Brogden in the Palace Theatre revue "The Passing Show" in 1914.

Different lyrics, and a different title, are found in The Ones Who Have to Pay: The Soldiers-Poets of Victoria BC in the Great War 1914-1918 by Robert Ratcliffe Taylor (Victoria, BC: Trafford Publishing, 2013), page 132:

TO MAKE A MAN OUT OF YOU

On Sunday I walk out with a soldier.
On Monday a sailor for a pard.
On Tuesday of course
With a B.C. Horse;
On Wednesday, a Home Guard.

On Thursday I gang oot wi' a Kiltie.
On Friday, a Fusilier or two.
But as you've all been willing,
It didn't need a shilling,
To make a man of every one of you.

Subject: Lyr Add: STUNG RIGHT (Joe Hill)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 23 Dec 13 - 12:20 PM

This song was mentioned earlier by Dick Greenhaus.

These lyrics copied from FolkArchive.de; they are also in Joe Hill by Gibbs M. Smith (Gibbs Smith, 1969), page 248:

First published in the 6 Mar 1913 edition (fifth edition) of the Industrial Worker "Little Red Songbook."

STUNG RIGHT
Words by Joe Hill, music "Sunlight, Sunlight" by W. S. Weeden

1. When I was hiking 'round the town to find a job one day,
I saw a sign that thousand men were wanted right away,
To take a trip around the world in Uncle Sammy's fleet.
I signed my name a dozen times upon a great big sheet.

CHORUS: I was stung right, stung right, S-T-U-N-G.
Stung right, stung right; E. Z. Mark, that's me.
When my term is over, and again I'm free,
There'll be no more trips around the world for me.

2. The man he said, "The U. S. Fleet, that is no place for slaves.
The only thing you have to do is stand and watch the waves."
But in the morning, five o'clock, they woke me from my snooze,
To scrub the deck and polish brass, and shine the captain's shoes.

3. One day a dude in uniform to me commenced to shout.
I simply plugged him in the jaw, and knocked him down and out.
They slammed me right in irons then and said, "You are a case."
On bread and water then I lived for twenty-seven days.

4. One day the captain said, "Today I'll show you something nice.
All hands line up; we'll go ashore and have some exercise."
He made us run for seven miles as fast as we could run,
And with a packing on our back that weighed a half a ton.

5. Some time ago when Uncle Sam he had a war with Spain,
And many of the boys in blue were in the battle slain,
Not all were killed by bullets, though; no, not by any means.
The biggest part that died were killed by Armour's Pork and Beans.

Subject: Lyr Add: THE GRAND OUL DAME BRITANNIA (incomplete)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 23 Dec 13 - 01:46 PM

Philippa mentioned this:

This text appears in Sean O'Casey: Writer at Work - A Biography by Christopher Murray (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 2004), page 106:

One of [Sean O'Casey's] first and best-loved satirical ballads was 'The Grand Oul' Dame Britannia', published in the Workers' Republic on 15 January 1916 under his old, ironic penname An Gall Fada, 'the Tall Foreigner'.

The context was the introduction of conscription in England, from which Ireland was for the present exempt but which was to reappear as a threat in March 1918, when the ballad was reprinted as one of the Songs of the Wren under O'Casey's name (in Irish). The first verse (of eight) runs:

Och! Ireland, sure I'm proud of you—
    Ses the Grand Oul' Dame Britannia,
To poor little Belgium tried and true,
    Ses the Grand Oul' Dame Britannia.
Ye've closed your ear to the Sinn Fein lies,
For you know each Gael that for England dies
Will enjoy Home Rule in the clear blue skies,
    Ses the Grand Oul' Dame Britannia.

[Another verse (possibly parts of 2 verses?) appears in Genesis of the Rising, 1912-1916: A Transformation of Nationalist Opinion by Christopher M. Kennedy (New York: Peter Lang, 2010), page 109:

Redmond now Home Rule has won,
    Ses the Grand Oul' Dame Britannia.
He's finished what Wolfe Tone begun,
    Ses the Grand Oul' Dame Britannia.
Now scholars, hurlers, saints and bards,
    Ses the Grand Oul' Dame Britannia.
Come along and join the Irish Guards,
    Ses the Grand Oul' Dame Britannia.
Every Man who treads on a German's feet
Will be given a parcel tied up neat—
A Home Rule badge, Tombstone Cross and Winding Sheet,
    Ses the Grand Oul' Dame Britannia.

Subject: RE: Anti-war songs from WWI
From: Joe_F
Date: 23 Dec 13 - 06:31 PM

My mother remembered from her youth:

O, say, can you -- imagine, mother?
You're boy is in the guardhouse now.

Takes off, of course, from the national anthem.

Subject: RE: Anti-war songs from WWI
From: The Sandman
Date: 24 Dec 13 - 06:24 PM

Tommys Lothttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ5xZQVkhak

Subject: RE: Anti-war songs from WWI
From: mark gregory
Date: 29 Apr 14 - 02:02 AM

Two WWI anti-conscription songsheets are now on the Australian Folk Songs website with a total of 7 Australian songs plus the wobbly song Solidarity forever

One of the songsheets became notorious in the newspapers because it was discovered carefully placed and bound in a batch of early phonebooks published in the Melbourne Government Printery ... the anti-conscription men and women were a creative lot!

The anti-conscription movement defeated two referendums despite overwhelming support of jingo governments and newspapers.

see Women's Anti-Conscription Songs [1916]


and Anti-Conscription Army Songs [1917]

------

The Melbourne "Age" writes:--
The flagrant and dishonorable abuse of official trust to which certain "anti" types will descend in order to spread their pernicious gospel is in evidence in a copy of our latest "Telephone Guide," dated March.

Between the leaves of the book, and bound into the book as a whole with the other official leaves, is a copy of a pamphlet of "anti conscription army songs," dealing with such topics as a "maiden's sacrifice," the "greedy master class," "incubate the kids," and "bump me into Parliament."

It is not known how many leaflets have been distributed in such a manner, but the binding up of this particular leaflet in the guide under review proves almost conclu- sively that it is the work of an employe or employes in the Government Printing Office, whose low conception of their obligations as public servants makes it highly desirable that their identity should be established and fitting punishment imposed.

--------
This article refers the Anti-Conscription Army Songs mentioned above

There are plenty of other Australian anti-war songs from the period and we would see the same phenomenon from the Menzies Vietnam War and the George Bush Iraq War

At the same time commentators often exclaim "what has happened to the protest songs" when their only source of information comes from Top of the Pops. ! How very convenient

Subject: RE: Anti-war songs from WWI
From: mark gregory
Date: 29 Apr 14 - 02:17 AM

I recently found this long lost English poem in the Australian trade union supported newspaper the Worker

Worker Thursday 19 October 1916 p. 3.


KENCH HILL

You can hear the guns all day
Rumbling eighty miles away;
You can hear them all night long
Booming out the devil's song,
Taking God's own right to kill—
From the top of high Kench Hill.

The hay smells sweet on high Kench Hill
When we go out a-raking;
And, round about, the Roman Marsh
In summer heat lies baking.

There's miles of sky on high Kench Hill
With colored clouds a-spreading
Like gold fish in a great blue bowl,
When we the hay are tedding.

And you may see on high Kench Hill,
Clear over hedge and railing,
A little slip of silver sea
With ships upon it sailing.

Merry's the time on high Kench Hill
When we the hay are carting ;
Fun runs free like the ale and tea,
And lovers go sweethearting.

'Tis peaceful time on high Kench Hill—
Below the lambs are bleating ;
The last load home is lost in mist,
Night sheds her quiet greeting.

You can hear the guns all day
Rumbling eighty miles away.
You can hear them all night long
Booming out the devil's song.
Taking God's own right to kill—
From the top of high Kench Hill.

H.W., in London "Herald."

The "Daily Herald" published in London was also trade union supported which encouraged the Worker to trade stories and occasionally poems

Subject: RE: Anti-war songs from WWI
From: mark gregory
Date: 29 Apr 14 - 03:13 AM

The Australian coal miner poet Josiah Cocking was strongly opposed to war all his long life

He wrote the following poem in 1910 4 years before WWI so could be described by some as "prematurely anti-war"

The following verses by "Dandelion" were printed in the "International
Socialist Review" of Feb. 12, 1910.

DANDELION BITTERS.
"Fling out the. flag, let it flap & rise
On the breath of the eager air."- FranCis Adams.

We have flung the flag; see ! it flaunts & waves
In the light of the Southern Cross;
'Neath the gaudy rag are a million slaves
'Neath the heel of our Owner's Boss !

For a hundred years we have wiped the sweat
From our faces, in field & mine;
And of blood & tears we shall wipe them yet
If our forces we don't combine.

Shall we tear our foes; & remain content
To be hewers of wood and stone ?
Shall we toil for those till our lives are spent,
Or produce for ourselves alone ?

Shall we listen yet to the cry of "creed"
Or of "color", or "flag", or "race" ?
Shall we bleed and sweat to supply the need
Of the authors of our disgrace?

Shall we cultivate, in these Austral States,
At the Labor mis-leader's calI,
An insensate hatred of "foreign" mates
When together we stand or fall ?

Shall we-shoot or hang ev'ry man that's black,
Or affront every man that's brown
To appease the Gang on our bended back
Who divide us to keep us down ?

Let's respect each man, be he black or tan,
And discard stupid racial pride;
Let's adopt the plan to despise & ban
Only those who are black inside !

Must the workers live in the depths of Hell?
Shall we never attempt to rise ?
Should we want & give to the drones who dwell
On the mountains of Paradise ?

Let us join our hands round the whole wide earth,
And unite with a noble aim--
Let us bravely stand with all men of worth
And this fact to the world proclaim:-

That we mean to fight in our solid might
( Not with bombs, but with active brains ),
For the reign of Right, and for Justice, bright,
And for freedom from wage-slaves chains!

To the drones and kings-- & all useless things-
We shall offer the pick or pen;
And no man will sing "God preserve the king ",
But "God save all our fellow-men."

And we mean to keep what we make & reap
From the Line to the Polar Skies;
And the word shall leap orr the rolling deep
That the World is our Final Prize ! "

Cocking always wrote poetry under a pen-name in this case Dandelion (refers to Daniel De Leon one of the founders of the Industrial Workers of the World ) As can be seen above his thinking has a deal of IWW philosophy about it.