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During the first World War songs were being written thick and fast.
I have quite a number of these, now looking rather faded and just a little fragile. Of course they are getting on for 90 years old. The tunes are very easy to play, usually marches.
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The above song tells of a worried lass, called Mabel as her lover, Tommy, goes off to France.
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Sergeant Brown, keep an eye on Tommy for me.
For he might go wrong on the 'Continong',
When he reaches 'Gay Paree'.
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She was not worried too much about the trenches, more about the ladies of Paris!
This was written in 1917 and I can imagine it being played on the old 'piana' in many a front parlour.
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This next one dates from 1920, two years after the war ended.
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Bertie was a soldier and when on the 'Continong',
"Take me back to Blighty", used to be his favourite song.
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It wasn't mainly because of the girls that he wanted to go back across the channel, but because of the high cost of everything in Britain after the war.
The last verse goes.....
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I can speak the lingo like the natives do,
"Sontey ! Vive la France and Commong tally voo"
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Unlike this soldier in my signing off ditty...
I met a bloke the other day, a snoozing in the trench,
‘E didn’t know a word of ours, nor me a word of French;
An’ ‘ow it was we managed, well, I can’t understand,
But I never used me phrasebook, though I had it in me hand.
I winked at ‘im to start with, ‘e grinned from ear to ear,
‘An ‘e sez “Tipperary”, an’ I sez “Sooveneer?”
‘E ‘ad me only Woodbine, I ‘ad ‘is thin cigar,
Which set the ball a’rollin’, an’ so, well there you are.
I showed ‘im next me wife an’ kids, ‘e upped an’ showed me is,
Two pretty little froggy kids wiv ‘air all in a frizz,
“Annette” ‘e sez, “Louise”, ‘e sez, ‘an ‘is tears began to fall,
We were comrades when we parted….but we’d ‘ardly spoke at all.
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Yes that's fascinating Mr Kipper. These days we always think of the horrors of the Great War and yet these pieces of evidence demonstrate that to make the unbearable bearable, a much lighter response was adopted in some contemporary quarters...
ReplyDeleteThe word "Continong" is quite bizarre.
In all the music I have of the period, there was always a air of optimism. The horrors of war were to be felt later.
ReplyDeleteDo you know...there is a lot of interesting facts to be uncovered in the songs of the day?
Most people will know the tune..know the chorus...but the words in the unremembered verses are fascinating.
I love old sheet music. I also much prefer the music and words from that area to the modern day rubbish.
ReplyDeleteThe words to that last song are really lovely.
I am sure you will have guessed that I am also fascinated by the skill of the writers, composers and also the illustrators involved in the production of sheet music.
ReplyDeleteSometimes the words are a bit 'sloppy' and sometimes the music is very mundane but, like you, I feel that more care went into producing it then, than goes into all this repetitive, thumping, electronic head banging rubbish of today!
OK....I'm old fashioned!
I have all my grandfather's letters from the First World War trenches - - mundane, most of them, as the horrors could not be mentioned because of censorship - and their very dullness is fascinating! "Bit of a show" means "hundreds of people dead" and so on. I love these old songs - more please.
ReplyDeleteThat's amazing to still have all those.... I suppose your mother must have kept them.
ReplyDeleteI must have dozens from the war years. I shall try to dig out some of the more unusual ones for you.