The Great War’s Music

The topic that was chosen out of the hat for me was music in the World War I era, and how the war affected popular music in the United States. This topic was a bit challenging for me. I found myself having to do research in a completely different way. There wasn’t one website or one book that gave me all the information I needed. And because this was more of an analytical topic it required me to think in a different way as well. My last project on Francis Ouimet was a historical event, an event that was written about and talked about for a very long time and is still something people talk about today. So naturally it was relatively easy to find the research I needed to form my paper. This time around my topic of music is not an event, it’s an emotion and a movement felt by the American public. Therefore it required me to dig a little deeper and put a lot more effort into this project.

            Propaganda in music has been used by governments to influence the emotions of people for a long time. And musicians wrote pro-war songs to inspire patriotism in the American people. Music could have been one of the major factors to why America won the First World War. Without the lyrics from some of these songwriters Americans would not have enlisted, bought bonds, and some might not have even cared about the war. This website is where I learned a lot about the use of music as propaganda. It talks about how dating all the was back to the 18^th century the British government hired a well-known artiest of that time, Charles Dibdin, to write and produce music that would continue the British people’s ill feelings of France. This website was truly a godsend, it helped me thoroughly in my research giving the platform to dive into more specific musicians and songs.

Music was used as propaganda 

            My journey from my previous source lead me to one of the most famous songs of the era and to these two sources gave me great insight into what I was looking for. George Cohan was a star from birth, he and his family where touring performers when George was a child. Young George also played a part in a play of his own where he stared in the main role. He went on to perform on Broadway and became a famous producer. When congress declared war on April 6, 1917 George Cohan had seen the headlines of the newspapers and began humming a tune. He was already a well regarded actor, singer, and producer but he was about to discover one of the biggest hit songs of the day. “Over There” was George’s masterpiece, it was extremely popular and sold over two million copies! George was also awarded the Congressional Metal of Honor for the writing of his song. George’s “song ’Over There’ is about the ‘Yanks’ (i.e. Americans) going ‘over there’ (i.e. across the Atlantic) to help fight the ‘Huns’ (i.e. the Germans) during World War I.” World War One was the driving inspiration behind this song, because without the war this song makes no sense and is totally irrelevant. Cohan got the inspiration from the war to write this song and this song inspired people to support the war. This song is a great example of how popular music can sway someone into thinking a certain way.

"Over There"

Another popular artiest during the war was Ivor Novello. He is most well known for his song “Keep the Home Fires Burning” a pro- war song that gave families of soldiers fighting overseas optimism and reassurance that the war was worth their son’s sacrifice. “Keep the Home Fires Burning, /
While your hearts are yearning, 
/Though your lads are far away
/They dream of home. 
/There's a silver lining
/Through the dark clouds shining, /
Turn the dark cloud inside out
/'Til the boys come home.” The chorus of the song instructs people not to be worried and be joyfully that our soldiers overseas are fighting for democracy. Even though that is not specifically said in the lyrics, that is the underlying message of the song. The source I used for this information helped me with the basics of this song, like the lyrics and who is was made by. It also helped me by showing me that not all songs were trying to recruit men to join the army but they were also for making sure mothers and father were comfortable in letting their kids go off to fight by telling them it was an honorable thing to do.

"Keep the Home Fires Burning"

Soldier song leaders were people recruited to sing pro-war songs to the people. They would travel all around singing at boxing matches and whoever else was willing to listen. Their goal was the same as any other musician of the day, and that was to encourage the war via music. The only difference between the soldier song leaders and the mainstream artiest was that the song leaders didn’t even have to be good at singing they just had to be willing to sing. As I was looking at this newspaper I was fascinated that they would take anyone, in the paper it says: “He doesn’t need to know anything about music, in the generally accepted meaning of musical knowledge.” The fact that some people were brave enough to come out and sing in front people with little to no musical experience at all says a lot about how passionate they were bout the war.

The Great War

I found this topic to be a new challenge for me. It really made me come out of my comfort zone as a researcher. Even though at first I was a bit apprehensive about this research topic I ended up finding out some really cool information about popular music back then. It got me thinking about today’s popular music and how it affects me and my views of the world and its conflicts. As I was thinking about the music on my IPod I realized that a lot of country music has a pro-war message. In the song “Made in America” by Toby Keith, the lyrics talk about how Americans should use and buy American made products as opposed to foreign made products. Toby has the same effect on Americans today as George Cohan had in 1917. It’s amazing how even after almost hundred years the culture behind musical influence can be so similar.

Toby Keith's "Made in America" album cover