MUSIC: War Songs

Last week the war song bottleneck appeared to be broken. Three were going great guns:

> Lyricist Frank Loesser’s Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition! (inspired by a Navy Chaplain’s historic remark as he manned an anti-aircraft gun at Pearl Harbor) had become so popular that the Office of War Information feared the public would tire of it prematurely. The OWI requested broadcasters to limit its performance to once every four hours instead of once every two. Sample stanzas:

“Praise the Lord, and pass the ammunition!

Praise the Lord, and pass the ammunition!

Praise the Lord, and pass the ammunition

And we’ll all stay free!

Praise the Lord, and swing into position,

Can’t afford to sit around a’wishin’

Praise the Lord, we’re all between perdition

And the deep blue sea.”*

> Hoagy Carmichael’s The Cranky Old Yank, one of the first U.S. war songs to be written about tanks, was tried out last week (amid appreciative whoops) on the same tank corps that heard Stokowski’s Shostakovich (see col. 3). An official première of The Cranky Old Yank is scheduled by Bing Crosby this week on his Kraft Cheese broadcast.

Leading all war songs on the juke-box popularity poll was the season’s wackiest satirical item, Der Fuehrer’s Face, which sold out its initial edition of 100,000 records ten days after its release three weeks ago. A medley of bronx cheers and polka-dottiness that has to be heard to be appreciated, Der Fuehrer’s Face last week seemed well on its way to become the comic theme song of World War II. The song was written by Walt Disney’s Tunesmith Oliver Wallace for a picture originally entitled Donald Duck in Nutzi-land, skyrocketed so fast that Disney decided to change the title of the picture to that of the song. Also rocketing to fame on the song’s beer-barrel phrases was a hitherto obscure drummer named Lindley Armstrong (“Spike”) Jones. Jones, whose band, The City Slickers, first recorded Der Fuehrer’s Face, found himself suddenly thrust up among the top U.S. bandleaders. Until then “Spike” had been modestly playing what he calls “society music” (jazzed up Chopin and Debussy) at Los Angeles’ Jonathan Club. Now he is being fought over by several Hollywood studios, is already signed up for a Warner Brothers musical called Thank Your Lucky Star. Says “Spike” of this sudden burst of popularity: “Gee, the prices are getting so high I have to make them repeat their offers three times before I can believe them.”

* Copyright 1942—Famous Music Corp., Publishers to Paramount Pictures.