MY 20 FAVORITE WORLD WAR II SONGS.

By Hal Drucker.

What better time than this Memorial Day month to recall some of the songs that inspired our GI’s and stirred the patriotic juices of we boys who followed their exploits on a map pinned to our bedroom walls, adjacent to photos of Betty Grable and Rita Hayworth. 

2) I’LL WALK ALONE.
“Because to tell you the truth I’ll be lonely, when my heart tells me you are lonely too.” The lyricist was the irrepressible Sammy Cahn who partnered on it with melodist Jule Styne. Its finest interpreter was Jo Stafford.
Click: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNwRhzuk20s

3) DON’T SIT UNDER THE APPLE TREE, “With anyone else but me, Till I come marching home.” Composer was Sam Stept with Les Brown and Charles Tobias as lyricists. The Andrews Sisters’s “Apple Tree” platters predominated in juke boxes throughout the USA.
Click: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7J4i8pNzbA
 
4) THIS WILL BE MY SHINING HOUR.
“Like the lights of home before me, Or an angel, watching o'er me
This will be my shining hour 'til I'm with you again.”
This gorgeous song teamed Johnny Mercer and Harold Arlen for lyrics and music.
 

5) THEY’RE EITHER TOO YOUNG OR TOO OLD.
“What’s good is in the army, what’s bad will never harm me.”
Written by Frank Loesser and Arthur Schwartz, Bette Davis, of all people, sang this comic gem in the wartime-charity show movie Thank Your Lucky Stars.

6) SAY A PRAYER FOR THE BOYS OVER THERE.
Deanna Durbin who at 90 is still cloistered in a Paris suburb, introduced this weepy ballad in the movie Hers to Hold. The song is by Jimmy McHugh and Herb Magidson.

7) WE DID IT BEFORE AND WE CAN DO IT AGAIN. On the day Pearl Harbor was bombed, Cliff Friend and Charles Tobias (Eddie Cantor’s brother-in-law) wrote this chauvinistic homage, which Cantor quickly inserted in his Broadway musical, Banjo Eyes and by all accounts, brought down the house.

8) YOU’D BE SO NICE TO COME HOME TO, “You’d be so nice by the Fire.” Cole Porter wrote it for a minor movie, Something to Shout About,  in which it was introduced by Janet Blair and Don Ameche.

9) WHEN THE LIGHTS GO ON AGAIN ALL OVER THE WORLD, “And the ships will sail again all over the world. Then we’ll have time for things like wedding rings and free hearts will sing.” A song of hope alluding to the blackouts imposed by the threat of bombardments from the sky. It  became the No. 1 hit of 1942; Vaughn Monroe, in my view, rendered the quintessential interpretation.
Click: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JD8sEFpbk-w

10) I’LL BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS
“You can plan on me. Please have snow and mistletoe
and presents on the tree.” Walter Kent did the music and James “Kim” Gannon, the words. Bing Crosby’s recording reached the top of the charts as his White Christmas did the year before.

11) JOHNNY DOUGHBOY FOUND A ROSE IN IRELAND
“He said Darlin' 'tis my duty, To make an American beauty,
Of a sweet Irish rose like you.”
The term Doughboy was used sparingly during World War II and gradually replaced by the appellation  G.I. ,but was still used in popular war songs of the day, as in this  1942 song by Al Goodhart and Kay Twomey.

12) G.I. JIVE
“Man alive. It starts with the bugler blowin' reveille over your bed When you arrive, Jack, that's the G. I. Jive.” It was written and performed by the multi-talented Johnny Mercer.

13) JOHNNY GOT A ZERO
“He got another Zero!
Johnny got a Zero! Hooray! Hey!
Johnny Zero is a Hero, today.”
Words and music by Don Christopher and Merle Kilgore.
 
14) HE’S 1-A IN THE ARMY
“I know why he rates so high on Uncle Sammy's chart.
For he’s 1-A in the army and A-1 in my heart.” Composer
was Redd Evans.

15) ANY BONDS TODAY?
“Scrape up the most you can, Here comes the freedom man
Asking you to buy a share of freedom today.”
Irving Berlin wrote the song at the request of Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau, Jr., to promote the  Department's defense bond and savings stamp drive. Barry Wood, a regular of Lucky Strike’s “Your Hit Parade” introduced it on the radio.

For my 16th through 20th WWII songs, I went to a single source, Irving Berlin’s All-soldier Revue, This is the Army, which I had the enormous joy of seeing in 1942 when I was 11.

17) THIS IS THE ARMY, MR. JONES
“No private rooms or telephones. You had your breakfast in bed before, but you won’t have it there any more.”
Click: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhOrkXfyfsI

18) I LEFT MY HEART AT THE STAGEDOOR CANTEEN
“A soldier boy without a heart has two strikes on him from the start,
And my heart's at the Stage Door Canteen.”

19) WITH MY HEAD IN THE CLOUDS
“When the night is clear and the bombardier
Drops a bomb that's wired for sound
How I yearn To return With my head in the clouds
To the one I love on the ground.”

 20) I’M GETTING TIRED, SO I’LL SLEEP
“For a little while whatever befalls.
I will see your smile till reveille calls.”
This is my favorite, and quite possibly the least-known Irving Berlin love song.

Hal Drucker is a voting member of New York’s Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle and co-author of: From the Desk Of: Work-Styles of the Rich and Famous.