American music during World War II was considered to be popular music that was enjoyed during the late 1930s (the end of the Great Depression) through the mid-1940s (through the end of World War II).
American music during World War II was considered to be popular music that was enjoyed during the late 1930s (the end of the Great Depression) through the mid-1940s (through the end of World War II).
By 1940, 80% of American households would own a radio; [1] making American music far more accessible to civilians and soldiers alike. Although the radio could be used to boost American morale, the American Government censored radio channels in fear that enemy agents may be sending coded messages through song requests on the stations. [2]
Unlike many World War I songs, many World War II songs focused more on romance and strength instead of propaganda, morale, and patriotism. [3] Songs that were overly patriotic or militaristic were often rejected by the public. [4]
Popular singers of the era included Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, the Andrews Sisters and Bing Crosby. [5] Notable wartime radio songs were "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy", [6] "Shoo Shoo Baby", "I'm Making Believe", "I'll Be Seeing You", and "I'll Be Home for Christmas". [1]
Songs that ridiculed the Axis Powers were also popular. These songs include "We'll Knock the Japs Right into the Laps of the Nazis", "Yankee Doodle Ain't Doodlin' Now", "You're a Sap, Mr. Jap", and Oliver Wallace's song "Der Fuehrer's Face", popularly recorded by Spike Jones, itself inspiring a 1943 Walt Disney cartoon starring the fictional character Donald Duck. [4] A notable trend with songs that targeted the Axis powers was that for the songs directed towards Europe, the songs focused on Hitler and the Nazis as opposed to the civilians. On the other hand, songs that were directed towards the Pacific showed blatant racism, hate, anger, and revenge following the Pearl Harbor attack. [7]
Swing music was a notable example of wartime radio music. Even Nazi Germany fielded some swing music bands despite Hitler's objections to "decadent Western music. [8] " After the end of World War II, this music escalated until the paranoia of the Cold War made this kind of music irrelevant after the Soviet menace (under Joseph Stalin) replaced the Nazi menace (under Adolf Hitler). Lawrence Welk would later play this kind of music on The Lawrence Welk Show . Jazz music would also become part of the "cultural war" that raged alongside the actual fighting of World War II. [1] Having its roots in African-American music, the Nazi regime had declared it to be "inhuman music" and banned it in all of occupied Europe. [1] The local musicians of Paris, France chose to play jazz music in French rather than in English as a loophole in the Nazi jazz music ban. [1] Rebellious German kids would meet in secret locations and listen to Allied music stations to hear jazz music behind the Gestapo's metaphorical back. [1] This generation of German kids saw jazz music as a "religion worth fighting for. [1] "
A big band or jazz orchestra is a type of musical ensemble of jazz music that usually consists of ten or more musicians with four sections: saxophones, trumpets, trombones, and a rhythm section. Big bands originated during the early 1910s and dominated jazz in the early 1940s when swing was most popular. The term "big band" is also used to describe a genre of music, although this was not the only style of music played by big bands.
Traditional pop is Western pop music that generally pre-dates the advent of rock and roll in the mid-1950s. The most popular and enduring songs from this era of music are known as pop standards or American standards. The works of these songwriters and composers are usually considered part of the canon known as the "Great American Songbook". More generally, the term "standard" can be applied to any popular song that has become very widely known within mainstream culture.
"Hitler Has Only Got One Ball", sometimes known as "The River Kwai March", is a World War II British song, the lyrics of which, sung to the tune of the World War I-era "Colonel Bogey March", impugn the masculinity of Nazi leaders by alleging they had missing, deformed, or undersized testicles. Multiple variant lyrics exist, but the most common version refers to rumours that Adolf Hitler had monorchism, and accuses Hermann Göring and Heinrich Himmler of microorchidism and Joseph Goebbels of anorchia. An alternative version suggests Hitler's missing testicle is displayed as a war trophy in the Royal Albert Hall.
Swing music is a style of jazz that developed in the United States during the late 1920s and early '30s. It became nationally popular from the mid-1930s. The name derived from its emphasis on the off-beat, or nominally weaker beat. Swing bands usually featured soloists who would improvise on the melody over the arrangement. The danceable swing style of big bands and bandleaders such as Benny Goodman was the dominant form of American popular music from 1935 to 1946, known as the swing era, when people were dancing the Lindy Hop. The verb "to swing" is also used as a term of praise for playing that has a strong groove or drive. Musicians of the swing era include Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Cab Calloway, Jimmy Dorsey, Tommy Dorsey, Woody Herman, Harry James, Lionel Hampton, Glenn Miller, Artie Shaw and Django Reinhardt.
The Jazz Age was a period in the 1920s and 1930s in which jazz music and dance styles gained worldwide popularity. The Jazz Age's cultural repercussions were primarily felt in the United States, the birthplace of jazz. Originating in New Orleans as mainly sourced from the culture of African Americans, jazz played a significant part in wider cultural changes in this period, and its influence on popular culture continued long afterwards.
Western swing music is a subgenre of American country music that originated in the late 1920s in the West and South among the region's Western string bands. It is dance music, often with an up-tempo beat, which attracted huge crowds to dance halls and clubs in Texas, Oklahoma and California during the 1930s and 1940s until a federal war-time nightclub tax in 1944 contributed to the genre's decline.
The Swing Youth were a group of jazz and swing lovers in Germany formed in Hamburg in 1939. Primarily active in Hamburg and Berlin, they were composed of 14- to 21-year-old Germans, mostly middle or upper-class students, but also including some in the working class. They admired the "American way of life", defining themselves in swing music and opposing the Nazism, especially the Hitler Youth. They loosely structured themselves into “clubs” with names such as the Harlem Club, the OK Gang, and the Hot Club. This underground subculture, distinctly nonconformist with a focus on African-American music, was active in the German youth scene. Despite being largely apolitical and unstructured, the Swing Youth were targeted and, in some cases, repressed by the Nazi government.
John Elliot was an American songwriter, credited with having written more than 600 songs for motion pictures.
Ray McKinley was an American jazz drummer, singer, and bandleader. He played drums and later led the Major Glenn Miller Army Air Forces Orchestra in Europe. He also led the new Glenn Miller Orchestra in 1956.
"Bei Mir Bistu Shein" is a popular Yiddish song written by lyricist Jacob Jacobs and composer Sholom Secunda for a 1932 Yiddish language comedy musical, I Would If I Could, which closed after one season at the Parkway Theatre in Brooklyn, New York City. The score for the song transcribed the Yiddish title as "Bay Mir Bistu Sheyn". The original Yiddish version of the song is a dialogue between two lovers. Five years after its 1932 composition, English lyrics were written for the tune by Sammy Cahn and Saul Chaplin, and the English version of the song became a worldwide hit when recorded by The Andrews Sisters under a Germanized spelling of the title, "Bei mir bist du schön", in November 1937.
Oswald Kabasta was an Austrian conductor.
World War II was the first conflict to take place in the age of electronically mass distributed music.
"It Ain't Necessarily So" is a popular song with music by George Gershwin and lyrics by his brother Ira Gershwin. The song comes from the Gershwins' opera Porgy and Bess (1935) where it is sung by the character Sportin' Life, a drug dealer, who expresses his doubt about several statements in the Bible. The song's melody also functions as a theme for Sportin' Life's character.
An overview of the evolution of Jazz music in Germany reveals that the development of jazz in Germany and its public notice differ from the "motherland" of jazz, the US, in several respects.
The Ballad of Rodger Young is an American war song by Frank Loesser, written and first performed during World War II in March 1945. The ballad is an elegy for Army Private Rodger Wilton Young, who died after rushing a Japanese machine-gun nest on 31 July 1943, and is largely based on the citation for Young's posthumous Medal of Honor.
"Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree (With Anyone Else but Me)" is a popular song that was made famous by Glenn Miller and by the Andrews Sisters during World War II. Its lyrics are the words of two young lovers who pledge their fidelity while one of them is away serving in the war.
Negermusik was a derogatory term used by the Nazi Party during the Third Reich to demonize musical styles that had been invented by black people such as swing and jazz. The Nazi Party viewed these musical styles as degenerate works created by an "inferior" race and were therefore prohibited. The term, at that same time, was also applied to indigenous music styles of black Africans.
"How Ya Gonna Keep 'em Down on the Farm " is a World War I song that rose to popularity after the war had ended. The lyrics highlight concern that soldiers would not want to return to their family farms after experiencing the European city life and culture of Paris during World War I. The song features music by Walter Donaldson and words by Joe Young and Sam M. Lewis. It was published in 1919 by Waterson, Berlin & Snyder Co in New York.
"On the Swing Shift" is a 1942 song composed by Harold Arlen with lyrics by Johnny Mercer for the film Star Spangled Rhythm, where it was introduced by Marjorie Reynolds, Betty Jane Rhodes and Dona Drake.
"Give Me the Simple Life" is a 1945 song written by Rube Bloom (music) and Harry Ruby (lyrics). It was introduced in the 1946 film Wake Up and Dream.
Winkler, Sheldon. "The Music of World War II: War Songs and Their Stories," Merriam Press, Hoosick Falls, New York, 3rd edition, ISBN 978-0-359-64779-8.
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