Songs of the World War I Years
One of the real joys of my retirement years was playing the piano for senior citizen singalongs for over two decades. In addition to other such gigs, I played on a weekly basis at Hamilton Senior Center and twice a month at Goddard Riverside Senior Center, both in New York City.
The seniors who came to the Centers for these singalongs weren’t professional musicians, but they were full of enthusiasm, sang in tune with a good sense of rhythm, and were very appreciative for having the opportunity to sing out as part of the group.
Twenty years ago, I pulled together 50 songs from the World War I Years – 1914-1918 – for the groups to sing. I considered this to be an important era with precious few survivors even back then, with good songs that deserved to be memorialized for future generations.
So I put the groups from the two Centers together – nearly three dozen strong (including, for the occasion, my mother, Marcy Freund, then in her ‘90s) to record the material for a CD album I made, titled “Songs of the World War I Years (1914-1918).” Almost all of the participants in 2004 have since passed away, so this is a tribute to their memory and enthusiastic performance.
For this blog entry, I’ve selected 16 of the songs that were most clearly identified with the War, to comprise a 22 minute audio montage. (I expect at some point in the future to do another blog montage of the group singing many of the popular songs that were written and sung during those years.)
Here are the tunes you’ll hear on this recording, in the order they appear.
1. It’s a Long Way to Tipperary
2. Keep the Homefires Burning
3. Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit Bag
4. I Didn’t Raise My Boy to be a Soldier
5. Goodbye Broadway, Hello France
6. Oh! How I Hate To Get Up in the Morning
7. Over There
8. Hail! Hail! The Gang’s All Here
9. Mademoiselle From Armentiers
10. Oh Johnny, Oh Johnny, Oh!
11. How ‘Ya Gonna Keep ‘em Down on the Farm
12. Roses of Picardy
13. There’s a Long, Long Trail
14. Till We Meet Again
15. The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise
16. My Buddy
Click on the play button to listen to the songs.
On the CD, I interspersed spoken comments about the songs, some of which are included in the accompanying liner notes that you can access (before, during or after hearing the music) by clicking on this link.