War Songs

What men sing as they march forth to war is a continual vexation to serious musicians. In the Civil War, Stonewall Jackson's "foot cavalry" were fond of a song praising goober peas ("Goodness, how delicious, eating goober peas!"); while the inconsequential battle hymn of the South became:

But when he put his arm around 'er He smiled as fierce as a forty-pounder. Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.

And the North's song, Grafted Into the Army--written by Henry C. Work--was at least as popular as the Battle Hymn of the Republic.

As they sailed, or prepared to sail last week to the most desperate war in U.S. history, hundreds of thousands of young soldiers were singing:

I got spurs that jingle, jangle, jingle, As I go ridin' merrily along. And they sing, "Oh, ain't you glad you're single!" And that song ain't so very jar from wrong.*

*Copyright Paramount Music Corporation, 1942.

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