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| In the summer of 1940 Franklin Roosevelt, pressured
by his party to run for a third term, agreed to once
again be the Democratic Party's candidate for the presidency
in the 1940 election. Roosevelt was pressured by Republican
nominee Wendell Willkie for not doing enough for the
defense of America. As it turned out, in September 1940,
congress passed The Burke-Wadsworth Bill and Roosevelt
signed it into law, establishing the selective service
and authorizing the first peacetime draft in U.S. history.
The first draftees were selected later that year. American
musicians reacted to the draft in varied and interesting
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One of the earliest
draft-related songs was "You're In The Army
Now" by Abe Lyman and his Californians, recorded
November 27, 1940. Despite the notorious bad food
and other hardships (like bedbugs), the narrator
acknowledges that it's rather fun hanging out
with the gang, and at least you don't have to
listen to your wife nagging you all the time.
Apparently not all draftees anticipated missing
their best girls.
Separation was, of course, one of the central
themes of the war. Drafted men had no way of knowing
that so very few of them would be returning "in
a year," as Ronnie Kemper and Donna Wood
sang in April, 1941. They couldn't know that many
would never return, while so many others would
return seriously wounded.
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| Reaction to the draft reveals a cross-section of American
race and musical genre with similar notions about giving
up a year for dear old Uncle Sam.. Count Basie's "Draftin'
Blues" reluctantly acknowledges that the black
man, like all American men, will have to "do his
share to help defend this dear old land," while
Nat King Cole's narrator "Skinny" has the
last laugh because his flat feet have kept him out of
active service while all his friends with enviable physiques
are all "gone with the draft." Big Bill Broonzy
somewhat sarcastically says that he received a letter
this morning from "a dear old uncle" in his
song, "In The Army Now." Recorded just five
days before the attack on Pearl Harbor, it represents
the last of the peacetime war-related songs. |
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| Count Basie also had
a hand in several other instrumentals with draft-related
titles, "What's Your Number", and Benny
Goodman's "Gone With What Draft." Benny
Goodman was known to make good use of the talented
musicians in his own orchestra but also for his
willingness to work with musicians from other
bands, including African Americans. His integrationist
view of music wasn't always popular in an era
still ruled by Jim Crow etiquette. His song "Gone
With What Draft" features not only Count
Basie, but drummer Jo Jones, trumpeter Cootie
Williams, and pioneering guitarist Charlie Christian. |
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| Cliff Bruner and his
Boys represent the Texas Swing sound, and in "Draft
Board Blues," they too lament having to leave
home. But what can they do? Uncle Sam is calling.
Likewise, the narrator in the Nettles Brothers'
"I Feel The Draft Coming On" wishes
he were 55 years old, rather than just 21, so
that he could avoid the draft. Some of the string
picking on this song foreshadows the electric
guitar work that would be the hallmark of the
rock and roll sound more than a decade later.
In "I'll Be Back In A Year (Little Darlin')"
by The Prairie Ramblers, the narrator patriotically
says goodbye to his two best girls. |
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One of the most interesting
draft songs is Chuck Foster's "I've Been
Drafted (Now I'm Drafting You)". Even before
the war, so many young men, predicting the loneliness
of army life, found lifelines to home in the form
of sweetheart romances. Many of these young couples,
seeking mutual security, got married. Most of
them would delay starting families until after
the war, resulting in the demographic anomaly
called "The Baby Boom." Society placed
clear expectations on young American women too:
be strong, be positive, write your man often,
and remain faithful. |
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The Andrews Sisters
were a group of singing sisters who patterned
themselves after an earlier successful singing
group, the Boswell Sisters. They were: LaVerne
(contralto, died in 1967), Maxene (high harmony,
died in 1995) and Patty (lead). All were born
in Minneapolis, Minnesota to a Greek immigrant
father and a Norwegian American mother. The sisters
performed in various dance bands and toured on
Vaudeville before becoming nationally known in
1937. Their popularity peaked during the war years
when they entertained Allied troops, including
performances for soldiers serving overseas, helped
promote the war bond campaign, and even appeared
in several films. During this period they recorded
many songs with Bing Crosby, but perhaps their
greatest hit, one that came to represent the new
sound of swing, was the draft song "Boogie
Woogie Bugle Boy". They were so popular that
some of their records were smuggled into Germany
after the labels had been changed to read "Hitler's
Marching Songs." |
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Draft registrants were
classified by the board in one of 4 main categories.
Those designated 1-A were deemed to be fit for
unrestricted military service. The other classifications
were exemptions or deferments for a variety of
reasons, including conscientious observer status,
family hardship, for being a government official,
and for being a minister or a minister in training.
At the bottom of the list was 4-F: "registrant
not acceptable for military service under the
established physical, mental, or moral standards."
Nat King Cole's narrator in "Gone With The
Draft" above was happy to be 4-F because
of his flat feet. With patriotism running high
less than two months before the attack on Pearl
Harbor, however, the new message in this song
was clear: The physically fit soldier assigned
to unrestricted duty would not only get the respect,
but also the lovin' of a fine woman. |
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On December 29, 1940,
President Roosevelt announced he would make America
an "arsenal of democracy". This meant
the retooling of large factories, like the automobile
manufacturing plant at Willow Run near Detroit,
for the making of weapons of war. A few weeks
later, Roosevelt announced the famous Lend-Lease
policy. It was now much easier for America to
send arms to the allies. America too was beefing
up her armed forces, financed in part by an aggressive,
patriotic war bond drive (initially referred to
as the National Defense Savings Program) that
would last beyond the end of the war. The pitch
to buy bonds appeared everywhere in popular culture,
from magazine advertisement, to postcards, to
children's toys, to movie cartoons. Many famous
Hollywood and radio personalities were enlisted
by the government to aid the war bond drive, from
Bing Crosby to Bugs Bunny, and from Frank Sinatra
to the Andrews Sisters. Irving Berlin's "Any
Bonds Today?" urged Americans, many of whom
were still hurting from the Depression, to "scrape
up" the most they could in order to buy "a
share of freedom." |
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| In 1941, as white and black men and women alike were
about to embark on a campaign to rid the world of the
most heinous example of State-sanctioned racism in human
history, it was worth pointing out that America's record
on race was far from perfect. That year, Josh White
released Southern Exposure, a six song album
of 78s that railed against racial injustice in America,
from discrimination in housing, to Jim Crow laws. Two
songs, "Defense Factory Blues" and "Uncle
Sam Says" dealt directly with the government's
appeal to Americans to contribute to the war effort
and the contradictory lack of opportunities for black
Americans to do just that. President Roosevelt himself
took an interest in Josh White and invited him to perform
at the White House. White accepted, and he would return
to the White House for visits with the President and
First Lady several times during the war years. |
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Relations between the United States and Japan, strained
in the 1930s over Japan's foreign policy in China and
the resulting failure of Roosevelt to invoke the neutrality
act, only worsened in 1940 and 1941. In July 1940, the
American government placed an embargo on all scrap iron,
steel, high octane gasoline, and aviation lubrication
oil going to Japan. On September 27, 1940, Japan signed
the Tripartite Pact with Germany and Italy, making them
allies. On January 7, 1941, U.S. Ambassador to Japan
Joseph C. Grew in Tokyo warned his superiors, "There
is a lot of talk around town to the effect that the
Japanese, in case of a break with the U.S., are planning
to go all out in a surprise mass attack at Pearl Harbor.
I rather guess that the boys in Hawaii are not precisely
asleep." Though it's clear now that America was
on a path toward war with Japan throughout the 1940s,
no one really expected any attack east of the Philippines.
Hawaii, not yet a state, was to Americans to dreamy
paradise in 1941. The most popular movie made about
Hawaii up to that time was Waikiki Wedding (1937),
starring Bing Crosby. Full of grass skirts, palm trees,
and sweet Crosby crooning, Waikiki Wedding helped
crystallize in the minds of many Americans the image
of Hawaii as a carefree paradise. Later, during the
war years, a medley of the songs from this movie would
be sung again by Bing Crosby on a V Disc. Waikiki
Wedding is referred to in the medley introduction
as, "A foolish fable of those faraway times."
The songs below help show the total disconnect between
the reality of war and tragedy that was soon to unfold
on that Pacific island paradise. On March 19, 1941,
Wingie Manone recorded "Stop The War (The Cats
Are Killing Themselves). Complete with sound effects,
it was an emphatic plea for peace. Only twelve days
later, Sammy Kaye would record "Hawaiian Sunset,"
yet another interpretation of Hawaii as a tropical,
romantic paradise:
Hawaiian Sunset, soft shadows falling,
The hush of twilight, and lovely you.
Hawaiian Sunset, I hear it calling,
and in the sunset I'll come to you.
Even the cover of the sheet music evokes beauty, love,
peace. |
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"Hawaiian
Sunset" Sheet Music |
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In the closing days
before the attack on Pearl Harbor and America's
involvement in World War II, two songs struck
such a melancholy chord that they were recorded
by numerous artists, both in American and abroad.
One was a nostalgic yearn for a return to things
as they were in England before the war began,
"The White Cliffs of Dover." Almost
a year later, after America was in the war, the
song topped the charts.
The other song was the ironic "I Don't Want
To Set The World on Fire." Perhaps tinged
by the horror of war, the narrator vows to have
given up all ambition for worldly acclaim. Instead,
he says, "Believe me! I don't want to set
the world on fire. I just want to start a flame
in your heart." After Pearl Harbor, such
simple romantic notions would have to wait at
least another four years. |
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