"Lili Marlene" -- The International Hit Song of WWWII

The lyrics to “Lili Marlene” were written in 1915 by a young German soldier named Hans Leip. The female to whom the lyric is addressed was a compilation of two women to whom Leip felt an attraction and one night, after having had momentary encounters with both of them while on his way sentry duty he wrote a five-stanza poem called “Song of a Young Sentry”:

In front of the barracks
In front of the large gate,
There stood a lantern,
And if it stands there still,
Let’s meet there once again,
Let’s stand underneath the lantern,
Like once before, Lili Marlene.

Both of our shadows
Looked like they were the same,
We held each other closely,
You’d think that we were one.
And the world will see it again
When we stand underneath the lantern,
Like once before, Lili Marlene.

Leip’s poem was published in 1937 within a collection. The following year, composer Norbert Schultz encountered the volume of poems, set a few of them to music, and asked German cabaret singer, Lale Andersen, if she’d be interested in recording his rendition of Leip’s “Song of a Young Sentry.” At first they couldn’t find an interested studio – the song was all wrong for the burgeoning militancy of the Nazi regime – but after adding a bugle call to the beginning, Electrola made Schultz and Andersen a deal. “Song of a Young Sentry” aired over German radio for the first time on November 9, 1938, the night that became known as Kristallnacht. The sweet little song died amid the rubble of the Nazi’s first large-scale, organized attack on German and Austrian Jews.

Three years later, a German radio broadcaster named Karl-Heinz Reintgen, who’d just been ordered to initiate a military radio station in newly-conquered Yugoslavia, was scrambling to fill 21 hours of news and entertainment with only 54 records. His young assistant came back from Vienna with a pile of discarded records, one of them Andersen’s recording of Leip’s poem. It was transmitted over the airwaves of Reintgen’s new Soldatsender Belgrad (Soldiers’ Radio Belgrade) on August 18, 1941, becoming immediately and immensely popular all over Europe.

Nazi Propaganda Minister Goebbels was furious – the song was obviously anti-military – and he tried to have it banned. However, Rommel and the other German military brass, whose men all adored the song, politely reminded him that as a civilian, Goebbels had no jurisdiction over military matters; Soldiers’ Radio Belgrade was, after all, a military radio station.

If Goebbels couldn’t keep German soldiers from listening to the song, he could at least ban it on civilian radio (he allowed an instrumental-only version) and make life miserable for singer Lale Andersen, who was eventually caught trying to leave the country and who was, at one point, forbidden from performing at all.

But the soldiers were free to enjoy it every evening at exactly 9:57 when Reintgen would play the song they all knew as “Lili Marlene.” In North Africa, those few minutes actually initiated a nightly cease-fire; the British troops stationed there loved the song too. In fact, they began spending so much time listening to either Radio Belgrade or the broadcasts of Axis Sally (who interspersed her demoralizing propaganda with the song) that an English version of “Lili Marlene” was recorded by 14-year-old Anne Shelton and broadcast over the BBC in order to bring the Tommies back to the fold.

Why a particular song becomes beloved at a certain point in history is one of those inexplicable but fascinating pop culture mysteries but Liel Leibovitz and Matthew Miller, in their enlightening and immensely readable book on the subject, Lili Marlene: The Soldiers’ Song of World War II, have this to say about the song’s hold on WWII soldiers:

“Exhausted from combat and marching, caked with sand and burnt by the sun, the soldiers of the Afrika Korps gathered to listen, as they did whenever they could, to Radio Belgrade and their haunting “Lili Marlene.” The familiar song was a gateway through which they could return to the sweetness of their faraway homes and loosen the war’s rigid trip on their minds, if even for a few minutes.”

Did “Lili Marlene” cause the downfall of the Third Reich? Don’t underestimate the power of music. Aside from the nightly North African cease-fire, there has been at least one recorded incident where a single performance of this song kept one German from fighting. In an interview, 90 year-old US WWII veteran, Jack Leroy Tueller, recalls an evening in France, one week post-D-Day, when he played “Lili Marlene” on his trumpet, knowing that a German sniper was in the area.

Captured the next morning and asking for the trumpeter, the German sniper burst into tears when Tueller approached him; in broken English, he admitted that the song had stopped him from shooting: “’Lili Marlene’ reminded me of the tune that my fiancée and I got married to in Germany,” he said, “and I thought of my mother and father and I thought of my brothers and my sisters . . . I couldn’t fire, I couldn’t fire.”

And a British WWII nurse, Brenda McBryde, stationed at one point in Bayeux, Normandy, witnessed a fascinating musical moment when one of the German prisoners she was nursing suddenly began to sing “Lili Marlene.” In her memoir, A Nurse’s War, she relates the incident:

“One of the young German boys tentatively started up a song, while his comrades waited nervously to see how it would be received before joining in. We had no seriously ill men in the ward at that time; the boy had a pleasant voice, and we realized how long it had been since we heard anyone sing. We did nothing to discourage him. It was the catchy German marching song, ‘Lili Marlene,’ which had become as popular with Monty’s troops in Normandy as in Rommel’s African campaign where it originated. The rest of the POWs, emboldened, now took up the song, singing in well-rehearsed harmonies that were a joy to hear.

“Then the moment enlarged to provide one of those memories that stay forever. From the adjacent British ward came the same song, sung in English. The surprised Germans responded to the compliment with even more enthusiastic singing, and Soutie and I stood between the two wards listening to a performance that would have done justice to a male voice choir from men who, until recently, had been doing their level best to kill each other.

“‘Just shows how daft war is’ said Soutie.”



Notes:

The English translation of initial two stanzas of “Lili Marlene,” “Lied eines jungen Wachtposten,” (“Song of the Young Sentry,”) appears on page 17 of the book, “Lili Marlene: The Soldiers’ Song of World War II,” by Liel Leibovitz and Matthew Miller, and was translated from the original German by the authors.

“For the common soldiers . . . “ Leibovitz and Miller, page 115.

German sniper quote: http://www.kued.org/productions/worldwar2/untoldStories/JackTueller.pdf

Hospital quote: “A Nurse’s War” by Brenda McBryde, pages 121-122.

Sources:

Lili Marlene: The Soldiers' Song of World War II by Liel Leibovitz and Matthew Miller.

"The Official Lili Marlene Page"
http://ingeb.org/garb/lmarleen.html

Every Songwriter Should Read This

While researching a blog article on "Lili Marlene," the international hit song of WWII, I encountered the following brilliant observation on the marriage of words and music:

"These pleasures -- a sweetheart's kiss, say, or a country sunset -- are too elusive for ordinary speech. They evade even the most sensitive of writers. Put them in a sentence and they sit listlessly, deflated of all meaning. But put them in a song and they glow. The music charges the words, guiding the simple images to those compartments of the mind that store wild emotion. It is there that a song's significance and its potency lie. As Lale Andersen herself witnessed when she toyed with alternative compositions to "Lili Marlene," it was only Norbert Schultze's music that made the song a crowd-pleaser, only his tune, a wedding of folk songs, military marches, and a children's ditty, that managed to capture the true spirit of the poem. Hans Leip's words alone weren't enough; "Lili Marlene" needed a melody and a memorable voice to translate its essence from the private language of one man to the international idiom that captured the hearts and minds of men of all cultures and tongues."

Excerpt from "Lili Marlene: The Soldiers' Song of World War II" by Liel Leibovitz and Matthew Miller, page 211.

"Dixie" -- Theme Song of the Confederacy, Born in NYC, Beloved by Lincoln

“Dixie” may have been the theme song of the Confederacy, but it was born in New York City. Daniel Emmet was a performer and composer with the NYC troupe, Bryant’s Minstrels, who, upon leaving the theater on a Saturday night in 1859, was asked to come up with a new “walk around” (finale) by Monday.

On the rainy Sunday that followed, Emmet couldn’t get one lyric line out of his head: “I wish I was in Dixie.” Dixie, a synonym for the south, was possibly somewhere he’d have rather been than in rainy NYC and he may have been recalling the exact line his wife had once spoken while complaining about northern weather, but what is certain is that “Dixie” soon became a massive hit with minstrel troupes in the north. It also soon found its way to the south, via two productions in two consecutive years: Charleston in 1860, and New Orleans in 1861. Then the war broke out.

As the tune became a rallying cry for the new Confederacy, it correspondingly fell out of favor in the north; no respectable Union man or woman would want to be accused – as Emmet was, eventually – of being sympathetic to the rebels living in “the land of cotton.” But a few creative northerners found a way to keep singing the catchy tune without belying a trace of Confederate sympathy (by spoofing the lyrics, Union-style). And after Lee’s surrender, President Lincoln, who loved the tune, ordered a band to play it, giving the following reason:

“I had always thought “Dixie” one of the best tunes I have ever heard. Our adversaries over the way attempted to appropriate it, but I insisted yesterday that we fairly captured it. I presumed the opinion to the Attorney General, and he gave it as his legal opinion that it is our lawful prize. I now request the band to favor me with its performance.”

Sources:
“Rousing Songs and True Tales of the Civil War” by Wayne Erbsen.

“Songs of the Civil War” by Irwin Silber.

“All the Years of American Popular Music” by David Ewen.

Lincoln quote: “Dan Emmett – The Man Who Wrote Dixie” by Wayne Erbsen.

Rallying Cry of the Union: "The Battle Cry of Freedom"

If “Battle Hymn of the Republic” was the song the Union took away from the Civil War, something that gave purpose and meaning to the destruction, post-war, “The Battle Cry of Freedom” was its number one inspirational song during the conflict. Prolific Union composer George Root began to write it on May 3, 1861 after hearing of Lincoln’s call to increase the number of Union troops by 175,000. He “thought it out” that afternoon and finished it the following morning at the offices of his Chicago publishing house, Root & Cady.

The ink was not dry on the manuscript, literally, when the Lombard brothers (one source identifies them as Lumford) appeared at the door, looking for a war song to sing at a patriotic rally scheduled for July at the courthouse square just opposite Root’s offices. The brothers liked it and so did their audience, who were moved to join in on the chorus after several repetitions.

When the Hutchinson family, a popular activist northern singing group, sang it at a New York rally a few days later, the song was fixed as the foremost rallying cry of the Union and its effect took on legendary proportions. One Union soldier said that “Battle Cry of Freedom,” sung to a camp of dispirited and defeated northern soldiers in 1863, “put as much spirit and cheer into the camp as a splendid victory. Day and night you could hear it by every campfire in every tent. I shall never forget how the men rolled out the line, ‘And although he may be poor, not a man shall be a slave.”

And on one occasion, at least, “Battle Cry” struck terror into the heart of a Confederate officer, who, after Lee’s surrender, had this to say about his initial encounter with the song:

“I shall never forget the first time I heard ‘Rally ‘Round the Flag’ (the prevalently-used title of “Battle Cry”.) It was a nasty night during the Seven Days fight and if I remember it rightly it was raining. I was on picket when, just before taps, some fellow on the other side struck up the song and others joined in the chorus until it seemed to me the whole Yankee army was singing. A man with me said, ‘Good heavens, Cap, what are those fellows made of anyway? Here we’ve licked them six days running and now on the eve of the seventh they’re singing ‘Rally Round the Flag’! I am not normally superstitious but I tell you that song sounded like the death knell and my heart went down into my boots; and though I’ve tried to do my duty, it has been an uphill fight with me ever since that night.”

Was “Battle Cry of Freedom” responsible for the defeat of the Confederacy? Its composer was deemed a national hero by no less than Abe Lincoln himself and if what Jeff Daniels -- aka Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain -- opined in the film “Gettysburg,” is true, that the American Civil War was one of the only wars in history fought over an idea, then “Battle Cry” paints the northern set of ideals -- freedom and national unity -- with bold and winning strokes, set to a simple, upbeat, and extremely catchy tune.



Yes we'll rally round the flag boys, we'll rally once again,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom,
We will rally from the hillside, we'll gather from the plain,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom!

Chorus:
The Union forever! Hurrah, boys, hurrah!
Down with the traitor, up with the star;
While we rally round the flag, boys, rally once again,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom!

We are springing to the call of our brothers gone before,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom!
And we'll fill our vacant ranks with a million freemen more,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom!

We will welcome to our numbers the loyal, true and brave,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom!
And although he may be poor, he shall never be a slave,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom!

So we're springing to the call from the East and from the West,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom!
And we'll hurl the rebel crew from the land we love best,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom!

The song was so catchy that the Confederacy tried to get in on the action, changing the lyrics to suit their particular set of ideals. Here is one of several versions:

We are marching to the field, boys, we’re going to the fight,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom
And we bear the Heavenly cross for our cause and for the right,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom.

Chorus:
Our rights forever, Hurrah! Boys! Hurrah!
Down with the tyrants, raise the Southern star,
And we’ll rally ‘round the flag, boys, we’ll rally once again,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom.

We’ll meet the Yankee hosts, boys, with fearless hearts and true,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom,
And we’ll show the dastard minions what Southern pluck can do
Shouting the battle cry of freedom.

We’ll fight them to the last, boys, if we fall in the strife,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom,
Our comrades – noble boys! Will avenge us, life for life,
Shouting the battle cry of freedom.

Sources:

“All the Years of American Popular Music” by David Ewen.

“Rousing Songs and True Tales of the Civil War” by Wayne Erbsen.

“Songs of the Civil War” by Irwin Silber.

Union soldier quote: “Folk Songs of North America” by Alan Lomax.

Confederate officer quote: “Stories of Civil War Songs” by Ernest Emurian.

Union and Confederate lyrics: “Songs of the Civil War” by Irwin Silber
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The Tune That Nearly Killed Dorothy Fields

It won the academy award for best film song in 1936 but when composer Jerome Kern first played "The Way You Look Tonight" for his lyricist, Dorothy Fields, she ran out of the room crying. “The release absolutely killed me,” she later told Max Wilk in an interview. “I couldn’t stop, it was so beautiful.”

Composer and critic Alec Wilder was particular about what songs he liked and didn’t (and he had musical credentials enough to objectify this most subjective of studies), and he had this to say about the song: “It’s a lovely, warm song, with a lovely, warm lyric . . . the song flows with elegance and grace. It has none of the spastic, interrupted quality to be found in some ballads, but might be the opening statement of the slow movement for a cello concerto . . . “

Debuted by Fred Astaire in the film, "Swing Time," it was subsequently covered by artists as varied as Frank Sinatra and Rod Stewart and was featured in films as recent as "My Best Friend’s Wedding."

Sources:

Dorothy Fields quote, page 56 of Max Wilk’s "They’re Playing Our Song."

Alec Wilder quote, page 74 of his book "American Popular Song."

Lorena: Born in Ohio, Beloved in the Confederacy

Was “Lorena” responsible for the defeat of the Confederacy? To give that much credit to a song is a potent idea and one harbored by several Southern generals but I tend to think that the Confederacy’s doom had more to do with numbers – bullets, canons, men -- rather than the loss of fighting spirit caused by southern soldiers singing a song that made them yearn for the girl back home. But they certainly did sing “Lorena,” so much so that hundreds of young southern girls (not to mention a steamship and two pioneer settlements) were christened with the name during the song’s lengthy post-war shelf life. So it may come as a surprise to discover that the song was born in the north in the year 1856 (or 1857), several years before the firing on Ft. Sumter.

To begin at the beginning: in the year 1849, an Ohio preacher named Henry De Lafayette Webster fell in love with a member of his congregation, 19 year-old Ella Blocksom. Her family didn’t approve and pressured the couple to separate. Webster vented his sorrow in a poem that spoke of their lost love, changing Ella’s name to Bertha. There is disagreement over whether Joseph Phillbrick Webster, the tunesmith of the hymn “In the Sweet Bye and Bye” was a relative or just a friend of H.D. Webster but what is beyond a doubt is that when H.D. handed his lyrics to J.P. in 1857, “Lorena” was born.

How did an Ohio-made song become so beloved in the Confederacy that it was reprinted there in at least nine different pirated editions and found a home in every pocket songster (utilized by singing soldiers – and they were ALL singing soldiers) south of the Mason-Dixon Line? That is one of the fascinating inexplicables of pop music history.

The years creep slowly by, Lorena,
The snow is on the grass again.
The sun's low down the sky, Lorena,
The frost gleams where the flow'rs have been.
But the heart throbs on as warmly now,
As when the summer days were nigh.
Oh, the sun can never dip so low
A-down affection's cloudless sky.

A hundred months have passed, Lorena,
Since last I held that hand in mine,
And felt the pulse beat fast, Lorena,
Though mine beat faster far than thine.
A hundred months, 'twas flowery May,
When up the hilly slope we climbed,
To watch the dying of the day,
And hear the distant church bells chime.

We loved each other then, Lorena,
More than we ever dared to tell;
And what we might have been, Lorena,
Had but our lovings prospered well --
But then, 'tis past, the years are gone,
I'll not call up their shadowy forms;
I'll say to them, "Lost years, sleep on!
Sleep on! nor heed life's pelting storms."

The story of that past, Lorena,
Alas! I care not to repeat,
The hopes that could not last, Lorena,
They lived, but only lived to cheat.
I would not cause e'en one regret
To rankle in your bosom now;
For "if we try we may forget,"
Were words of thine long years ago.

Yes, these were words of thine, Lorena,
They burn within my memory yet;
They touched some tender chords, Lorena,
Which thrill and tremble with regret.
'Twas not thy woman's heart that spoke;
Thy heart was always true to me:
A duty, stern and pressing, broke
The tie which linked my soul with thee.

It matters little now, Lorena,
The past is in the eternal past;
Our heads will soon lie low, Lorena,
Life's tide is ebbing out so fast.
There is a Future! O, thank God!
Of life this is so small a part!
'Tis dust to dust beneath the sod;
But there, up there, 'tis heart to heart.


Sources:

“All the Years of American Popular Music” by David Ewen.

“Rousing Songs and True Tales of the Civil War” by Wayne Erbsen.

“Songs of the Civil War” by Irwin Silber.

Book Review: "Stardust Melodies" by Will Friedwald

How potent cheap music is.
–Noel Coward

I believe that Will Friedwald included the Noel Coward line about the potency of cheap music in the introduction to his "Stardust Melodies" simply to see those two words – potent and music – in the same sentence. There is nothing “cheap” about the popular songs featured in his book, but they are all undeniably “potent.” The power of popular music, according to Friedwald, is its ability to “move us on a deep level, and in a way that few other artistic mediums can.” Friedwald has obviously been moved – profoundly so --and his book is a phenomenally entertaining biography which encompasses the creation, debut, musical intricacies and recording history of a dozen American pre-rock popular songs.

I had to keep reminding myself that Friedwald wasn’t actually alive when these songs first launched (he is a tail-end “boomer” and most of the songs in his book were written in the 1930's) because he relates the details at his disposal in such an electrifyingly cinematic way, you’d think he had been inside each composer’s head (or at the very least, sitting in the composer’s living room with a video camera) when the songs came to birth. When George Gershwin said to his friend Kay Halle “sit down, I think I have the lullaby” (for Porgy and Bess), she was immediately moved to tears at the raw beauty of "Summertime." Cole Porter raced over to the piano to finish the introduction to his latest (and ultimately, greatest) composition, "Night and Day," after he heard his hostess, Mrs. Astor, complain about the “drip, drip, drip” of her broken drain pipe.

Arguably the most dramatic “you were there” incident portrayed in "Stardust Melodies" not only illustrates the birth of a song (and a star) but stunningly represents an entire musical epoch as well: the golden musical era when pop music and jazz were inexorably linked. When Friedwald describes Ethel Merman first belting out "I Got Rhythm" “with all the subtlety of a tornado descending on a trailer,” he also narrates what was rumbling beneath her feet – a genuine jazz orchestra. Gershwin had insisted on having one and it was a stunner: future luminaries Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Jimmy Dorsey and Gene Krupa, were all accompanying Ms. Merman on the night "I Got Rhythm" made her a star. That’s some orchestra.

Each chapter includes a section on the musical intricacies of the particular song featured and here Friedwald gets out from behind the camera, so to speak, and beckons the reader into the classroom – an intermediate-to-advanced music theory classroom. Some readers might get lost in the minutia of these details; if you don’t know your tonic from your dominant, you won’t have a clue. The lessons aren’t longer than a few paragraphs, however, and for those fairly well versed in music fundamentals, it’s fascinating stuff. Friedwald explains why every note, chord and corresponding lyric works. Did you know, for instance, that Star Dust contains a 32-bar chorus and that its melody is basically composed of thirds, some major and some minor? I’ve played and sung the song (never actually thought to count the bars), but now that he’s mentioned it, the thirds do switch back and forth from major to minor, probably why the melody possesses such a wistful, bittersweet feel – a good fit for lyrics about a lost love.

One of the criteria by which Friedwald judged a song worthy of inclusion in his book is the sum and variety of its recorded manifestations and he lists these recordings in assiduous detail (and he is a writer of such wit and lucidity that a grocery list would sparkle in his hands). The recording history of one song in particular – "As Time Goes By" – illustrates how truly insightful and entertaining his approach to the material is.

Long before "As Time Goes By" provided the backdrop to Rick and Ilse’s ill-fated love affair in Casablanca and even shortly before Frances Williams introduced it in the 1931 Broadway show "Everybody’s Welcome," Rudy Vallee made a recording of it that was broadcast over the radio. Because of conflicting recording contracts, the very talented Williams was unable to record the song herself, but Dooley Wilson (Sam in Casablanca) – who couldn’t play the piano as his cinematic character could – did make a recording following the success of the film.

Actually, when the film was nothing more than a newly purchased play, Sam and the song were the only two irrefutables in the project, which greatly irked hired composer Max Steiner. He had nothing against Sam, of course, but initially thought "As Time Goes By" was too “square.” When he finally saw the light, he made it the musical focal point of Casablanca. This would have probably won composer Herman Hupfeld an Oscar if it hadn’t been for a strange, just-laid-down rule about Oscars being granted only to songs specifically written for a film. Hupfeld wasn’t too upset; his song was a becoming a phenomenally popular recording vehicle that would ultimately be immortalized by artists as diverse as Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday and Tiny Tim. Not bad for a little song protesting the march of progress.

Although "Stardust Melodies" is bursting with passion for the musical era that produced its songs and is replete with a sense of time and place, because Friedwald is able to infuse his book with a sense of immediacy, it never falls prey to nostalgia. Rather, it is a celebration of songs that have managed to outlive their composers, their performers, many of their recording stars and have embedded themselves deeply into the American consciousness.

“Though I dream in vain, in my heart it will remain
My stardust melody, the memory of love’s refrain.”
("Stardust" lyrics by Mitchell Parish)