This next record holds a LOT of music and to get through it in a reasonable time frame. I had to get creative to get a full listen in and a review before my work week resumes, but the combination of the long weekend and getting out of bed early today has provided me the space and time required.
Disc 1644 is…We’ll Meet Again: 50 Wartime Favourites
Artist: Various Artists
Year of Release: 1939 to 1945 (OK – one song from 1931, but otherwise the war years)
What’s up with the Cover? With the white cliffs of Dover in the background, we must assume this gaggle of partiers are storming the beaches of France. Despite the air support in the background, they do not look well equipped for the mission.
Or maybe this is post-war and these revelers are driving around some old equipment for shits and giggles.
How I Came To Know It: I was shopping for other music and this was sitting innocuously in a display, coyly calling out to middle aged history buffs with a penchant for war history and old timey tunes.
How It Stacks Up: This is a collection of music, not a true album, so can’t stack up.
Rating: As a compilation record, there is no rating assigned. If you want to know what I thought about it in more general terms, you’ll have to take a deep breath and read the review.
“We’ll Meet Again” is a large (fifty-song) compilation of music recorded and played during World War Two. With any compilation this big you’re going to have some winners and some losers.
It has been almost eighty years since the Second World War ended, and as time goes along, we remember the events, but it is easy to lose contact with the feel of those same events for the people who lived the experience. For much of the war, heartache and uncertainty were the order of the day, and the grief real and imminent.
In dark times I often turn to music to help sustain me, and the people living through the war were no different. You might expect music of the era to capture that uncertainty and turn dark and foreboding, but you’d be wrong. The Greatest Generation were also the “Rub dirt on it” generation. Don’t expect a lot of doleful music here – the people living through war opted for stoicism over sadness, and a stiff upper lip over a trembling one.
The word that kept circling around in my head as I listened to this collection was “escapism”. These are songs about pure love and joy, and even when the war is mentioned (as it often is) it is in a light-hearted way. Troubles with logistics and troops going without at the front line? Here’s “In the Quartermaster’s Stores” a humorous exploration that maybe the quartermaster just has bad eyesight. Young men feeling frightened at being so far from home? We have “Kiss Me Goodnight Sgt Major” asking the (presumably gruff) NCO fill in.
The marching tunes are filled with patriotic optimism. “Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition” and “There’ll Always Be an England” are prime examples, and these songs could double as marching tunes as well as a handy drunken sing-a-long for soldiers on leave needing to let off some steam.
There are times when this “what, me worry?” feel comes off as schmaltzy, with some singers laying on silly affectations a bit thick. Duo Flanagan and Allen are a couple of the worst offenders, but even their goofiness works once in a while (notably, “(We’re Gonna Hang Out) The Washing on the Siegfried Line)” even if this 1939 optimism was to be tragically disproved in the early years of the war.
What jumped out at me musically was how some of the specific artists were head and shoulders above their peers. Multiple Glenn Miller songs appear, and all of them were instantly recognizable. Miller was a force in this era, and his big band stylings are still as timeless and brilliant as they were when he recorded them eight decades ago.
The Andrews Sisters have many of the best songs on the record with “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” the best of all. If that song doesn’t put joy in your heart, you should double check that you have one. Other standout Andrews Sisters tunes include “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree” and a duet with Bing Crosby titled “Don’t Fence Me In.”
Bing Crosby is no slouch solo either. He is one of the great vocalists of his or any time, and “San Antonio Rose” is a vocal masterpiece. Crosby practically converts mono to stereo through the richness of his tone alone.
And finally, if you want to feel all the feels, the record features a number of Vera Lynn tunes. “Yours” and “We’ll Meet Again” are the tear-jerkers of the record, laden with yearning and the heartbreak of lovers parted. “We’ll Meet Again” also doubles as another barroom sing-a-long, and features a bunch of folks singing along in unison for the latter half of the tune, underscoring this as an option for you, the listener.
I’m a military history buff, and I’ve read a LOT about the Second World War, but listening to this collection of songs from the era provided a new and more emotional way to interface with the era through its art. I didn’t love all the songs, but I did love the overall experience.
Best tracks: Chatanooga Choo Choo – Glenn Miller; Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy – Andrews Sisters; Yours – Vera Lynn; In the Mood – Glenn Miller; (We’re Gonna Hang Out) The Washing on the Siegfried Line – Flanagan and Allen; Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition – Kay Kyser and his Orchestra; San Antonio Rose – Bing Crosby; When the Light Comes on Again (All Over the World) – Vaughn Monroe; The White Cliffs of Dover – Vera Lynn; Don’t Fence Me In – Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters; Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree – Andrews Sisters; We’ll Meet Again – Vera Lynn
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