WWI Sheet Music: The Dead of No Man's Land

No Man's Land. You know it from countless films. The land between the armies that was cordoned off by barbed wire and filled with land mines, a blasted landscape that looked more like Hell than France. In WWI men were ordered 'over the top' of the foxholes to charge across the open land as enemy guns were shooting at them.

Most of the WWI songs like The Laddies Who Fought and Won by Harry Lauder were rousing, pro-war propaganda. Listen to a recording of Lauder singing it here.

There's a dear old lady,
Mother Britain is her name,
And she's all the world to me.
She's a dear old soul, always the same,
With a heart a big as three.
And when troubles and trials are knocking at her door, 
And the day seems dark and long,
Her sons on the land and her sons on the sea
They all march to this song,

[Chorus] 
When the fighting is over, and the war is won,
And the flags are waving free,
When the bells are ringing ,
And the boys are singing songs in ev'ry key,
When we all gather' round the old fireside,
And the old mother kisses her son,
A' the lassies will be loving all the laddies,
The laddies who fought and won.

[Verse 2]
We can all look back to the his'try of the past
That has made us what we are.
We have pledged our word we all shall hold fast,
Be the day away so far.
And till that time comes, let us fight and fight
Let us fight till vic'try's won.
We will never give in, we are out to win
To the very last man and gun.

Other songs that told a different story. Stories about the men who never came home to be kissed by the ladies. Stories of those at home who felt the loss of fathers and sons and husbands. It is believed that 20 million soldiers died in WWI, 2 in 3 from combat. In 1921 the Census of England and Wales had revealed that there were 1.72 million more women than men.

A real heartbreaker, Hello Central! Give Me No Man's Land by Samm. Lewis, Joe Young and Jean Schwartz, 1918, with a cover by Barbelle, was sung by Al. Jolson with all the wavering voice emotion he is famous for. The song is the story of a child who is secretly trying to call her daddy at the war. It can be considered an anti-war song. Listen to Jolson sing it here.

When the gray shadows creep
And the world is asleep,
In the still of the night
Baby creeps down a flight.
First she looks all around
Without making a sound;
The baby toddles up to the telephone
And whispers in a baby tone:

"Hello, Central! Give me No Man's Land,
My daddy's there, my mamma told me;
She tip-toed off to bed
After my prayers were said;
Don't ring when you get the number,
Or you'll disturb mamma's slumber.
I'm afraid to stand here at the 'phone
'Cause I'm alone.
So won't you hurry;
I want to know why mamma starts to weep
When I say, 'Now I lay me down to sleep';
Hello, Central! Give me No Man's Land."
[Repeat]

Through the curtains of the night
Comes a beautiful light
And the sunshine that beams
Finds a baby in dreams.
Mamma look in to see
Where her darling can be
She finds her baby still in her slumber deep
A whispering while she's fast asleep:

"Hello, Central! Give me No Man's Land,
My daddy's there, my mamma told me;
She tip-toed off to bed
After my prayers were said;
Don't ring when you get the number,
Or you'll disturb mamma's slumber.
I'm afraid to stand here at the 'phone
'Cause I'm alone.
So won't you hurry;
I want to know why mamma starts to weep
When I say, 'Now I lay me down to sleep';
Hello, Central! Give me No Man's Land."

****

Throughout my sharing from my WWI vintage sheet music collection, I have shared both pro-war and antiwar songs. I want to share a more modern song about the war which my husband and I first heard sung by Priscilla Herdman in concert.

In 1976 Eric Bogle wrote No Man's Land, also known as The Green Fields of France and as Willie McBride. Listen to Bogle sing it here. Listen to Herdman's version here.

Well how do you do, Private William McBride
Do you mind if I sit here down by your grave side?
A rest for awhile in the warm summer sun
I've been walking all day and I'm nearly done
And I see by your gravestone that you were only 19
When you joined the glorious fallen in 1916
Well I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean
Or, William McBride, was it slow and obscene?

Chorus:
Did they beat the drum slowly?
Did they sound the pipes lowly?
Did the rifles fire o'er ye as they lowered you down?
Did the bugle sing 'The Last Post' in chorus?
Did the pipes play 'The Flowers o' the Forest'?

And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind?
In some faithful heart is your memory enshrined
And though you died back in 1916
To that loyal heart are you always 19
Or are you just a stranger without even a name
Forever enclosed behind some glass-pane
In an old photograph torn and tattered and stained
And fading to yellow in a brown leather frame?
(Chorus)

Well the sun it shines down on these green fields of France
The warm wind blows gently and the red poppies dance
The trenches are vanished now under the plough
No gas, no barbed wire, no guns firing now
But here in this graveyard it is still No Man's Land
And the countless white crosses in mute witness stand
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man
And a whole generation that was butchered and downed
(Chorus)

And I can't help but wonder now Willie McBride
Do all those who lie here know why they died?
Did you really believe them when they told you the cause?
Did you really believe them that this war would end war?
But the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame -
The killing, the dying - it was all done in vain
For Willie McBride, it's all happened again
And again, and again, and again, and again
(Chorus)

Read about WWI songs as propaganda at Parlour Songs Academy here and Over There: Sheet Music and Propaganda During WWI from the NY Historical Society here.