Music During World War 2 Essay
Music during World War II
The music during World War II was one of the most well-known and popular music eras of all times. Following the Great Depression, the 1930’s era called the “swing era” (Young & Young, 2008), was full of big bands, large dance halls and jitterbug-like beats that kept people on the dance floor. But little did America know that by the early 1940’s, their musical interests and tastes were soon going to change from upbeat tunes, to songs about war and love anthems. This change was brought by the war that Americans wanted to stay isolated from. In 1939-1940, Americans thought of the war to be Europe and Asia’s problem, wanting to remain isolated from the battles that were going on overseas. Many of the American …show more content…
Because of the draft and the attack of Pearl Harbor, it started to be difficult to fill the big band orchestras that entertained the dance halls before. The government tried to push patriotic and war focused music on the public. Songs like “We’ll Knock the Japs Right into the Laps of the Nazi’s” released in 1941 and “Yankee Doodle Ain’t Doodlin’ Now” released in 1942 (Young & Young, 2008), were war songs that tried to get the Americans fired up and show loyalty and patriotism. At the same time, the music was used to poke fun at the axis powers. The majority of the war songs released during the six years of the WWII era fell short of ever achieving real success, and the public for the most part rejected the music being released. With the failure of many war songs, there were a few songs that became main street hits, such as, “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” by the Andrew sisters in 1941. The Andrew sisters sang and danced to the song about an amazing trumpet player who was called to the draft and played in the military day and night. In this song, the Andrew sisters were able to relate to the upbeat jitterbug-like tune that America could dance to, and did not sing of the issues going on during the war other than the draft. Another song, called “Kiss the Boys Goodbye” recorded by Tommy Dorsey, was sung in the movie “Kiss the Boys Goodbye” which was a comedy movie hit that was released in 1941 (Schmidt,
The music during World War II was one of the most well-known and popular music eras of all times. Following the Great Depression, the 1930’s era called the “swing era” (Young & Young, 2008), was full of big bands, large dance halls and jitterbug-like beats that kept people on the dance floor. But little did America know that by the early 1940’s, their musical interests and tastes were soon going to change from upbeat tunes, to songs about war and love anthems. This change was brought by the war that Americans wanted to stay isolated from. In 1939-1940, Americans thought of the war to be Europe and Asia’s problem, wanting to remain isolated from the battles that were going on overseas. Many of the American …show more content…
Because of the draft and the attack of Pearl Harbor, it started to be difficult to fill the big band orchestras that entertained the dance halls before. The government tried to push patriotic and war focused music on the public. Songs like “We’ll Knock the Japs Right into the Laps of the Nazi’s” released in 1941 and “Yankee Doodle Ain’t Doodlin’ Now” released in 1942 (Young & Young, 2008), were war songs that tried to get the Americans fired up and show loyalty and patriotism. At the same time, the music was used to poke fun at the axis powers. The majority of the war songs released during the six years of the WWII era fell short of ever achieving real success, and the public for the most part rejected the music being released. With the failure of many war songs, there were a few songs that became main street hits, such as, “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” by the Andrew sisters in 1941. The Andrew sisters sang and danced to the song about an amazing trumpet player who was called to the draft and played in the military day and night. In this song, the Andrew sisters were able to relate to the upbeat jitterbug-like tune that America could dance to, and did not sing of the issues going on during the war other than the draft. Another song, called “Kiss the Boys Goodbye” recorded by Tommy Dorsey, was sung in the movie “Kiss the Boys Goodbye” which was a comedy movie hit that was released in 1941 (Schmidt,