The NRR Project #41: 'Over There'

‘Over There’

Written by George M. Cohan

Singer: Nora Bayes

July 13, 1917

2:54

Evangelical interventionism.

This and other songs were part of a massive effort to turn a neutral U.S. population into one willing to send its sons off to die in a foreign war. It birthed the American Century, making the country a full-fledged major power. The repercussions were vast. Let’s break it down:

On November 7, 1916, Woodrow Wilson won his second term as U.S. president, in one of the closest contests in the history of the office. World War I had been raging since the summer of 1914, and Wilson’s campaign platform leaned hard on neutrality. “He kept us out of war” and “America First” were his slogans.

This was in keeping with America’s nominal isolationism. George Washington’s Farewell Address of 1796 famously adjured the country not to involve itself in foreign affairs: "Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice?" The concept has been permanently misremembered as the “caution against entangling alliances,” but the idea is the same.

He hired George Edward Creel, a muckraking journalist, who founded the Committee on Public Information, a government-sponsored propaganda agency. It issued government press releases, produced "morale-lifting" materials, and enforced press censorship at the behest of the War Department.

The first nationwide effort to influence public opinion was massive and thorough. Instead of being presented as just another geopolitical conflict between yet another combination of nation-stats, entry into the War was portrayed as a new Crusade. It was "the War to End All Wars," the "War to Make the World Safe for Democracy." Through the press, posters, movies, radio, bond drives, public rallies, and songs, the CPI sold the war to the people.

Isolation and peace-mongering were tantamount to treason, and songs such "I Didn't Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier" disappeared from the music-store racks.

We've met brash George M. Cohan before in this series (link here). "Over There" was his last and biggest hit, the epitome of his peppy style. Shortly after war was declared, he jotted it down. It's a perfect little marching song -- urgent, repetitious, catchy. The lyrics are a perfect evocation of the (manufactured) spirit of the day:

"Johnnie get your gun, get your gun, get your gun
Take it on the run, on the run,
Here them calling you and me, every son of liberty!
Hurry right away, don't delay, go today,
Make your daddy glad to have had such a lad
Tell your sweetheart not to pine,
To be proud her boy's in line . . . .

Over there! Over there!
Send the word, send the word, over there!
That the Yanks are coming, the Yanks are coming
The drums rum-tumming everywhere!
So prepare, say a prayer
Send the word, send the word  to beware
We'll be over, we're coming over,
And we won't come back 'til it's over over there!"

It makes you want to sing along, march along, join in. It gives the unwary an image of war as a lark crossed with a divinely ordained mission. Cohan asked singing star Nora Bayes ("Shine On, Harvest Moon") to be the first to record it. He clear, strong, straightforward delivery is perfect.



The number of WWI songs is profuse. "Over There" is only  the best-known; others include gems such as "Hock the Kaiser," "Hello, Central, Give Me No Man's Land," and "If He Can Fight Like He Can Love, Good Night Germany!" The mixture of martial ardor and rank sentiment is an appropriate disconnect for a war that was supposed to be fought for noble reasons, but wound up creating a "lost generation" of disabused humanity.

By June 26, 1917, th first U.S. troops arrived in Europe. Eventually, more than four million American men enlisted, and tow million served overseas. The conclusion of the war 18 months left America indisputably an international force.

Thee demonization of Germany and its culture affected many in the U.S. Steinbeck records the shunning his German-American family experienced by suspicious neighbors. My German-American grandfather joined the cavalry, and made it only as far as New York by Armistice Day. He still wound up changing the spelling of his funny-sounding name, and its pronunciation.

In terms of the nation's psyche, the repercussions were even greater. One of the CPI's young propagandists was Edward Bernays. He studied the propaganda efforts and decided that the same techniques could be applied to any situation requiring mass persuasion. He bcame the father of public relations, what he termed "regimenting the public mind." His offspring -- the advertising industry.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Up next: the early Heifetz recordings.

The NRR Project #39: The Bubble Books (1917 – 1922)

The Bubble Book

Written by Ralph Mayhew and Burges Johnson; illustrated by Rhoda Chase

Singer: unknown; perhaps Henry Burr

14 iterations, 1917 -- 1922

Multimedia. It’s ubiquitous now, but this was one of the first attempts to combine sound and image – a quite successful attempt that helped entrain young imaginations. But was it progressive or pathetic? Allow me to go on a tangential ramble . . .

I will not insult your intelligence by doing other than pointing to Cary O’Dell’s comprehensive and eloquent essay on the subject, which you should now pause and read immediately here. (Even more great information here at Little Wonder Records & Bubble Books.)

For our purposes, they were carefully crafted, sturdy little artifacts, little books containing “three 5 ½-inch discs to accompany the three nursery rhymes printed in the books.” The authors were Ralph Mayhew and Burges Johnson; Rhoda Chase did the beautiful illustrations. It is thought that the popular Henry Burr recorded the songs.

They sold millions of copies. Kids loved them. Parents loved them. Remember, until electrical motors were introduced, all gramophones were spring-driven and required cranking. Gramophone needles were cheap; they came in boxes and their frequent replacement was encouraged. This is known in parenting circles as “giving the kids something to do.” It was a welcome distraction.

There’s no doubt it was an educational aid as well. The tradition of early attempts to plow through more and more complex words by “sounding it out” is made much easier when your infant eye can match the incomprehensible spelling of a familiar word. The tricks of phonetic language, the paths phrases follow, the cadences at the base of the language, and the vast eccentricities of English, were never more well-served.

Other people might argue that it was just another step into unreality, dwelling in the metaphoric media world instead of staying grounded in direct, literally unmediated everydayness.

I don’t know. I never ran across these, but of course my generation of children had picture books wed to two-sided, 45-rpm records that told the story and made a beeping sound when it was time to turn the page. Later, Disney and many other companies made long-playing records on the same principle, and so it unfolds as each new step in technology carries it forward in some iteration.

Which makes me think it’s ubiquitous and needed. We hunger for stories, no matter the form. I crammed myself into corners, bowed with books, reading my way out from under. We played and sang along to our childhood story-records; poignant, maybe, but not pathetic.

In contrast, certain child-friending devices come off today as rather frightening. Who remembers Teddy Ruxpin? A frightening doll that could talk and had limited eye motion, a resident of the Uncanny Valley. Powered by large batteries shoved up its backside. It “read” stories on interchangeable cassettes, and it remains something I still suspect Stephen King conjured up as a practical joke.

But I digress. Hypnotized now by our digital lives, it’s educational to peruse these quaintly analog ancestors. Part of the mission of the “Harper Columbia Book that Sings” was to create a new generation of customers. It worked.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Up next: ‘Listen to the Lambs.’

Rockies game review: or, why I’m not a sportswriter

Seattle Mariners @ Colorado Rockies

May 29, 2017

1:10 p.m.

  

If you’da told me the Rockies were going to be in first place in the National League on Memorial Day this season, I’d have kicked you right near in the viaduct. The Rox have a long tradition of flaming out right after April, and considering the ludicrous amount of injuries we opened the year with, it seemed like now less than ever they deserved another shot from this enthusiastic but gun-shy fan. Our prospects, literally and figuratively, didn’t look good.

I waited ‘til yesterday to go – surprisingly, it was not hard to get tickets. (The previous day’s game was a sellout.) The Bolder Boulder and other holiday activities sucked away some potential crowd members, although a few people with insane stamina, still in their racing bibs, showed up to the game.

It was slightly disheartening, but familiar, to watch the Rockies lose. However (a Rockies fan must always seek qualifiers) there was definitely a different kind of losing going on in this game. This was close. Traditionally, the hit-happy bunch are let down by a series of exploding starting pitchers, who are then replaced by a dreary litany of failed relievers down the years –nay, decades, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory time and again.

Yesterday, our pitchers as a group (we used five, they used seven) suffered from a kind of dreaminess. They seemed to hurl the ball in a state of Borgesian lassitude, as though they were not quite sure any of this was real or not. This caused them to run the count up to 3-0, again and again. Despite the then heroic shakes of their respective heads, pulling them back to consensual reality, and a few strikes thrown, often as not our pitchers were getting pulled with only one or two outs and the bases loaded. You can’t keep this kind of foolishness up for long without getting punished for it.

 Otherwise, it was a good, clean game, full of swats (17 total hits, 11 runs) and no errors. Time crept by as the pitchers kept changing; the good old Rockies employee who runs gear out from the bullpen when pitchers change and then dashes back, to wild acclamation from the crowd, got worked. It would be easy to cite Parra for his ill-advised steal attempt that killed the 4th as well as some momentum, but it's a standard move. If he'd made it I'd be saying the opposite,so what do I know? In the end the Mariners just did, as Grandpa used to say, more gittin’.

In the stands, we kept our scorecards and cracked wise, one ear on the radio. The usual scoreboard shenanigans kept everyone amused, and there was plenty of hat-doffing and singing and moments of silence for Memorial Day. (What has happened to the interactive magic of the hapless fan out there trying to catch a fly ball, or replacing a base, for prizes, between innings? Is there some kind of liability issue? Has the nnany sstate taken even this away from us?) And, as I predicted, the giant anthropomorphic tooth won the mid-inning race around foul ground, maintaining a lead from the beginning over the anthropomorphic toothbrush and anthropomorphic toothpaste. Not bad.

And, oh yes, when did I predict it would rain? 2 p.m. When did it start raining? Exactly. And who was happy I brought two ponchos? Yes, that is right. Father is right.

Oh, yes. They beat us, 6 to 5.

The NRR Project #38: John McCormack sings ‘Il mio tesoro’

Detail from William Orphen's portrait  of McCormack

‘Il mio Tesoro’

From Mozart’s Don Giovanni

Performed by John McCormack; accompanied by Walter Rogers and ensemble

Recorded May 9, 1916

4:09

  

What is the hell is an Irish tenor? From the late 19^th century through the middle of the 20^th, you couldn’t throw a brick-end without hitting one. They infested churches, bars, social halls, auditoriums, and stood by pianos, organs, and spinets in countless parlors, warbling melodies that charmed the ear and made a tear well up here and there. And John McCormack was the ultimate manifestation of the phenomenon.

An Irish tenor is not necessarily Irish, although it would have behooved him to don a moniker like Reilly or Flanagan before taking the stage. It’s the vocal quality and material covered that makes an Irish tenor. He does not have the strong blare of a Verdiean tenor, nor the all-day toughness of a Wagnerian heldentenor. An Irish tenor is light, lilting, legato – smooth as silk and full of feeling. It’s perfect for sentimental ballads, whether they be about a girl or about Ireland.

John McCormack was a true son of the sod, born in the small town of Athlone in the dead-center of Ireland. His vocal gifts were appreciated, and his community chipped in to send him to Italy for training. He rose swiftly in the opera world, and began to record in 1904. He rapidly became second only to Caruso in terms of recordings sold.

Though McCormack could essay much of the tenor repertoire, he switched his focus to concerts around 1912. There he performed the hits people really loved. He was the first to record “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary,” and he made famous other chestnuts such as “I Hear You Calling Me,” and “The Last Rose of Summer”; his Irish ballads like “The Minstrel Boy,” “Mother Machree,” “The Wearin’ o’ the Green,” and many, many others proved insanely popular with the Irish-American population, which was finally beginning to overcome generations of prejudice.

This recording is a perfect example of his work. It is eminently listenable, flawless, with an extraordinary breath control and sense of articulation. Parlors everywhere had a large stock of McCormack records nearby. Soon crooners and jazz babies would take over the top spot in American musical culture, but McCormack is one of the last remnants of that genteel tradition in American vocal music. He was perfectly lovely.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Up next: The Bubble Book. 

NRR Project update: New selections for 2017!

Dear and faithful reader -- here is the list of recordings selected by the National Recording Registry for 2017, just announced today. The comprise 25 recordings from the across the history of American recorded sound. I have been plowing forward through time on this project, and am currently working on an essay concerning John McCormack's 1916 recording of "Il mi Tesoro." So lenghthy is this project (I have tackled 34 out of 475 to date) that each year I find myself adding the new entries to the list, circling back to cover selections that predate where I'm currently at, etc. I am hanging in there, and I hope you are, too. Hopefully someday a complete compendium will  be assembled. In the meantime, I am still learning and having fun sharing what I find out with you. Thanks for reading!

The NRR Project #37: 'They Didn't Believe Me' (1914)

Julia Sanderson and Donald Brian premiered 'They Didn't Believe Me' on August 14, 1914. World War I was 10 days old.

‘They Didn’t Believe Me’

Music: Jerome Kern

Lyrics: Herbert Reynolds

Performed by Harry Macdonough and Alice Green

Recorded Sept. 8, 1915

3:27

It sounds like it was written yesterday. That’s the key to what makes one still refer to Jerome Kern in the present tense. His songs are very much alive.

At last. In this marathon effort, I feel for the first time contact with modernity. Up to now, what had popular American music been? Hymns and gospel songs, Stephen Foster, marches, sentimental ballads, minstrel-show hits, George M. Cohan, operetta, bawdy “extravaganza” songs, and ragtime. Even the first great contributor to the Great American Songbook, Irving Berlin, dwelt in the peppy, razz-mah-tazz mode of “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” (1911) for many years.

By 1914, the precocious Kern, who took the piano very seriously and studied for years in New York and Heidelberg, had been in show business for nine years. He began as a rehearsal pianist on Broadway and song-plugger in Tin Pan Alley, and worked his way up in both New York and London.

When a London producer brought an English show, “The Girl from Utah,” to Broadway in 1914, the first act needed punching up. (The story goes that first acts in English theater could be indifferent, as the audience always showed up late; but Americans were prompt and restless. They wanted a complete evening of entertainment, dammit.) Kern and Herbert Reynolds threw five new numbers into the show, and “They Didn’t Believe Me” was one of them.

Julia Sanderson and Donald Brian premiered it on August 14, 1914, and it quickly became a national hit. Five weeks later, Victor Talking Machine Co.’s house tenor and gifted administrator Harry Macdonough recorded it with Alice Green, aka Olive Kline. Kline was a substitute singer in a church quartet Macdonough sang in, and one Sunday he sent her a note during the sermon asking her to make a test record. She became a popular member of the Victor stale of singers.

As sung here, the song is delivered in a very stiff, 19^th-century style. The introductory verse has a bit of hurdy-gurdy feel to it, but when Macdonough hits the chorus, even his essential whiteness can’t prevent the song from sounding vernacular, conversational. The melody is almost non-schematic – it seems to wander about, but it exists strictly to illuminate the meaning of the words, pared-down and essential. (Access that recording here.)

For the first time in American music, someone is singing TO someone rather than at someone. The rhythm is a sauntering 4/4, conducive to the foxtrot that was taking over American dance halls. It tells a story, and words and music serve each other in lovely symbiosis. Most importantly, there is an emotional current running through the piece. It has a pulse, it can be inhabited emotionally, which confers and augments the interpretive power of its performers. Here’s the beginning of the sensitive, insightful, witty, and vital catalogue of “standards” that will remain current, and keep feeding imaginations, for a long time to come.

Kern would go on to create six key “Princess Theatre” musicals after this, experiments in small-scale, believable musical comedies that charmed everyone, moving up step by step, churning out a musical a year, partnering fatefully with Oscar Hammerstein II, creating the legendary vernacular opera Show Boat, and moving on through Broadway and Hollywood.

He wound up writing more than 700 songs, among them “All the Things You Are,” “The Way You Look Tonight,” “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,” “Who?”, “A Fine Romance” – and on and on. And they all still sound fresh. “They Didn’t Believe Me” is a great place to start exploring his work.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Up next: the great John McCormack sings ’Il mio tesoro.’ 

The NRR Project #19: 'Casey at the Bat' (1906)

‘Casey at the Bat’

DeWolf Hopper

Recorded 1906

4:36

What can you say about “Casey at the Bat”? That’s fresh, I mean. It’s engraved on our collective consciousness. Everyone knows it; it’s part of American mythology. We’ve all recited it, or heard it recited. It’s been performed, recorded, adapted, parodied thousands upon thousands of times. It’s on short list of “America’s best-loved poems,” along with “The Night before Christmas,” “Paul Revere’s Ride,” and homiletic narratives such as those of Edgar A. Guest (“It takes a heap o’ living/To make a house a home”), et al. In other words, it’s annoying.

The facts are these – Ernest Lawrence Thayer, a 24-year-old humor columnist for the San Francisco Examiner (a Harvard classmate of millionaire publisher William Randolph Hearst’s, who gave him the job), cranked out this mock epic as his last piece for that paper, on June 3, 1888. It was buried, like the piece of comic doggerel Thayer and everyone else took it for, at the bottom of the fourth column on Page 4 that day. It bore no byline. (Thayer received proper attribution years later, but never made an extra dime off his best-known creation.)

As a poem, it certainly works. It’s memorable, it tells an interesting story in an interesting way. Its pace is bouncy and fee, fun, and seemingly crafted to speak aloud, actually. It’s almost a parody, but not quite – “A straggling few got up to go in deep despair” is exactly how many baseball fans have felt when the home team was down late in the game. Ultimately, it’s a bit of a homily about tragic pride as well.

But then. Back in those days, casual pieces that were “evergreen,” or capable of being inserted at any time of year, migrated into other papers of the same chain, and rival publications as well. The sheer volume needed to fill the daily “news hole” meant that all kinds of material found its way into the pages, good, bad or indifferent. The New York Sun ran it a few weeks later. Writer Archibald Gunter read it, clipped it out and stuck it in his wallet. He had a friend who was huge ham who he thought might like it.

DeWolf Hooper reciting "Casey at the Bat" for an early synchronized-sound film, 1922.

DeWolf Hopper was one of the funniest men of Broadway. At 6’5” and 230 pounds, he was an adept comic actor who got his start with the proto-musical comedy team of Harrigan and Hart. Hopper wound up starring in more than 30 productions during the period. (He was quite a ladies’ man as well, with as many wives as Henry VIII, and the nickname ‘The Husband of His Country.’)

And he was a big baseball fan, or “crank,” as an adherent of the sport was termed then. He had already started interpolating freestanding comic baseball sketches and “bits” into his performances as early as 1885.

When Hopper glimmed this poem, something clicked. On August 14, 1888, Hopper recited the poem at a special performance of the comic opera Prinz Methusalem that was attended by the both the New York Giants and the Chicago White Sox. It was a huge hit. Hooper was uniquely suited to deliver this bombastic narrative of battle, stretching it out, embellishing it with rococo diction and gesture, and wringing every laugh possible out of it. (This usually took him five minutes and 40 seconds; he speeds up to fit it all in on one side of this Victor disc.)

Hopper claimed to have performed the piece 10,000 times, which would mean that he got up and performed it every day for seven months out of the year over the course of the 47 remaining years of his career. I’m glad that age could not wither nor custom stale his enjoyment of performing it, but I wonder if it got a little tiresome for others.

Oh, and I don’t know if any literary scholar has covered this last point but: Casey is a big fat jerk.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Up next: ’They Didn’t Believe Me.’