# Recommend some good WWII music, please **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 4, 2005, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-good-wwii-music-please/302367 "2005-05-04T13:43:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2005, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-good-wwii-music-please/302367/21 "2005-05-05T02:00:03Z")
I’ll Be Seeing You- actually from a 1938 musical, but became a huge hit during WW2 because the lyrics took on new meaning (and newer still a decade later as the themesong of [America’s Most Eligible Bachelor](http://echelon.dyndns.org:2005/pics/thinkdifferent/liberace.jpg)) I’ll Be Home for Christmas- seeing this sung while images of troops and the women at home are played brings a lump to my throat- don’t know why. Of all the ones mentioned on this thread my absolute faves are _White Cliffs of Dover_ (oy, Vera Lynn… ) and _Bei Mir Bist du Schön_ (so ironic a song with German lyrics was such an all American hit) Bette Midler’s movie [For the Boys](http://imdb.com/title/tt0101902/) had its moments, but most of them were dreadful after WW2. However, the [soundtrack](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000002ISC/qid=1115258576/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/103-9359279-6188638?v=glance&s=music&n=507846) has some great WW2 numbers, from the standard _P.S. I Love You_ to the super-catchy and underplayed _Billy-a-Dick_ and _Stuff Like That There_. The [college where I used to work](http://gcsu.edu) did one of the greatest fundraisers ever a couple of years ago. Bob Hope and a variety of local and road-show talents played the campus (which was then reequipped as a training facility for WACS and other women in the war effort) during a whistle-stop Bond Tour during the war, and the school’s award winning jazz band and the theater department restaged the entire evening from transcripts and playlists. Brilliantly successful. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2005, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-good-wwii-music-please/302367/22 "2005-05-05T02:05:19Z")
There are also several CDs of FDR’s fireside chats (though of course he was a bit dead 60 years ago this summer), Eisenhower’s speeches and various radio broadcasts and comedy teams from the era available that would make great filler. (I think there’s a _Truth or Consequences_ CD out, but Amazon doesn’t have it.) ---
**Author:** ![danceswithcats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9e8a1a/32.png) [@danceswithcats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/danceswithcats)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2005, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-good-wwii-music-please/302367/23 "2005-05-05T04:47:41Z")
Strictly instrumental, but I’d include the music of Richard Rodgers from the TV series _Victory at Sea_. My Dad had an LP that I listened to as a kid-my CD is a special edition of the RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra conducted by Robert Russell Bennett. I think it’s digitally remastered from original work. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2005, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-good-wwii-music-please/302367/24 "2005-05-05T05:18:16Z")
> [@](#): > > Sentimental Journey–Peggy Lee I think, Dinah Shore? Make that Doris Day. Rock Hudson said that when he was shipping out in the navy during WWII, that that was the last song he heard. It was being played over a loud speaker from a bridge. ---
**Author:** ![ouryL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ouryl/32/6067_2.png) [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2005, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-good-wwii-music-please/302367/25 "2005-05-05T07:14:46Z")
> [@MsRobyn](#): > > This summer, I’m going to have some time on my hands. I’ve decided to do some radio programs on music that didn’t come from the 1980s. > > Since this is the 60th anniversary of the end of WWII, I thought it would be a good idea to do a show on music from that period. > > This is what I have so far: > > [ul] > [li]Andrews Sisters: Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy[/li][li]Bing Crosby: Swinging on a Star[/li][li]Johnny Mercer: Accentuate the Positive[/li][li]Glenn Miller: String of Pearls[/li][li]Glenn Miller: Pennsylvania 6-5000[/li][li]Glenn Miller: In the Mood[/li][/ul] > > Any suggestions? > > Robin There’ll be blue birds over The white cliffs of Dover, Tomorrow, just you wait and see. There’ll be love and laughter And peace ever after Tomorrow, when the world is free. The shepherd will tend his sheep, The valley will bloom again And Jimmy will go to sleep, In his own little room again. There’ll be blue birds over The white cliffs of Dover, Tomorrow, just you wait and see. Vera Lynn ---
**Author:** ![MsRobyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/90ced4/32.png) [@MsRobyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsRobyn)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2005, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-good-wwii-music-please/302367/26 "2005-05-05T10:19:48Z")
Thanks for the suggestions! **Sampiro** , I hadn’t thought of using Fireside Chats or old radio shows as filler, but it’s a great idea. Robin ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2005, 10:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-good-wwii-music-please/302367/27 "2005-05-05T10:36:30Z")
> [@Johnny L.A.](#): > > Remember how she used to say, ‘We’ll meet again some sunny day.’? > > What has become of her? Does anybody else in here feel the way I do about Dame Vera? Her success didn’t stop with the end of WWII. She was the first British artist ever to top the US charts (in 1952) with _Auf Wiederseh’n Sweetheart_ and used to appear regularly on Tallulah Bankhead’s US radio programme The Big Show. Her last public performance was 10 years ago, when she sang We’ll Meet Again outside Buckingham Palce in a concert commemerating the 50[sup]th[/sup] anniversary of VE day. ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2005, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-good-wwii-music-please/302367/28 "2005-05-05T10:52:40Z")
And if you’re able to track down a copy of the [CD for the TV miniseries The Singing Detective](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00008DAQL/qid=1115290428/sr=8-14/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i7_xgl15/104-5057148-3776717?v=glance&s=music&n=507846), you’ll have more music than you can shake a stick at. A lot of it pre-war, but it’s still great. ---
**Author:** ![Kizarvexius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/da6949/32.png) [@Kizarvexius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kizarvexius)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2005, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-good-wwii-music-please/302367/29 "2005-05-05T16:35:06Z")
I was always partial to _Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition_. ---
**Author:** ![Hey\_It\_s\_That\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Hey\_It\_s\_That\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hey_It_s_That_Guy)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2005, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-good-wwii-music-please/302367/30 "2005-05-05T16:49:54Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Of all the ones mentioned on this thread my absolute faves are _White Cliffs of Dover_ (oy, Vera Lynn… ) and _Bei Mir Bist du Schön_ (so ironic a song with German lyrics was such an all American hit) Actually, I believe the song was a staple of Yiddish vaudeville, and came out of the Lower East Side theaters of old Jewish New York. ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2005, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-good-wwii-music-please/302367/31 "2005-05-05T17:18:31Z")
> [@Johnny L.A.](#): > > Remember how she used to say, ‘We’ll meet again some sunny day.’? > > What has become of her? If you don’t eat your meat, how can you have any pudding? How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat? Stranger [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/recommend-some-good-wwii-music-please/302367.md?page=1)