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Anglo-Canadian Sheet Music and the First World War

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Anglo-Canadian Sheet Music and the First World War University of Calgary PRISM: University of Calgary's Digital Repository Graduate Studies The Vault: Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2016 The Sounds They Associated with War Came from Pianos, Not Guns: Anglo-Canadian Sheet Music and the First World War Wedel, Melanie Wedel, M. (2016). The Sounds They Associated with War Came from Pianos, Not Guns: Anglo-Canadian Sheet Music and the First World War (Unpublished master's thesis). University of Calgary, Calgary, AB. doi:10.11575/PRISM/28386 http://hdl.handle.net/11023/3086 master thesis University of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission. Downloaded from PRISM: https://prism.ucalgary.ca UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY The Sounds They Associated with War Came from Pianos, Not Guns: Anglo-Canadian Sheet Music and the First World War by Melanie Lisa Wedel A THESIS SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS GRADUATE PROGRAM IN HISTORY CALGARY, ALBERTA JUNE, 2016 © Melanie Wedel 2016 Abstract The study of wartime popular sheet music produced by Anglo-Canadians is vitally important, as it illustrates what was popular in society and demonstrates how Canadians reacted to the world around them. During the First World War, the medium of patriotic sheet music catalysed the management of morale during on the home front, as it offered an emotional outlet for thousands of people in desperate need of a diversion from the grim reality and toll of the war overseas. The cover illustrations, lyrics, and musical scores of hundreds of patriotic songs offer a useful lens into contemporary Anglo-Canadian society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as composers immortalized popular conceptions of war, identity, and responsibility on the pages of their songs. Patriotic sheet music therefore demonstrates the popular trends that led so many young boys to war in 1914, and helps to explain how Canadians reacted to the war on the home front. ii Acknowledgements I am grateful to my family and friends for their support over the long course of this project. In particular, I want to acknowledge the wonderful people I have had the privilege of meeting through this program over the past few years: Kim Main, Shannon Murray, Will Pratt, Beau Cleland, Aylin Atilla, Mikkel Dack, and Stuart Barnard. I cannot thank each of you enough for providing me with an outlet from writing with your friendship. I would also like to acknowledge Andrew McEwen for his love, friendship, and unwavering support. Andrew, you are my rock and my best friend; thank you for always being there for me. Finally, I would especially like to thank my parents, Rick and Laurie, for their unwavering love and support. I could not have gotten to where I am today without the both of you. I am eternally grateful for everything you have given me. I would also like to extend my gratitude to Dr. Glenn Wilkinson for helping me to discover this project in 2010; to Dr. John Ferris for the title of this thesis; and to Dr. Patrick Brennan for his many years of insightful conversations and encouragement in my studies. However, without the constant advice, patience, and guidance of Dr. David Marshall, this often-challenging project would never have blossomed into what it is today. I am extremely lucky to have worked with him for so many years, and cannot thank him enough for his support in my academic pursuits. I would also like to acknowledge the staff at the Glenbow Library and Archives in Calgary, Alberta, as well as to the staff at the Provincial Archives of Ontario, Toronto for their assistance in this project. I would like to thank Dr. Jonathan Vance for allowing me to access the vast collection of popular First World War artifacts held in the Ley and Lois Smith War, Memory, and Popular Culture Research Collection at the University of Western Ontario. Finally, I would like to thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the Faculty of Graduate Studies at the University of Calgary, and the Government of Alberta for their generous financial assistance. iii Dedication To my Mom & Dad; without them, I would not be here. iv Table of Contents Abstract .................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ................................................................................................. iii Dedication ............................................................................................................... iv Table of Contents ..................................................................................................... v List of Figures and Illustrations .............................................................................. vi INTRODUCTION: CULTURE, MUSIC, AND THE FIRST WORLD WAR .............. 1 CHAPTER ONE: A MUSICAL CANADA? TRACING TRADITIONS, LANDSCAPES, AND THE IMPACT OF THE “PEOPLE’S LITERATURE” ON WARTIME CANADA ................................................................................21 CHAPTER TWO: EMPIRE, IMPERIAL RESPONSIBILITY, AND NATIONAL DIGNITY: ENGLISH CANADA GOES TO WAR ........................................... 53 CHAPTER THREE: MANAGING MORALE AND KEEPING THE FAITH: ANGLO-CANADIANS RESPOND TO THE GREAT WAR............................ 85 CHAPTER FOUR: AT WAR’S END, 1918-1919 ................................................... 120 CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................... 130 BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................................. 140 v List of Figures and Illustrations Figure 1: Sheet music cover, Goodbye My Soldier Boy......................................... 40 Figure 2: Sheet music cover, Hail, Mighty Empire ............................................... 75 Figure 3: Sheet music cover, The Best Old Flag on Earth .................................... 80 Figure 4: Sheet music cover, The Call .................................................................... 95 Figure 5: Sheet music cover, We’ll Love You More When You Come Back than When You Went Away ........................................................................................... 99 Figure 6: Sheet music cover, Canada, Star of the Empire ................................... 137 vi Introduction: Culture, Music, and the First World War “In childhood day, we’d sing and play/ A game we loved so well,/ ‘I oh! the cheer oh! the farmer in the dell;’/ But since the war, the words of yore,/ Have changed to fit the times,/ the melody is the same to me but the kids have changed the rhymes.”1 - The Worst Is Yet to Come, by Samm Lewis and Bert Grant (1917) The prominence of music in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century offered an appropriate creative and emotional outlet for Canadians, as it influenced everyone’s life in some form or fashion. In urban and rural areas, Canadians bought sheet music and sang patriotic songs in their parlours, concert halls, theatres, and church basements. They heard stirring renditions by marching bands at public rallies and parades.2 As the song The Worst Is Yet To Come by Samm Lewis, Joe Young, and Bert Grant suggests, the pre-war years were cheery and carefree, and allowed children to “sing and play” games for merry entertainment. However, as the song demonstrates, not only did popular rhetoric change during the First World War, so too did the music: “But since the war, the words of yore,/ Have changed to fit the times,/the melody is the same to me but the kids have changed the rhymes/.”3 Indeed, the onslaught of the war changed everyday life by implementing new ideals and realities. That the “words of yore” were “changed to fit the times” illustrates this transformation culturally, 1 Samm Lewis, Joe Young, and Bert Grant, The Worst Is Yet to Come, (Canada: Waterson, Berlin & Snyder Co., 1917), “Sheet Music,” the Ley and Lois Smith War, Memory, and Popular Culture Research Collection, held by the History Department at the University of Western Ontario. 2 Edward Moogk, Roll Back the Years: History of Canadian Recorded Sound and its Legacy: Genesis to 1930 (Ottawa: National Library of Canada, 1975), 57. 3 Lewis, Young, and Grant, The Worst Is Yet to Come. 1 as the standard melodies that existed before the war had their rhymes changed to reflect the new, harsher reality that came with the slaughter of Canada’s youth. While the song is also indicative of the musicological transformation that was brought on by the war, the lyrics themselves convey the cultural impact of the war on Canadian society. Lyrical composition, as a distinct form of popular culture, allowed amateurs and professionals to articulate their musical creativity. When hostilities erupted in Europe in 1914, Anglo-Canadian writers transferred their energies to the creation of patriotic, heroic, jingoistic, or solemn songs, to glorify the sacrifices of, and participation in, the war effort.4 As popular songs aimed to champion the Allied fight for international democracy and justice, composers helped to uphold the war effort in Canada by producing inexpensive pieces of sheet music that reached thousands of individuals. As music evokes collective
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