Music Hall Memory Box
Music Halls and Morale during the Great War
Upon the British declaration of war on 4 August 1914, the proprietors of music halls and variety theatres feared that their establishments would soon be forced to close. A significant proportion of their pre-war male audience would soon be away fighting, and for all those who remained on the home front, it was assumed that the war effort would leave no time for frivolities. However, on the contrary, the halls turned out to themselves be immensely important in sustaining wartime morale.
Mangers made sure patriotic rhetoric was present on music hall stages from the offset. This they hoped would maintain their relevance in a changed political, social and economic climate. The revue, Stick to Your Guns! was premiered at the Empire Theatre in Leicester Square in August 1914, and By Jingo if we do was revived early on in many halls. Music halls stars introduced new war songs into their repertoire. Mark Sheridan familiarised Belgium Put the Kibosh Up the Kaiser (1914), and Whit Cunliffe introduced the sarcastic Hoch Hoch der Kaiser. The music publishers Francis, Day and Hunter even announced a competition to find the best new war song to be performed on the halls. Initially, these efforts looked like propaganda, but a far more complex, though entirely incidental process was at play.
The music halls and variety theatres came to symbolise the uniqueness of British culture. They were a distinctly ‘British institution’ and the humour seen on their stages had always been an expression of British national identity. At times of war, the solidification of national identity is essential for victory, and in the First World War, it was the music halls and variety theatres which were given this responsibility, albeit by default. They became a stabilising force for people whose lives were changing at a rapid pace. They needed to remind individuals of a glorious past, and this was exactly what they did. The Era in June 1915 recommended that like in their past, the halls should continue to set a tone of ‘vivacity, and colour, and frivolity and nonsense’.
The halls became a ‘safe space’ whereby people, including soldiers on leave, could escape their everyday fears and worries and for a few hours enjoy themselves. The comic song played a vital role in the war effort; not for propaganda, but because it significantly aided morale. As the old motto goes, ‘laughing is the best form of distraction’. Audiences sang along to roaring choruses such as It’s a Long Way to Tipperary and momentarily dispelled their fears together. Therefore, the music hall industry offered a twofold contribution to the war effort; it worked to remind people of the scared national identity and culture for which they were fighting, and simultaneously offered them a reprieve from the hardships which this duty entailed.
Below are extracts from contemporary newspapers describing how music halls and theatres provided emotional relief for soldiers on leave:
Music Halls and War
'The other evening I looked in at the Alhambra, where the highly successful revue, ‘The Bing Boys’, promises to eat up a new record in this particular class of entertainment. The spacious theatre is crowded nightly, and the predominant dress note in the audience is khaki.
In the stalls, for instance, on the evening I refer to, nineteen out of every twenty men were in military uniform. That great crowd of soldiers with their lady companions, constituted a convincing argument against the contention that theatres and music halls should be closed during the war'.
The Daily Record, 22nd July 1916
The Entertainment of Tommy
'One of the most inspiring experiences of the present-day playgoer is to see the troops of Tommies enjoying themselves at our playhouses and variety theatres. Amusement to them is a great luxury and its recuperative qualities cannot be overestimated. Their happy faces, at any rate, are the best answer to the all-is-lost brigade who would make an end of public entertainment. Surely it is a tonic that is sorely needed, and the contrast of the playhouse and its distractions from the doom of conflict and the hourly tragedies wrought by high explosives and shrapnel and bullet are an immense gain to convalescents. It is theirs to blot from the memory the shadow of death’
The Era, 2nd June 1915
War Themed Songs
While there were many war themed performances on the halls, they were generally comical and avoided sombre reflection on the realities of fighting. The Era stated in June 1915 that for those who had ‘experienced the appalling tragedy of war…the last thing they desire to see is the presentation of it on the stage’. It was vital that music hall and variety theatres offered light hearted entertainment. Comic tongue-twister songs became popular as they allowed audiences to sing along and laugh at their peers who slipped up on the fast, winding lyrics. Songs typical of this genre included:
Sister Susie’s Sewing Shirts for Soldiers (1914)
I Saw Six Short Soldiers (1916)
The lyrics were inane but that was the point; the sing along allowed escapism from fear. Even when the enemy was mentioned, it was again in a comical manner. There was no direct hatred expressed towards the Germans, but instead they, and particularly the Kaiser, were represented as blundering fools, as seen in Harry Champion's song, My Old Iron Cross. This had the necessary effect of making the enemy appear less frightening.
However, towards the later years of the war, particularly after the introduction of conscription in 1916 and the Battle of the Somme, songs became increasingly ironic and developed darker humour. Both Oh, it’s a lovely war and Goodbye were overtly sarcastic and bitter, and conscription was openly condemned on the halls in songs such as Exemptions and Otherwise and The Military Representative. Criticisms of the war, however, were restrained in music hall songs, and never depicted the violence and incompetence of officials that was seen so frequently in the songs sung by soldiers on the front line.
Oh! It's a Lovely War!
(Music Hall Song)
Up to your waist in water,
Up to your eyes in slush,
Using the kind of language
That makes the sergeants blush;
Who wouldn't join the army,
That's what we all enquire,
Don't we pity the poor civilians
Sitting beside the fire ?
Chorus:
Oh! Oh! Oh! It's a lovely war,
Who wouldn't be a soldier, eh ?
Oh, it's a shame to take the pay.
As soon as reveille has gone
We feel just as heavy as lead,
But we never get up till the sergeant
Brings our breakfast up to bed.
What do you want with eggs and ham
When you've got plum and apple jam ?
Form fours! Right turn!
How shall we spend the money we earn ?
When does a soldier grumble ?
When does a soldier make a fuss ?
No one is more contented
In all the world than us.
Oh, it's a cushy life, boys,
Really, we love it so;
Once a fellow was sent on leave
And simply refused to go.
Come to the cook-house door, boys,
Sniff at the lovely stew,
Who is it says the colonel
Gets better grub than you ?
Any complaints this morning?
Do we complain ? Not we.
What's the matter with lumps of onion
Floating around the tea ?
Hanging On The Old Barbed Wire
(Soldier's Song)
If you want to find the general
I know where he is
I know where he is
I know where he is
If you want to find the general
I know where he is
He's pinning another medal on his chest
I saw him, I saw him
Pinning another medal on his chest
Pinning another medal on his chest
If you want to find the colonel
I know where he is
I know where he is
I know where he is
If you want to find the colonel
I know where he is
He's sitting in comfort stuffing his bloody gut
I saw him, I saw him
Sitting in comfort stuffing his bloody gut
Sitting in comfort stuffing his bloody gut
If you want to find the seargent
I know where he is
I know where he is
I know where he is
If you want to find the seargent
I know where he is
He's drinking all the company rum
I saw him, I saw him
Drinking all the company rum
Drinking all the company rum
If you want to find the private
I know where he is
I know where he is
I know where he is
If you want to find the private
I know where he is
He's hanging on the old barbed wire
I saw him, I saw him
Hanging on the old barbed wire
Hanging on the old barbed wire
It's a lovely war is clearly sarcastic but it stops short of the direct criticism present in Hanging on the Old Barbed Wire.
War Recruitment and the Halls
In addition to sustaining British morale during the war, the music halls were at the forefront of recruitment. Songs such as Now You've got your Khaki on and Your King and Country Wants You were sung by female performers in halls across the country. They urged men to defend them and the nation by enlisting and emphasised how proud they were of the men who did so.
The halls exerted immense social pressure on young men. Ladies would sing the songs as men waited in line at the halls to enlist, and any man who refused was given a white feather by them as a symbol of cowardice. It must be remembered that the halls were the first example of mass entertainment and were the equivalent of watching television or browsing online today. They held great persuasion over individuals, and their propaganda potential was utilised for the war effort.
The overt jingoism of the halls is unsettling when contrasted with the horrors of the front line; a feeling Siegfried Sassoon so effectively conveys through the sharp contrast between the first and second stanzas of his poem The Blighters. After the war, many individuals felt the halls had betrayed them by sending them to fight in a war that was of no gain to them, but instead, caused only misery and horror.
'Blighters'
by Siegfried Sassoon
The House is crammed: tier beyond tier they grin
And cackle at the Show, while prancing ranks
Of harlots shrill the chorus, drunk with din;
“We’re sure the Kaiser loves the dear old Tanks!”
I’d like to see a Tank come down the stalls,
Lurching to rag-time tunes, or “Home, sweet Home,”
And there'd be no more jokes in Music-halls
To mock the riddled corpses round Bapaume.
Below, Mr Peter Charlton, co-historian of the British Music Hall Society, discusses how he personally feels uncomfortable with the recruitment tactics used on the halls. He disagrees, however, with the traditionalist view of historians that memories of their conduct during the war was what lead to their later decline in popularity. Rather he agrees with the revisionist argument that their decline came about because of the advent of cinema.