Hi Ron
I enjoyed reading your list as some of those same tunes affect me similarly.
Thought I'd send along the following:
"Surely the favourite song of soldiers during World War II, Lili Marleen
became the unofficial anthem of the foot soldiers of both forces in the war.
Original German lyrics from a poem The Song of a Young Sentry by World War I
German soldier, Hans Leip *22.9.1893 in Hamburg, 6.6.1983 in Fruthwilen,
near Frauenfeld (Thurgau), Switzerland who wrote these verses before going
to the Russian front in 1915, combining the name of his girlfriend, Lili
(the daughter of a grocer), with that of a friend's girlfriend or by a wave
given to Leip, while he was on sentry duty, by a young nurse named "Marleen"
as she disappeared into the evening fog.
His poem was later published in a collection of his poetry in 1937.
The poems caught the attention of Norbert Schultze (born 1911 in
Braunschweig, died 17.10.2002), who set this poem to music in 1938.
Schulze was already rich and famous before the success of The Girl under the
Lantern, who awaited her lover by the barrack gate. His operas, film scores,
marches and tunes for politically inspired lyrics were successful. In 1945
the Allies told Schultze to forget about composing but he got back to it in
1948.
The tune had a rocky road. The propaganda secretary of the
Nationalist-Socialist party, Joseph Goebbels didn't like the song, he wanted
a march. Lale Andersen didn't want to sing it and the DJ who was supposed to
get it on the charts also gave it two thumbs down.
Recorded just before the war by Lale Andersen (Eulalia Bunnenberg), the song
sold just 700 copies, until German Forces Radio began broadcasting it to the
Afrika Korps in 1941.
The songs was immediately banned in Germany, for its portentous character,
which did nothing to slow its spread in popularity.
After the German occupation of Yugoslavia, a radio station was established
in Belgrade and beamed news, and all the propaganda fit to air, to the
Africa Corps. Lieutenant Karl-Heinz Reintgen, the director of Radio Belgrade
had a friend in the Africa Corps who had liked the tune. He aired Lale
Anderson's version for the first time on 18. August 1941. General
Feldmarschall Rommel liked the song and asked Radio Belgrade to incorporate
the song into their broadcasts, which they did. The song soon became the
signature of the broadcast and was played at 9:55 pm, just before sign-off.
After the song was broadcast there was no holding it back. The Allies
listened to it and Lili Marleen became the favourite tune of soldiers on
both sides, regardless of language.
The immense popularity of the German version spawned a hurried English
version, supposedly when a British song publisher named J.J. Phillips
reprimanded a group of British soldiers for singing the verses - in German.
One irate soldier shouted back : "why don't you write us some English
words?". Phillips and a British songwriter Tommie Connor soon had an English
version in 1944. Anne Sheldon's English hit record started the songs
popularity with the Allied countries. Vera Lynn sang it over the BBC to the
Allied troops. The British Eigth Army adopted the song.
It was sung in military hospitals and blasted over huge speakers, along with
propaganda nuggets, across the frontlines, in both directions.
Marlene Dietrich featured The Girl under the Lantern in public appearances,
on radio and "three long years in North-Africa, Sicily, Italy, in Alaska,
Greenland, Iceland, in England," as she later recalled.
An RCA US recording, by an anonymous chorus in June, made it to No. 13 in
1944. It hit the US charts again in 1968, the German charts again in 1981
and the Japanese charts in 1986.
The song is said to have been translated into more than 48 languages,
including French, Russian and Italian and Hebrew. Tito in Yuogoslavia
greatly enjoyed the song.
Lili Marlene is easily the most popular war song ever. Its theme of dreaming
for one's lover is universal. Why is the song so popular? The last word goes
to Lale Anderson : "Can the wind explain why it became a storm?"
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- Fw: those songs you really just **love** njc jeff t.
- Fw: those songs you really just **love** njc kasey simpson