***Songs To While The Time By- The Roots Is The Toots- The Music That Got Them Through World War II-Peggy Lee Backed By The Benny Goodman Band-Elmer's Tune

 

Over the past several years I have been running an occasional series in this space of songs, mainly political protest songs, you know The Internationale, Union Maid, Which Side Are You On, Viva La Quince Brigada, Universal Soldier, and such entitled Songs To While The Class Struggle By. This series which could include some protest songs as well is centered on roots music as it has come down the ages and formed the core of the American songbook. You will find the odd, the eccentric, the forebears of later musical trends, and the just plain amusing here. Listen up-Peter Paul Markin       

Additional Markin comment for this series:

Whether we liked it or not, whether we even knew of it or not, this is the music that went wafting through the house of many of those of us who constitute the Generation of “68. Those of us who came of age, personal, political and social age in the age of Jack Kennedy’s Camelot and who slogged through that decade whether it be in civil rights/black liberation struggle, the anti-Vietnam War struggle of the struggle to find one’s own identity in the counter-culture before the hammer came down. This is emphatically the music of our parents’ generation, the generation that survived the dust bowl hard times of the 1930s Great Depression and slogged through the time of the gun in World War II, either carrying one on the shoulder in Europe or the Pacific or waiting at home hoping to high heaven that some gun had not carried off sweetheart Johnnie or Jimmy.          

It wafted through the large console radio centered in the living room of my house via local station WDJA in North Adamsville as my mother used it as background on her appointed household rounds. It drove me crazy then as mush stuff at a time when I was craving the big break-out rock and roll sounds I kept hearing every time I went and played the jukebox at Doc’s Drugstore over on Walker Street down near the beach. Funny thing though while I am still a child of rock and roll (blues too) this so-called mushy stuff sounds pretty good to these ears now long after my parents and those who performed this music have passed on. Go figure.  
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ELMER'S TUNE
Glenn Miller- words and music by Elmer Albrecht, Sammy Gallop and Dick Jurgens

Why are the stars always winkin' and blinkin' above?
What makes a fellow start thinkin' of fallin' in love?
It's not the season, the reason is plain as the moon
It's just Elmer's Tune

What makes a lady of eighty go out on the loose?
Why does a gander meander in search of a goose?
What puts the kick in a chicken, the magic in June?
It's just Elmer's Tune

Listen
Listen
There's a lot you're liable to be missin'
Sing it
Swing it
Any old way and any old time

The hurdy-gurdies, the birdies, the cop on the beat
The candy maker, the baker, the man on the street
The city charmer, the farmer, the man in the moon
All sing Elmer's Tune