The Frigin' Flyin' Fort

The Songs Grandpa Wouldn't Sing For Us.
No history of the Second World War would be complete without mentioning the music of the period. Glenn Miller and the Andrew Sisters were as much of the war scene as Generals Eisenhower and Patton. But as the strains of "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree" and "The White Cliffs of Dover" were drifting across the dance floor and out of the Philco, other tunes were being sung in the barracks and officers' clubs. For the most part, the melodies were familiar. The lyrics, however, told a much different story than the composer originally penned. "Ta Ra Ra Boom De Ay" became "Will You Go Boom Today?" and "Big Rock Candy Mountain" supplied the notes for "Army Air Force Heaven." And some songs like "Eyes of Texas" and "Home on the Range" were transformed into too many to name. Although the lyrics of these songs pale in comparison to today's rap, they were"considered quite bawdy for their day.
"Fortress: The Plane and Her Crews" makes liberal use of barracks songs in the sound track. Thanks to the talents of folk singer Oscar Brand, many of these old songs were"recorded for posterity. Back in the '50s, Oscar included many Air Corps songs in his albums of "bawdy songs and barracks ballads." The albums became popular among male college students in the beer blurred hootenanny days of the early '60s."(Hey, we didn't have Cinimax, HBO, internet and un-airbrushed Playboys.)" Fortunately, not all the albums got trashed by our wives and mothers and some are still around today, which is how the songs ended up in the "Fortress" video. For those of you not fortunate enough to have the originals, or couldn't find a record player if you did, Oscar has released several of his albums from the old days on CD. If you're interested in a not so well publicized musical history of the Second Worlf War, check out Oscar's site, oscarbrand.com.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Folk
• military
• B-17
• Fortress
• WW2

[787mysterio]

@xtiml whats your point

[xtiml]

britain started the bombing of germany in 39,german bombing was a response to this as hitler opposed civilian targeting of bombing.40 thousand british were killed, british and american bombing of civilians killed in the millions.as policy was bomb civilians , the first war to do s and was considered crimnal before that ww1 had no such civilian bombing., but hitler so scared their cozy views on the world they demonized him to justify it.

[Cowpoke4]

If you study the air war you will find out which country started the Terror bombing of cities. its seen as the biggest mistake of the battle of britain, the Royal Air Force was stretched to the limit when Hitler and Goering left the airfields and depots alone to concentrate on cities.

[legoeasycompany]

@xtiml ok becuase I a pretty sure the germans didn't kill thousands of Britains before and at the same time

[legoeasycompany]

I've flown in one of these B-17s and I think that the men who flew in them through flak were very brave

[vonmazur1]

"Will you go boom today? Two blew up yesterday...." Heard them all from my Dad as a kid in the USAF.....While in the CIvil AIr Patrol, learning these Oscar Brand Air Force Songs was manditory!!! In Nam we made up our own songs for Army Aviation, based on this fine precedent!! Somewhere they are posted on You Tube!!

Dale

[Warbirdguy1]

@MaxandFang8180 fail spam lol

[xtiml]

when they started the air war on gerany they killed 5000 german civilians a day everyday till they stopped.

[natanwekills]

Awesome b-17 footage

[natanwekills]

Cool man cool The great b17