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Elinor Florence (Company name) Elinor Florence

Top Ten Wartime Tunes

My mother played wartime music on the piano when I was a kid, just as we were falling asleep. So my fascination with that era first began with its wonderful, evocative music: lilting love songs, morale-boosting melodies, big band swing and sweet songs of separation that wring your heartstrings.

Click on the title to hear each piece. Some have video; others are just audio recordings. You may have to suffer through a few advertisements, which is the price we pay for having access to all this wonderful music.

Wartime music: a youthful Vera Lynn stands at an old-fashioned microphone, her voice wide open, belting it out in a polka-dotted dress.

Wartime Music: White Cliffs of Dover

During the darkest days of war, Vera Lynn had her own BBC radio program called “Sincerely Yours,” broadcasting to the British troops abroad, and she soon became known as the Sweetheart of the Forces. That’s her above. (Photo Credit: PA Photos).

This morale-boosting song was written before the Americans entered the war, when things were looking pretty grim. In this clip, you see the famous chalky cliffs, and imagine how the British forces wept when they came home victorious, and saw their iconic cliffs again. Vera Lynn is still living, and much revered by veterans everywhere.

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A smiling Glenn Miller looks at the camera, his trombone in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other, his eyes kind through his wire-rimmed spectacles.

Wartime Music: In the Mood

Glenn Miller had so many wartime hits that it was hard to choose just one. But surely there could not be a better dance tune than this. Don’t you love those brass instruments!

Here’s a clip of the real band starring as themselves in the 1954 movie The Glenn Miller Story (starring Jimmy Stewart as Glenn Miller). Sadly, the bespectacled band leader, played by Jimmy Stewart in the movie, was already dead. While he was on his way to entertain the troops in France in 1944, his aircraft went down over the English Channel. He was just forty years old.

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A publicity photo of the beautiful Rosemary Clooney, her hair gleaming in the spotlight, wearing a low-cut off-the-shoulder gown and smiling happily into the camera.

Wartime Music: I’ll Be Seeing You

Both the melody and the lyrics have deep emotional power in this song of farewell, which became an anthem for departing servicemen. The final words are: “I’ll be looking at the moon, but I’ll be seeing you.” One can imagine men and women all over the world, looking at the moon and longing for their loved ones far away.

Although she was more popular in the 1950s, the deep, rich voice of Rosemary Clooney, this famous gal singer from Kentucky, does the song justice. Nephew George Clooney was one of the pall-bearers at her 2002 funeral. (Photo Credit: Getty Images).

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Wartime music, the Andrews sisters Laverne, Maxine and Patty, wearing American army shirts and ties and wedge caps, all with short curly brown hair, grin into the camera, looking remarkably like sisters.

Wartime Music: Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy

I admire women in uniform, so I couldn’t resist this clip of the Andrews sisters wearing uniforms while they sing and dance. Laverne, Maxine and Patty from Minnesota had lightning-quick vocal harmony. They were the most popular female group in wartime and performed with all the big bands. They also volunteered tirelessly to entertain the troops in America, Africa and Italy.

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A still photograph from the movie Holiday Inn shows Bing Crosby seated at the piano, singing, while Martha Mears, a lovely blonde woman in a blue robe, gazes at him admiringly, a fire behind them in the fireplace.

Wartime Music: White Christmas

Yes, we hear it every year, but listen carefully to the lovely lyrics and imagine how our boys overseas (especially the ones from Canada who were serving in tropical countries) must have dreamed of a snowy white Christmas.

This clip from the original 1942 movie called Holiday Inn, sung by Bing Crosby with lovely Martha Mears, followed by Bing’s last performance in 1977.

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A photograph taken during the live London stage production called Me and My Gal shows a dark-haired Robert Lindsay in a check suit and a young Emma Thompson in a flowered dress, holding hands and singing.

Wartime Music: The Lambeth Walk

My mother said this catchy tune was a favourite at every wartime dance. Dancers would form groups of three – either two girls with a guy in the middle, or two guys with a girl in the middle.

First performed in the musical Me and My Gal, it’s about a man from the working-class district of Lambeth who inherits a fortune and starts to mingle with the upper classes.

I apologize for the quality of this 1984 video, but it shows Robert Lindsay and a much younger Emma Thompson live on the London stage. (Photo Credit: Doug McKenzie.)

Warning: You will not be able to get this tune out of your head! OY!

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A smiling young Doris Day, blonde hair hanging to her shoulders, smiles at a dark-haired man in a suit and tie, also smiling and gesturing with one hand, Les Brown, leader of the band Les Brown and His Band of Renown.

Wartime Music: Gonna Take A Sentimental Journey

Doris Day (a singer and actress that we sadly don’t hear much about these days) started her career singing for a big band, namely Les Brown and His Band of Renown. She later went on to become a major movie star in the 1950s. Doris Day passed away in 2019 at the age of 97.

Here she lends her vocals to one of the most popular songs of wartime, written by Les Brown himself, who is with her in the above photo. (Photo Credit: U.S. Library of Congress).

Not surprisingly, it became the homecoming theme for returning veterans.

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A still photograph from the musical movie Broadway Melody shows Eleanor Powell in a white dress with a pleated skirt and Fred Astaire in a white suit and white shoes, smiling at each other while they perform a dance step.

Wartime Music: Begin the Beguine 

This song was written by the unbelievably talented Cole Porter in 1935. The melody was considered too long and too hard to remember until bandleader Artie Shaw performed a swing version, and it caught on.

In 1940 Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell even turned it into a tap dance in this movie “Broadway Melody.” It was then peformed by every band and became a wartime classic.

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Wartime music, a publicity photograph of Marlene Dietrich shows the sultry actress with blonde tresses and pencil-thin eyebrows breathing smoke through her nostrils, a lit cigarette in her hand.

Wartime Music: Lili Marleen

This is one of the stranger stories of the war — how a German love song called “The Girl Under the Lantern” became popular with servicemen everywhere. It was broadcast by Radio Belgrade in Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia to entertain the German troops, and captured radio listeners on both sides of the conflict, proving that music is indeed the universal language.

This German-born, American singer and actress was a frontline performer during the war. Marlene Dietrich’s husky, sensual voice was perfect for this 1944 rendition. (Photo Credit: Getty Images.)

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Australian singer Hayley Westenra with flowing brunette locks, wearing a strapless red dress, grips a microphone in her left hand while singing, a group of blurry faces int he audience behind her.

Wartime Music: We’ll Meet Again

To conclude, the greatest wartime tune ever written. I challenge you to listen to this classic, and not feel the tears spring into your eyes!

This isn’t the original Vera Lynn version, but a contemporary artist from New Zealand named Hayley Westenra, singing at the Royal Albert Hall in 2009.

Watch the whole thing, because there is a BIG surprise at the end!

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STAR WEEKLY AT WAR

The Star Weekly was a Canadian newsmagazine published by the Toronto Star. During the Second World War, a colour illustration appeared on the cover each week with a wartime theme. This image dated May 3, 1941 shows an English air raid warden guiding a woman and child into a bomb shelter.

See my collection of Star Weekly covers: Star Weekly At War.

Star Weekly magazine cover dated May 3, 1941 has a colored illustration of an air raid warden in a helmet, one hand gripping a pair of binoculars and the other around a young woman in a blue dress holding her blonde toddler in a pair of red rompers, with flaming buildings in the background.

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