The song they loved the most
They’re members of what’s been justifiably called the Greatest Generation, but these heroes won’t be with us for very much longer. The average age of a Second World War veteran is now 91 and the ranks of those who gave so much, on behalf of Canada and for freedom’s sake, are growing ever thinner.
When they’re gone they’ll leave a legacy of sacrifice and loss, tragedy and triumph, told through diaries and photographs, recorded conversations, medals and mementoes. Recalling a song they loved is another good way to remember them. Not military marches and the mournful Last Post, but the notes that moved them — what they sang together and listened to huddled around a radio.
One tune stands out as a universal soldiers’ song. It was conceived in the First World War, a century ago this year, and came to life in the Second. It began as the enemy’s music but became a favourite on both sides of the battle front, translated into more than 40 languages. The tune, of course, is “Lili Marlene.”
It was sung by Canadians fighting in the mountains of Italy; by the Yanks who landed in Normandy; by the German soldiers of the Afrika Korps; and by Tommies in the British 8th Army who confronted them.
Whether on distant seas or soaring above the clouds, for those serving in trench or in barracks, it reflected the loneliness of being far from home and the ache for a sweetheart left behind. It was a song of farewell, offering no assurance of return. Its melancholy strains captured their mood like no other:
Resting in a billet just behind the line Even tho’ we’re parted your lips are close to mine You wait where that lantern softly gleams Your sweet face seems to haunt my dreams My Lili of the lamplight My own Lili Marlene
The best-known English version is by screen legend Marlene Dietrich. Starting in Algeria and finishing in occupied Germany, she sang it to hundreds of thousands of front-line Allied troops. But the original lyrics were written decades earlier, in 1915.
Hans Leip was a 22-year-old German soldier on his way to the Russian Front when he penned a poem titled “The Song of a Young Sentry.” He survived the war and published the poem in1937. It was noticed by Norbert Schultze, a prominent composer of popular tunes, who put the words to music. The resulting number was recorded in 1939, just before another war erupted, by German cabaret singer Lale Andersen.
Nazi propaganda boss Joseph Goebbels hated the song because it wasn’t sufficiently militaristic and it was initially banned. German armed forces radio officials, desperate to air music that might appeal to the troops, got permission to broadcast it in mid-1941and Andersen’s rendition became an immediate hit — with German and Allied soldiers alike.
Capitalizing on that popularity, English-language versions were soon produced, with Dietrich making it her signature song and British chanteuse Vera Lynn, “The Forces’ Sweetheart,” releasing an immensely popular wartime rendition.
The song’s evolution didn’t end there. Universally familiar and easy to sing, “Lili Marlene” was endlessly adapted by frontline troops inventing their own lyrics. A memorable version was crafted by Canadian and other soldiers in Italy after the D-Day invasion had rendered their front something of a sideshow. Their frustration came to a head in The Ballad of the D-Day Dodgers, sung to the tune of Lili Marlene.
In years following the war this gleefully irreverent and sarcastic song could be heard in Legion halls, belted out with gusto, when Canadian veterans of Italy would gather. Not so much now.
All of Canada’s veterans deserve our gratitude, whether they served on the blood-soaked soil of the Somme; in the deserts of Afghanistan; in Iraq today, or keeping the peace in war zones from Cyprus to the Congo. But special respect is due those precious few veterans of the Second World War who are still able to participate in a Remembrance Day parade — saluting once again the names of their lost engraved on a cenotaph.
There soon will come a roll call where none will stand to answer. But the story of who they were, and what they felt, will always be at hand in the simple song they loved the most. In “Lili Marlene.”
‘Lili Marlene’ was the favourite song of many who came to be known as the Greatest Generation