Cat No. JM70543
Price £53.20
Arranger: Dean Jones
Category: Music from the First World War

Duration: 8.00

Difficulty: C

Includes :

01. Good Bye Dolly Gray
02. It's A Long Way to Tipperary
03. Pack Up Your Troubles In Your Old Kit Bag
04. Over There
05  Take Me Back To Dear Old Blighty

GOOD-BYE DOLLY GRAY
(Words by Will D. Cobb and Music by Paul Barnes)
Although the song was written during the Spanish-American war of 1898, it was sung by soldiers of the British Empire during the Boer War in 1899 to 1902. The song was also popular among troops during World War One.

IT'S A LONG WAY TO TIPPERARY
(Words and Music by Jack Judge and Harry Williams)
The song was allegedly written for a 5 shilling bet in Stalybridge on 30 January 1912 and performed the next night at the local music hall. Judge's parents were Irish, and his grandparents came from Tipperary. It became popular among soldiers in the First World War and is remembered as a song of that war. During the First World War, Daily Mail correspondent George Curnock saw the Irish regiment the Connaught Rangers singing this song as they marched through Boulogne on 13 August 1914 and reported it on 18 August 1914. The song was quickly picked up by other units of the British Army.

PACK UP YOUR TROUBLES IN YOUR OLD KIT BAG
(Words by George Asaf and Music by Felix Powell)
"Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit-Bag, and Smile, Smile, Smile" is the full name of a World War One marching song. It was written by George Henry Powell under the pseudonym of "George Asaf", and set to music by his brother Felix Powell. A play presented by the National Theatre recounts how these music hall stars rescued the song from their rejects pile and re-scored it to win a wartime competition for a marching song. It became very popular, boosting British morale despite the horrors of that war. It was one of a large number of music hall songs aimed at maintaining morale, recruiting for the forces, or defending Britain's war aims.

OVER THERE
(Words and Music by George M Cohan)
The song "Over There" was one of the most famous songs of World War I. It proved to be an inspiration both to the young men who were being sent to fight the war as well as to those on the home-front who worried about their loved ones. The song is about the "Yanks" (i.e. Americans) going "over there" (i.e. across the Atlantic) to help fight the "Huns" (i.e. the Germans) during World War I.

TAKE ME BACK TO DEAR OLD BLIGHTY
(Words and Music by A.J. Mills, Fred Godfrey and Bennett Scott)
Take Me Back To Dear Old Blighty — a phrase so famous that it finds a place in the Oxford Dictionary of Modern Quotations — was a favourite of the British Tommies on the Western Front. "Blighty" is a British English slang term for Britain. It was first used during the Boer War, though it was not until World War One that the word spread widely.

A = very easy
B = easy
C = medium
D = difficult
E = very difficult