Over There! and Back Again: Patriotic American
Sheet Music from World War I

Selections from the
Wade Hall Sheet Music Collection

The W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library
The University of Alabama

Exhibit by:
Jessica Lacher-Feldman,
W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library
and Daniel Goldmark, School of Music,
The University of Alabama

Novelty Songs

While the fighting was no joking matter, songwriters still found things to make fun of during the wartime years. Numerous songs appeared concerning the Kaiser, all of which pictured the German ruler stereotypically with prominent facial features, as in “We Don’t Want the Bacon.”

Other songs forewarned women from dating anyone who wasn’t man enough to fight for his country, such as “Don’t Marry A Slacker Girls”, and those that depicted some of the more rural young men being sent off to war, seen in “Long Boy” which includes, as part of its refrain, the words “Good-Bye Ma! Good-Bye Pa! Good-Bye Mule!”