jboger wrote:
I now have quite a few questions to pursue. For example, I wonder if there are any anti-war socialist songs that were recorded during the war. The International Workers of the World (IWW), for example, were very active during this period in the US. None of the major record companies back then, for obvious reasons, would record such material, but perhaps some of it made it to disk. if not in the US maybe abroad.
That's an interesting question, and one that I considered while collecting records and refining my knowledge of history.
At the time of WWI Italy was a monarchy, and once the king (and the government) had decided to go to war, there was little to no space for people that didn't agree. There was prison, deportation and, in some cases, shooting for renitents. Severe punishments - from military jail, to being sent to suicidal missions, to decimation - were inflicted just for having written home that the life at the front was only "so and so". It really wasn't time for being skeptical about anything.
It has to be said, however, that even though some to-day essayists pretend to depict this war as unwanted by the soldiers (who in turn are depicted as ignorant peasants not knowing what they were doing), this is exactly that: "pretending". The idea of going to war was positively accepted by a very vast, cross-class majority of Italians; even the most prominent artists and intellectuals (D'Annunzio, Marinetti, etc.) were in favour of the war, and spent a lot of energy into propaganda. An unbelievable mass of people volounteered for the front. Later, but only
later, they perhaps changed their minds. Before war, you could count on your hand (and you would left over some fingers) the number of intellectuals who warned that this war would last very long and would be going to be an unbelievable massacre.
So, although I can't affirm altogether that no pacifist songs were recorded during those years, I can very hardly imagine somone crazy enough to do so. And if he/they did, quite obviously they did on some obscure, off-brand record that circulated moving under. The major recording companies would never put themselves into such troubles.
More in general, socialist songs are very rare in Italy (I wonder if they are as well in other countries). Perhaps this is only a
relative rarity: it was feasible to issue socialist records only in a short time lapse between WWI and the advent of fascism (the first years of the '20s), and it was a time in which gramophones and records were still classy items. Fascist records, that were issued in the '30s and '40s when gramophones and phonographs became a mass household, although quite scarce because paroxysmally collected, are abundant by comparison.
Concerning the quality of WWI-times songs, of course I've written an overall comment that contemplates noteworthy exceptions. I could also mention wonderful tunes celebrated at the times like
Visione Veneziana or
Serenata Medievale (also known as
Serenade d'Autrefois) etc. However, the first is a
barcarola, and the other a neo-classic piece. You won't find anything as the "Ragtime Soldier Man" mentioned by Don, in Italy. Perhaps a
tango, if you're lucky enough. Add to that a stentorean super-macho voice with altered vowels and "n"s and "m"s, and
voilà, you'll have your average indigestible Italian
pastiche.
It may be a matter of taste but I prefer much more the Italian swing of the '30s and '40s. My, oh my were those singers and orchestras good!