Το ‘I Didn’t Raise My Βoy To Be A Soldier’ (Alfred Bryan – στίχοι και Al Piantadosi – μουσική) γράφτηκε το 1914 και έγινε επιτυχία την επόμενη χρονιά από τους Peerless Quartet. Πρόκειται για ένα από τα πρώτα αντιπολεμικά τραγούδια στην ανθρώπινη ιστορία. Ακούγοντας την εξαιρετική ερμηνεία / απόδοση του John Kirkpatrick, αναλογίζεται κανείς πόσο παρωχημένο ακούγεται ένα επιχείρημα όπως το “What victory can cheer a mother’s heart…” , σε μια εποχή όπου οι πάντες σχεδόν, εκ δεξιών και αριστερών, διακηρύσσουν ως “ιδιοκτήτες” ενός παιδιού, όχι τους γονείς του, αλλά …την κοινωνία. Bonus track, η πρώτη εκτέλεση του τραγουδιού από το 1915. 🟡 🟡 The song ‘I Didn’t Raise My Boy To Be A Soldier’ (lyrics by Alfred Bryan and music by Al Piantadosi) was written in 1914 and became a hit the following year thanks to The Peerless Quartet. It’s one of the first anti-war songs in human history. Listening to the excellent interpretation / performance by John Kirkpatrick, one cannot help but reflect on how outdated an argument like “What victory can cheer a mother’s heart…” sounds in an era where almost everyone, from right and left alike, proclaims as “owners” of a child not its parents, but… society. Bonus track, the original performance from 1915.

Verse 1
Ten million soldiers to the war have gone,
Who may never return again.
Ten million mothers’ hearts must break
For the ones who died in vain.
Head bowed down in sorrow
In her lonely years,
I heard a mother murmur through her tears:
Chorus
I didn’t raise my boy to be a soldier,
I brought him up to be my pride and joy,
Who dares to place a musket on his shoulder,
To shoot some other mother’s darling boy?
Let nations arbitrate their future troubles,
It’s time to lay the sword and gun away,
There’d be no war today,
If mothers all would say,
“I didn’t raise my boy to be a soldier.”
Verse 2
What victory can cheer a mother’s heart,
When she looks at her blighted home?
What victory can bring her back
All she has cared to call her own?
Let each mother answer
In the year to be,
Remember that my boy belongs to me!