ANZAC MYTHOLOGY

Army Songs Are Part Of Our Digger Tradition

Traditional songs, mostly anonymous, are passed on by oral transmission and, quite often changed, for better or worse, in the process. Songs from the various branches of the armed forces are an ideal study because of the way military personnel are continually relocated. It is fairly easy to appreciate that a song could be carried from barrack to barrack, camp-to-camp, war zone to war zone by one soldier. That same soldier could have sung the song in a bar frequented by sailors and airmen who, relating to the subject matter, carried the ditty back with them to their own base. This is exactly how the old shearing and droving songs moved around in the bush with the song carrier being the itinerant worker. One also needs to factor in that up to fifty years ago Australians sang a lot more. We entertained ourselves rather than today's society that gets entertained, mainly by the electronic media. Some songs, like 'The Quartermaster's Store, started life in WW1, served time in subsequent wars and is still being sung today.

In surveying the songs we sang in the thirteen wars it is easy to track those periods when singing was a popular past –time. Songs were definitely sang in the bars of Saigon during the Vietnam War however fewer occurrences were reported from Timor, Afghanistan and the Gulf. This most probably has a lot to do with the shorter time-span of the conflict, technological change, fewer troops and the reality that we hardly sing anymore.

As a folklore collector I was also curious about the role of women in creating, singing and circulating songs. I am assured the Red Cross Nurses, the WAAF and other women certainly sang in the early wars however it was difficult to find out what songs they sang. War historian and WW2 serviceman, Tom Johnson, told me “The WAAF and nurses were usually quite reserved and although they no doubt enjoyed singing popular songs it simply wasn't acceptable to sing the usual army songs, especially the bawdy ones”. As a folklorist I know women nowadays are not shy about telling jokes and I've known quite a few to belt out a bawdy song or two. Things were different fifty years ago.

One area that produced a large body of interesting parody was the Women's Land Army, which was a well-organised national scheme to introduce young women into service in the rural sector during WW2. As an army they were trained, uniformed and sent to properties all over Australia where they either lived in a community or were assigned to farms. I was fortunate to meet the Land Army's unofficial historian, Jean Scott, who remembered some of the ditties including this parody of Two Little Girls In Blue.

Jean Scott told me that singing was an important recreational activities and many of the women composed songs as well as parodies. This backwards parody of Show Me The Way To Go Home was a popular item.