Show Must Go On! Popular Song in Britain During the First World War
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A01=John Mullen
Author_John Mullen
blackface
Blackface Minstrelsy
British cultural studies
Brown Son
Category=AVLP
Category=AVR
Category=NHWR5
champion
Edwardian Music Hall
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_music
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
First World War popular music analysis
hall
harry
Harry Champion
Home Sweet Home
Home Town
Honey Moon
Iron Cross
Kaiser Bill
lauder
Marie Stopes
Men About Town
minstrelsy
music
Music Hall
Music Hall Audiences
music hall history
Music Hall Managers
Music Hall Repertoire
Music Hall Song
Music Hall Stars
Musical Comedy
propaganda and patriotism
Raining Drops
Royal Variety Performance
sheet music industry
Soldier Songs
stage
Stan Laurel
tilley
Twentieth Century British History
vesta
wartime entertainment
Western Front
working-class audiences
Young Man
Product details
- ISBN 9781472441584
- Weight: 635g
- Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
- Publication Date: 28 Jul 2015
- Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
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Using a collection of over one thousand popular songs from the war years, as well as around 150 soldiers’ songs, John Mullen provides a fascinating insight into the world of popular entertainment during the First World War. Mullen considers the position of songs of this time within the history of popular music, and the needs, tastes and experiences of working-class audiences who loved this music. To do this, he dispels some of the nostalgic, rose-tinted myths about music hall. At a time when recording companies and record sales were marginal, the book shows the centrality of the live show and of the sale of sheet music to the economy of the entertainment industry. Mullen assesses the popularity and significance of the different genres of musical entertainment which were common in the war years and the previous decades, including music hall, revue, pantomime, musical comedy, blackface minstrelsy, army entertainment and amateur entertainment in prisoner of war camps. He also considers non-commercial songs, such as hymns, folk songs and soldiers’ songs and weaves them into a subtle and nuanced approach to the nature of popular song, the ways in which audiences related to the music and the effects of the competing pressures of commerce, propaganda, patriotism, social attitudes and the progress of the war.
John Mullen is senior lecturer at the University of Paris-East Créteil. He has published widely on the history of British popular music. Articles include a reflection on ’ethnic’ music festivals and immigrant identity (1960-2000), and a piece on racial stereotyping in music-hall songs from 1880 to 1920.
