From: Ronald Gillen (gillen@NCONNECT.NET)
Date: Sat Apr 10 1999 - 19:14:50 PDT
===========================snip======================================
Lilli Marlene
London, July 12, 1943--
This is the story of a song. Its name is "Lilli Marlene" and it
was
written in Germany in 1938 by Norbert Schultze and Hans Leit. In
due course they tried to publish it and it was rejected by about two
dozen publishers. Finally it was taken up by a singer, Lala
Anderson, a Swedish girl, who used it for her signature song. Lala
Anderson has a husky voice and is what you might call the
Hildegarde type.
"Lilli Marlene" is a very simple song. The first verse of it goes:
"Underneath the lanterns, by the barracks square, I used to meet
Marlene and she was young and fair." The song was as simple as
that. It went on to tell about Marlene, who first liked stripes and then
shoulder bars. Marlene met more and more people until, finally, she
met a brigadier, which was what she wanted all along. We have a
song with much the same amused cynicism.
Eventually Lala made a record of the song and even it was not
very popular. But one night the German station in Belgrade, which
sent out programs to Rommel's Afrika Korps, found that, due to a
little bombing, it did not have many records left, but among a few
uninjured disks was the song "Lilli Marlene." It was put on the air to
Afrika and by the next morning it was being hummed by the Afrika
Korps and letters were going in demanding that it be played again.
The story of its popularity in Africa got back to Berlin, and
Madame Goering, who used to be an opera singer, sang the song of
the inconstant "Lilli Marlene" to a very select group of Nazis, if
there is such a thing. Instantly the song was popular and it was
played constantly over the German radio until Goering himself grew
a little sick of it, and it is said that, since inconstancy is a subject
which is not pleasant to certain high Nazi ears, it was suggested
that the song be quietly assassinated. But meanwhile, "Lilli
Marlene" had got out of hand. Lala Anderson was by now known as
the "Soldiers' Sweetheart." She was a pin-up girl. Her husky voice
ground out of portable phonographs in the desert.
==================snip==============================================
So far, "Lilli" had been solely a German problem, but now the
British Eighth Army began to take prisoners and among the spoils
they got "Lilli Marlene." And the song swept through the Eighth
Army. Australians hummed it and fastened new words to it. The
powers hesitated, considering whether it was a good idea to let a
German song about a girl who did not have all the sterling virtues
become the favorite song of the British Army, for by now the thing
had crept into the First Army and the Americans were beginning to
experiment with close harmony and were putting an off-beat into it.
It wouldn't have done the powers a bit of good if they had decided
against the song.
It was out of hand. The Eighth Army was doing all right in the
field and it was decided to consider "Lilli Marlene" a prisoner of
war, which would have happened anyway, no matter what the
powers thought about it. Now "Lilli" is getting deeply into the
American forces in Africa. The Office of War Information took up the
problem and decided to keep the melody, but to turn new words
against the Germans. Whether this will work or not remains to be
seen. "Lilli Marlene" is international. It is to be suspected that she
will emerge beside the barrack walls -- young and fair and
incorruptly inconsistent.
There is nothing you can do about a song like this except to let
it
go. War songs need not be about the war at all. Indeed, they rarely
are. In the last war, "Madelon" and "Tipperary" had nothing to do
with war. The great Australian song of this war, "Waltzing Matilda,"
concerns itself with sheep-stealing. It is to be expected that some
groups in America will attack "Lilli," first on the ground that she is
an enemy alien, and, second, because she is no better than she
should be. Such attacks will have little effect. "Lilli" is immortal.
Her
simple desire to meet a brigadier is hardly a German copyright.
Politics may have dominated and nationalized, but songs have a
way of leaping boundaries.
And it would be amusing if, after all the fuss and heiling, all
the
marching and indoctrination, the only contribution to the world by
the Nazis was "Lilli Marlene."
==================================snip====================================
Sinclair Hart wrote:
>
> According to a sheet I just printed, Lili Marlene was based on a German poem
> of 1915, but is it true that it wasnt sung until WWII? And does anyone
> remember the name of a Swedish singer named Lala Anderson, who, I think,
> recorded before Marlene Dietrich?. Can anyone enlighten?