their young boys to war. The sheet music is framed with the phrase: “ The sentiment of every American Mother.” 9 This is designed to suggest that every other American mother is doing this too, thus encouraging conformity. Listening to the song enables further analysis. This is a lively marching song, featuring elements such as a constant trumpet, lending it a martial feel. Gier has argued that the popular appeal of such songs derived in part from the “irrepressible energy of the repetition of a song, that caught people’s attention and created excitement” – this statement certainly applies to this song.10 The martial feel is further enhanced by the addition of many voices present throughout the chorus, thus working to band everyone together and nourish the idea of patriotism and allegiance to America. Finally, the front cover of the sheet music [figure 1] features a propaganda image of a mother and her son standing in front of a large and looming America in the background, exemplifying the ways in which “songbooks and sheet music [aimed to] project ideas of identity, often within images of patriotism.” 11 The boy is depicted as ready for the army with his uniform and gun. The mother looks immensely proud of her son. She is also directly facing the audience, perhaps making eye contact with other mothers who might be reluctant to let their sons sign up.
Endnotes 1 Andrew B. Sterling and Arthur Lange, America Here’s My Boy (New York: Joe Morris Music Co, 1917). 2 Christina Gier, Singing, Soldiering, and Sheet Music in America during the First World War (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2017), 34. 3 Sterling and Lange, America Here’s My Boy. 4 Glen Watkins, Proof Through the Night: Music and the Great War (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 268. 5 Jack Sterling Frost, If They Want to Fight, All Right, but Neutral Is My Middle Name (Chicago: Frank J. Root, 1915). 6 Sterling and Lange, America Here’s My Boy. 7 Watkins, Proof through the Night, 262. 8 Sterling and Lange, America Here’s My Boy. 9 Sterling, and Lange, America Here’s My Boy. 10 Gier, Singing, Soldiering, and Sheet Music in America during the First World War (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2017), 32. 11 Gier, Singing, Soldiering, and Sheet Music in America, 32. Figure 1: https://www.loc.gov/item/2013568887/
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