Veteran songs

American Dreamer, Songs of Stephen Foster; Thomas Hampson, Jay Ungar, Molly Mason, David Alpher

My identity with Veteran's Day is with pancakes. Since as early as I can remember and clear up through college, Dad would rouse us from sweet, sweet sleep on November 11 to cram into a cold, cold car to get a plate of free, free pancakes down in Brookings. We would stand outside the Elks Club in a slow moving line in thirty degree temperatures with families of veterans from all over the county to receive recognition for service to God and country in the form of pancakes, sausages and milk from a grateful organization.

My identity with Veteran’s Day is with Snoopy, who on this date each year would put on his “Ike” jacket and go over to Bill Mauldin’s house to quaff root beers and swap war stories. While enlisted in the Army during World War II, Mr. Mauldin’s cartoon characters Willie and Joe would stoically suffer the indignities, dangers and difficulties of enlisted men on duty in the field of battle. One such cartoon has the boys listening to the Sarge declare that he needs “a couple of guys what don’t owe me no money fer a little routine patrol.” Mr. Mauldin won the Pulitzer Prize in 1945 at the age of 23 for his collection of “Willie and Joe” cartoons after being awarded the Legion of Merit from the Army.

My identity with Veteran’s Day is with a speech I heard at a Veteran’s Day ceremony on November 11, 1994, while working on board the Star Odyssey. A retired Colonel was venting his frustration that his high school aged grandchildren couldn’t tell him anything about the Battle of Leyte Gulf. I wanted to crawl under the hull. I had a master’s degree and bore the intellectual type of disposition that claims, "I love trivia, ask me anything", and I couldn’t tell you anything about this battle. I stampeded toward the closest bookstore in the closest port to get the closest and most comprehensive book on World War II so that I could say that if I didn’t know about it, at least I’d heard of it.

And my identity with Veteran’s Day is with another visit to my CD store in Nice, France, on November 11, 1993, where Angel Records had just released in Europe this collection of Stephen Foster songs featuring American Baritone Thomas Hampson. For generations, Mr. Foster’s songs served up the main course in piano lesson books and general song books. Even as late as the 1970’s, there was an urgency in the public schools to learn folk songs that we could all lay claim to as Americans.

The Great American Melting Pot is awesome, the idea and likes of which hasn’t been seen since the Library of Alexandria in Ancient Egypt. The very best contributions from over a thousand lineages, customs and traditions can create nothing short of a paragon of cultural richness and excellence. But it comes at a cost. I have seen Irish strangers sing one lusty Irish song after another for hours. The ritual of the German drinking song is the creed of the Hofbrauhauses in central Europe. And there are Swedish folk songs, and Danish folk songs, Russian folk songs, Hungarian folk songs, Jewish folk songs, Welsh, Spanish, Mexican, Brazilian folk songs … and the folk who live in these large and small communities know every word of their songs. The overflowing wealth of songs that would comprise the Great American Tome of Music … is too big. There are too many broadway songs, too many country western songs, too many rock songs, jazz songs, blues songs, 40’s songs, 50’s songs, etc.

But there was a time in our American history where a small, yet rich, selection of folk songs was a binding force. You, my fellow American, here with me in this foxhole, I don’t really know who you are, neither of us know when the enemy is coming, we're hungry and we're thirsty and if we’re not scared, we’re certainly anxious. But we both know this song. Sing with me.

‘Tis a hungry, thirsty soldier who wears his life away /

In torn clothes – his better days are o’er.

And he’s sighing now for whiskey in a voice as dry as hay /

“O, hard tack, come again no more!”

‘Tis the song, the sigh of the hungry: /

“Hard tack, hard tack, come again no more.”

Many days you have lingered upon our stomachs sore /

O hard tack come again no more!

It can be argued that the performance of these songs on this CD is couched in too much velvet in a parlor only the rich can afford to see. I think it’s a mistake, however, to assume that 150 years ago you and I would be complete outsiders to style and finesse. Mr. Hampson and his friends recognize the value of this music, and have deemed it to be every bit as important as a first flag, a Civil War cannon, a Battle of Saratoga bullet, and a manifest list from a ship in the Battle of Leyte Gulf. To honor the memory of Stephen Foster, to honor the memory of millions of Americans who have connected in the best and worst of situations by virtue of these songs, to honor anyone who has breathed a single second of American Life, this group of folks on this CD have decided to sing these songs in the best way that they can.

Credits: To the American soldier. Thank You.