Lili Marleen - Marlene Dietrich

For this song we head over to Deutschland for the strains of (alleged) songstress and actress Marlene Dietrich.  Dietrich had a lengthy career as a singer, movie star and cabaret performer and was known for her sultry, oppulent and exotic looks, as well as being very fashion-forward by wearing menswear, creating an androgynous look.  Born in what is now a district of Berlin in 1901, Dietrich initally wanted to be a concert violinist, but a wrist injury kiboshed that.  She began acting and got her big break in 1930's The Blue Angel.  She soon became one of the highest paid actresses in Hollywood, although her screen acting career didn't last a super long time, as her films became knows as 'box office poison'.  It is said that in 1939 the Nazi party approached her and offered her a boatload of money to move back to Germany and appear in a movie about the Third Reich, but she turned them down flat and applied for U.S. citizenship later that year.  She started a stage act where she toured North Africa, Italy and Iceland entertaining the Allied troops with American night club comedian Danny Thomas.  She successfully segued into a world tour cabaret act that took up most of the rest of her career.  She employed song master and hair wunderkind Burt Bacharach to arrange songs that would hide her limited contralto vocal range.  Dietrich pretty much ended her career after falling off the stage and breaking her thigh, became an alcoholic and addicted to pain killers and spent the last 11 of her 90 years bedridden in her apartment in Paris.

So the song Lili Marleen was born the same way a lot of German lieder was - it started out as a poem and was eventually set to music some time later.  Originally recorded in 1938, the song didn't make much of a splash until WWII when a radio station in Begrade, Serbia (at the time Yugoslavia) started playing it for the occupying German troops.  The song became a big hit for the soldiers in part due to its nostalgic nature (it's about a girl back home) and soon it became the theme song for Erwin Rommel's soldiers in North Africa.  It eventually became a big deal for the Allied troops (who were listening in) and English and French versions were recorded.  Marlene Dietrich recorded the song in 1944, and performed it in her subsequent cabaret act as well as in the movie Judgement at Nuremberg.

Thoughts:

Kelly:

Ohh, I really like this song.  It reminds me of all that Berthold Brecht/Kurt Weill/German Weimar cabaret type music that I really enjoy.  The accordion makes it so nostalgic - I can imagine Dietrich amble down the main strasse in Berlin, cigarette in hand, exchanging niceties with passers-by.  I can see why Allied radio picked it up as well, because with French lyrics it could easily sound like a French composition (and the French really seem to have the market cornered on nostalgie, don't they?)  The clarinet sounds good too, and although La Dietrich is no Elizabeth Schwartzkopf, I enjoy the husky quality of  her voice and her delivery.  I had no idea that she sang or was involved in performing for the troops, I thought she was just a moody actress, so that was a cool thing to learn.  It was also cool to learn that she was a woman after my own heart and was a gay icon, loving the active gay cabaret scene of 1920s Berlin.  Nice work, Dietrich! 4.5/5

Holly:

Lili Marleen (Marlene Dietrich): Ok, so Marlene Dietrich is not a good singer. Her voice is husky, yes, sultry, sure. But good – nope. I kind of like the background accordion playing. It’s got a really weird tone to it, and it’s almost played as a wind instrument would play some of those lines.  I also quite like the song itself. We seem to be in a long list of songs with great historical import, which this song also possesses. Taking into account that I like the song, and the arrangement, but not the singing, I’m giving this a 3.5/5

Lili Marleen - Marlene Dietrich

This Land is Your Land - Woody Guthrie

And now for a song that everyone probably knows the chorus to.  This Land is Your Land is one of those songs that feels like it's been around forever, a traditional folk tune that no one really knows where it came from - but we do know where it came from, and that was the mind of Woodrow Wilson 'Woody' Guthrie (with a little help from our friends the Carter Family).  Woody was a behemoth of American folk music and a mammoth influence on such greats as Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and perpetual nice guy Pete Seeger.  Where Seeger wrote on his banjo 'This marchine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender', Guthrie had a placard on his guitar which said 'This machine kills fascists'.  Guthrie was born in a small town in Oklahoma and wrote many songs of his experiences growing up in the dust bowl during the Great Depression.  To the surprise of no one he was associated with many communist sympathizing groups, although was never a card carrying member of any of them.  Guthrie was married 3 times and had 8 children, one of which is also a famous folk musician Arlo Guthrie.  Unfortunately, Woody had inhereted Huntington's disease (a neurodegenerative disorder that affects muscle control and leads to mental decline) from his mother and passed away in 1967 at the age of 55.

Guthrie originally wrote This Land is Your Land in 1944 as an antithesis of the recently released 'God Bless America', which he saw as inane.  He borrowed the melody of the song from a Carter Family tune 'Little Darin', Pal 'o Mine' and wrote his own lyrics.  This was something that he apparently did quite often to increase the popularity of his songs, and seeing as he wrote what is known as a scathing protest song during a time when his country was at war, he put it into a booklet with a few other folk tunes that he had written.  The song became a hit with people who were struggling economically and financially during that time and eventually became a protest anthem around the world, the lyrics being adapted for India and Canada (!)  Anyway, the song continues to be a big deal, as Bruce Springsteen and perpetual nice guy Pete Seeger sang it for Barack Obama's 2009 Presidential inaugauration. 

Holly:

This Land is Your Land (Woody Guthrie): This song is simple, and is played and sung without any ornamentation or frills, but it’s become a big cornerstone in American music history. Another song that has more historical than musical importance in my opinion. The guitar playing and singing are both fine on this recording, but nothing special. The fact that it was a protest song is what has given it the staying power over the years. I’ve never felt a particular attachment to this song, and I still don’t. 2.5/5

Kelly:

Yeah, again I agree with my sister on this one - a song heavy on historical importance and light on musical importance.  But maybe had it not been such a catchy melody, it wouldn't have caught on?  But we can thank the Carters for that (sorry Woody).  For some reason this song reminds me of my early childhood, maybe there's a Raffi version?  Anyway, Guthrie's voice sounds exactly like you would expect someone with the name Woody Guthrie to sound like.  It's pretty simple, just him and his guitar, but that's the set of for a lot of folk music, as it was meant for people to join in and sing together.  I can imagine that this song is relatively poweful when you have a bunch of folksters gathered at a park in New York with their guitars and banjos and hammered dulcimers singing their hearts out, but poor ol' Woody by himself just doesn't make the cut for me.  3/5

This Land is Your Land - Woody Guthrie

And just for fun, here's the first verse of the Canadian version:

This land is your land, This land is my land,

From Bonavista, to Vancouver Island

From the Arctic Circle to the Great Lakes waters,

This land was made for you and me.

Rum and Coca-Cola - Lord Invader

Move over, George Harrison and the Chiffons - we have our first instance on this list of a song being plagiarized.

But first things first - the history behind this song.  The book tells us that during World War II the US invaded the Caribbean island of Trinidad in attempt to block any invasions (makes sense).  Lord Invader decided to change his name from Rupert Westmore Grant to poke fun at the occupying forces, and his song Rum and Coca-Cola not only speaks of the delicious drink, or the blending of American and Caribbean cultures, but how the infantry would pay for the 'services' of many of the local Trinidadian women.  He also borrowed the melody from the nearby island of Martinique.  There's not a lot of info about Lord Invader, except for that he was important in early Calypso music.

The big controversy with this song is that after its release in 1943, a suspiciously similar sounding song came from the Andrews Sisters in 1945 with the same title and some of the same lyrics (they even sing with faux-Trinidadian accents).   Anyway, Mr. Invader took the 'song writers' to court where it was determined that yes, they deliberately borrowed from his song, and he was awarded with an undisclosed sum of money.

But here's the important part - what we think!

Holly:

Rum and Coca-Cola (Lord Invader): Hmmm. I listened to this song several times, and just couldn’t really get into it. It’s just a light, fluffy, forgettable song to my ears. The subject matter is really the thing that’s interesting in the song. So listening to the lyrics was really cool, and informative of the attitude in Trinidad at the time. It’s too bad it just wasn’t a better song. 2/5

Kelly:

Why do I feel like I've heard this song a million times?  I can't place it.  Anyway, I get that this song is kind of a big for Trinidadians and their feelings towards the American invaders, but this song just doesn't do it for me.  I understand that it's meant to be cheeky and pointed, but for me if falls flat.  And there has got to be a better singer in Trinidad than Lord Invader.  I found his voice grating and annoying, and it sounds like the band and backup singers didn't rehearse at all.  2/5

Rum and Coca Cola - Lord Invader

And below is the Andrews Sisters not-so-subtle rip off:

Rum and Coca-Cola - Andrews Sisters