The Sounds They Associated with War Came from Pianos, Not Guns: Anglo-Canadian Sheet Music and the First World War

Abstract

The study of wartime popular sheet music produced by Anglo-Canadians is vitally important, as it illustrates what was popular in society and demonstrates how Canadians reacted to the world around them. During the First World War, the medium of patriotic sheet music catalysed the management of morale during on the home front, as it offered an emotional outlet for thousands of people in desperate need of a diversion from the grim reality and toll of the war overseas. The cover illustrations, lyrics, and musical scores of hundreds of patriotic songs offer a useful lens into contemporary Anglo-Canadian society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as composers immortalized popular conceptions of war, identity, and responsibility on the pages of their songs. Patriotic sheet music therefore demonstrates the popular trends that led so many young boys to war in 1914, and helps to explain how Canadians reacted to the war on the home front.