Titel: "I Didn't Raise My Boy To Be A Soldier"                

Komponist: Al Piantadosi

Texter: Alfred Bryan

Verlag: Leo. Feist Inc., New York

Erscheinungsjahr: 1915

Druckerei: Teller, Sons & Dorner, New York

Graphiker: Stilisierte Rose

Sammlungsnummer: 6992

 

Ein beachtenswerter Song gegen den Krieg; sonst gab es in dieser Zeit fast ausschließlich heldenhafte Lieder der einzelnen Kriegsparteien. Von dem Lied wurden 650.000 Notenblätter verkauft.

 

Ten million soldiers to the war have gone,

Who may never return again.

Ten million mothers' hearts must break

For the ones who died in vain.

Head bowed down in sorrow

In her lonely years,

I heard a mother murmur thro' her tears:

 

Chorus:

I didn't raise my boy to be a soldier,

I brought him up to be my pride and joy,

Who dares to place a musket on his shoulder,

To shoot some other mother's darling boy?

Let nations arbitrate their future troubles,

It's time to lay the sword and gun away,

There'd be no war today,

If mothers all would say,

"I didn't raise my boy to be a soldier."

 

What victory can cheer a mother's heart,

When she looks at her blighted home?

What victory can bring her back

All she cared to call her own.

Let each mother answer

In the years to be,

Remember that my boy belongs to me!

 

Chorus

 

Bei You Tube gibt es Clips mit historischen Aufnahmen von dem Song aus dem Jahr 1915.