During WWII there weren’t a lot of instances where peace reigned on the battlefield. That is, until the German controlled Radio Belgrade started playing the song now known as “Lili Marleen” every night at 9:55pm, and both sides of the lines fell quiet in order to listen to Lale Anderson sing about Lili of the lamplight.
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The first time I heard this song, it was on an album by The New Vaudville Band and I fell in love with the song the instant I heard it.
Thanks for playing an example of the song you talked 11 mins about… I'm sure you'd get a copyright strike from a German language song from 1939, so good call…
It really shows how bad that war was,if this song was even considered listenable lol
first
There is a line of a German soldier song that has stuck with me I believe it is from WWI „Morgenrot, Morgenrot leuchtest mir zum frühen Tod“ Tranlates ruffly as Dawn, Dawn you shine upon me for an early death. 😬
My Grandma used to listen to it so much 🙂 I am singing it in her Honor 😉 in German of course
The best song ever made in WWII is the sound a fascist makes when you roll a tank over his head. But this is pretty neat too.
One of my favorite wartime music facts is the U.S. military blared Metallica to the taliban and isis.
I assumed there were popular songs during the WWII era but then Simon comes along and shows us the "Call Me Maybe" of WWII. Thank you!
Cannot accuse someone of assisting the enemy if YOU are THEIR enemy taps temple
learned something new today! Love this channel!
Never expected it to end with that. Hahaha!
Original German version of the song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjXC4N1HXf0
Vera Lynn English version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDC4Q_E096Q
Marlene Dietrich version in German:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7heXZPl2hik
💚💙
You mentioned William Joyce, and as an aside, he really shouldn't have been executed by the British for treason after the war. I mean by that point Ireland had for some time been a separate country… I don't condone his actions, but us Joyces are all related and we must look out for each other (even if one is a Nazi). That being said, I think James Joyce would be a better representative of our clan.
"La marseleille?" Try "La Marseillaise", Simon. It's pronounced "Lah Mahr-say-y-az".
The best war ballad is still “Do You Remember Love?” By Lynn Minmay. Too bad she was MIA in 2012 and hasn’t been heard from since 😞
Weird not to mention the World service usage
However, when American GIs began singing "Lilli Marlene" after the liberation of Paris in the Summer of 1944, they found the French very angry. "Lili Marlene," by Hitler's wartime musical headache, Marlene Dietrich: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7heXZPl2hik
Vera Lynn's English version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBEn_PM1ASk
Other language versions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iydGE6GMRyM
ah music.. gotta love it
No William S. Burroughs comments? For shame, Internet. (Reference: https://youtu.be/O6fSzX5aS5I)
Just because it's in German don't mean it won't get stuck in your head 99 luftballoons
A Biographics video on the British ww2 traitor would be super interesting!
An amazing story about how a song managed to cross politics, religion, ideologies and armies. The fact that it was still popular in the United States in the 80's is crazy! Thanks for sharing this Simon, Gilles, Sam + Daven.
I have a copy of "Willie & Joe;" single-panel comics created and drawn by Bill Mauldin, a soldier working for Stars and Stripes the newspaper for soldiers.
There's one where they're in a trench with Joe playing a harmonica while Willie says, "The Krauts are having trouble keepin' up with you on Lily Marleen, Joe…Ya think something happened to their tenor?"
The first (and possibly only) time I heard this song was on the old WWII British comedy "Allo Allo." I love that show.
Ruth Low's I'll Never Smile Again" was probably number 2.
Didn't Krupp sue Whitworth after WW1 for patent infringement on fuses that killed Germans and won the case?
My thoughts while watching the video:
1. Most popular song in WW2? Must be Lili Marlene.
2. But I thought that it sung by Marlene Dietrich!
3. Aha!
Can the wind explain why it becomes a storm?. 🌪️
Will u sing this song on YouTube Simon?
Paul Lukas beat Bogart to Best Actor Oscar for his role in "Watch Om The Rhine" – irony
Good documentary but might I suggest you take time out to listen to the song and get your pronunciation correct?
I thought the biggest hit of WWII was The Fuherer's Face.
Recorded by many artists, originally written for a Donald Duck anti-nazi propaganda cartoon.
Had to look up and listen to that song, and I can see how it became so popular. I could be misunderstanding it, but sounds like the soldier was going to meet up with her again, but an attack came between them. It's such a sweet, melancholy song that probably summed up a lot of heartbreak the soldiers had: they were supposed to be living a normal life, meeting the girl they loved, now the war was keeping them apart, maybe killing all hope of a future. All they had to cling to was the bittersweet memory of what was to have been.
I can't wait until the door to door salesmen sells me an encyclopedia filled with a list of all of Simon's channels.
I'll never understand the English insistence on mispronouncing certain names. It's "mar-LAY-nah" Dietrich, not "mar-LEAN."
Bette Davis is another one that nobody in Britain can seem to get right. No less an authority than Joan Crawford herself, once corrected an English interviewer who brought up Bette Davis, and of course willfully mispronounced her name. "You'd better not let HER hear you say that," she scolded him. He undoubtedly spent the rest of his life pronouncing it incorrectly, anyway.
I think for a history channel, you can do better.
I had this song as a piano student in the 1970's. I liked it.
A treasured possession of mine is a 1944 German postcard bearing the lyrics of LM, a souvenir brought back from the war by my father, an item "acquired" from a POW I suspect.
Erika boom boom boom lol sry it's not funny but a wwot youtuber used it for a duck plane video n when I hear anything about German music from ww2 I think of that.
Thanks for this video Simon, now I understand a great Leonard Cohen song a little better. It’s called “Famous Blue Raincoat” and includes the lyric “ You’d been to the station to meet every train, and you came home without Lily Marlene”, it’s a song about lost love and broken dreams. Another reason to love the Whistleverse! Cheers
I'm wondering why the photo of the singer Perry Como was used @1:23? Is there a connection there that I don't know of?
I enjoy these cultural tidbits! Thanks for the content!
7:55 So they kind of sounded like you? I’m joking, I know your best mate is Gary.
Bonus Fact: The Bing Crosby Song, "White Christmas," first appeared on Bing Crosby's radio show in December, 1941, with little notoriety. It then appeared in the Bing Crosby film, "Holiday Inn" released in August 1942. Come Christmas of that year (1942) "White Christmas" became the #1 song among Americans worldwide due the song's Christmas "homesick" sentiment, remaining the most requested song throughout December of 1942. The song would repeat its top request spot (among Americans) for every subsequent Christmas during WWII.
The songs popularity would as well go beyond its wartime influence as it would establish the precedent of sentimental Christmas songs to be made ever after, from "Let It Snow" and "Silver Bells" to "All I Want for Christmas Is You." The song, "White Christmas" is also recognized as the best-selling single of all time worldwide.
I have this song both in English and French. I love it
A German movie about the song was made late 70s or early 80s, showed the course it did. Political issues etc. Made that song very popular again.
This song was in Where Eagles Dare. Eastwood shot the radio operator dead. I was thinking of the song We Did It Before (and we can do it again). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HfKnkqJPOA&t=2s