WUSTL Digital Gateway Image Collections & Exhibitions

America & France

Good-bye Broadway, hello France / words by C. Francis Reisner and Benny Davis ; music by Billy Baskette.

Title found in both The Louis and Jodi Atkin Family Collection and Gaylord Music Library Special Collections. Click the image for more details about this item; click here to download a pdf of the score.

America, Here’s My Boy, and, to a lesser extent, America, I Love You (described in America & America) drew on American history to establish patriotic reasons for the United States to enter World War I. Goodbye Broadway, Hello France! (1917), written by Billy Baskette (1884-1949), made those relationships even more explicit. The chorus explains, “Goodbye Broadway, hello France – we’re going to square our debt to you!” This exclamation harks back the support France offered the United States during the Revolutionary War, most notably the efforts of the Marquis de Lafayette, who is celebrated in the second verse. It became America’s duty to enter the war, to repay the debt owed to France. 

This idea is further emphasized by the cover illustration, in which American and French military officers shake hands across the Atlantic. The Statue of Liberty (a gift to the United States from France) raises her torch beneath their clasped hands. While Baskette’s music did not overtly reference well-known French or American songs, many recorded arrangements of Goodbye Broadway, Hello France! incorporated fragments of such tunes, including Dixie and La Marseillaise. Listen to Goodbye Broadway, Hello France! at the University of California, Santa Barbara Library here.

Joan of Arc they are calling you / words by Alfred Bryan & Willie Weston ; music by Jack Wells.

Title found in both The Louis and Jodi Atkin Family Collection and Gaylord Music Library Special Collections. Click the image for more details about this item; click here to download a pdf of the score.

Rather than drawing on American history, Joan of Arc, They Are Calling You (1917), composed by Jack Wells (1880-1935), invokes France’s most famous military leader. Although Joan of Arc would not be canonized as a Catholic saint until 1920, she was in many ways the patron saint of the French soldiers in World War I. The United States’ sympathy for France is highlighted in the serious sentiment of this plea to Joan of Arc to save her country. In contrast to the colorful self-confidence of the covers to songs like Goodbye Broadway, Hello France!, illustrator Albert Barbelle (1884-1959) depicts the more introspective, prayerful lyrics using only the silhouette of Joan, leading her troops on horseback against a taupe-streaked sky.

As is typical of American pop music evocations of France from this time period, the chorus quotes the opening melody of La Marseillaise, on the text, “Come lead your France to victory!” Listen to Joan of Arc, They Are Calling You at the University of California, Santa Barbara Library here.

Come on Papa / words and music by Edgar Leslie & Harry Ruby.<br />

Title found in both The Louis and Jodi Atkin Family Collection and Gaylord Music Library Special Collections with varying photographs. Click the image for more details about this item; click here to download a pdf of the score.

In contrast to the sombre tone of Joan of Arc, Come On, Papa! (1918), by Edgar Leslie (1885-1976) and Harry Ruby (1895-1974), capitalized on France's reputation as a cosmopolitan center full of good food, good wine, and good lovers. The song freely mixes English slang with imitation French, as Parisienne Marie flirts outrageously with American soldiers. In this Barbelle illustration, Marie and her soldier-of-the-moment are shown kicking up dust in a high-speed embrace. While the cover suggests comedian Eddie Cantor premiered the song in a Ziegfeld Follies revue, this has not been substantiated. Cantor performed in the Follies between 1917 and 1920, but his only documented performance of a Leslie-Ruby song is The Dixie Volunteers from the 1917 Follies (van der Merwe, 2009). Listen to Come On, Papa! performed by the Avon Comedy Four here.

Oh Frenchy / words by Sam Ehrlich ; music by Con Conrad.

Title found in both The Louis and Jodi Atkin Family Collection and Gaylord Music Library Special Collections. Click the image for more details about this item; click here to download a pdf of the score.

In Oh, Frenchy (1918), Con Conrad (1891-1938) tells a similar story, reversing the characters. Rosie Green, an American nurse, falls for a wounded French soldier, Jean, despite the language barrier: “When he said, 'Parle-vous, my pet,' she said, 'I will, but not just yet!’” Whatever wound Jean sustained did not impede his courtship of Rosie or his ability to chase girls in general – Rosie tells him he can march with any girl, as long as he saves his “la-la-la’s” for her.

E.E. Walton illustrates this lighthearted song by sprinkling hearts and fleurs-de-lis around Rosie and Jean, whose tricolor ribbon and carefully groomed mustache clearly mark him as stereotypically French. Listen to Oh, Frenchy at the University of California, Santa Barbara Library here. This recording features a third verse not included in the sheet music, in which Rosie and Jean battle the germs and the Germans, respectively.