{"id":1270,"date":"2015-04-28T01:06:31","date_gmt":"2015-04-28T06:06:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/?p=1270"},"modified":"2015-04-28T01:06:31","modified_gmt":"2015-04-28T06:06:31","slug":"over-there-sheet-music-advertising-and-propaganda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/2015\/04\/28\/over-there-sheet-music-advertising-and-propaganda\/","title":{"rendered":"Over There: Sheet Music, Advertising, and Propaganda"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>They say a picture&#8217;s worth a thousand words.<\/p>\n<p>Below I have five sheet music covers, all of the same song (&#8220;Over There&#8221; by George M. Cohan) from the same years (1917-18), in arrangements published by two separate houses (William Jerome Publishing Corp. and Leo Feist, Inc.).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/593\/2015\/04\/Over-There-William-Jerome-Publishing.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-1320\" src=\"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/593\/2015\/04\/Over-There-William-Jerome-Publishing-240x300.jpeg\" alt=\"Over There - William Jerome Publishing\" width=\"99\" height=\"121\" \/><\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-1317\" src=\"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/593\/2015\/04\/Over-There-William-Jerome-2-240x300.jpeg\" alt=\"Over There - William Jerome 2\" width=\"99\" height=\"121\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-1318\" src=\"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/593\/2015\/04\/Over-There-Leo-Feist-2-233x300.jpg\" alt=\"Over There - Leo Feist 2\" width=\"97\" height=\"121\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-1319\" src=\"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/593\/2015\/04\/Over-There-Leo-Feist-3-240x300.jpeg\" alt=\"Over There - Leo Feist 3\" width=\"99\" height=\"121\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-1316\" src=\"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/593\/2015\/04\/Over-There-Leo-Feist-1-230x300.jpg\" alt=\"Over There - Leo Feist 1\" width=\"95\" height=\"121\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Embedded in these five covers is the early history of &#8220;Over There&#8221; advertising and production.<\/p>\n<p>George M. Cohan\u00a0claimed that on April 6, 1917,\u00a0while the general public was reeling from the news of America&#8217;s declaration of war against Germany, he was humming. He couldn&#8217;t get a tune out of his head. He wrote down some lyrics and played them for his friend Joe Humphreys, a ring announcer at Madison Square Garden, and Joe said, &#8220;George, you\u2019ve got a song.&#8221; \u00a0(Scholars have declared Cohan&#8217;s tale\u00a0apocryphal and now claim he wrote the song in his office on April 7, but that&#8217;s such a boring story.)<\/p>\n<p>By the end\u00a0of 1917, &#8220;Over There&#8221; was the #1 song of the year. By the end of the war, it had sold over 2 million copies. By 1936, Cohan was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. He definitely had a song.<\/p>\n<p>The first and most famous group to perform and record the song was Billy Murray &amp; The American Quartet, Murray appropriately being the supreme interpreter of Cohan&#8217;s music.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"584\" height=\"329\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/s9dSITQXKug?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Eager to capitalize on the popularity of the song, sheet music was quickly produced.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/593\/2015\/04\/Over-There-William-Jerome-Publishing.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"  wp-image-1320 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/593\/2015\/04\/Over-There-William-Jerome-Publishing-240x300.jpeg\" alt=\"Over There - William Jerome Publishing\" width=\"202\" height=\"250\" \/><\/a>The first cover from William Jerome Publishing Corp. features a portrait of Nora Bayes, famous singer and comedienne of the Vaudeville and Broadway circuits. After Cohan\u00a0performed the song in her dressing room, she included it in her act, becoming one of the song&#8217;s greatest pluggers. On this patriotic red, white, and blue cover, Bayes wears a stylized military uniform reminiscent of the British Redcoats along with a hat including feathers\u00a0colored in order of the French tricolor flag (&#8230;backwards), thus incorporating the the major Allies of World War I. Eagles and stars, symbols of America, surround her portrait.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"  wp-image-1317 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/593\/2015\/04\/Over-There-William-Jerome-2-240x300.jpeg\" alt=\"Over There - William Jerome 2\" width=\"191\" height=\"235\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The second cover (also from William Jerome Publishing Corp.) features another famous performer of the song, William J. Reilly. The U.S. Navy sailor, stationed on the battleship U.S.S. Michigan, was also a popular\u00a0singer. Like the Nora Bayes cover, this one\u00a0incorporates the red, white, and blue of the American flag, a\u00a0famous performer, and a U.S. military connection, though, as Reilly was actually a sailor in the Navy, this cover carries a heavier political connotation by putting a face and a name to the &#8220;son of liberty,&#8221; &#8220;Yanks,&#8221; and &#8220;Johnnie&#8221; mentioned in the song.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"  wp-image-1318 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/593\/2015\/04\/Over-There-Leo-Feist-2-233x300.jpg\" alt=\"Over There - Leo Feist 2\" width=\"167\" height=\"212\" \/>The third\u00a0cover is a copy of the previous one except for one detail: the publisher is not William Jerome, but Leo Feist, Inc. By October 1917, Jerome had sold over 440,000 copies of the song, and it was a hit feature in five New York shows (including productions at the Hippodrome and the Winter Garden). After hearing the song himself, Leo Feist offered Jerome $10,000 for the song. Jerome said no. Feist offered $15,000, $20,000, $25,000. Finally Jerome said, &#8220;it&#8217;s gotta be in cash.&#8221; After paying this high price (over $458,000 now, the highest price paid for a song at the time), Feist quickly put the piece to market, keeping the same cover and aggressively pushing the song, reportedly grossing over $30,000 in new orders within thirty days.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"  wp-image-1319 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/593\/2015\/04\/Over-There-Leo-Feist-3-240x300.jpeg\" alt=\"Over There - Leo Feist 3\" width=\"213\" height=\"264\" \/>The fourth cover brings another American icon into the story. Norman Rockwell, a popular painter and illustrator for the <em>Saturday Evening Post<\/em>, created this painting for\u00a0<em>Life Magazine<\/em>&#8216;s January 31, 1918 issue. The picture presents four American infantrymen animatedly and excitedly singing and playing a banjo-ukelele with tents in the background. Although lacking in historical detail (would soldiers really be singing like this in an active combat zone?), the tag line above presents Feist&#8217;s pitch for the piece: &#8220;Your Song &#8211; My Song &#8211; Our Boys&#8217; Song!&#8221; Notably, no red, white, or blue is featured on this cover.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"  wp-image-1316 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/593\/2015\/04\/Over-There-Leo-Feist-1-230x300.jpg\" alt=\"Over There - Leo Feist 1\" width=\"220\" height=\"284\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The final cover features four soldiers holding their hats in the air and guns to their shoulders while marching across the page in an Broadway-like gesture, sketched by Henry Hutt, an American illustrator. Like the Bayes&#8217; cover, this one features the colors of the three major Allies (Britain, France, and the U.S.), with a sideways French tricolor as the backdrop. Further emphasizing the unifying quality of the song, the tagline reads &#8220;This great world song hit now has both French and English lyrics.&#8221;\u00a0Clearly\u00a0Feist was marketing &#8220;Over There&#8221; as a worldwide hit. And in an age of war and patriotism, how could a true American or Frenchman NOT buy this song?<\/p>\n<p>Thus through five pictures we can trace the early production of the song &#8220;Over There,&#8221; including the\u00a0advertising and propaganda that furthered its reputation as a patriotic American anthem.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Cohan, George M. &#8220;Over There.&#8221; New York: Leo Feist, Inc., 1917. [Dancing soldiers cover]. Duke University Libraries Digital Collections (n1170).<\/p>\n<p>Cohan, George M. &#8220;Over There.&#8221; New York: Leo Feist, Inc., 1917. [Norman Rockwell cover]. Mississippi State University Libraries (Physical ID: 32278011441759).<\/p>\n<p>Cohan, George M. &#8220;Over There.&#8221; New York: Leo Feist, Inc., 1917. [William J. Reilly cover].\u00a0Duke University Libraries Digital Collections (n0967).<\/p>\n<p>Cohan, George M. &#8220;Over There.&#8221; New York: William Jerome Publishing Corp., 1917. [Nora Bayes cover].\u00a0Duke University Libraries Digital Collections (n1186).<\/p>\n<p>Cohan, George M. &#8220;Over There.&#8221; New York: William Jerome Publishing Corp., 1917. [William J. Reilly cover]. Johns Hopkins University, Levy Sheet Music Collection.\u00a0http:\/\/jhir.library.jhu.edu\/handle\/1774.2\/22148.<\/p>\n<p><em>Performing Arts Encyclopedia<\/em>, s.v.\u00a0&#8220;Over There.&#8221; Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress, 2014. http:\/\/lcweb2.loc.gov\/diglib\/ihas\/loc.natlib.ihas.200000015\/default.html (accessed April 27, 2015).<\/p>\n<p>Sullivan, Steve. <em>Encyclopedia of Great Popular Song Recordings, Volume<\/em>\u00a01.<em>\u00a0<\/em>Lanham, MD:\u00a0Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2013.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>They say a picture&#8217;s worth a thousand words. Below I have five sheet music covers, all of the same song (&#8220;Over There&#8221; by George M. Cohan) from the same years (1917-18), in arrangements published by two separate houses (William Jerome &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/2015\/04\/28\/over-there-sheet-music-advertising-and-propaganda\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":775,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[628,633,632,623,626,631,630,32,39,634,624,627,635,629,625],"class_list":["post-1270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-advertising","tag-american-quartet","tag-billy-murray","tag-george-m-cohan","tag-great-war","tag-inc","tag-leo-feist","tag-library-of-congress","tag-national-jukebox","tag-nora-bayes","tag-over-there","tag-propoganda","tag-william-j-reilly","tag-william-jerome-publishing-corp","tag-world-war-i"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7jEhR-ku","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/775"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1270"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1398,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1270\/revisions\/1398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.stolaf.edu\/americanmusic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}