You're in the Army Now (song)

"You're in the Army Now"
Song
Written1917
PublishedAugust 27, 1917 (1917-08-27) Tell Taylor, Inc., Chicago[1]
Composer(s)Isham Jones
Lyricist(s)

"You're in the Army Now" also known as "We're in the Army Now"[2] is an American song written in 1917 by Isham Jones.[3] Lyrics were written by Tell Taylor and Ole Olsen.[4]

The piece of music has appeared in several movies and cartoons about the US Army from The Big Parade to The Dirty Dozen to The Draft Horse to Rio Grande with the lyrics providing titles for two 1941 army comedies You're in the Army Now and You'll Never Get Rich. The original title of the television series The Phil Silvers Show was You'll Never Get Rich.

The song is also referenced by war poet John Allan Wyeth in his 1928 poetry collection This Man's Army: A War in Fifty-Odd Sonnets. The collection recalls Wyeth's service with the American Expeditionary Forces in France during the First World War.[5]

Lyrics

There are at least two versions of the lyrics with "You'll never get rich, you son of a bitch" often replaced with "You'll never get rich by digging a ditch".[citation needed]

References

  1. ^ Library of Congress. Copyright Office. (1917). Catalog of Copyright Entries, 1917 Music New Series Vol 12 Part 3. United States Copyright Office. U.S. Govt. Print. Off.
  2. ^ "IN Harmony: Sheet Music from Indiana".
  3. ^ Smith, Kathleen E. R., God Bless America: Tin Pan Alley Goes to War, University Press of Kentucky, 2003, p.99.
  4. ^ Herder, Ronald, 500 Best-Loved Song Lyrics, Dover Publications, 1998, p. 400.
  5. ^ Wyeth (2008), This Man's Army: A War in Fifty-Odd Sonnets, pages xxxii, 13.

Bibliography

  • Herder, Ronald, 500 Best-Loved Song Lyrics, Dover Publications, 1998. ISBN 048629725X
  • Smith, Kathleen E. R., God Bless America: Tin Pan Alley Goes to War, University Press of Kentucky, 2003. ISBN 0813122562
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