"It's a Long, Long Way to Tipperary"
by American Quartet
Sheet music courtesy of Lester Levy Sheet Music Collection |
In the beginning, the songs of the Great War sung in the U.S. were not ours, largely, but "theirs." "It's A Long, Long Way To Tipperary" came to the United States as the zippy marching song of the British Expeditionary Force. It was a rouser and it was covered by the best acts—The American Quartet, John McCormack, Prince's Orchestra. It showed up in two Broadway hits, Chin Chin and Dancing Around and introduced the American public to that indefatigable and stereotypical British soldier, "Tommy Atkins," created by Rudyard Kipling in his incredibly popular poetry. "Tipperary" had a beat and you could march to it, and the hero on the cover of the sheet music stamped British soldiers in American jargon forever as "Tommys." But under any circumstances, "Tipperary" was still a song about an obscure place somewhere else. Even the 1914 Irish unrest over Home Rule that "Tipperary" effectively glosses over was not yet a part of American awareness, outside of the huge numbers of Irish immigrants that crowded into the metropolises of America.
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