"The Ragtime Volunteers Are Off to War"
by Van and Schenck
Sheet music courtesy of Lester Levy Sheet Music Collection |
"The Ragtime Volunteers Are Off to War" makes volunteerism a virtue and sends the most popular music of the day to France with American soldiers (read: black soldiers). The volunteers "haven't fought for nearly twenty years" (since the Spanish-American War), yet they are leaving because the country needs them. This cultural exchange is double debt for Europe. Not only are they getting the best of American arms and soldiers, but they are getting the flower of American culture (ragtime music). By the way, old Colonel Jones is being compared to a "pouter pigeon," a kind of long-legged pigeon characterized by the habit of enlarging its crop until its entire breast is puffed out.
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