"Let's Bury the Hatchet"
by Arthur Fields
Aug. 1917 Columbia record supplement from the Archeophone Records collection |
"Bury the Hatchet," with its topical references to the war, is a violent burlesque hearkening back to "Indianola" and the American fear of the vicious nature of the American Indian's hatchet, and a reference to an old, old, stage joke about making peace which suggested the only way to make true peace was to "bury the hatchet" in one of the disputants' heads. Furthermore, it is the last great reference to the anti-war movement's cry for peace. After agreeing that "we must have peace," the songwriters suggest the way to peace is the bury the hatchet-in the Kaiser's head. The puns on topical scenery of the war, "We'll punch him in his Belgeeum and smash his western Front" mitigate the danger of war and inject humor into a potentially humorless void. The record was made at the end of war and released just before Armistice, but it demonstrates the sheer vitriol that had permeated the songs that were written by this late point in the war.
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