Over There: A Song History

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The Library of Congress holds a voice-and-piano edition of George M. Cohan's "Over There" copyrighted in 1917 by the Wm. Jerome Publishing Corporation of New York.[1] The Library also owns Cohan's own signed pencil manuscript of the song, acquired in 2013.[2] Leo Feist of New York published it as well in 1917, and one Feist printing pairs Cohan's English words and music with a French text by Louis Delamarre.[3][4]

Watercolor of a line of canvas-covered army trucks parked along a road beside bare, shattered trees

John Singer Sargent, Truck Convoy, watercolor and graphite on paper, 1918. An army truck convoy in France in 1918, shown for the war the song belongs to; it has no connection to the song.

Nora Bayes recorded "Over There" for Victor in Camden, New Jersey, on July 13, 1917, with an orchestra led by Josef Pasternack.[5] A Library of Congress survey of First World War music credits her record with turning the song into a hit, says that in America no song is more closely linked to that war, and notes the string of imitations whose titles borrowed its phrase.[6] The tenor Enrico Caruso recorded it for Victor on July 11, 1918, and the Library's catalog record of that recording lists Delamarre as a lyricist alongside Cohan.[7] In 1940 President Franklin D. Roosevelt presented Cohan with a Congressional Gold Medal honoring the lift his patriotic songs gave to World War I morale, "Over There" among them.[8]

"Over There" is one of three Cohan songs in Shelley Stevens's Baker's Dozen #13: Patriotic Tunes, a Fingers Of Steel collection of 15 mountain dulcimer arrangements that also takes in military service songs, set throughout in DAD tuning, with five of the pieces using the 1+ fret.[9]

Our book that contains the song "Over There"

Sources

  1. Library of Congress: "Over There" (Wm. Jerome Pub. Corp., 1917).
  2. Library of Congress: "Over there" (George M. Cohan holograph manuscript).
  3. Yale University Library, They Sang and Took the Sword: "Over There".
  4. The Morgan Library & Museum: "Over there / French text by Louis Delamarre".
  5. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Victor matrix B-20335. Over there / Nora Bayes".
  6. Library of Congress Blog: "World War I: The Great War in Song".
  7. Library of Congress National Jukebox: "Over There" (Enrico Caruso, 1918).
  8. National Endowment for the Arts: "10 Things You Didn't Know About George M. Cohan".
  9. Fingers Of Steel: "Shelley Stevens, Baker's Dozen #13: Patriotic Tunes".
  10. Image: John Singer Sargent, Truck Convoy, watercolor and graphite on paper, 1918. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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