
I didn't raise my boy to be a soldier (1915)
Composer/Performer: Piantadosi, Al, 1884-1955.
Composer/Performer: Clark, Helen, b. ca. 1890.
This old music is available for free, online from the UCSB Cylinder Preservation and Digitization website. Here’s the same song, sung by Carl Ely (also in 1915).
A million soldiers to the war have gone
who may never return again.
A million more must cross the strait
for the ones who died in vain.
Head fall down in sorrow,
in her lonely year I heard a mother murmur through her tears,
"I didn’t raise my boy to be a soldier.
I brought him up to be my pride and joy.
Who dared to place a musket on his shoulder,
to shoot some other mother’s darling boy?
…It’s time to lay the sword and turn away.
There’d be no war today
if mothers always say
I didn’t raise my boy to be a soldier
According to Encyclopedia Britannica, 908,371 British were killed and died during the war.