Send Out the Army and the Navy

DESCRIPTION: "Send out the Army and the Navy, Send out the rank and file, Send out the brave Territorials, They'll face danger with a smile (I don't think). Send out my mother, Send out my sister and my brother, But for Gawd's sake don't send me."
AUTHOR: Davy Burnaby and Gitz Rice (source: sheet music)
EARLIEST DATE: 1917 (sheet music; sung by Alfred Lester, according to Arthur-WhenThisBloodyWarIsOver)
KEYWORDS: soldier mother brother
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Brophy/Partridge-TommiesSongsAndSlang, p. 58, "Send Out the Army and the Navy" (1 text)
Arthur-WhenThisBloodyWarIsOver, pp. 42-44, "For Gawd's Sake Don't Send Me" (1 text)
Pegler-SoldiersSongsAndSlangoftheGreatWar, pp. 305-306, "Don't Send Me (The Conshie's Song)" (1 text)
ADDITIONAL: John Mullen, _The Show Must Go On! Popular Song in Britain during the First World War_, French edition 2012; English edition, Ashgate, 2015, p. 158, "(no title)" (1 excerpt)
Roud #10546
BROADSIDES:
Library of Congress, "The Conscientious Objector's Lament" (sheet music by) Herman Darewski Music Publishing (London), 1917
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Send Out the Chryssy" (form)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
The Conscientious Objector's Lament (original title)
NOTES [176 words]: According to John Mullen, The Show Must Go On! Popular Song in Britain during the First World War, French edition 2012; English edition, Ashgate, 2015, p. 158, this was a music hall song written to ridicule conscientious objectors, and it was pretty rough:
Non-combatant battalions are fairly in my line
But the Sergeant always hates me for he called me 'baby mine,'
But oh, I got so cross with him, I rose to the attack,
And when he called me 'Ethel' I just called him 'Beatrice' back.
The verses don't seem to have been well remembered, but the chorus -- the part quoted in the description -- came to be widely sung by the soldiers who actually served.
According to the sheet music, this was "Sung by ALFRED LESTER in Messrs. Grossmith & Laurillard's Alhambra Theatre Production; Round the Map. Book by C. M. S. McLellan. Music by Herman Finch."
This piece is of course not by McLellan and Finch. The sheet music does not say who wrote the words and who the music, but I am almost certain that Rice is responsible for the words and Burnaby the tune. - RBW
Last updated in version 7.1
File: BrPa057C

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