I Don't Want to Get Well

DESCRIPTION: "I just received an answer to a letter that I wrote" from a soldier wounded in the war. When asked if he is recovering, the soldier replies, "I don't want to get well,(x2) I'm in love with a beautiful nurse." A neighbor wants to meet more nurses
AUTHOR: Words: Howard Johnson and Harry Pease / Music: Harry Jentes (source: sheet music)
EARLIEST DATE: 1917 (source: Gardner)
KEYWORDS: soldier injury love | nurse World War I
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (1 citation):
Silverman-BalladsAndSongsOfWWI, pp. 106-109, "I Don't Want to Get Well" (1 text, 1 tune)
Roud #V59556
RECORDINGS:
Arthur Fields, "I Don't Want to Get Well" (Columbia A-2409)
NOTES [92 words]: Many of those injured in World War I must have wished not to recover, given that recovery meant going back to the trenches and, very likely, getting killed the next time. But most nurses would have been too smart to fall for this sort of thing.
Edward Foote Gardner, Popular Songs of the Twentieth Century: Volume I -- Chart Detail & Encyclopedia 1900-1949, Paragon House, 2000, p. 317, estimates that this was the twenty-first most popular song in America in 1917, peaking at #3 in January 1918 (#1 for 1917 being George M. Cohan's "Over There"). - RBW
Last updated in version 7.1
File: SWWI106

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