SBA's Song
DESCRIPTION: "As I walked down the street the other day, A lady came up to me and she did say, 'Why aren't you in khaki or in Air Force blue?" He explains that he's not a civilian but an SBA, which he explains as "A Sailor with a Broken 'Art" (or has another disabity)
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1987 (Tawney-GreyFunnelLines-RoyalNavy)
KEYWORDS: sailor war rejection clothes injury derivative
FOUND IN: Britain
REFERENCES (2 citations):
Tawney-GreyFunnelLines-RoyalNavy, p. 96, "SBA's Song" (1 text, tune referenced)
Page-KissMeGoodnightSergeantMajor, p. 130, "White Feather" (1 text)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "A Broken Doll" (tune)
NOTES [97 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. 200, the source of this, "A Broken Doll," opens the same way: "A lady came to me a year ago, She waid that she would like to know Why aren't you in khacki or navy blue?" He explains that he is not a shirker:
I think I've had my chance
For my right arm's in France.
I'm one of England's broken dolls.
The version in Page-KissMeGoodnightSergeantMajor is from World War II, and it involves a soldier who lost a let in Burma.- RBW
Last updated in version 7.2
File: Tawn072
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