Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit-Bag

"Pack Up Your Troubles"
Song
Published1915
GenreMarch
Composer(s)Felix Powell
Lyricist(s)George Henry Powell
Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit-Bag, and Smile, Smile, Smile (As sung by Helen Clark (1917)
Problems playing this file? See media help.
The "Keep 'Em Smiling" song sheet produced by the Indianapolis War Camp Community Service in 1917/18, including "Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit-Bag"

"Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit-Bag, and Smile, Smile, Smile" is the full name of a World War I marching song, published in 1915 in London. It was written by Welsh songwriter George Henry Powell under the pseudonym of "George Asaf", and set to music by his brother Felix Powell.[1][2] The song is best remembered for its chorus.[3]

It was featured in the American show Her Soldier Boy, which opened in December 1916.[4]

Performers associated with this song include the Victor Military Band, James F. Harrison, Adele Rowland, Murray Johnson, Reinald Werrenrath, and the Knickerbocker Quartet.[5]

A later play presented by the National Theatre recounts how these music hall stars rescued the song from their rejects pile and re-scored it to win a wartime competition for a marching song.[6] It became very popular, boosting British morale despite the horrors of that war. It was one of a large number of music hall songs aimed at maintaining morale, recruiting for the forces, or defending Britain's war aims. Another of these songs, "It's a Long Way to Tipperary", was so similar in musical structure that the two were sometimes sung side by side.[7]

  1. ^ "Indiana University Sheet Music". Pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag and smile, smile, smile. Retrieved 2013-04-16.
  2. ^ Pegler, Martin, Soldiers' Songs and Slang of the Great War. Osprey Publishing, 2014, ISBN 9781427804150, pages 263–264.
  3. ^ Scott K. Williams (September 1, 2001). "Old Kit Bag". Archived from the original on August 23, 2007. Retrieved 2007-08-22.
  4. ^ Paas, John Roger (2014). America Sings of War: American Sheet Music from World War I. Harrassowitz Verlag. p. 38, ISBN 9783447102780.
  5. ^ Paas, John Roger (2014). America Sings of War: American Sheet Music from World War I. Harrassowitz Verlag. p. 38. ISBN 9783447102780.
  6. ^ "Productions : Pack Up Your Troubles". National Theatre. Retrieved 2007-08-23.
  7. ^ Malone, Gareth. "The Importance of WWI Songs". www.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 28 March 2017.