Alternate song titles during WWII

billyshakes · February 11

I was listening to a collection of songs in a collection on jazz during the Second World War in France. Apparently in some cases, musicians just retitled the songs and continued to play them despite them being "prohibited" by the occupiers. This is also mentioned in Mike Zwerin's book La Tristesse de Saint Louis: Jazz Under the Nazis. Since I'm a sucker for this kind of trivia thing, I started to hunt around to see what I could find. Unfortunately, I could only find a few. Wondering if the collective knowledge of this board might also add to the list below?

St. Louis Blues = La tristesse de Saint Louis

Sweet Georgia Brown = Douce Georgette

Sweet Sue = Ma chère Susanne

I've Got Rhythm = Agatha Rhythm

Honeysuckle Rose = La rose de chèvrefeuille (though this just looks like a direct translation similar to "Nuit et Jour" for Night and Day)

Buco · February 11

I think a few are mentioned in the Django biography book by Dregni. I'll thumb through it and see if I can find it...

Willie · February 12

Common practice in Germany under the Nazi regime (some examples quoted from the magazine "jazzzeitung"):

The extremely popular Tiger Rag, which no band could do without, became the “Black Panther”, the St. Louis Blues ”The ballad of blue Ludwig" , the Woodchopers’ Ball became the “Lumberjack-Ball”, etc. The names of English and American composers and arrangers – Jewish ones anyway – were also removed from the sheet music or made unrecognizable. Jazz and swing fans were able to be delighted with many popular jazz standards right up until the last years of the war, because the snoops from the RMK and the HJ strip, who appeared in raids in the establishments and bars, were obviously devoid of any specialist knowledge.

https://www.jazzzeitung.de/jazz/2005/05/dossier.shtml

Aus dem äußerst populären Tiger Rag, auf den keine Band verzichten konnte, wurde der „Schwarze Panther“, aus dem St. Louis Blues „Das Lied vom Blauen Ludwig“, aus dem Woodchopers’ Ball der „Holzhacker-Ball“ et cetera. Auch wurden die Namen englischer und amerikanischer Komponisten und Arrangeure – jüdischer ohnehin – von den Notenblättern abgetrennt oder unkenntlich gemacht. So konnten die Jazz- und Swing-Fans noch bis in die letzten Kriegsjahre hinein mit manchem beliebten Jazz-Standard beglückt werden, denn die Schnüffler der RMK und der HJ-Streifen, die überfallartig in den Etablissements und Bars auftauchten, waren offensichtlich bar jeder Fachkenntnis.

billyshakes · February 12

https://djangobooks.com/forum/discussion/comment/119951#Comment_119951

Interesting to see Tiger Rag become Schwarze Panther. Also that St Louis Blues got translated differently than the French. As for Holzhacker Ball, I might categorize that similar to Honeysuckle Rose. It seems it is just a direct translation from the English title? Either way, thanks for the link. I look forward to practing my Deutsch lesung! :-)

Willie · February 13

@billyshakes Yes, direct translation.

Russell Letson · February 13

The recordings Billyshakes refers to sounds like Swing Tanzen Verboten: Swing & Nazi Propaganda, a 4-CD Proper Box set. I ran across it a while back and was impressed by the quality of the 78 transfers and the substantial, detailed booklet included with the discs. Much of the music is also quite impressive--there were plenty of sure-enough swing players in Europe at the time. And I think that Mike Zwerin's book (the second edition is titled Swing Under the Nazis: Jazz as a Metaphor for Freedom) is crucial reading for anybody interested in what was going on around Django in those years.

Willie · February 13

A source with more information in English language:

https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/swing-youth-jazz-nazi-germany

The swing Kids even developed alternate greetings: "Heil Hotler" instead of "Heil Hitler" -> Hot music, or "Swing Heil" instead of "Sieg Heil".

There were different scenes of the swing kids in many german cities (with even different titles for the tunes, Tiger rag being tiger hunt/Tiger Jagd in Hannover for example, and Black Panther as mentioned above).

flaco · February 13

There is also the movie “Swing Kids”, with a young Christian Bale among others. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen it, but they do mention Django.

billyshakes · February 13

@Russell Letson Thanks for noteing that boxed set. I haven't seen it, but it looks interesting, perhaps moreso to me for the 60-page booklet. I can't remember how it started but I saw the Joseph Reinhardt had played "Douce Georgette" and it got me searching. I was looking for Jazz sous l'occupation from the excellent Jazz in Paris series but it wasn't on Spotify. Instead, I found one called French Swing Music During World War II and it had some tunes on it. I'll have to check out the one you mentioned.

@Willie The story of the Swing Kids is really a classic story about youth rebellion. They were counter-culture before the hippies of the next generation that would follow them. Unfortunately, many paid for their rebellion with their lives. I watched the movie inspired by them over 2 decades ago, but it was a tough one to watch, knowing that it was something that really happened.