Keep 'em Blushing

U.S. fighting men may be taught the niceties of the knife and the noose, but never should their ears be reddened with even laundered versions of such bawdy ballads as Dirty Gertie or Mademoiselle from Armentieres. Such, apparently, is the chaste opinion of the U.S. Post Office, which has closed the mails to Give Out!, a book of military ditties compiled with an approving nod from the armed services.

Give Out! is the work of one Eric Posselt, who thought there ought to be a book of songs sung by servicemen, not at them. He ruled out Tin Pan Alley and Hollywood tunes (except for parodies masculine or martial), tracked down the favorites of the corps and the camps. The collection includes the solemn, the irreverent, the rowdy. There is a long-faced hymn of high resolve by Robert E. Sherwood (Tune: The Battle Hymn of the Republic). Another contributor is Beatrice Ayer Patton (wife of General "Blood & Guts"), whose March of the Armored Corps is appropriately scored for pistol.

Inevitably, high purpose was outvoted by low comedy: the salty songs roared by men away from women. Some are as topical as Tunisia, some such timeless bottle-bellowings as Cristofor Colombo, The Tattooed Lady and The Bastard King of England, all with well-scrubbed lyrics save for the commoner low-voltage expletives.

The Post Office called the songbook "lewd and obscene," even though it had been reviewed by the military. Post Exchanges continued to sell it. Men in service, never noted for dainty diction, continued to sing of disrespect and dirt as they went about their dirty business: We had a major and his name was Tack,

He rode a horse and we carried a pack.

I don't want no more Army,

Lordy, how I want to go home!

. . . And if it be a daughter, just bounce her on your knee,

But if it be a son, send the bastard out to sea.

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