"We're Going to Hang out the Washing on the Siegfried Line" is a popular song by Irish songwriter Jimmy Kennedy, written whilst he was a Captain in the British Expeditionary Force during the early stages of the Second World War, with music by Michael Carr. It was first published in 1939.
Background and composition The Siegfried Line was a chain of fortifications along Germany's Western border, analogous to the Maginot Line in France.
At the first big wartime variety concert organized by ENSA, which was broadcast by the BBC from RAF Hendon in north London on 17 October 1939, Adelaide Hall performed the song accompanied by Mantovani and his orchestra. A rare newsreel of this concert exists,Mantovani: A Lifetime in Music by Colin MacKenzie, page 78: and the footage is thought to be the earliest surviving film of a performer singing the song.
It began:
Leslie Sarony (1897–1985) and Leslie Holmes added some possibly unofficial lines. The Sarony and Holmes version put "Mother dear, I'm writing you from somewhere in France" at the start and then, after the main section, added four lines starting "Everybody's mucking in and doing their job".. The song was also translated in French by Paul Misraki and sung by Ray Ventura.
The song was recorded by many British musicians during the Second World War, including Arthur Askey, Flanagan and Allen, and Vera Lynn. Sheldon Winkler, The Music of World War II: War Songs and Their Stories, Merriam Press, 2013, p.98
Parody A mocking parody was written shortly after the Battle of France by a German songwriter, with lines that include (in translation):
References
External links Jimmy Kennedy's obituary at the New York Times, April 1984 Three Youtube versions of the song (retrieved on Oct.12th, 2020): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BuetfQ3xQw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JJEN5lwbBw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mN8wZB8ae8