But many of the returning soldiers could find no place to live and start families. Huge numbers of them were going to college, factories were humming, and the country was on a buying spree that would keep employment high for years to come. To most historians, the years immediately following World War II were golden. This one prays, “Dear God, watch over my boy in service/Help him win the victory there/And when this cruel war is over/Send him home to mother’s prayer.” Fowler founded the vocal group that many years later evolved into the Oak Ridge Boys. While “our boys” fought the battles in Europe and the Pacific, their mothers fought back tears at home.
“Mother’s Prayer,” Wally Fowler and the Georgia Clodhoppers (1945) Sheryl Crow recorded a moving version of it in 2007.Īmerica still had a full year of World War II ahead of it when Foley released this withering threat that name-checked every leader of the Axis powers - Hitler, Mussolini and Hirohito - and promised them oblivion: “There’ll be smoke on the water on the land and the sea/When our Army and Navy overtake the enemy/There’ll be smoke on the mountains where the heathen gods stay/And the sun that is risin’ will go down on that day.” This was Foley’s first No. “No Depression in Heaven,” the Carter Family (1936)Ĭrippling unemployment, massive shifts of people from farms to cities, the ravages of the Dust Bowl - America was reeling from one catastrophe to another when the Carter Family declared (with more hope than conviction), “In that bright land, there’ll be no hunger/No orphan children crying for bread/No weeping widows, toil or struggle/No shrouds, no coffins and no death.” This song has become a favorite among the Americana music community.
Others marked mere niches in history, burned brightly for a moment and then vanished as completely from memory as the events that occasioned them.įrom the Carter Family to Alan Jackson, here are a dozen musical monuments and historical place holders. The best of these lyrics and melodies have survived and dwell among us like old but seldom-seen friends. Its songs have also been there for us during natural disasters and periods of national unrest. Ever since country music emerged as a distinct art form in the 1920s, it has serenaded, aroused and comforted generations through the Great Depression, World War II, the Cold War and conflicts in Korea, Vietnam and the Middle East.
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