I'm Gonna Pin My Medal on the Girl I Left Behind
| "I'm Gonna Pin My Medal on the Girl I Left Behind" | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Song | |
| Published | 1918 |
| Songwriter(s) | Irving Berlin |
I'm Gonna Pin My Medal on the Girl I Left Behind is a
Peerless Quartet.[3] The song is listed as part of the US Library of Congress Recorded Sound Research Center (16,626), the National Jukebox (16,441) and the Recorded Sound Section, Library of Congress (6,098)[4]
Per the lyrics, the soldier believes that his sweetheart has endured greater difficulties during the war than he has and wants to giver her his medal because he thinks she deserves it more than he does. Ann Ommen van der Merwe notes that the song shows the highly visible roles that American women took during World War I and that, while praise for women was not unusual in Ziegfeld Follies, praise for something other than beauty was new. She goes on to speculate that the medal may have been a metaphor for the right to vote, considering it "unlikely but not impossible" that this was Berlin's intent.[5]
References
- ^ Paas, John Roger (2014). America Sings of War American Sheet Music from World War One. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz GmbH & Co. p. 244.
- ISBN 9781580469524. Retrieved August 8, 2023.
- ^ "Peerless Quartet". Discography of American Historical Recordings. UC Santa Barbara.
- ^ "I'm gonna pin my medal on the girl I left behind". Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. Retrieved 9 August 2023.
- ISBN 9780810867161. Retrieved August 8, 2023.