I Didn’t Raise My Boy To Be A Soldier

A mother’s plea for peace, 1915.
words by Alfred Bryan
music by Al Piantadosi

Ed. Morton’s Sensational Anti-War Song Hit. Respectfully dedicated to Every Mother–Everywhere.

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The sheet music:

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Accompaniment by Benjamin R. Tubb:

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Lyrics

1. Ten million soldiers to the war have gone
   Who may never return again
   Ten million mothers’ hearts must break
   For the ones who died in vain
   Head bowed down in sorrow, in her lonely years
   I heard a mother murmur through her tears

Chorus
“I didn’t raise my boy to be a soldier
Brought him up to be my pride and joy
Who dares to place a musket on his shoulder
To shoot some other mother’s darling boy?
Let nations arbitrate their future troubles
It’s time to lay the sword and gun away
There’d be no war today, if mothers all would say
“I didn’t raise my boy to be a soldier”

2. What victory can cheer a mother’s heart
   When she looks at her blighted home?
   What victory can bring her back
   All she cared to call her own
   Let each mother answer in the years to be
   Remember that my boy belongs to me

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Sung here by Fred Feild: