„Private Tommy Atkins“ Music: S. Potter, S. The name Tommy Atkins has been used as to denote a British soldier since the 18th century . In 1890 Kipling wrote his classic poem Tommy a bitter condemnation of the tendency to treat soldiers as either heroes when fighting far away or blackguards when at home. This seemed to spark a series of similar songs and poems . Private Tommy Atkins was perhaps the most successful popular song of these – though sadly it has nothing of the subtlety of Kipling’s poem. According to Kilgarriff it was originally sung by Charles Arnold as part of a military sketch and was then rewritten to be sung by Hayden Coffin in the 1893 musical comedy A Gaiety Girl at the Prince of Wales Theatre (London). The song very quickly took on a life of its own. http://folksongandmusichall.com/index.php/private-tommy-atkins/ Schweizer Spieldose Nr. 3123
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