ABSTRACT
Far from representing a cultural parenthesis in popular song repertoires, the songs of 1914–1918 illustrate questions of identity present in French society since the final decades of the nineteenth century (questions of national pride, and of national humiliation after being defeated by Germany in 1970, and of the making of ‘real men’ through the rite of national military service). The repertoire also expresses the terrible difficulties inherent in the separation of couples, and of the mutilation and death brought by the war. Amusing, tragic, moving or bawdy, ever trying to outwit the censor, the French wartime repertoire supplies a rich treasure chest from which to examine people’s fears and fantasies. From infidelity to mutilation, national reconstruction to sexual impotence, few questions are not covered by the songs.
