I'll Walk Alone
I Left My Heart at the Stage Door Canteen
No Love, No Nothin'
We Mustn't Say Goodbye
You'll Never Know
I'll Remember April
It Could Happen to You
I Don't Want to Walk Without You
I Fall in Love Too Easily
I'll Be Seeing You
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This collection of songs has a special meaning for me. It represents a kind of nostalgic journey
back to the days of the second World War, when the songs, particularly the ballads, had a curiously deep and lasting impact.
As the years-- more than most of us would care to admit -- have gone by, most of the bad things have been forgotten, and we
remember only the good things, the heightened sense of contribution and urgency, and nothing can bring those good things back
like a song.
For myself, I know that a song (or a perfume) can bring the past rushing back in a second, and I hope you will feel the same
way.
In the past few years, when I have stopped in gas stations or been shopping in super markets, again and again someone has
come up to me and told me how much a record of mine meant to them during the "War Years". The one most often mentioned was
"I'll Be Seeing You", and this started me wondering what other records had been most popular.
After a good deal of research, I've put together this program of songs that meant so much to all of us then and that retain
their ability to bring back a special time and place.
In those days I was often voted "G.I. Joe" by a company or a squadron, and it seems to me I represented a kind of bridge between
the service men and those they had left at home.
I wasn't so much a sweetheart of the troops, as a symbol of their homes, and perhaps for that reason, I was able to communicate
with them better through my records and broadcasts. At one time, for example, in a military hospital overseas, one of my recordings
was played every night just before lights out -- chosen by a vote among the patients.
And I remember a time, during the war, when I was appearing at the New York Paramount and two young fliers came to see me
backstage. They told me, to my secret delight and embarrassment, that they had nearly been court-martialed on account of me:
while returning from a mission they had been listening against regulations to one of our Armed Forces broadcasts, and had
disrupted the flight pattern over their landing field rather than change bands and receive their landing signal.
Well, that all took place quite a long time ago, but the songs are still with us and they are still fresh and lovely. I hope
my pleasure in them transfers itself to you and you will get the same warm feeling listening and remembering.
Jo Stafford
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