Bless 'Em All

Godfrey claimed to have thought up the lyrics for the song while serving with the Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) at Dunkirk during the First World War, recalling in a 1941 letter to the Daily Mirror: "I wrote “Bless 'Em All” while serving in the old RNAS in France in 1916. And, furthermore, it wasn't "Bless.'" Although the song is credited to him, it is unclear if he actually wrote the lyrics, and his service record indicates that he joined RNAS in January 1917.[3] Les Cleveland (1984) writes that a version of the song titled "Fuck 'Em All" was a popular protest song by airmen serving on India's North West Frontier during the 1920s, and may have originated from there. It later gained popularity among British and Commonwealth troops during the Second World War, and with a change of lyrics became a patriotic tune after being performed by singers such as Gracie Fields and Vera Lynn.[4] It was also recorded by George Formby and others. Ward Brown noted that "(...) The line You'll get no promotion this side of the ocean seems to reflect the point of view of soldiers about to be sent to a fighting front on the other side of an ocean - presumably the Atlantic. This would point to an American origin for the song, rather than a British one, though there is no clear evidence for such an origin".[5] However the 'ocean' referred to, given a British-Indian origin, is much more likely to be the Indian Ocean - although the English Channel would do just as well for the purposes of the song.

Bless 'em all,
Bless 'em all.
The long and the short and the tall,

Bless all those Sergeants and WO1's,
Bless all those Corporals and their blinkin'/bleedin' sons,
Cos' we're saying goodbye to 'em all.
And back to their Billets they crawl,
You'll get no promotion this side of the ocean,
So cheer up my lads bless 'em all

Films

• The song was used as the title theme to the 1961 film The Long and the Short and the Tall.
• The song was sung and used as an instrumental theme in the 1941 film Confirm or Deny
• The song is sung by the characters in Captains of the Clouds (1942).
• "Bless' Em All" is sung by the pilots of the Polish Brigade of the Royal Air Force in the 1942 comedy film To Be Or Not To Be
• In the 1943 Canadian film Corvette K225 the song is sung by members of the crew and is used in an instrumental version as part of the score.
• The song is heard as a snippet in Guadalcanal Diary (1943), sung by the Marines on the island as well as Marine Raiders (1944).
• The song is heard being sung in the Officers Club in the 1949 film Twelve O'Clock High with Gregory Peck and Dean Jagger. In the AFI Catalog of Feature Films, the song is credited as "words and music by Jimmy Hughes, Frank Lake and Al Stillman".[2]
• The song is featured in the film Chain Lightning with Humphrey Bogart, released in 1950. It is sung twice, and the melody is used as instrumental backing for the film's climax. As with Twelve O'Clock High, the AFI Catalog credits the song to Jimmy Hughes, Frank Lake and Al Stillman.[1]
• A version of the song was sung by United States Marines on the march to the Hungnam Evacuation after the Battle of Chosin Reservoir.[7]
• The song is sung by the POWs in The Colditz Story (1954).
• An instrumental version is heard in the 1955 Clark Gable / Lana Turner movie Betrayed.
• The song is heard as a snippet in the Red Cross Service Club scene in the 1956 William Holden and Deborah Kerr film The Proud and Profane.
• "Fuck 'Em All" is heard in the 2007 film Atonement being sung by soldiers as they wait to be evacuated from Dunkirk.

Television

• Archie Bunker sings a few lines of the song in the final seconds of the season one episode "Success Story" of the TV show All in the Family.
• In the Magnum, P.I. episode "Echoes of the Mind Part I" Jonathan Higgins listens to a record of the song.
• The song was sung several times in the pub scene of a 1980 NBC television movie, The Secret War of Jackie's Girls, set in England in World War II.

Literature

• William Hjortsberg's biography of Richard Brautigan, Jubilee Hitchhiker, includes an account of Brautigan in 1967 joining several other poets and artists in a Chinese restaurant to celebrate Basil Bunting, who'd been invited to read at the San Francisco Museum of Art. Bunting led everyone in "an old British-army or service-person-overseas kind of song where everybody gets screwed." Hjortsberg calls it "Troop Ships Are Leaving Bombay," the first line of Formby's original lyric.

• Bless ’Em All page from Bless ’Em All: The Songs of Fred Godfrey