Music and Remembrance: Britain in the First World War

This chapter analyses the scope and variety of musical responses

to the war, from the time of the war itself to the present, with reference to

both ‘high’ and ‘popular’ music in Britain’s remembrance of the Great War.

We argue that music has not been incidental but central to remembrance and

the contestation of war memory, sometimes assuming a critical role in the

debate over remembrance practices. The tensions and developments in ways of

remembering the war have been consistently reflected in the musical responses

both of participants themselves, and subsequent generations. Since the 1960s,

changes in popular music have seen the war reinterpreted through a variety of

genres, often very much within the dominant cultural representation of the

war, emphasizing loss and futility.