Something for the weekend. Hands down the favorite song of the troops during the Spanish-American War was the ragtime hit There’ll Be a Hot Time in the Old Time Tonight. This presented something of a generational music gap as most of the older officers were used to the more sedate melodies of the earlier Nineteenth Century, but most of the men in the ranks and the younger officers were more attuned to ragtime and its syncopated style.
No doubt some of the older officers thought of this music as sheer noise compared to what they were used to. I find it amusing that musical generation gaps are nothing new in American military history!
Donald R. McClarey
Paul Zummo
