1941-1950: Birds of a Feather

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCebbUz4eoQ A musical piece that expresses the 1940’s well, is “Birds of a Feather” sung by Bing Crosby. The instrumentation in the song is very similar to the 1930’s, if not a little bit quicker and happier. The quality of the sound also got better within this decade. A huge that influenced this song and its lyrics was the ending of World War 2 and all of the troops coming home. Hence, the “baby boom” that happened right after. So, of course love songs were all over the radios and becoming popular very quickly. Other things we know about this time period from the lyrics are that phones and calling other people were now normal, as the song says “And I just want to call you” and “I wonder what it will take for you to call me?” Another subtle thing in the song is the mention of “astronauts” which indicates that interest in space was picking up at this time. Not necessarily in the singer, but the fact that the profession was mentioned. Things about the time period that the song does not tell us about are the horrible things that were happening overseas such as the bombings and the Holocaust. Bing Crosby doesn’t have any mention of World War 2.