"Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit-Bag, and Smile, Smile, Smile" is the full name of a World War Imarching song, published in 1915 in London. It was written by Welsh songwriter George Henry Powell under the pseudonym of "George Asaf", and set to music by his brother Felix Powell. It was featured in the American show Her Soldier Boy, which opened in December 1916. Performers associated with this song include the Victor Military Band, James F. Harrison, Murray Johnson, Reinald Werrenrath, and the Knickerbocker Quartet. A later play presented by the National Theatre recounts how these music hall stars rescued the song from their rejects pile and re-scored it to win a wartime competition for a marching song. It became very popular, boosting British morale despite the horrors of that war. It was one of a large number of music hall songs aimed at maintaining morale, recruiting for the forces, or defending Britain's war aims. Another of these songs, "It's a Long Way to Tipperary", was so similar in musical structure that the two were sometimes sung side by side.
Lyrics
The song is best remembered for its chorus:
In other languages
The Dutch version goes: The Spanish version The German version: The Norwegian translation "Legg dine sørger i en gammel sekk" and the Swedish "Lägg dina sorger i en gammal säck" were by written by Karl-Ewert Christenson and recorded by singer Ernst Rolf.
Other performances
performed it throughout the United Kingdom in 1916. Other performers associated with this song include Helen Clark, Reinald Werrenrath, and Oscar Seagle. Cilla Black performed the song as a comedy/singing sketch on her varietytelevision seriesSurprise Surprise. The original version was sampled in and inspired the song "Pack Up" by English musician Eliza Doolittle.
In film
The song appears in several films, including Varsity Show with Dick PowellPack Up Your Troubles with Laurel & Hardy, High Pressure, and The Shopworn Angel. It is also featured in For Me and My Gal starring Judy Garland and Gene Kelly, and “On Moonlight Bay” with Gordon MacRae and Doris Day. The song also featured briefly in the 1979 filmAll That Jazz, sung between Joe Gideon and a hospital orderly. It was sung during a march in the 2010 filmPrivate Peaceful, based on the book by Michael Morpurgo. The song is also played by Schroeder in "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" and in an episode of "The Waltons" In the Rugrats episode Music'', Chuckie sings this song.
Literary references
The title of Wilfred Owen's bitter anti-war poem was derived from the song.
Richard Thompson, famous for often dark and gloomy themes in his music, released an album in 2003 titled 'The Old Kit Bag'.
In John Dickson Carr's novel "The Devil in Velvet", the protagonist—a WWI veteran—hears the song in a nightmare of his war experiences: "He heard a great noise of voices singing to music. It was a cheerful song, roared out with mighty cheerfulness, yet underneath every word ran a strain of heartbreak.".
The nine-year-old American Girl character Kit Kittredge is enchanted by her father singing her this song, and this inspires her to take on "Kit" as a nickname rather than go by her full name, Margaret Mildred Kittredge.
In Libba Bray's novel "Lair of Dreams", a character hears a distorted version of the song while in a dream.
A female splicer can be heard singing the song in Part 2.
The character Probst Wyatt III, from 2014's sings this song as part of a diversionary tactic during the game's prologue.
Edwards, McManus and Townsend can be heard singing this song in the chapter "Through Mud and Blood" in the Battlefield 1 campaign. It can be heard at random after the final tank battle.
