SOUNDS
INSTRUMENT OF WAR
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Chapter 1:
A Great and Secret Power
Chapter 2:
Music, Race, Empire
- Spotify Playlist
- Damn, Damn, Damn the Filipinos
Chapter 3:
Music and Guns Go Hand in Hand
Chapter 4:
The Best-Entertained Soldier in the World
Chapter 5:
The Powers of Song
Chapter 6:
Demythologizing the Rock-and-Roll War
Chapter 7:
Shoot to Thrill
Coda
Seven Elegies
INSTRUMENT OF WAR
Chapter 2: Music, Race, Empire
SPOTIFY PLAYLIST
There are not many recordings available of songs popular among U.S. soldiers in Cuba and the Philippines, circa 1898-1903. The most notable exception is “A Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight,” the biggest hit of the time, which has since been recorded many times. The playlist also features “The Monkeys Have No Tails in Zamboanga,” one of the few soldier songs I have found a recording of.
“DAMN, DAMN, DAMN, THE FILIPINOS”
One of the soldier songs discussed in the chapter was called “Damn, Damn, Damn the Filipinos.” Here it is as sung in the John Sayles’s film Amigo:
