New arrangement of locally-written song ‘Back Your Boy’ debuts this summer

It’s summertime, and that means the Cedar Rapids Municipal Band season is in full swing (full disclosure: both authors of this column work for the band). During the week that includes the Fourth of July, the band performs a patriotic program that includes the Cedar Rapids Concert Chorale. This year’s concerts will feature a new piece. Or rather, the concerts will feature an old piece, newly arranged for band and choir by the Municipal Band’s conductor, Dr. Steve Shanley.

That piece, “Back Your Boy,” was written by two Cedar Rapidians for a contest during World War I.

Dr. Bethany Keenan, Henrietta Arnold Associate Professor of History at Coe College (where Shanley also teaches in the music department), learned of the work in the course of her research in American humanitarian aid to France during WWI.

  Buy Photo

“I was reading articles in the digitized historic Gazette on humanitarian activities locally,” she explained, “and saw a reference to the ‘Back Your Boy’ song, written by people from Cedar Rapids. Intrigued, I searched to see if I could find more info on the song, and found that the Library of Congress had a digitized copy in their amazing online collection of WWI sheet music.”

Her next step? “I promptly sent it to Steve, who replied, ‘This is a nice little march!’ and, since it was in the public domain, immediately began work on an arrangement.”

Shanley makes arrangements

The “nice little march” isn’t necessarily a traditional march, however.

“The song follows the same form as many popular songs and hymns,” Shanley explained. “The piano part is reminiscent of a march accompaniment, and the chorus indicates, ‘Strict March Tempo,’ but the form is much different than that of a standard march. The introduction and the end of the chorus both incorporate short quotes from ‘Yankee Doodle,’ which combine with the text to sound quite patriotic throughout.”

Shanley’s arrangement for band and choir stays true to the 1918 sheet music.

“I tried to honor the original and did not alter any of the harmony, melody, or form,” he said. “The woodwinds and brass primarily play all of the original piano and vocal parts, and added percussion accompaniment, brass ‘echo’ effects, and countermelodies for the flutes and glockenspiel. The choir will sing the melody as it was originally written.”

Meet the songwriters

Keenan’s research turned up a wealth of details about Henry Sturges Ely (lyricist) and Ernest A. Leo (music) who collaborated to write “Back Your Boy.”

“Both were well-known members of the Cedar Rapids community. Leo was a longtime voice and music instructor, originally trained at Juilliard, who had been teaching in Cedar Rapids for decades,” said Keenan. “Ely was a real estate investor and developer; postwar, he would play an important part in the expansion of Grant Wood’s career, including hiring Wood to do the artwork for ‘Cedar Rapids Corn Song,’ which Ely wrote the lyrics to in the 1920s.

“The men moved in similar circles and appear to both have been Masons, so that’s one possible way they became acquainted,” Keenan said. “Ely enjoyed writing poems and lyrics and Leo frequently performed publicly, so it’s easy to imagine them deciding to try their hands at a song together.”

A winner of a song

“The song came about as part of a competition set up for the Iowa United War Work Campaign. Because it was pretty clear by late October 1918 that the war was basically over, the campaign intended to raise money to support soldiers through victory and then demobilization,” Keenan said.

“Ely and Leo wrote the song and submitted it to the statewide competition in Des Moines, where it won and became the official song for the state United War Work campaign,” Keenan explained. “It was referred to by The Gazette as ‘Iowa’s official war song.’ They also submitted the song to a larger contest in Chicago, where they did not win but got a ‘favorable mention.’ ”

“Back Your Boy” was a hit in Cedar Rapids, performed frequently (with audiences joining in for the chorus) and published as sheet music which was sold at the city’s music stores.

“The lyrics give a good hint at why it won the competition,” Keenan suggested. “A big part of the United War Work campaign was its insistence on interfaith and united American action. At a meeting introducing the campaign in Cedar Rapids, Governor Harding noted, ‘There is room in the world for all faiths, and all are needed in the work of putting out the fire aflame in the world, and to rake the ashes over so it will never start again.’ ”

The final verse of the song focused on unity:

At home we stand united,

No border, breed, nor birth

Our prayer, that wrongs be righted

And peace returned to earth

We join our supplications,

And to one faith belong,

Forgetting creed in nation’s need,

A hundred million strong.

We encourage you to hear “Back Your Boy” during the Muni Band’s July 2 concert at Guthridge Park in Hiawatha or the July 6 concert at the McGrath Amphitheatre. Both performances will also be livestreamed on the band’s Facebook page.

Download: Back Your Boy - sheet music.pdf

Jessica Cline is a Leadership & Character Scholar at Wake Forest University. Her dad, Rob Cline, is not a scholar of any kind. They write this monthly column for The History Center. Comments: HistoricalClines@gmail.com