I want to start today by talking about the way
we all consume information. You know that feeling
when you fall down a Wikipedia rabbit hole? Oh,
yeah. You start looking up the history of rubber
bands, and three hours later you're reading about
the political structure of 14th century Venice.
The infinite web. That's the whole point, right?
Everything links to everything else. It's this
giant interconnected map of human knowledge.
Exactly. But here's where it gets interesting.
There's a glitch. In that matrix, there's a specific
classification of article known as an orphan.
An orphan. It's a surprisingly emotional term
for a database tag, isn't it? It really is. In
the straight technical sense, a Wikipedia orphan
is an article that has no incoming links from
other articles. So it's an island. It's a total
island. You can't stumble upon it by accident.
You have to know it exists to find it. It's just
floating there in the digital void. So it's effectively
digital purgatory. The information is verified.
It's archived. It's true. But it's completely
disconnected from the rest of the conversation.
And today we are going to build a bridge to one
of these orphans. I stumbled across a page that
is currently tagged this way. And the story is
just a perfect storm of cultural history. Oh,
interesting. It involves high society Boston,
a catastrophic timing error around World War
I, and a bizarre resurrection on national television
30 years later. Wow. That is quite the journey
for a topic that technically nobody links to.
So today, we're doing a deep dive into the life
cycle of a song called America's Crusaders. America's
Crusaders. Just from the title, it feels... It
feels like it's wearing a tuxedo and tails. It
absolutely is. And our mission today is to figure
out why this song exists, why it failed so spectacularly
at first, and how it managed to survive. Because
on paper, it really should have been a massive
hit. It had everything. The pedigree, the funding,
the patriotic fervor of 1918 behind it. And yet
it became an orphan. Exactly. So let's unpack
this. Where does the story of America's Crusaders
actually begin? Well, to understand the song,
you have to understand the ecosystem. it was
born into. We're in Boston, 1918. The First World
War is consuming everything. The whole country
is mobilized. And in the middle of this, you
have a man named Charles Fontaine Manny. Now,
looking at the notes on Manny, he doesn't seem
like your typical struggling artist in a cold
attic. Far from it. Manny is the establishment.
The source describes him as a well -known Boston
composer and choir director. But, and this is
key, he was also an editor. An editor. A music
editor, yes, for Oliver Ditson and Company. Okay,
we need to pause on that name because if you
aren't a music historian, Oliver Ditson just
sounds like some guy. Yeah. But in 1918, this
was a powerhouse, right? Oh, absolutely. Oliver
Ditson was one of the major music publishing
houses in the United States. Being an editor
there meant Manny wasn't just writing music.
He was deciding what music got sold. So he's
a gatekeeper. A huge one. He understood the market,
the trends, and he had the distribution network
right at his fingertips. So he's an insider.
He has the talent, he has the connections, and
in 1918, he gets a commission that most composers
would, well, kill for. The Boston Pops Orchestra.
The legendary Boston Pops. They're planning their
4th of July concert, which, even back then, was
a massive cultural event. And the stakes were
incredibly high. This isn't just a summer picnic
concert, it's the 4th of July, during the height
of the Great War. Patriotism would have been
at a fever pitch. Right. The audience wasn't
just looking for entertainment. No, they were
looking for meaning, for reassurance. So the
organizers, specifically a man named Stephen
Townsend, who was in charge of the choral sections,
they come to Manny, and the request is very specific.
They don't just want a song. The source says
they wanted a commemorative work. That wording
is crucial. Commemorative implies wait. They
didn't ask for a toe -tapper or a marching song
for the trenches. They wanted something monumental,
something that would sound important in a history
book. And Manny delivers America's Crusaders.
Now, before we get to the disaster that follows,
I want to try and hear this song in our heads,
because the source material breaks down the publication
formats, and they paint a really vivid picture.
They do. It was published in two main formats.
First, for a four -part ensemble of mixed voices,
your standard choir. But the second format is
the telling one. What's that? A four -part ensemble
of male voices featuring a baritone soloist.
A baritone soloist. So not a tenor hitting the
high notes, but that deep, authoritative voice.
Exactly. Picture the scene. You have the Boston
Pops Orchestra. You have this wall of men in
formal wear. And then a baritone steps forward.
It screams authority. It projects a very masculine,
very serious image of war. It's grounded. And
the description of the musical style just backs
that up perfectly. The notes describe it as cultivated.
Cultivated, which is a polite academic way of
saying fancy, or maybe even European. Right.
It sounds like something you'd hear in a conservatory,
not a dance hall. Precisely. And the rhythm is
described as a heroic slow march. Now think about
that phrasing. A slow march isn't for charging
into battle. It's for a procession, for a ceremony.
It's measured. The source even compares the texture
of the song to upper class church anthems. And
that is the perfect descriptor. It's the sonic
equivalent of a stained glass window. It's stately,
it's dignified, and it is undeniably wealthy.
This is not the music of the doughboys in the
mud. This is the music of the people funding
the war. And that leads to a bit of a critique
in the source material. It says that while the
song was harmonically sophisticated, which you'd
expect from an editor like Manny, it was also
not at all innovative. It was safe. Totally safe.
Manny was a professional. He gave the client
exactly what they asked for. A highbrow, patriotic
anthem that wouldn't ruffle any feathers. It
didn't have the syncopation of ragtime. It didn't
have that raw energy. of early jazz. It was traditional.
It was the musical equivalent of a firm handshake.
Exactly. Solid, dependable, and completely unsurprising.
So we have the setting, high society Boston,
we have the song, a slow church -like anthem,
and we have the lyrics. The opening line is,
as we go to battle, motherland, for thee. As
we go to battle, hang on to that phrase. Because
that phrase is about to become the single biggest
problem in the history of music publishing. This
is where we get into the terrible timing part
of the story. This is a case study in the friction
between the speed of art or, you know, physical
publishing and the speed of history. Okay, so
let's look at the timeline. The song is written
for the July 4th concert in 1918. It's performed.
Everyone presumably likes it. Then it goes to
the printers. It gets copyrighted on August 16th,
1918. So far, so good. The war is raging. The
American Expeditionary Forces are in the thick
of it. The market for a song about going to battle
is huge. Every choir in the country wants something
like this. You'd think. But publishing sheet
music in 1918 isn't like uploading an MP3. You
have to engrave the plates, print the paper,
cut it, bind it, box it up, ship it to stores
by train. It's a whole logistical operation.
And by the time America's Crusaders actually
hits the shelves for the public to buy, it is
November 1918. And for anyone who knows their
history, November 1918 is the single worst month
of the entire 20th century to release a war anthem.
Because on November 11th, the armistice is signed.
The war ends. Just ends. Imagine being the publisher
at Oliver Ditson. You have warehouses full of
the sophisticated, beautiful sheet music with
the opening line, as we go to battle. And suddenly
nobody is going to battle anymore. They're coming
home. It's a marketing nightmare. The song is
obsolete the moment it touches the shelf. The
entire premise, the going to, is backwards. The
tense is wrong. It brings up a really interesting
point about commercial art during wartime. You
are betting on the conflict continuing. It's
a cynical way to look at it. But yeah, Manny
and Ditson were betting on the war lasting through
the winter. And they lost that bet. So what did
Ditson do? Did they just burn all the sheet music?
No, they tried to pivot. And this is where it
gets kind of desperate in a funny sort of way.
The source says Ditson marketed it as a patriotic
anthem for general use. General use? That sounds
so vague. It's like selling a snow shovel in
July and calling it a general purpose sand mover.
That's exactly. Great for whenever you're feeling
vaguely American. They were trying to salvage
the investment. But the source is pretty clear.
Ditson made only a modest effort to promote it.
They knew. They knew the public mood had shifted.
And that shift was drastic. Huge, wasn't it?
Yeah. You have to remember, after November 1918,
the country just wanted to forget. They wanted
to move on. We were heading into the roaring
20s. People wanted fast tempos, jazz, fun. They
wanted shorter skirts and faster cars. They decidedly
did not want a heroic slow march that sounded
like an upper class church service. So America's
Crusaders is the wrong song with the wrong lyrics
at the exact wrong time. It misses the bus completely.
It does. It fails to become a hit. It doesn't
become over there. It just vanishes from the
mainstream. And this is why I love digging into
these orphans. It didn't die. It just went underground.
It entered its dormant phase. It hibernated.
The source has this fascinating list of where
the song actually was performed in the years
after the war. And it's not the Boston Symphony
Hall anymore. No, it's the amateur circuit. And
when you look at who was performing it, you get
a real snapshot. of a certain slice of American
life that was holding on to those pre -war values.
One of the first mentions is patriotic services
by Presbyterians in Philadelphia right in November
1918. That tracks perfectly. We just discussed
the church anthem style. Of course, a Presbyterian
service would find this appropriate. It fits
the liturgy. It's safe. It's solemn. Right. It
doesn't sound like a cabaret. Then we see it
in civic organizations. But the one that really
stood out to me was the schools. There's a record
of it in the school report of the city of Portland,
Maine from 1923. 1923, five years after the war
ended. Five years. Yeah. Why are high school
kids in Portland, Maine singing this in 1923?
Well, think about the economics of public schools.
The sheet music was probably available, maybe
even discounted because Ditson was trying to
clear out the stock. Good point. But also think
about the culture of a school board in 1923.
They aren't going to have the choir sing the
new jazz hits from the speakeasies. Definitely
not. They aren't singing the Charleston. No.
They want something cultivated. They want something
that teaches good values and discipline. Manny's
song was perfect for that. It was the vegetables
of the music world. Eat this. It's good for your
character. Precisely. It was nutritious music.
There's one other performance location in the
notes that's actually quite poignant. It was
performed at the base hospital at Camp Jackson,
South Carolina in 1919. Ah. That one hits differently,
doesn't it? That stops you in your tracks a bit.
It really does. You imagine a hospital ward full
of wounded men recovering from the war, maybe
amputees, maybe men recovering from gas attacks.
And this song is played, America's Crusaders.
In that context, the lyrics change meaning completely.
As we go to battle isn't a literal instruction
anymore. It becomes a memory, a reflection. And
the title Crusaders becomes an honorific. Yes.
It's validating their sacrifice. It's not about
the future. It's about honoring the immediate
past. So it shows that even though the song failed
commercially, it still had utility. It still
meant something to the people who actually lived
through the crusade. That's a beautiful way to
put it. So for about a decade, the song clings
to life in these pockets. Churches, schools,
hospitals. But eventually, the Jazz Age wins.
Source says by the mid -1920s, the song receded
from view. It stayed in the Ditson catalog. Publishers
rarely throw things away. But it was effectively
dead. A relic. Just another piece of paper in
a filing cabinet. So now we fast forward. We
jump 20 years. It's 1946. World War II has just
ended. A whole new war. Charles Fontaine Manny
is an old man now. And he does something that
on the surface makes absolutely no sense. He
renews the copyright. He renews the copyright.
Why? Why pay to protect a song that hasn't sold
a copy in 20 years? It does seem strange. Was
it vanity? Just an old man holding on to his
glory days? Or did he think, hey, World War III
is around the corner. Let's get ready. I doubt
he was betting on World War III. But remember,
Manny was a businessman. He was an editor. He
understood intellectual property. Maybe he just
followed procedure. Or maybe he had a hunch.
Maybe. Because three years later, in 1949, this
forgotten orphan song gets the biggest break
imaginable. It goes from the dusty archives of
Oliver Ditson. To the newest, most explosive
medium on the planet. Television. We're talking
about the documentary series Crusade in Europe.
And this wasn't just some small show. This was
a cultural event. It was based on General Dwight
D. Eisenhower's book about World War II. This
was the definitive visual record of the war for
the American public. Everyone was watching this.
Everyone. And the producers need music. They
need a theme. They could have hired a contemporary
composer to write something modern, something
cinematic, but they didn't. No, they went digging
and they found America's Crusaders. And the source
says the song was sung in part at the start and
at the finish of the documentary. It bookended
the entire experience. Think about the title
match. Eisenhower's book is Crusade in Europe.
Manny's song is America's Crusaders. It's almost
too perfect. It really is. It's linguistic fate.
But it's more than just the title, isn't it?
Yeah. It goes back to that cultivated slow march
style we talked about earlier. Exactly. If you're
making a serious documentary about the liberation
of Europe, about the Holocaust, about D -Day.
You don't want bouncy 1940s swing music. You
don't want the Andrews sisters singing Boogie
Woogie Bugle Boy. No, you want gravity. You want
that upper class church anthem vibe. You want
exactly what Manny wrote in 1918. The stiffness
that made the song fail in the jazz age was exactly
what made it perfect for a 1949 history documentary.
It sounded timeless. It sounded like history
itself. It's just incredible irony. In 1918,
the song failed because the war ended too soon.
In 1949, it succeeded because the war was over
and we were looking back at it with reverence.
The context completely changed the value of the
art. Same notes, same lyrics. But in 1918, it
was bad timing. In 1949, it was definitive. And
Manny lived to see it. He did. He renewed that
copyright in 46. The show aired in 49. He saw
his failure become the soundtrack for the victory
of the next generation. I wonder if he felt vindicated.
He must have. It validates the quality of the
work. It proves that the song wasn't bad. It
was just early. Or maybe it was just waiting
for the right technology. That's the key, isn't
it? It was waiting for television, a medium that
didn't even exist when the notes were put on
the page. It really makes you rethink the concept
of a failed piece of art. America's Crusaders
was a commercial flop, but culturally. It ended
up defining the memory of World War II for millions
of people, so... Was it a failure? It's a survivor.
It hibernated. And it's a great reminder that
orphan doesn't mean dead. This Wikipedia article
we found, it has no links pointing to it. It
sits there alone. But the subject of the article,
it connects everything. It connects WWI to WWI.
Sheet music to television. The Boston elite to
high schoolers in Maine. It's like a secret thread
running through the first half of the 20th century.
Exactly. And if we hadn't looked at this orphan,
we would have missed that thread completely.
It makes me look at the digital world a little
differently. I mean, we generate so much content
today, podcasts, blogs, videos, memes, and so
much of it just vanishes into the feed. It gets
orphaned by the algorithm in about 24 hours.
Right. We assume that if something doesn't go
viral immediately, it has no value. We judge
success by the speed of the reaction. But the
story of America's Crusaders suggests that's
just the wrong metric. It is. Maybe the value
of a piece of work isn't determined in the first
week or even the first decade. Which leads to
a pretty wild thought to wrap this up. If America's
crusaders had to wait 30 years for the invention
of television to find its true purpose, what
is out there right now, sitting in a database,
orphaned and ignored, waiting for a technology
we haven't even invented yet? That is the question.
Maybe there's a piece of digital art or some
strange blog post or a piece of code that looks
useless to us today. But in 2050, when we have,
I don't know, neural implants or holographic
projection, it becomes the defining masterpiece
of the era. It's entirely possible. The next
America's Crusaders is probably sitting on a
server right now gathering digital dust, just
waiting for its moment. Context is everything.
We just have to be patient enough to let it arrive.
So, next time you fall down a Wikipedia rabbit
hole and land on a page with no links, don't
just click away. There might be a ghost in the
machine waiting to tell you a hell of a story.
Thanks for taking the deep dive with us. Always
a pleasure to connect the dots.