John McCutcheon ~~ "Christmas in the Trenches"

Garth Brooks has bought his oh-so-sincere whine to a new release for Christmas called "Belleau Wood," about an alleged rapprochement between German and American troops in that famed forest. It must have been the winter of 1917, cuz the war ended in Nov. '18.

It's not that I doubt the tale, exactly. It's just that, well I'd never heard it before, but I had/have heard John McCutcheon talk about and sing his trenchant (sigh) ballad, Christmas in the Trenches, about a real event in the FIRST winter of the war, the first Christmas, in 1915, when it all might yet have ended.

"My name is Francis Tolliver, in Liverpool I dwell
Each Christmas come since World War I, I've learned its lessons well
That the ones who call the shots won't be among the dead and lame
And on each end of the rifle we're the same...

"