WWI songs

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Recorded sound was used extensively during World War 1, as propagandists quickly seized upon this emerging medium's potential to reach large, diverse audiences. For its part, America's music industry churned out a steady stream of war-related songs, many of which were penned by leading Tin Pan Alley composers, such as Irving Berlin and George M. Cohan. Featuring lyrics that were, by turns, sentimental, comic, heroic, xenophobic, or chauvinistic, recordings of these songs performed by popular artists of the day sold in the hundreds of thousands.