Oh! How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning

"Oh! How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning" is a song written by Irving Berlin in 1918 that gives a comic perspective on military life. Berlin composed the song as an expression of protest against the indignities of Army routine shortly after being drafted into the United States Army in 1918. The song soon made the rounds of camp and became popular with other soldiers, partly because hatred of reveille was universal.

The commanding officer of Camp Upton in eastern Long Island took an interest in Berlin's talents and assigned him to write and produce a fundraising benefit to raise funds for a new visitors' center at the base. The show was entitled ''Yip, Yip, Yaphank'' after the Camp Upton locale in Yaphank, New York.

Although Berlin initially wrote "Oh! How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning" without commercial intent, it eventually appeared in three different Broadway shows, including '' Ziegfeld Follies of 1918'', and the film ''This Is the Army''. More than any other Irving Berlin song, it became the one most associated with Berlin as a performer.

Background

Irving Berlin was born in the Russian Empire in 1888, either in Tolochin or Tyumen, and had moved with his family to New York City in 1893. He acquired United States citizenship in early 1918 with the expectation that his medical history would exempt him from his final year of draft eligibility. So it came as an unpleasant surprise that within months Berlin was drafted and serving as a private at Camp Upton at a salary of $30 a month, far below his usual earnings. Although as a civilian he employed a private valet, as an Army private he was compelled to perform unskilled labor in support of camp operations. "There were a lot of things about army life I didn't like", said Berlin, "and the thing I didn't like most of all was reveille."

During World War I, Berlin was drafted into the United States Army's 152nd Depot Brigade shortly after he became a naturalized United States citizen in 1918. By the time he entered the service the war was in its final months and prospects for victory were steadily improving. He was assigned to a camp on eastern Long Island that was mainly an interim station for infantry troops headed overseas.

Composition

The incident that inspired Berlin to write "Oh! How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning" was an occasion when a colonel wanted a group of buglers to play George M. Cohan's "Over There". The buglers were unable to comply because it exceeded the range of their instruments, so the oblivious officer ordered them to practice Cohan's song. He wrote it as "a thin little sergeant."

Berlin's civilian work schedule had been that of a hardworking night owl, generally writing material until two or three in the morning. His efforts to adjust to military life and become a good soldier included springing out of bed obediently each morning, which earned him the resentment of fellow soldiers because he concealed his hatred of reveille too well and appeared eager to wake up in the mornings.

So during an era when popular songs about war praised its heroism, Berlin instead gave voice to the subversive impulses shared by ordinary soldiers. The lyrics begin with a mundane recounting of a newly recruited soldier's camp life and progress to hyperbole as he describes a series of increasingly absurd plans to escape from morning reveille.

:"Someday I'm going to murder the bugler,
:Someday they're going to find him dead;
:I'll amputate his reveille
:and step upon it heavily,
:and spend the rest of my life in bed."

Berlin would later describe the song as "a protest written from the heart out, absolutely without the slightest thought that it would ever earn a cent". He wrote the song before any plans for a larger production were underway and it soon gained popularity around the camp.

Production

The camp's commanding officer Major General J. Franklin Bell called Berlin into his office and asked the showman to raise funds for a new community house to lodge families of service members who visited the camp. The projected expense of the project was $35,000. At first, Berlin called in favors from civilian colleagues to visit and put on local performances to boost morale, but news of a Navy fundraising show on Broadway called '' Boom Boom'' inspired Berlin to request permission to write and stage a full Broadway production of their own.

The songwriter not only obtained permission for the show, but also received General Bell's personal permission to return to Berlin's normal creative working schedule and a special exemption from reveille. Civilian musician Harry Ruby

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