"The Rose of No Man's Land" (or in French ) is a song written as a tribute to the

Red Cross The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is a Humanitarianism, humanitarian movement with approximately 97 million Volunteering, volunteers, members and staff worldwide. It was founded to protect human life and health, to ensure re ...

nurses at the front lines of the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. Music publisher

Leo Feist Leopold Feist (January 3, 1869, New York City – June 21, 1930, Mount Vernon, New York), in 1897 founded and ran a music publishing firm bearing his name. In the 1920s, at the height of the golden age of popular music, his firm was among the seve ...

published a version in 1918 as "La rose sous les boulets", with French lyrics by Louis Delamarre (in a "patriotic" format – four pages at , to conserve paper). A version with English lyrics by

Jack Caddigan Jack Caddigan (September 21, 1879 — January 1, 1952) was a Boston lyricist who is credited with the words to over fifty songs written between 1911 and 1922. Biography John Joseph (“Jack”) Caddigan was born to Michael Caddigan (sometimes sp ...

and

James Alexander Brennan James Alexander Brennan (November 18, 1885 – August 24, 1956) was an American songwriter. Sometimes identified as Jas. H. Brennan, he collaborated with lyricist Jack Caddigan (1879–1952) on several songs published by Leo Feist and Oliver E. ...

was published by Jack Mendelsohn Music in 1945 (two pages).

Herman Darewski Herman Darewski (17 April 1883 – 2 June 1947) was a British composer and conductor of light music. His most successful work was perhaps ''The Better 'Ole'', which ran for over 800 performances in its original London production in 1917. Some o ...

and others also published versions in 1918 and 1945. While the main published versions were for piano and voice, other versions were arranged for band, orchestra or male quartette. Mechanicals for the

phonograph A phonograph, in its later forms also called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as a generic name in the UK since 1910) or since the 1940s called a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogu ...

and

player piano A player piano (also known as a pianola) is a self-playing piano containing a pneumatic or electro-mechanical mechanism, that operates the piano action via programmed music recorded on perforated paper or metallic rolls, with more modern i ...

were also released.

English lyrics

Written by Jack Caddigan and James Alexander Brennan:

French lyrics

Written by Louis Delamarre:

References

In Jacqueline Winspear's novel "Maisie Dobbs", the title character sings this song to a group of badly disfigured veterans of World War I in England. In John Steinbeck's novel "East of Eden", Cal Trask sings a line of this song to himself while walking through Salinas.
(sheet music) at Duke University
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rose of No Man's Land 1918 songs Songs of World War I Songs with lyrics by Jack Caddigan