Forever Blowing Bubbles

Blowing bubbles‘ by Jaan Kenbrovin & John William Kellette. Published by Salabert (Paris, 1919). Cover illustrated by Roger De Valerio.

Last week our home town football club AA Gent crashed out of the quarter-finals of the EUFA Europa Conference League at the hands of West Ham United. The anthem of this London-based Premier League club is the American song Blowing Bubbles, originally written in 1918.

Sheet music cover for ''I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles' by John William Kellette & Jaan Kenbrovin
I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles‘ by John William Kellette & Jaan Kenbrovin. Publisher Jerome Remick (New York). Left version illustrated by Starmer (s.d.). Right version is unsigned (1929).

The music was co-authored by John Kellette and Jaan Kenbrovin, a collective pseudonym for James Kendis, James Brockman and Nat Vincent.

Blowing bubbles‘ by Jaan Kenbrovin & John William Kellette, published by Karl Brüll (Berlin, 1919) and illustrated by Godal.

The song became a big hit in America and in the early 1920s made its way into European music halls where it was performed by major singers and bands.

Blowing bubbles‘ by Jaan Kenbrovin & John William Kellette, published by Ernst Rolf (Stockholm, 1919) and illustrated by Alfred Proessdorf.

If one would argue that graphical quality —or illustrative DNA— is very different for each country (or more simply said, that each region in the world has its own more or less unique illustration style) then the various covers shown here for the same song around the same period perfectly illustrate this point.

‘I’m forever Blowing bubbles‘ by Jaan Kenbrovin & John William Kellette , published by B. Feldman & C° (London, 1919).

The official version of how West Ham fans came to adopt this song revolves around a schoolboy and a soap ad for Pears in the early 1920s. But this dubious claim cannot be proven as the first recording of West Ham fans singing Blowing Bubbles was not before 1940, when West Ham won the Football League War Cup Final.

Czech sheet music cover for 'Bubliny'
Bubliny‘ by Jaan Kenbrovin & John William Kellette, published by Accord, Hudebni nakladatelstvi (Praha, 1921), and illustrated by Leo Heilbrunn

In 1980 the English punk rock band Cockney Rejects reimagined the romantic Boston Waltz into a thuggish raw Oi!-version to celebrate their beloved club winning the FA Cup Final.

Their mimed performance for Top of the Pops with the lead singer clad in the West-Ham colours (claret and sky blue) ended with the teenagers running around the BBC building and causing mischief. Following this incident the BBC banned the group from performing, some calling it an unfair punishment.

The group was closely affiliated with the team’s notorious hooligan firm and they provoked violence wherever they performed. According to the Guardian a Cockney Rejects’ 1980 performance in Birmingham was “the most violent gig in British history“, which also meant the end of their career as a live band.

Anyway, I’m sure our Gent players, aka the Buffalos, were not happy to hear this song in the stadium… Oi, sorry mates!

I’m forever blowing bubbles,
Pretty bubbles in the air,
They fly so high,
They reach the sky,
And like my dreams they fade and die!

The Lady In The Moon

Sheet music cover of 'Luna-Foxtrot' by Sydney Ward (Siegwart Ehrlich). Published by Elkan & Schildknecht, Emil Carelius (Stockholm, 1920) and illustrated by Wolfgang Ortmann
Luna-Foxtrot‘ by Sydney Ward (Siegwart Ehrlich). Published by Elkan & Schildknecht, Emil Carelius (Stockholm, 1920) and illustrated by Wolfgang Ortmann.
Dooley-Dooley-Do‘ by Sterling Sherwin, published by Sherman, Clay & Co (San Francisco, 1929). Photomontage by unknown illustrator.
Prismes Lunaires‘ by Hedwige Chrétien, lyrics by L. Fortolis, published by Alphonse Leduc (Paris, 1903) & illustrated by G. Lhuer
Berceuse aux Etoiles‘ by J. Vercolier, Henri Darsay and Fernand Disle, published by the composer (Paris, 1909), illustrated cover signed ‘Grégoire’
Miss Moonbeam‘ by Torsten Paban, published by Elkan & Schildknecht, Emil Carelius (Stockholm, 1921) and illustrated by Eric Rohman
Tu Estrella‘ by I. A. Barsanti, published by Breyer Hermanos (Buenos Aires, s.d.). Cover signed with monogram CM
A Runaway Girl‘ by Warwick Williams, published by Chappell & Co Ltd (London, 1898). Cover illustration by W. George
Une Femme sur la Lune‘ by Willy Schmidt-Gentner and Fritz Rotter (french lyrics: André Mauprey), published by Max Eschig & Cie (Paris, 1930). Cover illustrated by Würth
Silver Stars‘ by Carl Bohm, published by De Luxe Music Co (New York, s.d.). Unknown illustrator
Frau Luna‘, potpourri by Paul Lincke. Published by Apollo Verlag Paul Lincke (Berlin, 1899). Unknown illustrator
Le Voyage dans la Lune‘ by Georges Méliès (1902) — Music by David Short – Billi Brass Quintet

The Listless Lipsi from Leipzich

Tančíme lipsi — Dobrý den, lipsi!‘, two dances composed by Willibald Winkler and Dušan Pálka. Published by Státní nakladatelství krásně literatury, hudby a umění (Prague, 1959). Sheet music cover illustrated by Jaroslav Šerých.

The Lipsi wasn’t just another Fifties dance craze. It was a political statement, not by unruly teenagers but by the 66-year-old leader of post-World War II East Germany, Walter Ulbricht. The promotion of the Lipsi as a youthful dance was a cramped attempt from the communist regime to restrict the influence of Western music. Ulbricht abhorred gangs of youths who glorified rock ’n’ roll and wanted to swing wildly.

Lipsi Sonderheft – Alle Tanzen‘, album published by VEB Lied der Zeit (Berlin, s.d.), illustrated by Dietrich (source: albis-international)

In 1959, just two years before he would build the Berlin wall, Ulbricht declared that in order to counter Western excesses “It is not enough to condemn capitalist decadence in words, to battle against pulp literature and bourgeois habits and to criticise ‘hot music’ and the ‘ecstatic songs’ of a Presley. No, we have to offer a better alternative.”

It was orchestra leader and composer René Dubianski who came up with that politically correct alternative by merging a Latin-American cha-cha-cha with a German waltz. The dance teachers Christa and Helmut Seifert created suitable and easy steps so that everyone could follow them. They named the dance by adapting the Latin name for Leipzig: Lipsia.

Ulbricht hoped that the Lipsi would not only put an end to the supposed western decadence but also would become an international success. That’s why the regime strongly promoted the new dance and —anticipating a huge success— even patented it worldwide. Eine tolle Idee!

In an attempt to appeal to the German youngsters the DDR authorities produced an animated promotion of the Lipsi. In it the American Mister Brown, upon his return from the Leipzig Fair, enthusiastically started to teach young people in the US how to dance the Lipsi.

In reality, however the Lipsi did not catch on among the youth. Also in other Soviet-sphere countries like Estonia and Czechoslovakia it did not achieve its purpose. Possibly only the apparatchiks and the Politburo danced the Lipsi with enthusiasm.

A parallel story of an old, male world leader trying to stop the youthful urge for liberty, happened 45 years earlier, when pope Pius X failed to launch the Furlana as a safe but boring alternative to the tango.

Walter Ulbricht (1893 – 1973) and pope Pius X (1835 – 1914) at their desk (source: Wikimedia Commons)

To illustrate the fierceness of the attacks against Western music in general and Elvis Presley in particular, here is a quote from Junge Welt, the official newspaper of the Central Council of the communist youth organisation: “His ‘singing’ resembled his face: stupid, dull and brutal. The boy was completely unmusical (… ) and roared like a shot deer, just not as melodiously.”

You bet…

'Ceci et ça' about Illustrated Sheet Music