Smile, Smile, Smile

The centennial commemoration of the start of the First World War has brought to the fore some of the music of that war, including an unsung gem that could well be the greatest fight song of all time. (Granted, it’s not exactly unsung, since it’s a song. And the BBC recently praised it for its musical qualities. But the song, “Pack Up Your Troubles,” has yet to be appreciated for its matchless galvanizing effect as pure language. And not really matchless, either, since it calls for a match.)

Here’s the familiar chorus:

Pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag and smile, smile, smile. While you’ve a lucifer to light your fag, smile boys, that’s the style. What’s the use of worrying? It never was worthwhile. So pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag and smile, smile, smile.

This verse and its surrounding narrative, winner of a contest in 1915 for a patriotic song, may have single-handedly kept morale alive in the British Army till the Yanks finally arrived in 1918.

How so? Well, first of all, the sentences have muscle. Plain statements require no action, but there’s only one of those. Questions require a verbal answer, and there’s one of those. But commands demand action on the part of listeners, and there are nine of them in those four brief lines, seven of them smile.

Furthermore, smile is strategically placed at the ends of the first and last lines, accompanied by music that gives it extra emphasis. And phonetically, not to get too complicated, the consonants and the vowel of smile encourage opening your mouth in—a smile.

The second and third lines provide lengthier statements as an interlude between the triple smiles. The second in particular strikes us with the force of now-obsolete 19th century slang. Lucifer: the devil you say. And fag: we’ve given that a new meaning nowadays. Translating that phrase to simple “While you’ve a match to light your cigarette” wouldn’t convey the same slangy camaraderie. That line finishes off, literally, with style.

The third line examines an alternative to the smile. “What’s the use of worrying?” is an idiom, and a rhetorical question at that, but the song chooses to answer it and dismisses it quietly.

And that, with unvarying rhyme at the end of each line, leads to the rousing repetition of the first line, this time with the knowledge of how to do it (line 2) and why (line 3).

The song’s effectiveness comes from those seven commands to smile. It’s a concrete action, and everyone can do it without hesitation, even if a lucifer isn’t at hand. How can you not feel better when you take a moment to smile?

You can compare its impact with that of another more recent song with the same message that begins:

Here’s a little song I wrote You might want to sing it note for note Don’t worry be happy In every life we have some trouble When you worry you make it double Don’t worry, be happy …

Ain’t got no cash, ain’t got no style Ain’t got no girl to make you smile But don’t worry be happy ‘Cause when you worry Your face will frown And that will bring everybody down

So don’t worry, be happy

No disrespect meant to Bobby McFerrin, but his song has the psychology wrong. It dwells on specific causes of unhappiness, while “Pack Up Your Troubles” tells you not to give them a thought.

There’s much more that could be noted in praise of “Pack Up”: the three stanzas forming a framing narrative about a certain “Private Perks, a funny little codger with a smile” for one, and the choice of “old kit-bag” for another. But this column is getting too long, and anyhow, you ought to just take a listen to the 1918 Columbia recording on YouTube:

Anybody got a lucifer?