American music during World War II

American music during World War II was considered to be popular music that was enjoyed during the late 1930s (the end of the Great Depression) through the mid-1940s (through the end of World War II).

Summary
By 1940, 80% of American households would own a radio; making American music easier to listen to as opposed to the World War I era.

One notable example of a wartime radio song was the iconic World War II song Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy. An article published in Stars & Stripes, as well as Billboard Magazine and the Cleveland Plain Dealer, during WWII credited Clarence Zylman of Muskegon, Michigan, as the original Boogie Woogie Bugler. The lyrics in the song agreed with several aspects of Zylman's life. Drafted at age 38, Clarence had been performing for 20 years, beginning with radio stations in Chicago and moving on to several big bands, most recently, the Tommy Tucker Orchestra. He brought his playing style to England where he was a company bugler, eventually being transferred to an army band. Other popular songs played during World War II were: Shoo Shoo Baby, I'm Making Believe, I'll Be Seeing You, and I'll Be Home for Christmas.

Swing music was also another notable example of wartime radio music. Even Nazi Germany fielded some swing music bands despite Hitler's objections to "decadent Western music. " After the end of World War II, this music escalated until the paranoia of the Cold War made this kind of music irrelevant after the Soviet menace (under Joseph Stalin) replaced the Nazi menace (under Adolf Hitler). Lawrence Welk would later play this kind of music on The Lawrence Welk Show. Jazz music would also become part of the "cultural war" that raged alongside the actual fighting of World War II. Having its roots in African-American music, the racist Nazi regime had declared it to be "inhuman music" and banned it in all of occupied Europe. The local musicians of Paris, France chose to play jazz music in French rather than in English as a loophole in the Nazi jazz music ban. Rebellious German kids would meet in secret locations and listen to Allied music stations to hear jazz music behind the Gestapo's metaphorical back. This generation of German kids saw jazz music as a "religion worth fighting for. "