Soundtrack to War

What would you listen to if you were a soldier? I imagine iPods are discouraged from the trenches, but there must be some opportunity to listen to music whilst at war.

Last night, I watched part of the documentary Soundtrack to War, by George Gittoes. The film explores the influence of music amongst the soldiers fighting in Iraq. There was unsurprisingly, a lot of heavy metal and rap to be heard blasting from the tank stereo.
A lot of angry music, which I suppose, makes sense if you're trying to kill people. Unfortunately, none of the soldiers that were interviewed were listening to "wartime classics". You know, the type of music with crackly muted trumpets and quivery grandpa vocals. Surely it's the obvious choice if you're at war? "It's wartime and I'm in the mood for a classic...shall we put on some Slayer or...some wartime classics?"
"Fire up the gramophone old boy!"

I would like to do an experiment on the war in Iraq (well, any war will do). Ideally, I'd like to stop the war if I could, but an experiment will do for now. The experiment would involve: confiscating (or destroying) the soldiers' music collections and replacing them with some quality wartime tunes. Out with the Metallica rubbish and in with some George Gershwin (he's wartime isn't he?). I wonder what would happen... Perhaps the soldiers would become more relaxed, start slow dancing. Or maybe they would snap, due to Slipknot withdrawals and commit a few warcrimes. Hopefully it would be the former, for my sake. I'm not sure how feasible this experiment is. I'd want gramophones. If you're going to listen to wartime classics you've got to do it properly. My request would be a gramophone on top of each tank. I'd ban helicopters because they're too loud. I'd mute the guns. Of course you'd want the sound of gunfire in the background but it might overrule the sound of the classics. Surely I can't be the only one to think this is a great idea?
If you're not sold on it yet, have a listen to these wartime classics and then tell me you wouldn't like to hear them blasting out of a gramophone-mounted tank.
Andrews Sisters - Don't Sit Under The Apple Tree
Al Jolson - Four Leaf Clover/Babyface

And here is an article about Wagner's influence on Hitler.

Introduction

Hello to anybody that may be reading this. Yes, I have started a blog. A music blog, to be precise. I, like many people, listen to a lot of music and I find myself thinking a great deal about it. Recently I had a sudden urge to write these thoughts down and where better to do so than here? Part of the inspiration for this was from Nick Hornby's book '31 Songs' (a collection of essays about songs) which, upon reading it, drew from me the reaction that "this is exactly what I think about". I don't want to rip off the book though. I've credited it (and I recommend it - it's a good read) but hopefully there will be a limited number of suspicious parallels between Hornby's book and this blog.

I'm quite self-conscious about writing a blog. In fact I can't even type the word "blog" without experiencing an internal cringe. I actually had to re-type the word just then; due to the cringe...I'd initially typed "lbog" which I believe is French (L'Bog - literally "a lake of poo"). Anyway, the point is that I'm a little bit ashamed of myself for starting a blog, a feeling that will either disappear or get worse as I continue (I've already been completely ridiculed for this blog, even before I'd finished the first post! If anyone sees Tim Hansard, give him a swift kick to the buttocks). I'm not going to write about myself - there are more than enough of these types of blogs at the moment. I'm not planning to get an Internet girlfriend/boyfriend/transgenderedfriend. No, this blog will be about music; my reflexions on different songs, artists, styles and anything else that falls within this framework.
Please leave comments if you like!