Warbirds, a segue

Down in the meadow in a little bitty pool
Swam three little fishies and a mama fishie too
"Swim" said the mama fishie, "Swim if you can"
And they swam and they swam all over the dam.

Young folks think that it is just a kids' song. But that's probably because it's been performed by lots of people. The Andrews Sisters sang it. Shari Lewis and lamb chop sang it. One of the early Dr Whos, John Pertwee, sang it. There was even a doo wop version.

And the even older remember when it was a real chart buster, circa 1939.

That song was written by Saxie Dowel. Saxie was a sax player, of course, who formed a band that became assimilated as a U.S. Naval Band in the early days of WWII. The band became one of the most famous in history for staying on its set list even while the aircraft carrier the band was serving on was in the process of sinking.

• I am not making this up, even though I was a sax player.
• I would have abandoned ship at the first opportunity.
• I would immediately have switched instruments with the drummer. (Drums float guy!)
  

It was performed by many artists, but became big in the version sung by Ish Kabibble. Ish, whose real name was Merwyn Bogue, studied law at West Virginia University, but decided to go into music instead. (Those days, musicians could make a better living than lawyers. What a great age!) Ish played trumpet and sang with Kay Kyser's Kollege of Musical Knowledge.

Anyway, during WWII, the Germans recorded probably the weirdest version of three little fishies ever. Listen to this recording of Three Little Fishies done by Charlie and His orchestra, a German propaganda orchestra during WWII.

Charlie and his Orchestra

It's a real audio file. Size: 528k bytes.

• You will need real player to listen to it.
  
• Click on the link to just play it.
  
• Right click to download it.
  

Propaganda comes in all shapes and forms. The only difference I see is that during WWII, only the Germans were recording anti-US songs.