Here Europe learned to fire French machine guns prior to moving into the active trenches. We are proud to think our boys were the first Negro Americans in the trenches. Jim Europe was certainly the first Negro officer in. But senior officers realized that a top-quality band was invaluable for troop morale, so in August 1918 Lieutenant Europe and his musicians were ordered back from the front. The speed with which Europe wrote the song after an actual attack is remarkable, and little time was wasted before this was recorded.
Nothing is romanticized.
Lyrics give listeners some sense of what being in No Man's Land was like. Very good, Eddie. Nothing in American popular song at that time was quite like this. All of Europe's musicians participate in recreating the chaos of battle. Although the title expresses the pride of victorious soldiers, this is really a love song.