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Strike Up the Band is a 1927 musical with a book by Morrie Ryskind, lyrics by Ira Gershwin and music by George Gershwin. It first ran as a satirical show in Philadelphia that year, unsuccessfully, and on Broadway in 1930 after the original book by George S. Kaufman was revised by Ryskind. The show concerned a cheese manufacturer who sponsors a war against Switzerland because it will be named after him. Much of the satire of the 1927 version was replaced in the new version by silliness, leading Ryskind to recall, "What I had to do, in a sense, was to rewrite War and Peace for the Three Stooges." In the 1930 version the opening of Act I of the musical was reset from a cheese factory to a chocolate factory, and much of the work was a re-imagined as occurring during a dream sequence.
1930 Broadway
Strike Up the Band the Musical Lyrics
Act I
1. Fletcher's American Chocolate Choral Society
2. I Mean to Say
3. Typical Self-Made American
4. Soon
5. A Man of High Degree
6. The Unofficial Spokesman
7. Three Cheers for the Union
8. This Could Go On For Years
9. If I Became President
10. Soon (Reprise)
11. (What's the Use of) Hanging Around with You?
12. He Knows Milk
13. Strike Up the Band
Act II
1. In the Rattle of the Battle
2. Military Dancing Drill
3. Mademoiselle from New Rochelle
4. I've Got a Crush on You
5. (How About a Boy) Like Me?
6. Official Resume
7. Ring a Ding Dong Bell (Ding Dong)
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