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A goodbye to the real G.I. Jo Stafford

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  • Originally published July 23, 2008 at 10:37 p.m., updated July 23, 2008 at 10:37 p.m.

I’ll find you in the morning sun

and when the night is new

I’ll be looking at the moon

but I’ll be seeing you.

Irving Kahal/Sammy Fain

‘I’ll Be Seeing You’

Sung by Jo Stafford

The World War II-era songs sung by Jo Stafford (and “I’ll Be Seeing You” is one of my favorites) are among my earliest musical memories, and they can touch me today just as they did when I was a small boy.

She was a favorite with my older sisters, and I can remember them winding up the old Victrola to play one of her standards. I, too, grew to love her incredibly smooth and melodic voice.

It was with genuine sadness that I read of her death earlier this week.

To the boys overseas during World War II, a few years before I ever heard her sing, she was “G.I. Jo,” because she brought such beautiful memories of home to the guys in the trenches of Europe and the troops and sailors slugging it out from one end of the Pacific to the other.

And, just a few years later, she sang to the ones who fought the Korean War.

When Jo Stafford sang “I’ll Walk Alone,” it was a promise to those who fought those wars that when they returned home, their true love would be waiting for them.

“I’ll walk alone,

but to tell you the truth I’ll be lonely;

I don’t mind being lonely

when my heart tells me you are lonely, too.

Her soothing lilt and the passionate and loving lyrics of her time stand in stark contrast to the angry, explosive words to the songs of the Vietnam era. While I don’t judge the songs of the early ’70s, I just know that Jo Stafford sange to an earlier generation, a nation united in a single cause – to defeat the Axis powers of Germany, Italy and Japan.

Jo Stafford helped win World War II, because she filled our soldiers, sailors and airmen with hope – hope that what they were fighting for was worth it.

Even on that old Victrola that I listened to as a small boy, somehow I knew she was a special singer, a special person.

I’m so happy she’ll live a long, long time in her music.

Jim Bishop is a senior editor for the Advocate. Leave him a message at 361-574-1210 or jbishop@vicad.com or comment on this column at www.victoriaadvocate.com



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