Oh! How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning

The commanding officer of Camp Upton in eastern Long Island took an interest in Berlin's talents and assigned him to write and produce a fundraising benefit to raise funds for a new visitors' center at the base.

How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning" without commercial intent, it eventually appeared in three different Broadway shows, including Ziegfeld Follies of 1918, and the film This Is the Army.

[4] After achieving fame as a songwriter, he acquired United States citizenship in early 1918 with the expectation that his medical history and age of 30 would exempt him from his final year of draft eligibility.

The buglers were unable to comply because it exceeded the range of their instruments, so the oblivious officer ordered them to practice Cohan's song.

[2] So during an era when popular songs about war praised its heroism, Berlin instead gave voice to the subversive impulses shared by ordinary soldiers.

[2] The lyrics begin with a mundane recounting of a newly recruited soldier's camp life and progress to hyperbole as he describes a series of increasingly absurd plans to escape from morning reveille.

How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning" in the 1938 movie Alexander's Ragtime Band and in 1938 Alice Faye and Ethel Merman also sang the song at the Roxy Theatre in New York City.

"[8] George M. Cohan may have conveyed the spirit of the aggressive patriotism in his rousing "Over There", but it was Berlin who caught the more human emotions of the lowly soldier in such poignant pieces as "Oh, How I Hate to Get Up In the Morning" and "Kitchen Police" ...[17][18][12] The show was extended twice and exceeded its fundraising goal of $35,000.

[2] Estimates of the proceeds range from $83,000 to over $158,000, but the planned visitor center was never built because the war ended shortly afterward and Berlin was never informed what happened to the money.

How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning" in the 1942 stage play This Is The Army, which ran for 113 performances on Broadway and was adapted as a Warner Brothers musical the following year.

[13] The number was filmed in late afternoon when he expected his voice to be at its best, but an internal studio memo still reported, "Irving Berlin is no singer.

All I do is sing "Hate to Get Up in the Morning" as I did in the show, but the camera is a severe judge and I am afraid even with the great amount of care and fuss they can't improve what the Fates decreed to be a homely face.