We're Going to Hang out the Washing on the Siegfried Line

"We're Going to Hang out the Washing on the Siegfried Line" is a popular song by Irish songwriter Jimmy Kennedy, written whilst he was a Captain in the British Expeditionary Force during the early stages of the Second World War, with music by Michael Carr.

At the first big wartime variety concert organized by ENSA, which was broadcast by the BBC from RAF Hendon in north London on 17 October 1939, Adelaide Hall performed the song accompanied by Mantovani and his orchestra.

A rare newsreel of this concert exists,[2] and the footage is thought to be the earliest surviving film of a performer singing the song.

[3] The song was recorded by many British musicians during the Second World War, including Arthur Askey, Flanagan and Allen, and Vera Lynn.

[4] A mocking parody was written shortly after the Battle of France by a German songwriter, with translated lines that include:[5] Yeah, my boy, you thought it would be so easy At the great Washing Day on the German Rhine.