The songs of World War 1 often speak of disillusionment, bitterness, boredom and a very dark sense of humour, says Scottish folk singer and producer Ian McCalman.
He says there was no talk of heroics in the songs the soldiers were singing in the trenches or in the music halls back in Blighty.
"Another surprise was that there were very few songs with any animosity towards the Germans, who they were fighting," says McCalman.
"It was quite unbelievable that the wrath of the soldiers was directed at their own Command."
Last week, England's education secretary Michael Gove sparked a heated debate when he hit out at "left-wing academics" and TV comedies and dramas which had led people to view the conflict as a "misbegotten shambles - a series of catastrophic mistakes perpetrated by an out-of-touch elite".
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