Something for the weekend. Would You Rather Be a Colonel with an Eagle on Your Shoulder or a Private with a Chicken On Your Knee? The American involvement in World War I produced an immense amount of music, much of it ephemeral. Thus it was with this briefly very popular tune, before it fell into deep obscurity, which claimed that privates had more fun in the Army than colonels, a tell tale sign that the lyricist, Archie Gottler, did not serve as a private in the Army. “Chicken” was 1918 slang for a young lady, a term that would later be shortened to “Chick”.
