This is the piano music for a march based on the sentimental favourite at the start of war in 1914, Your King and Country Want You, written by Paul Rubens who wrote the lyrics and music for many popular pre-war musicals including Mr Popple (of Ippleton) (1905), The Dairymaids (1906), Miss Hook of Holland (1907) and The Sunshine Girl (1912). A prolific author, lyricist and composer, Rubens' career was cut short by his early death from consumption at the age of 41 in 1917. Your King and Country Want You was notably used as a means of persuading young men to enlist for military service in 1914. The veteran theatrical performer Vesta Tilley often performed the song at recruitment rallies; men who declined to enlist at the end of these were invariably handed white feathers by children chosen for the task. The lyrics of the original song inclkuded the well-known lines:

Oh, we don't want to lose you but we think you ought to go.
For your King and your country both need you so.
We shall want you and miss you
But with all our might and main
We shall cheer you, thank you, bless you
When you come home again.

The profits from the sale of the music sheets were to be given to Queen Mary's Work for Women Fund.