Where Do We Go from Here, Boys

Where Do We Go from Here, Boys? is a recurring refrain in U.S.A.’s Newsreels, where its repeated question punctuates a collage of headlines, news fragments, advertising slogans, and popular-song lyrics. Its significance lies less in an answer than in its placement: the question returns amid public events and institutional forces, giving the montage a persistent note of uncertainty.

Appearance in the Newsreels

The refrain appears in two clusters in the supplied passages, each printed twice in succession. In both, the text varies the wording: first “Where do we go from here boys,” then “Where do we go from here?” The shorter version drops the address to “boys,” while the question itself remains. Repetition makes the line function like a refrain within the rapidly changing material around it.

Headlines Around the Refrain

In one cluster, the question follows a passage on the Department of Justice, draft refusal, anarchists, and Wall Street, along with a headline about finished steel. It is followed by headlines about wild ducks flying over Paris and the fertilizer industry being stimulated by war. The movement from political repression and industry to the repeated question and then to further headlines leaves no single subject in control of the sequence.

In the other cluster, the refrain follows a headline describing an ancient city in gloom and Sunday church bells being stilled. After the two versions of the question, the text shifts to the heading for Richard Ellsworth Savage’s narrative. The line therefore sits at a junction between public montage and an individual life, without supplying a resolution to the uncertainty it voices.

Form and Effect

The book describes the Newsreels as interruptions assembled from contemporary headlines, fragments of news stories, advertising, and popular lyrics, arriving in a rapid, percussive fashion. The refrain participates in that method: its recurrence gives the collage a recognizable verbal hook, while its unanswered question contrasts with the apparent certainty of headline declarations. Its return does not explain what comes next; instead, it makes uncertainty recur alongside the changing reports of war, commerce, and public life.