The sarcastic poem is a parody of the soldier's song "So Leben wir", which was widespread at the time and was sung to the melody of the Dessau March. It first appeared in Zurich in 1916, in Der Revoluzzer. Socialist Education and Entertainment Newspaper. “I realized very quickly that my means of expression, if I wanted to be serious, would not be up to the pomp of my staging. […] Then I noticed that my voice, which remained no other way, took on the age-old cadence of priestly lamentation, that style of mass chant that laments through the Catholic churches of the East and West.” Diary on June 23, 1916 .