A tearjerker – and dream songs – to remember

Harry the music man, 2012

Did you see the movie “An Affair to Remember”? Note to young people: Watch it! I saw the Cary Grant version many times in my youth. Harry discusses the movie’s music in the first of two articles below. He wrote the articles for his community newsletter in Leisure World, Silver Spring, MD.


Dec. 6, 2012 
Wishing Will Make It So

There are so many memorable songs that it’s hard to choose which one to write about each month. Sometimes I choose because the melody is stuck in my mind. Sometimes it’s because a song is associated with a person I’m thinking about. And, sometimes, like today, it’s because the lyric strikes me and I can’t let it go. Consider this couplet, for example: “Dreamers tell us dreams come true. It’s no mistake. And wishes are the dreams we dream when we’re awake.” Let that thought roll around in your mind for a while. I think it’s one of the most profound thoughts ever expressed in popular music lyrics.

What brought it to mind was that I caught a glimpse of an old movie, while surfing on TV recently, called “An Affair to Remember”. It starred Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr. A real tearjerker. Well, that movie was made in 1957 (good grief, more than 50 years ago). But that movie was a remake of an older movie called “Love Affair” that was made in 1939 (good grief, more than 70 years ago). It featured Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer in the starring roles. In the original movie, Irene Dunne sang the “wishing” song, written especially for that movie, words and music by Buddy DeSylva – the Tin Pan Alley/Hollywood songwriter I’ve talked about in previous columns. That movie, by the way, was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Writing, Best Original Story, Best Art Direction and Best Original Song.

Just to prove that Hollywood knows a good thing when it sees it, it tried another remake in 1994 with another “Love Affair” starring Warren Beatty and Annette Benning. Same storyline, etc. I didn’t see that one. Two out of three is enough. Anyway, it was Irene Dunne who got me started on wishing and dreaming and marveling at lyrics that made sense.

Wishing (Lyric)

Wishing will make it so, Just keep on wishing, and cares will go. Dreamers tell us dreams come true. It’s no mistake. And wishes are the dreams we dream, when we’re awake. The curtain of night will part, If you are certain, Within your heart. So if you wish long enough, wish strong enough, You will come to know. Wishing will make it so.


March 19, 2013
Once In a While

Usually, a successful songwriter has several big hits to his credit. Rarely do you hear of a writer with only one big hit, but once in a while, one comes along. His name was Michael Edwards and his one really big hit was “Once In a While”, published in 1937. Tommy Dorsey’s recording that year went to Number One in the country and Patti Page’s recording some fifteen years later, in 1952, also hit the top of the charts. Again, in 1968, Ella Fitzgerald also had a big hit with her recording; Elkie Brooks had a big hit with it in 1984; and Eddie Vetter did it again in 2011. So, it’s still being heard now and then – once in a while. Michael Edwards was a classical violinist, organist and music arranger, and this song was his one and only major composition.

The lyricist, Bud Green, on the other hand, had written many lyrics and had collaborated with a great many composers and other writers, including Buddy DeSylva, Les Brown, Ray Henderson, Al Dubin, Harry Warren, and others. Among his most successful songs was “Alabamy Bound”, “That’s My Weakness Now”, “I’ll Always Be In Love With You”, “Flat Foot Floogie With a Floy, Floy”, “Sentimental Journey”, and many others. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1975. 

Like so many other American songwriters, Bud Green was born in Europe (Austria) and came here as a child. He grew up in Harlem at the beginning of the 20th Century and started writing songs when he was still in elementary school. Aside from his success as a lyricist, Bud Green became famous as a symbol of the “Flapper” era. His song “That’s My Weakness Now” became a huge hit for Helen Kane, including the phrase “Boop Boop-a-Doop”. That song and that phrase and Helen Kane’s rendition became the inspiration for Max Fleischer to create the Betty Boop cartoons that burst on the world in 1930 and that are still with us today.

Once In a While (Lyric)

Once in a while, Will you try to give one little thought to me, Though someone else may be, Nearer your heart? Once in a while, Will you dream of the moments I shared with you, Moments before we two, Drifted apart?

In love’s smoldering ember, One spark may remain, If love still can remember, The flame will burn again. I know that I’ll, Be contented with yesterday’s memory, Knowing you’ll think of me, Once in a while.

Copyright 2016, Elaine Blackman

For the love of old pop tunes, one story at a time

Harry on his 92nd birthday, June 16, 2013.

Earlier on this blog I posted some of Harry’s music-themed articles for his community newsletter in Leisure World, Silver Spring, MD. Here are two more he wrote at age 92. He would have been thrilled to know his stories would spread his love and appreciation for these songs to a wider audience.


June 17, 2013
Maybe You’ll Be There

Some songs become popular because of the melody. Some because of the lyric. And some because the lyric and the melody comprise a perfect blend. Here’s one where the words grabbed me and the melody was only secondary. It’s one of the great “torch songs” that lament a love lost and the never-ending hope that it will return. I strongly believe that this kind of song, and these words in particular, could only be written out of personal experience. The words were written by Sammy Gallop, a successful lyricist who had written the words for a great many top-rated songs, including such gems as “Elmer’s Tune”, “Holiday for Strings”, “Somewhere Along the Way”, and many others. He committed suicide in 1971, which is why I believe that this song truly reflects the anguish of a man who has lost the love of his life.

The music was composed by Rube Bloom (1902 – 1971), a multi-talented entertainer who was a music arranger, a singer, a band leader, an author and a recording artist, as well as a composer. Among his most successful songs were “Day In, Day Out”, “Fools Rush In, Where Angels Fear To Tread”, “Don’t Worry ’Bout Me”, and many others.

Many of the well-known singers of our times recorded this song, from Frank Sinatra to Diana Krall, but perhaps the best one was by the Gordon Jenkins orchestra and chorus.

Maybe You’ll Be There (Lyric)

Each time I see a crowd of people,
Just like a fool I stop and stare,
It’s really not the proper thing to do,
But maybe you’ll be there.

I go out walking after midnight,
Along a lonely thoroughfare,
It’s not the time or place to look for you,
But maybe you’ll be there.

You said your arms would always hold me,
You said your lips were mine alone to kiss,
Now after all those things you told me,
How can it end like this?

Some day if all my prayers are answered,
I’ll hear a footstep on the stair,
With anxious heart I’ll hurry to the door,
And maybe you’ll be there.


August 20, 2013
The Way You Look Tonight

My husband and I have been practicing the Fox Trot to Michael Buble’s version of the song my dad talks about here. Now we know the backstory.

In the field of popular music song-writing, which has long been dominated by men, one woman stands out. Dorothy Fields (1905 – 1974) was one of the very first successful female songwriters for both Broadway musicals and Hollywood movies. She was born into show business. Her father was Lew Fields, an immigrant from Poland who rose to stardom as a vaudeville comedian and later became a Broadway producer.

Her career as a professional songwriter began in 1928 when she started working with composer Jimmy McHugh. Together they wrote “On the Sunny Side of the Street”, “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love, Baby”, and “Exactly Like You”, among many others. In the mid-1930s she started writing lyrics for other composers, most notably Jerome Kern. She worked with him on the movie version of “Roberta” (“Smoke Gets In Your Eyes”) and, in 1936, on the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers movie “Swing Time”, for which they wrote “The Way You Look Tonight”. That song earned the team of Fields and Kern an Academy Award for Best Original Song.

Dorothy Fields wrote the lyrics for another song that Astaire and Rogers sang in “Swing Time” called “Pick Yourself Up, Dust Yourself Off and Start All Over Again”, which President Obama used in his first inaugural speech in 2009. He said, “Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and begin again the work of rebuilding America.” I wonder if he knew where that phrase originated – in a lyric by Dorothy Fields.

After her stint in Hollywood, Fields returned to New York and wrote the books for a number of Broadway shows, including “A Tree Grows In Brooklyn” with Arthur Schwartz and some of the Cole Porter shows. She also wrote the book for “Annie Get Your Gun” for which Irving Berlin wrote the music. All told, Dorothy Fields wrote more than 400 songs over a period of 50 years, and the words she wrote have been sung by every recording artist of our times. Many of her songs are still on the air waves today, including such perennial favorites as “I Won't Dance”, “Lovely To Look At”, “I Feel a Song Coming On”, that sarcastic gem of a love song “A Fine Romance”, and, one of the most often quoted love songs of all time, “I’m In The Mood for Love.”

The Way You Look Tonight (Lyric)

Some day, when I’m awfully low, when the world is cold, I will feel a glow just thinking of you, and the way you look, tonight.

Yes, you’re lovely, with your smile so warm, and your cheeks so soft, there is nothing for me but to love you, and the way you look tonight.

With each word your tenderness grows, tearing my fears apart, and that laugh that wrinkles your nose, touches my foolish heart.

Lovely, never never change, keep that breathless charm, won’t you please arrange it ’cause I love you, and the way you look tonight.

Copyright 2016, Elaine Blackman

Keeping Harry’s music alive

Harry and Jeanette (his future wife) in the heyday of Big Band music

For most of his adult life, Harry wrote columns in local papers and newsletters, outside of his writing career in the Pentagon. What I didn’t know is that he pitched yet another series of articles at age 92, which he titled “The Music Corner”, at his last residence, Riderwood Village in Silver Spring, MD. He emailed the first article below to an editor there, but she rejected it. (A famous movie quote comes to mind: “Big mistake. Big. Huge.”) After my dad passed away in May 2014, we donated almost his entire music collection to the Riderwood Village library.


April 5, 2014
The Music Corner

Most of us here at Riderwood are old enough to remember the popular music of the World War II era. Many of us actually lived through the turbulent 1930s and ’40s, and those who came along soon afterwards have heard the songs of those days on the radio, in concerts and TV performances. I have been collecting the music of that era for the past half century and have amassed more than 15 thousand recordings featuring the big bands and the legendary performers who entertained us over the years. They are all on CD albums, which I’d gladly share with anyone interested.

Meanwhile, I’d like to share some of the background information I’ve accumulated regarding the songs, the composers, the lyricists and the performers. These kinds of stories may not be directly related to activities here at Riderwood, but there is certainly a high degree of interest here in popular music and the “big bands” in particular.

Just a year ago, for example, a singer named Clara Ann Fowler passed away, and while not many were aware of her death by her real name, everybody took note of it by her stage name – Patti Page. She was one of many performers dubbed Patti Page by the Page Milk Company, which featured her on its fifteen-minute radio show, but she kept that name permanently and went on to make it famous. She was only 18 when she started, shortly after she graduated from high school in 1945. In 1947 she signed a recording contract with Mercury Records, becoming their official girl singer, and in 1948 she had her first million-selling record single – “With My Eyes Wide Open, I’m Dreaming”. Remember that one? Run it in your mind and it will haunt you for days.

Mitch Miller, who made all those sing-a-long records, was the producer for Mercury Records. He had developed a technique for overdubbing a singer’s voice to create a vocal harmony arrangement. He used this process on many of Patti’s recordings and she became the first pop artist to do so. But it wasn’t until 1950 that she hit it big-time with her recording of “Tennessee Waltz”. It became her signature song and is listed among the two or three best-selling songs in American popular music history, along with Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” and Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America”.


Nov. 17, 2013
TAPS

This article honors “TAPS”. It was Harry’s final music-themed column in his previous community’s newsletter, in Leisure World, also in Silver Spring, MD. He kept up that column for several years. Researchers now consider the tale below as military folklore; chances are Harry heard it long ago.


It is especially fitting that we end the year of musical columns with the melody that ends each day at every American military base – TAPS. It is also fitting because it marks the end of my tenure as a columnist for this newsletter, since my Jeanette and I are leaving Creekside for the Assisted Living facility at Riderwood, where she can get much better care than I can provide for her here.

At sunset, when the flag is lowered and the sound of the bugle blowing TAPS over the loud-speaker system fills the air, everything on a base stops moving. Vehicles stop, people stand still in their tracks, all activity ceases while the solemn notes ring in their ears. It is a military tradition, just as the playing of TAPS at every military funeral is a tradition. It all started during the Civil War when most of the Southern states attempted to secede from the Union and the Northern states, under the leadership of Abraham Lincoln, stopped them from doing so. It is one of those historical moments that are quickly forgotten, yet have the power to change a nation.

The year was 1862. Capt. Elli and his Union troops were stationed at a place called Harrison’s Landing in Virginia where they had just fought a pitched battle with Confederate troops. After dark, when the fighting stopped, he heard the moans of a wounded soldier in the field between the two sides. Capt. Elli risked his life to crawl on his stomach to the wounded man, since both sides frequently indulged in random fire across the field between them. He succeeded in dragging the man back where he could get medical attention, but when he reached his own lines they found that he was a Confederate soldier and that he was dead. In the early morning light the Capt. took a closer look at the dead soldier and froze with shock when he suddenly realized that the dead boy was his own son.

His son had been studying music at a school in the South when the war began and, without telling his parents, he had enlisted in the Confederate Army, as did most of his fellow students. The next day, Capt. Elli asked if he could give his son a full military funeral along with the Union troops who had died in that battle, in spite of the fact that he was an enemy soldier. He was given permission to have a solitary funeral with only one musician, a bugler. The Capt. found a paper in his son’s uniform pocket with a song that the boy had written himself, and he asked the bugler to play the melody at the funeral.

The song, of course, was TAPS. That was the first time that haunting melody was played, and it became an instant sensation, to be played at all military funerals ever since. To this day you cannot hear that plaintive tune without getting a lump in your throat or even a tear in your eyes.

The words were added later, in three stanzas.

TAPS (Lyric)

Day is done, Gone the Sun, From the lakes, From the hills, From the sky. 
All is well, Safely rest, God is nigh.  

Fading light, Dims the sight, And a star, Gems the sky, Gleaming bright.
From afar, Drawing nigh, Falls the night. 

Thanks and praise, For our days, Neath the Sun, Neath the stars, Neath the sky.
As we go, This we know, God is nigh.

Harry’s wife for 70 years passed away at Riderwood Village barely two weeks after he wrote this story.

Copyright 2016
Elaine Blackman

Reflections on mortality, learning new things

My parents in 2004 and 2005; Harry at home in 2004

Harry always had his camera close by. Snapping photos at special occasions and distributing prints to friends and family was one more activity that kept him busy and learning new things during his elderly years. Recently I found the three photos above in a file on Harry’s computer with a couple hundred others I’d never seen. I also retrieved the following email he apparently wrote to a friend’s daughter on Sept. 2, 2007, after her father passed away. I hope she will see this blog and feel inspired anew because others are enjoying Harry’s reflections, too, and possibly taking his advice.


Dear Cathy:

A few years ago, an old friend of mine died – I should say a long-standing friend of mine since I have many young friends as well as a few old friends, by which I mean those around my age. I was 86 in June, and there are not many my age left any more. Anyway, when he died in his early 80s, he left two daughters in their late 50s and several grandchildren in their late 20s to early 30s. His wife had died ten years before he did. When he died, TIME magazine was going to write an obit about him and sent a reporter to interview his daughters. What they found out was more than they expected. In the end, they decided to do a story on what they called middle-aged orphans, which is a growing phenomenon in our country as people are living longer and children are generally parents themselves when their own parents die.

You understand, of course, that whenever someone close to you dies, either a relative or a friend, you can’t help reflecting on your own mortality, and this is especially true of those of us who manage to reach their 80s. We know that we do not have many years left to us and we have a desire to impart as much as possible of the wisdom we have acquired over the years to our heirs and younger friends. But, more important, we tend to reflect on just what we have learned from our own experience and just what constitutes wisdom that is worthy of passing on to anyone else. 

Harry in 2007, around the time he wrote this email

When I was young, middle age was considered the 40s and 50s. Old age was considered the 60s and 70s. People who lived into their 80s were called octogenarians; they were few and far between, ancients. My own parents died in their mid-50s, nine months apart, when I was 19 and 20 respectively. Almost all my peers had lost their parents by the time they were 30. It was a rare teenager who had both sets of grandparents still alive then. It’s different now. I keep going to weddings of grandchildren of people I know, where both the bride and the groom have both sets of grandparents attending and dancing at their weddings. In fact, in a few weddings recently, there were four sets of grandparents attending, because both the bride and the groom were marrying a second time and their parents had been divorced and remarried, too. Relationships for them had become extremely complicated, I must say, and after a few explanations I was confused beyond words. Suffice it to say that the wedding party of family alone, in one case, consisting of parents, grandparents, siblings and step-siblings, etc., amounted to 47 people. 

For a couple like Jeanette and myself, who have been happily married for 64 years now, it is sometimes amazing to see the number of divorces among younger couples these days. And yet, when I talk to them separately, I can understand why they found it necessary to separate. What I can’t understand is why they married in the first place. Except for raging hormones and the sexual attraction, they should have known they were incompatible. One of the few advantages of advanced age (like mine) is that we see some things clearly that younger folks find cloudy or obscure. Which is not to suggest superior wisdom – only a different perspective.

I am the youngest of four siblings, two sisters and a brother. We were close in some ways, distant in others. The oldest, a sister, was ten years older than I. My brother was seven years older. My second sister was four years older. The standing joke in the family, after we were all adults, is that my second sister was always referred to as my younger sister, which, by definition she was. My oldest sister died six years ago, at the age of 91. My brother died nine years ago at the age of 84. By the way, he was career Air Force, enlisted in 1940, right after WWII started in Europe in 1939, started as a Flying Sergeant and graduated to the maintenance field and served until he retired with 25 years as a Chief Warrant Officer in the mid-1960s at the age of 55. My “younger” sister is 90 now, living in a nursing home in California. We visited there for her 90th birthday less than a year ago.

The deaths of my older siblings made me feel like an orphan all over again, as I had when my parents died so many years ago, and started me thinking about my own mortality. Every time a friend dies now, every funeral I attend, finds me thinking of all the things I want to do yet and how little time I have left. That’s why I try to do as much as I can each day and why I commit myself to do many things that just a few years ago I would not have done. Because, like most people, just a few years ago I behaved as though I were immortal, as though the thought of death simply didn’t occur to me. Even now, it’s not so much the thought of dying that bothers me – it’s the urge to do as many things as I can while I have the will and the strength to do them.  

I have noted, with a few rare exceptions (your Dad was one of the exceptions), that most of the funerals I attend nowadays involve people who are not doing anything special – not working, not involved in ongoing projects, hobbies, avocations, studies, mind-occupying activities, etc. I don’t mean that they’re just vegetating or sitting in a rocking chair all day. Sure they have a sort of social life, they go out to dinner now and then, they see friends, they play cards, they go to movies. But they’re not doing anything constructive. They’re not using their talents or their skills or their minds. I so admired Tom, I’ll tell you, because his mind never stopped working and gnawing at problems and seeking solutions to all kinds of perplexing things. I felt about him in some ways as if he were my younger brother and he kept asking me why things are the way they are and why can’t we do something to fix them, and the very fact that he kept asking why forced me to think about things I didn’t want to think about. He’s the only person in the world, except for my own brother, with whom I could spend hours on the telephone and enjoy every minute of it – and not begrudge the time taken away from anything else. 

Now, Cathy, I’ve gone on and on bending your ear (eye?) too long and getting a little maudlin, too, but what I started out to say, and took the long way around, is to keep busy – keep your mind working learning new things and dealing with old things in new ways.


Copyright 2016
Elaine Blackman

A tender, little essay of epic proportions

Harry kept writing during his elderly years, thanks in part to his attention to learning computer technology, and his impeccable memory. He posted writings on this blog in 2011, the year I took this photo, and continued to write for several publications.

The back story to the essay below is intriguing. Harry submitted it for his monthly column in the October 2013 newsletter ("Inside Creekside") in the Silver Spring, MD, community of Leisure World. On a visit to my parents' apartment, my daughter and I noticed the newsletter and read his essay titled "The Back Nine". We were touched by its tender sentiments and agreed that it looked exactly like something my dad (her Zadie) would write. But still we asked, "Did you really write this?" He said, "Yes, but it was a while ago." We didn't ask him what he meant by "a while ago."

After Harry died (seven months later), I came across the essay on the internet, which led me to search further. I found it everywhere -- the essay had gone viral! Some people had claimed the byline; others wrote Anonymous or Unknown. When Harry became an active web user, did he push the essay out into the web universe? Did he email it to others who pushed it out? Do you suppose he wrote it years earlier for another publication and it kept spreading? Or, did Harry have the only lapse in memory I'd known?

In any case, please enjoy the essay.


The Back Nine

And then it is winter ...

You know, time has a way of moving quickly and catching you unaware of the passing years. It seems just yesterday that I was young, just married and embarking on my new life with my mate. Yet in a way, it seems like eons ago, and I wonder where all the years went. I know that I lived them all. I have glimpses of how it was back then and of all my hopes and dreams.

But, here it is, the “back nine” of my life and it catches me by surprise. How did I get here so fast? Where did the years go, and where did my youth go?

I remember well seeing older people through the years and thinking that those older people were years away from me, and that “I was only on the first hole” and the “back nine” was so far off that I could not fathom it or imagine fully what it would be like.

But, here it is – my friends are retired and getting gray; they move slower and I see an older person now. Some are in better and some worse shape than me, but, I see the great change. Not like the ones that I remember who were young and vibrant, but, like me, their age is beginning to show and we are now those older folks that we used to see and never thought we'd become.

Each day now, I find that just getting a shower is a real target for the day! And taking a nap is not a treat anymore – it’s mandatory! Because if I don’t on my own free will, I just fall asleep where I sit!

And so, now I enter into this new season of my life unprepared for all the aches and pains and the loss of strength and ability to go and do things that I wish I had done but never did!! But, at least I know that though I’m on the “back nine”, and I’m not sure how long it will last, this I know, that when it’s over on this earth, it’s over. A new adventure will begin! Yes, I have regrets. There are things I wish I hadn’t done, things I should have done, but indeed, there are many things I’m happy to have done. It’s all in a lifetime.

So, if you’re not on the “back nine” yet, let me remind you, that it will be here faster than you think. So, whatever you would like to accomplish in your life please do it quickly! Don’t put things off too long!! Life goes by quickly. So, do what you can today, as you can never be sure whether you’re on the “back nine” or not!

You have no promise that you will see all the seasons of your life, so, live for today and say all the things that you want your loved ones to remember, and hope that they appreciate and love you for all the things that you have done for them in all the years past!!

Life is a gift to you. The way you live your life is your gift to those who come after. Make it a fantastic one. Live it well! Enjoy Today! Do something fun! Be happy! Have a great day! Remember: “It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver.” LIVE HAPPY IN 2013!

Lastly, consider this: Your kids are becoming you, but your grandchildren are perfect! Going out is good. Coming home is better! You forget names, but it’s OK because other people forgot they even knew you!!! You realize you’re never going to be really good at anything, especially golf. The things you used to care to do, you no longer care to do, but you really do care that you don’t care to do them anymore. You sleep better on a lounge chair with the TV blaring than in bed. It’s called “pre-sleep”. You miss the days when everything worked with just an ON and OFF switch. You tend to use more four-letter words: What? When? ... ?  Now that you can afford expensive jewelry, it’s not safe to wear it anywhere. You notice everything they sell in stores is sleeveless! What used to be freckles are now liver spots. Everybody whispers. You have three sizes of clothes in your closet, two of which you will never wear. But old is good in some things: old songs, old movies, and best of all, OLD FRIENDS!

Stay well, "old friends!" It's not what you gather, but what you scatter that tells what kind of life you have lived.

Today is the oldest you've ever been, yet the youngest you'll ever be, so enjoy this day while it lasts.

Harry poses on his 92nd birthday in 2013. On most days he enjoyed "old songs, old movies, and best of all, OLD FRIENDS!"