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

Heartfelt love songs of the Big Band Era (for the old and young alike)

Harry and Jeanette (also in photos below), July 1945

For the romantic in all of us, I combined three essays my dad posted on his original blog in 2011. Then 89 years young, he publicly shared his passion and knowledge of love songs from the Big Band Era. Of course, many already knew this; as a retirement hobby, Harry recorded music collections on audio cassette tapes, and later on CDs, and gifted copies to countless friends. I assume some of you still have them. To introduce each song, he recorded himself narrating bits of trivia (Lawrence Welk style!). 

I would say that Harry could feel the power of music, certainly love songs. He was a natural "music therapist." During my mom's last couple of years (she passed away in 2013), with dementia clouding her mind, Dad sang songs to her from their youth, and she quietly joined in, the words ne'er forgotten. 

You can click on the song titles in the essays below and listen to YouTube versions. At the bottom of this page, you'll see a link to a clip from one of Harry's recordings.

Irving Berlin's love story

Everyone in my generation knows who Irving Berlin is, or was, and all of us have heard and know many of the hundreds of songs he wrote. What is not so well known or remembered is the story of his love affair with his wife and the songs he wrote to note its ups and downs. He had been married briefly, in February 1912, but his wife contracted typhoid fever on their honeymoon in Cuba and died in July at the age of 20. For the next dozen years he worked full-time at his craft and became one of America's most successful songwriters.
 
In 1925 he met a young socialite, Ellin Mackay, 16 years younger than himself. It was love at first sight for both of them. She was the daughter of a millionaire, Clarence Mackay, the head of AT&T, and he strongly opposed the affair. Both were public figures, and the affair was prominently played up in the tabloids -- the immigrant Jewish songwriter and the debutante Catholic heiress. Mackay did everything he could to hinder the love affair, even sending his daughter off to Europe hoping she would forget him while they were apart. When they married in 1926, Mackay disowned his daughter and disinherited her from a substantial fortune. (They were reconciled after a few years as grandchildren came along and the marriage appeared to be permanent.) The marriage actually lasted 62 years, until Ellin died in 1988. Berlin died just nine months later, in 1989, at the age of 101.

During their turbulent courtship, Berlin wrote some of his most endearing torch songs, especially at the times when they were apart. A few examples: All By Myself; What'll I Do (When You Are Far Away); All Alone; and Remember. When they were together and happy, he wrote one of the great upbeat songs of our times -- Blue Skies, which was recorded by all the recording artists of the era. Then, when they were married, he wrote one of the great love songs of our times -- Always -- and gave it to his wife as a wedding present. The royalties from that song alone made Ellin Mackay Berlin an independently wealthy woman. Here are the lyrics for these two ever-popular songs:

Always

I'll be loving you, Always, 
With a love that's true, Always, 

When the things you've planned,
Need a helping hand, 

I will understand, Always, Always. 

Days may not be fair, Always, 

That's when I'll be there, Always, 

Not for just an hour, 

Not for just a day, 

Not for just a year, but Always.

Blue Skies

Blue Skies, smiling at me, 

Nothing but blue skies, do I see. 

Bluebirds, singing a song, 

Nothing but bluebirds, all day long. 

Never saw the sun, shining so bright, 

Never saw things, going so right. 

Noticing the days, hurrying by, 

When you're in love, my how they fly. 

Blue days, all of them gone, 

Nothing but blue skies, from now on. 

Expressing a heartfelt emotion

In 1909, 102 years ago, composer Leo Friedman and lyricist Beth Slater Whitson, wrote a song called Meet Me Tonight in Dreamland. They sold it to the biggest music publisher in Chicago, Will Rossiter, who bought it outright for a rumored $50. The song swept the country, and the sale of the sheet music made the publisher a wealthy man. Although there was no contractual arrangement to pay royalties, it was customary for a publisher who made huge profits on a song to share at least some portion with the writers. Rossiter refused to do so. Understandably unhappy with him, Friedman and Whitson wrote another song in 1911, which they took to another publisher who promised to pay royalties to them depending on sales. That song, Let Me Call You Sweetheart, actually became the best selling song of all time over the past 100 years. Sales of the sheet music alone, millions upon millions of copies and still in demand, as well as recordings by orchestras and singers, made the writers and the publisher independently wealthy.

Here we are, in 2011, 100 years later, and both those songs are still popular. What's the secret of such success? In my view, it's simple words coupled with an easily sung tune expressing a heartfelt emotion that any of us can relate to. So, sing along with me ...

Meet Me Tonight In Dreamland 
Meet me tonight in dreamland  
Under the silvery moon,                        
Meet me tonight in dreamland               

Where love's sweet roses bloom.          
Come with the lovelight gleaming           
In your dear eyes of blue.                      
Meet me in dreamland,                       
Sweet dreamy dreamland, 
There let me my dreams come true.                     

Let Me Call You Sweetheart
Let me call you sweetheart,
I'm in love with you.
Let me hear you whisper
That you love me, too.
Keep the lovelight glowing
In your eyes so true.
Let me call you sweetheart,
I'm in love with you.

A poignant love song

Of all the thousands upon thousands of memorable, popular songs ever written, the great majority of them were love songs. And of all the romantic songs of love and devotion, some of the most enduring and endearing were the songs of parting and separation. One such song came to my attention with a back story that tugged at my heart and brought tears to my eyes. I first heard it when Larry Clinton's orchestra recorded it with his songbird, Bea Wain, on the vocal in 1939. It didn't get much play at the time but later, when millions of GIs were going to war overseas, it became a little more popular, and again in 1952 during the Korean War, it enjoyed a revival with a rendition by Jane Russell in a movie "The Las Vegas Story".
        
It never attained great popularity in the top ranks of recordings, but the words grabbed me from the start and prompted me to look into it. What happened was that someone sent this poem to Hoagy Carmichael and asked if he thought it could be set to music. Hoagy worked on it, made a few changes to the lyric to fit into his melody, and then forgot it. That was in 1937. A couple years later, in 1939, looking through his files he found it again and arranged to publish it, but nobody knew who had written the poem. He and his publisher started a search and advertised in newspapers and magazines to find the author. It turned out to be Mrs. Jane Brown Thompson of Philadelphia, who had written it as an ode to her deceased husband and had it published in a magazine. It was introduced to the public on a network radio program by Dick Powell, one of the foremost singers and movie stars of that era. But Mrs. Thompson never heard it. She had passed away one day before the broadcast.
        
Can anyone read these poignant words and not feel the sadness and the deep grief that lonely widow was expressing?

I Get Along Without You Very Well
I get along without you very well, of course, I do,

Except when soft rains fall and drip from leaves, then I recall,
The thrill of being sheltered in your arms, of course, I do,
But I get along without you very well.

I've forgotten you just like I should, of course, I have,
Except to hear your name, or someone's laugh that is the same,
But I've forgotten you just like I should.

What a guy, what a fool am I,
To think, my breaking heart could kid the moon.
What's in store? Should I phone once more?
No, it's best that I stick to my tune.

I get along without you very well, of course, I do,
Except perhaps in spring, but I should never think of spring,
For that would surely break my heart in two.

Harry in the 1990s

In 2014, we donated most of Harry's extensive music (and book) collections to the Riderwood Village library in Silver Spring, MD.


Here's a clip of two songs with Harry's narration, from a five-CD set he recorded in 1994 at age 73. He titled the set "Sweet and Lovely." 

The URL is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4gBXvYrt8M&feature=youtu.be

Copyright 2016

Elaine Blackman