Remembering Judy Garland greats

Harry, age 89, in February 2011

John Denver (an artist from my era) is quoted as saying this about music: “Music does bring people together. It allows us to experience the same emotions. People everywhere are the same in heart and spirit. No matter what language we speak, what color we are, the form of our politics or the expression of our love and our faith, music proves: We are the same.” 

I believe Harry would have agreed. Here’s another music-themed article he wrote, on Aug. 14, 2011, probably for his community newsletter in Leisure World of Silver Spring, MD.    

Some musical shows have so captivated the public that they never disappear from view. Among these perennial favorites are such musicals as Showboat, Porgy and Bess, The Music Man, 42nd Street, Fiddler on the Roof, My Fair Lady, South Pacific, Oklahoma, Carousel, Yankee-Doodle, Gigi, and this one – Meet Me in St. Louis. Just as there is never a day in this country when there is not a gigantic sale of mattresses, so is there never a week or a month when one of these musicals is not being performed somewhere. High school and college drama and music classes, professional and semi-professional singers and actors, and many wannabe producers, directors, set designers, etc., are caught up in the magic of theater art and devote their talents to these shows. We attend such musical shows every chance we get, which brings us to one of our favorites, “Meet Me in St. Louis”.
 
I would surmise that most of us, if not every single one of us, have seen the 1944 movie that featured Judy Garland in the starring role. But it might surprise you to hear that Judy was very unhappy when she was chosen for it, afraid that it would be a step backward in her career. She was already 22 years old and had played an adult role before in “For Me and My Gal” in 1942. Now they wanted her to go back to playing a high-school girl with a crush on the boy next door.

She’d had enough of that with her co-star Mickey Rooney in a dozen such pictures and she did not want to be stereotyped as the perpetual teenager. She even went to Vincent Minnelli, who had been signed to direct the film, to try to persuade him that she was wrong for the role and to choose somebody else. He strongly disagreed, and the two got off to a bad start. Subsequently, throughout the filming, they simply did not get along together, arguing and fighting about many aspects of the film. He kept repeating takes and re-shooting scenes over and over again till she wound up screaming at him. (As everybody knows now, they eventually married. Go figure.)

Judy needn’t have worried. She was a smash hit and that role confirmed her as one of the greatest singing stars in Hollywood history. In retrospect, it’s hard to visualize anybody else in Judy’s role, singing the songs that she made famous. Who else could express her love for “The Boy Next Door” as plaintively as she? And who else could belt out “Meet Me in St. Louie, Louie” or “The Trolley Song” as lustily as she?

Also in the score was one of the most popular and endearing Christmas songs ever written – “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” that Judy sang to Margaret O’Brien in a touching scene. Judy did not want to sing the original lyric: “Have yourself a merry little Christmas, It may be your last, Next year we may all be living in the past.” She thought it made her seem too mean-spirited. So Hugh Martin, who wrote all the music and lyrics together with his partner, Ralph Blane, gave Judy a new lyric – “… Let your heart be light, Next year all our troubles will be out of sight.” Anyway, when you come away from this musical, you come away humming and singing the catchy melodies and the easy lyrics.

(Footnote: Hugh Martin, composer, lyricist, playwright, died March 11, 2011, at the age of 96.)

Meet Me in St. Louie, Louie (Lyric)

When Louie came home to the flat, he hung up his coat and his hat. He gazed all around, but no wifey he found, So he said, “Where can Flossie be at?” A note on the table he spied, He read it just once then he cried. It ran “Louie, dear, It’s too slow for me here, So I think I will go for a ride.”

Meet me in St. Louie, Louie, Meet me at the Fair, Don’t tell me the lights are shining, Any place but there. We will dance the Hoochee Koochee, I will be your Tootsie Wootsie, If you will meet me in St. Louie, Louie, Meet me at the Fair.

The Trolley Song (Lyric)

With my high starched collar and my high topped shoes, and my hair piled high upon my head, I went to lose a jolly hour on the trolley and lost my heart instead. With his light brown derby and his bright green tie, He was quite the handsomest of men, I started to yen, so I counted to ten, then I counted to ten again. 

Clang, clang, clang went the trolley, Ding, ding, ding went the bell, Zing, zing, zing went my heartstrings, From the moment I saw him I fell. Chug, chug, chug went the motor, Bump, bump, bump went the brake, Thump, thump, thump went my heartstrings, When he smiled I could feel the car shake.

He tipped his hat and took a seat, He said he hoped he hadn’t stepped upon my feet. He asked my name, I held my breath, I couldn’t speak because he scared me half to death. Chug, chug, chug went the motor, Plop, plop, plop went the wheels, Stop, stop, stop went my heartstrings, As he started to go then I started to know how it feels, when the universe reels.

The day was bright, the air was sweet, The smell of honeysuckle charmed you off your feet.You tried to sing, but couldn’t squeak, In fact, you loved him so you couldn’t even speak.

Buzz, buzz, buzz went the buzzer, Plop, plop, plop went the wheels, Stop, stop, stop went my heartstrings, As he started to leave I took hold of his sleeve with my hand, And as if it were planned, he stayed on with me and, It was grand just to stand with his hand holding mine, To the end of the line.

Copyright 2016, Elaine Blackman

A ‘mind-gripping’ song, and some 'never quite hits'

Harry, age 91, having lunch with friends in June 2012

In an article Harry wrote for his community newsletter in January 2013, he described a song as having “a mind-gripping quality.” While some of his music-themed stories covered Big Band songs not familiar to many of us, this more recent tune (from my era) I’ll bet you all know.


A movie theme-song success

The 1968 film “The Thomas Crown Affair” starred Steve McQueen as a bored millionaire who engineers a bank robbery just for kicks and then has a whirlwind love affair with Faye Dunaway, the insurance investigator trying to nail him for the crime. The prolific French composer, Michel Legrand, was asked to write the musical score for the movie. His assignment was to try to capture in music the kind of thinking that would motivate a sophisticated, successful businessman to turn to crime for excitement. He succeeded beyond all expectations with “The Windmills Of Your Mind”. Not only did the music fit perfectly with the movie’s theme of intricate planning to commit a criminal act, but the superb lyrics, written by the husband-wife team of Alan and Marilyn Bergman, captured and built upon the theme.

In 1999 Hollywood produced a remake, as it almost always does with films that are highly successful, with Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo in the leading roles. It had the same basic plot of the bored millionaire looking for excitement; only this time, instead of robbing a bank, he steals masterpiece paintings from a museum. In the original movie, the song was performed by Noel Harrison. It won the Academy Award for Best Original Song that year (1968). In the remake, Sting performed it.

Michel Legrand has written more than 200 musical scores for movies and television programs. Among his better known works are “I Love Paris”, “C’est Magnifique”, “The Summer Knows”, “The Umbrellas Of Cherbourg”, and others too numerous to list. This song, “The Windmills Of Your Mind”, is another of those unique blends of words and music that has a mind-gripping quality. Once it enters your consciousness, it’s hard to let go. Let these words simmer in your mind just a little while and you’ll find yourself going over them again and again and again.

The Windmills Of Your Mind (Lyric)

Like a circle in a spiral, Like a wheel within a wheel, Never ending or beginning, On an ever spinning reel, Like a snowball down a mountain, Or a carnival balloon, Like a carousel that’s turning, Running rings around the moon, Like a clock whose hands are sweeping, Past the minutes on its face, And the world is like an apple, Whirling silently in space, Like the circles that you find, In the windmills of your mind.

Like a tunnel that you follow, To a tunnel of its own, Down a hollow to a cavern, Where the sun has never shone, Like a door that keeps revolving, In a half forgotten dream, Or the ripples from a pebble, Someone tosses in a stream, Like a clock whose hands are sweeping, Past the minutes on its face, And the world is like an apple, Whirling silently in space, Like the circles that you find, In the windmills of your mind.

Keys that jingle in your pocket, Words that jangle in your head, Why did summer go so quickly, Was it something that I said, Lovers walk along a shore, Leaving footprints in the sand, Was the sound of distant drumming, Just the fingers of your hand, Pictures hanging in a hallway, Or the fragment of a song, Half remembered names and faces, But to whom do they belong, When you knew that it was over, Were you suddenly aware, That the autumn leaves were turning, To the color of her hair? Like a circle in a spiral, Like a wheel within a wheel, Never ending or beginning, On an ever spinning reel, As the images unwind, Like the circles that you find, In the windmills of your mind.


Hammerstein’s ‘never quite hits’

More than two years earlier, in November 2011, Harry titled his community column “Songs That Never Made It To Number One But Made it To Number Two Or Three.” If you’re familiar with old musicals, you’ll recognize the Number One hits. New to me are the “never quite hits”, but I can see why he described his last example as one “that sort of grows on me.”


One of the finest lyricists of our times, who worked with many different composers and wrote Number One hits with all of them, was Oscar Hammerstein II. Just to name a few of his hits that reached the top of the charts: with Jerome Kern, “Ol’ Man River”; with Richard Rodgers, “People Will Say We’re In Love”, “Some Enchanted Evening”, and dozens more from all those musicals –“Oklahoma”, “State Fair”, “Carousel”, “South Pacific”, “The King and I”, etc. Number One hits in all of them. Not only was the music magical, but the lyrics he wrote were sheer poetry, words that touch our hearts and express our feelings.

Let me give you a couple that never quite hit the top. Most of the singers recorded them because they were so good – so singable – but then they faded away and you never hear them anymore. For a musical called “Music In The Air”, he wrote a half dozen songs. The one that hit the top of the charts was “I’ve Told Ev’ry Little Star”, and you still hear it occasionally today, but the one that I prefer by far is “The Song Is You”. It was one of the loveliest melodies ever written by Jerome Kern with the epitome of poetic lyrics by Hammerstein. It was reported in all the Hollywood fan magazines that Frank Sinatra’s recording alone led to many, many marriage proposals.

When he was working with composer Sigmund Romberg writing songs for operettas back in the 1920s and ’30s, one of his songs that hit the top was “Lover Come Back To Me”. Every now and then you still hear that one. But the song I prefer, that should have hit the top but did not, is “When I Grow Too Old To Dream”. Now, maybe it’s an age thing, but at my time of life this is a song that sort of grows on me. I wish we had a sound system here so I could play some of our music in the lobbies and the elevators.

The Song Is You (Lyric)

I hear music when I look at you, A beautiful theme of ev’ry dream I ever knew,
Down deep in my heart, I hear it play, I feel it start, then melt away.
I hear music when I touch your hand, A beautiful melody from some enchanted land,
Down deep in my heart, I hear it say, Is this the day?
I alone, have heard this lovely strain, I alone, have heard this glad refrain,
Must it be, Forever inside of me? Why can’t I let it go? Why can’t I let you know?
Why can’t I let you know the song my heart would sing –
That beautiful rhapsody of love and youth and spring,
The music is sweet, the words are true, the song is you.

When I Grow Too Old To Dream (Lyric)

When I grow too old to dream, I’ll have you to remember,
When I grow too old to dream, Your love will live in my heart,
So kiss me, my sweet, And so let us part, And when I grow too old to dream,
That kiss will live in my heart.

Copyright 2016, Elaine Blackman