I Get Along Without You Very Well (Except Sometimes)

Easy on the piano, but hard to sing

I Get Along Without You Very Well (Except Sometimes)
1939
Music by Hoagy Carmichael
Words by J.B. ?
Key Bb Major

Another song of the "I'm not in love" variety. Country songs have tested this approach and found it flawless. A narrator explains that he has gotten over his recent love. He doesn't love her anymore. He's healed. He only looks at her picture on the wall because he's wondering what he should replace it with. He only thinks about her because he's hoping she's doing well. He's totally and completely over the heartbreak...but if she wants to get back together then he'd consider it. Under certain conditions. I should gather a list of this kind of song.**

It's a pretty funny approach because the listener understands that the whole premise of the song, the affirmation that the narrator is not heartbroken, is false, so the song becomes a confession of how he's trying but has failed to stop loving the person who has stopped loving him. He actually loves her more than ever.

When The Swallows Come Back To Capistrano

When The Swallows Come Back to Capistrano
1940
Written by: Leon Rene
Key F Major
4/4

I left the lyrics alone for this one because it's got a melody in the Pat Boone range that I don't want to destroy. The melody is enough to get the idea of the song. A girl left a guy and the guy is comparing her to the birds.
I first picked this out because it was WWII era tune that I want to compare to modern music that will be listened to when people want to talk about WWIII era music. I should point out that this specific piece of sheet music is from around 1940. It is not a reissue when Pat Boone made it famous 17 years later, but I can't isolate the exact year Russ Morgan and his Orchestra "The Morgan Manner" recorded or performed this. Morgan was popular along with Guy Lombardo at this time but he didn't score a notable hit with this song. Many artists recorded it and all the sheet music used the same blue background with the cave swallow on the front. Only the inset was changed which makes me wonder if the arrangement inside was different. This arrangement involves this upper register melancholy piano introduction. Do all the arrangements look like this? I wonder if other sheet music had different arrangements of if they all had identical music but the picture changed. That would be an interesting research project. I can count about 8 different reissues of this song with different artists and I know they didn't all record it in 1940. So Russ Morgan, Dinah Shore, The Ink Spots, Bobby Byrne, Shep Fields, Gray Gordon, Frankie Masters...I don't think they all performed this song in a single year. No. So, this song was released as sheet music every time someone else recorded it. They aren't going to change the copyright because that can stay the same but one artist might record it in 1941 and another in 1942 and they simply put a different picture on the cover. I would be surprised if there was a different arrangement too. Very surprised but I can't find a recording or a date for any of the artists. I know Glenn Miller recorded this in 1940 but he's not featured on any of the sheet music samples. And all these other artists don't have a recording, which makes sense because only Glenn Miller had the dough to record a big band. I don't know. It must be in the general area of WWII but I don't know exactly when this sheet music was printed.

Great melody here with easy on the fingers chords. F Bb, Eb, C7. And there's one little passage in A major so the flavor changes. I messed that part up the first time so I had to sweeten the tempo get another chance at it, but it really belongs in the 'lonesome me' tempo range. This song and Once in A While are all I need to know. I can fake the shit out of these songs.

He Always Goes Farther Than Father

He Always Goes Farther Than Father
1921
Words and Music by Blanche Franklyn
Key: Eb Major
4/4

Looks like a kid scribbled on the front of this one.

I found this title interesting and in case you want to cry sexism, the song was written by a woman. Even odder is the fact that the 19th amendment was ratified one year before this song was published. So, women got the right to vote and Blanche Franklyn immediately pens a novelty comic song about a father and son who compete at seducing women. I like Blanche's spirit. We would've gotten along well because she followed her instincts and wrote the song that occurred to her and didn't dismiss her muse even if it was sexist. This is the life of an artist.

It's noteworthy that about 50% of women, like men, immediately declined the opportunity to vote. Of course the deep south states all opposed women voting rights, integrated schools, civil rights, etc. Mississippi, for example, ratified the 19th amendment in 1984, 64 years after the country had technically given women the right to vote. This poisonous State makes ISIS look progressive. It's living proof that all the benefits to be won from exploitation of slave labor will eventually be lost ten times over until your culture is actually more stunted than if you'd never left the year 1780. If you want to know what the punishment is for embracing slavery then go visit Mississippi. They've regressed to a kind of suspended larval state where education has become the enemy.

Not much info available about Blanche. She was a vaudeville singer/writer worked through the war years. Her song requires a steady tempo and also a top hat and a spinet piano on a stage on a Bowery vaudeville theater. I don't have these things at my disposal so I did the best I could do.

When The Organ Played at Twilight

When The Organ Played at Twilight
1929

Lyrics by:
Raymond Wallace

Music By:
Jimmy Campbell
Reg Connolly

Key: G Major
3/4

I was attracted to this piece of sheet music because it would force me to do a little research on Guy Lombardo and his orchestra. But the melody and uniformity of this piece please me. The melody is not only in my G major wheelhouse of destruction but the leaps of an octave are where I can navigate them like a billy goat heading home.

Santa Rosa Rose

Santa Rosa Rose
1918
Words by Jeff Branan
Music Lyons & Yosco
Key: Bb Major
4/4

I may or may not simply record all the songs in order. As long as there is a moderate chance of me playing it at a good tempo then It's possible to record the entire dusty music box.

At The Mississippi Cabaret

Dedicated to the Mississippi Public Employees Retirement System

At The Mississippi Cabaret
1914
Words by A. Seymour Brown
Music by: Albert Gumble
Key: C Major
2/4

This is one song from way back. 101 years old. And this is on newsprint paper so it's fragile and the pages separated. The sheet music itself is 100 years old. It's a small miracle that it survived the 3 years in my van, once it got rained on when a window leaked, I almost used it to start a fire in the wood stove. But I'm glad I didn't because this particular cabaret/ragtime tune is something that I am tested to play. The Once in A While, Daybreak, Stardust, Some Enchanted Evening, Deep Purple style is very easy to slow down to my skill level and then take liberties with the tempo. But this kind of basic cabaret tune is what separates the players from Oggy because if I slow it down to a speed I can sort of play it at then it loses all the uptempo spirit, and the tempo must be consistent because the song depends on swinging your hips and tapping your toes and if you are tapping and I'm not playing the whole mood is broken. It's even worse if I play it as slow as a Death March. But this is a work in progress and I'm not going to wait 10 years so I can really devote myself to sight reading and then record this. I shudder to think that I'm at my peak on the piano...and it only gets worse from here. That would suck. As you can see, I'm getting old and thought the lyrics were, "You'll see them dancing with banjos rising. You'll see them prancing and hear them dancing."
Well, Rising and Dancing don't really rhyme and I thought A. Seymour Brown dropped the ball on that one. Then I looked closer and realized the word is Ringing, which makes way more sense. My eyesight is still pretty good considering how much porn I've watched on the internet.

I think this style is familiar from the movie Cabaret and the ragtime, two-step feel, but I honestly don't think this was a popular style in 1914. No, I think this is a nostalgic tune. The Mississippi River is the western border of Tennessee, in case you are wondering. Memphis, Tenn is in the tri-state corner of Tennessee, Mississippi and, since these states love double consonants, Arrkannsass. But I could be wrong because one article suggests American Cabaret can be traced to 1911. That was a long time from now but only 3 years from when this song was published. So, this sounds like a novelty tune today but it was taken seriously in 1914. All my babbling about this being nostalgic for 1880 is totally wrong. Gilbert & Sullivan were producing musical comedies in 1880. This song is simply in the style of Ragtime, which was popular in 1914, with Cabaret as a subject, which was also popular in 1914.

Once In A While

Once In A While
1937
Words by Bud Green
Music by Michael Edwards
Key Eb major
4/4 time

Exceptional song. I learned an interesting but unrelated detail when I watched the odd Reefer Madness-style movie: The Gene Krupa Story (1959). Tommy Dorsey, pictured on the cover of this song because he recorded it initially, was a trombonist band leader...and he actually had Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich in his band at one point or another...and Krupa and Rich are basically the two greatest Jazz Era drummers who would both lead their own bands. The Gene Krupa Story features a classic song performance "Memories of You" performed by Anita O'Day which is priceless. That movie is noteworthy because the recent Whiplash (2014) uses a drummer aspiring to be Krupa as a hero, but Krupa's own story does not contain a drill sergeant conductor. In fact, it's the opposite. Krupa was the drill sergeant. The Krupa movie is really dated but the performances perfectly depict Jazz band era life in real settings, including appearances by 'Tommy Dorsey' and a reefer addict peddling a quick way to 'get high' like marijuana in 1937 was any good.

So, pot was villainized but Liquor, which was far worse, was fully legal in 1937 and although Hitler was chancellor in Germany he had not yet invaded Poland and Czechoslovakia although his ethnic cleansing project was gaining momentum as a wave of hysteria collided with an age of paranoia and suspicion. I'm sure leaders of nations were sick with foreboding over what would happen in a year or two but at this point there was a slim chance of avoiding World War II. Speaking of world leaders, FDR was sworn in for his second of three terms as President. Trotsky tried to assassinate Stalin a while earlier and, while this is one scenario where two wrongs DO make a right, it's possible, though unlikely, Trotsky would've been even worse. Trotsky's assassination plot failed and he ended up living in Mexico in 1937.  This is the year shortly after Edward VIII abdicated the throne and George VI, the guy with the stutter, was crowned King. That set the stage for FDR, Churchill, Stalin and Hitler to control world events for the next 8 years. 
 

Good Night Little Girl Of My Dreams / Fading Like A Flower

I didn't intend to make a medley of these two songs but they are in the same key and they are on the piano at the same time.

Good Night, Little Girl Of My Dreams
1933
By Charles Tobias and Joe Burke
Key: F Major

Typical 1933 sexism. That's Jack Fulton leering at you from the inset.

Charles Tobias was born a year before the great Hoagy Carmichael. He had two brothers Harry and Henry, who were both songwriters in the Tin Pan Alley and Vaudeville tradition. This particular song is kind of Tin Pan Alley gone to seed because the subject matter is generic, can't-miss, I love you and you love me, drivel that still appeals to youth, and the melody is actually a rip off of Home on the Range. At least, I hear the similarities, but it's more urbanized and I can imagine street cars and gas lights and, this being the last year of Prohibition, speakeasy juke joints and rum runners prowling the streets in the shadows. The Prohibition  is a social example of how a virus adapts to a hostile environment. The innocence of 1919 is awesome: Congress really thought they would eliminate alcohol abuse if they prohibited the manufacturing of alcohol. I think the evidence suggests Prohibition was sincere. Well, it forced criminals to get organized or die. Until 1918 criminals were content with disorganization, every man for himself, small gangs robbing stage coaches and trains. But Prohibition required a higher level of organization to succeed. All the lawless gangs of 1918 wanted to exploit the demand for alcohol but individually they all failed. The scale of the law required an organized approach never seen before on American soil. Maybe it was Italian and German and Spanish experience finally coming to fruit, but I don't want to blame it on those countries because by that time these were 1st and 2nd generation Americans. I watched The Godfather. Vito Corleone had no intention of returning to Italy. He was American. So, as an American, people like Vito put aside their childish petty thievery and embraced professional crime, crime that required bribes and corruption. Watch Leone's Once Upon A Time In America for a good dramatization of this time period. This is the law of unintended consequences in which the fantasies of some well-intentioned temperance folk forced the criminal element of America to organize to succeed. And like any good virus, they adapted, they built communication lines, they built bridges, they corrupted officials, they evolved. Some died, but the strong survived and built Las Vegas. This song, Good Night Little Girl, was published at the very end of the Prohibition, which ended in early December, 1933. Songs published in 1934 all were in a climate of legal alcohol and organized crime. True, the end of Prohibition forced the criminal cartels to adapt again, but they merely switched drugs. And while an end to the Prohibition of drugs will cause the cartels to adapt again, it will not eliminate them. That opportunity ended in 1919 when they first were forced to adapt. See, once the adaptation process starts, for a virus or a cartel, then there's no turning back the clock. All attempts to kill the virus or the cancer or the cartel will only cause it to divide and strengthen. No, I think there is a good argument that 1918 was the last chance to maintain some kind of innocence and domination over the outlaws of the West. And that's why there is a nostalgia for even the outlaws of that time, because it was the last time period when there was no organized crime. A handful of gangs with a handful of members impacted isolated areas but now a truckload of organized crime cartels impact the whole world.

Little Old Lady

Little Old Lady
1936
From: The Show is On
Words and Music by Hoagy Carmichael and Stanley Adams
Key: G Major

The quality of this particular song sheet is so good I think this is a reproduction/reissue and the publishers didn't change the copyright. The paper itself is slightly different, it's a thicker cardstock, but I'm still puzzled by the condition of the paper.

I wanted to record one song by Hoagy Carmichael (H-Oggy) so I could do a little research into why I've heard his name before. Hoagy's given name in 1899 was the unfortunate "Hoagland." His Scottish parents named him after a group of circus performers and his rags to riches story is interesting.

Hoagland's Broadway tune

The Bells of St. Mary

The Bells of St. Mary's
Words by Douglas Furber
Music by A. Emmett Adams
1937 1917

Key: F major

This illustration looks like it's from 1750, and that's not the right church.

The range on this song is beyond my comfort level so I'll spare you a vocal version. The problem will be comparing this published sheet music with the version Bing Crosby sings 7 years hence in 1945 in the movie of the same name with Ingrid Bergman. That version totally drops the 6/8 sea shanty introduction, jumps right to the Refrain...and changes those lyrics too. I'm trying to avoid songs made famous by Bing Crosby and even though this song predates him, Crosby made the song famous at the end of WWII as Father O'Malley showing up at a Catholic school and charming the sister in charge (Bergman). I don't want to analyze these movies but I will point out that in 1944 Bing Crosby first appeared as Father O'Malley in Going My Way, and won a best actor Oscar. That's high praise for a lounge singer. As near as I can determine this role was the perfect match for Crosby's public persona; O'Malley is kind of a fallen angel, he dresses in street clothes, drinks, plays golf, hardly seems devout and seems to be pining for the girl he left behind when he joined the priesthood. It's a strange role and the only way I can describe him is like Clint Eastwood's Man With No Name, except in a priest's robe. He seems to wander the earth looking for trouble and then solving everything with charm and a song before drifting back off to another adventure. Well, 1944's role was so good they immediately put him back in action with Bells of St. Mary in 1945 and that's where he sings this song I found in my box of dusty music. It is interesting to note that I watched an unrelated movie of Bergman's at cine club in Mexico. Me and three Mexican men watching a grainy version of Stromboli (1950) in Castilian, Spanish in some kind of Italian dialect with Spanish subtitles, Directed by Roberto Rosellini. I had no idea what was going on and I kind of fell into a trance, nodding off like an old man, until the lights came up and I had almost no idea where on earth I was. Maybe a Mediterranean Island, maybe Labrador, Texas, Mexico, Ecuador. It had all blended together and I was truly lost and forlorn, speechless. Well, Bergman and Rosellini were married to other people at the time, and that didn't stop them from having children together, first a son and then twin girls, one named Isabella, the other named Ingrid, and getting divorced from their respective spouses and getting married...and this scandal was, in Bergman's words, exacerbated by the fact American audiences had "Seen me as a nun and thought I was pure, but I am only a woman." I had wondered what she was talking about at that time...and now I know...she's talking about her 1945 role as a Sister Mary Benedict at a troubled Catholic school opposite Bing Crosby in The Bells of St. Mary's, which is the title of a song written in 1937 by two blokes from England. Well, she fled Hollywood for Italy and had to stay there about 10 years until American standards eroded to the point it was acceptable to applaud a harlot and temptress.

Dreaming of 1943

Circumstances have again conspired to hinder this dusty music box project but I will persist. I have the tools and the time but unreliable internet is making it hard to upload anything. 

Dreaming of 1943

This episode features 2 songs from 1943 that don't directly reference WWII but instead use metaphors to soften the message. Both songs have lyrics by Nat Burton...who would die shortly after these songs were released in 1945 at the age of about 44 and music by an era of professional songwriters. (That sound you hear is time's clock slowly ticking off the seconds of your life)

Dusty Music Box Project

Here's the project in progress page. I'm trying to record a bunch of these songs that I bought in a big box of dusty music and also write an essay to put the song in perspective. Don't expect Jacques Brel to magically possess me. If everyone were that good he wouldn't be so special. And if I could perform like that you'd have to pay to see me. I can't postpone this project until I learn to sing and play piano* so I'm moving forward with it in the hopes the very last song I record won't be as bad as the first. For the record I think the best American pop music started with The Cotton Club in the mid-'20s and ended around 1959 with the death of Buddy Holly. The musicianship and arrangements and creativity of those 40 years has never been surpassed. There have been some catchy songs since 1959 but musicianship gave way to production gimmicks and now we have instrumentalists and producers and almost zero songwriters.

Anyway, The songs with links are all the songs I've recorded and written a bit about organized by decade:

Music tells a story

1900-1909
Anchors Aweigh  MCMVI 1906

1910-1919
That Hypnotizing Man 1911
Please Don't Take My Lovin' Man Away 1912
Bobbin' Up and Down 1913
 At The Mississippi Cabaret 1914
You're The Dawn of A Perfect Day 1915
Back Home In Tennessee 1915
Sierra Sue MCMXVI 1916
Over There 1917
Little Sir Echo 1917
The Bells of St. Mary 1917
Who Said Dixie? 1918
Santa Rosa Rose 1918
When a Feller Needs a Friend 1919
The Alcoholic Blues 1919

1920-1929
The Love Nest 1920
When The Harvest Moon is Shining 1920
He Always Goes Farther Than Father 1921
Ma! 1921
The Melody That Made You Mine 1925
Always 1925
Daybreak 1926
When The Organ Played At Twilight 1929


1930-1939
Overnight 1930
Bye Bye Blues 1930
Good Night, Little Girl of My Dreams 1933
Deep Purple 1934
Little Old Lady 1936
Rosalie  1937
Once In A While 1937
I Live The Life I Love 1937
Bei Mir Bist Du Schon 1937
 Sail Along, Silv'ry Moon 1937
Penny Serenade 1938
I Have Eyes 1938
All Ashore 1938
There's a Gold Mine In The Sky 1937
I Get Along Without You Very Well 1939
We'll Meet Again 1939
Scatter-brain 1939

1940-1949
When The Swallows Come Back To Capistrano 1940
Tschaikowsky's Concerto No.1 3/4 1941
Tonight We Love (Tschaikowsky) 2/2 1941  (The arranger changed the time signature to Pete's first Piano Concerto)
An Old Country Garden 1941
The White Cliffs of Dover 1941
He Wears a Pair Of Silver Wings 1941
Along The Navajo Trail 1942
I've Heard That Song Before 1942
Where The Mountains Meet The Sky 1942
Light A Candle In The Chapel 1942
There's a Harbor of Dream Boats 1943
My Dream of Tomorrow 1943
Comin' In On A Wing and A Prayer 1943
Rum and Coca-Cola 1944
Ac-cent-tchu-ate The Positive 1944
Swinging On A Star 1944
Anniversary Song 1946
My Heart Is A Hobo 1947
April In Portugal 1947
Bella Bella Marie 1947
Buttons and Bows 1948

1950-1959


1960-1969
Angel On My Shoulder 1960
Love is Blue 1966

I wish a box of old sheet music was rare, but it's pretty common. This one cost $10, but that was a lot of money to me when I bought it. The box it came in is probably worth more than the sheet music since it's super vintage metal-reinforced wax cardboard soft drink shipment box, probably from 1973. A collector would probably kill for that box.

*The piano is a Yamaha P105 unit. I like the modeling and the action but the speakers are only adequate for a small room.  All these recordings are done with the speakers on the unit itself. I don't own any good amps.

The guitar is a Seagull spruce/cedar

Alcoholic Blues

I tried to rewrite this so it would be relevant to the current marijuana prohibition but I gave up. If anyone wants to send me some alternate lyrics I'll try to sing it. It's a novelty song with the music written by the brother of songwriting great Harry Von Tilzer, Albert.

Words by Edward Laska
Music by Albert Von Tilzer
1919
Key: F Major

Anchors Aweigh

Chas. Zimmermann wrote it in 1906 and the lyrics are revised periodically.

This is in honor of American Veterans Day. The song is from the Naval academy and isn't an official Navy song. In fact, it's most closely associated with the Army/Navy football game and the lyrics I have in my sheet music are specifically for the football game. This has a melody range that is beyond my ability so I'll play the melody on the piano and let you imagine the words.

Who doesn't love Negro Spirituals?

Verse 1
Stand Navy down the field, sails set to the sky.
We'll never change our course, so Army you steer shy-y-y-y.
Roll up the score, Navy, Anchors Aweigh.
Sail Navy down the field and sink the Army, sink the Army Grey.

This edition printed in 1930.

 I was in the Merchant Marines back when my knees did not pop when I walked. It was in the oil field of the Gulf of Mexico and technically not a war zone but putting a Yankee vegetarian Hippie on a boat full of Louisiana Swampers is not much different than a war. Every day, every minute, was a fight for survival. We didn't sing this song but every night at 4am before the false dawn I would stand on the salty deck and vow to survive the day at whatever the cost.

Sail Along Silv'ry Moon

1937
Sail Along Silv'ry Moon
Key: F Major
Lyrics: Harry Tobias
Music: Percy Wenrich

If it weren't for Sammy Davis Jr. I might claim Bing Crosby as the most talented entertainer in history; he was definitely the most successful. At one point he led in record sales, movie grosses, television ratings, and radio ratings. He has three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He is also the significant growth ring in the American pop music tree stump that delineates the beginning of the era of "crooning" with the end of the full throat belting that we witnessed in the Harry Von Tilzer era, the pitch perfect "performance" era where Opera and Theater and Pop music fused. Crosby is the original king crooner, his performance technique is casual but professional and for the first time a mainstream audience responded to the lazy approach that was accepted in western swing and cowboy songs. This was a style almost anyone could sing. Crosby sounds like your next door neighbor, except good. Until Crosby, a recording artist was required to be exceptionally good, there are no duds prior to 1930; everyone was a first class singer. Nobody in your neighborhood sounds like Charles Hart singing Harvest Moon, but many amateur singers sound like Bing Crosby, at least in their own minds while singing in the shower. And that's the important thing, Crosby is casual, he sings sitting down, stretched in a hammock, riding in a car. I imagine Charles Hart standing with perfect posture, his chest puffed out, his jaw open wide like he's on a ship that's sinking and he wants the world to hear him. But Bing Crosby could sing with a pipe in his mouth, his character's casual personality was recognizable, and that's something that hadn't yet been accepted. Ask anyone on the street to sing a song and they will probably try to sing like Bing Crosby. Among other things, Bing Crosby proved a singer could be casual and still get his point across. Eisenhower loyalists only have themselves to blame for the popularity of degenerates like Jack Kerouac and Miles Davis because Bing Crosby was cool before cool was cool and he soon became not cool enough.

Buy War Bonds And Stamps For Victory

Musical wartime propaganda .

Comin' In On a Wing and A Prayer contains a melody that is very close to an old hymn called The Sweet Bye and Bye, which was adopted by the Wobbly songwriter Joe Hill for his song The Preacher and The Slave. You heard it here first. It's odd that I can barely remember the chords for a song seconds after playing it but I had not heard The Sweet Bye and Bye in two decades but I recognized the melody and tracked it down in my brain to a particular rainy night in Santa Cruz where a street activist who modeled himself after Joe Hill was singing on the sidewalk. "There'll be pie in the sky when you die....and that's a dirty lie." Bob, was the singer's name and he's the character in my Santa Cruz epic. He's the guy who fills balloons with urine to defend himself when the police raided the abandoned squat we were all living in. It was good times.

When The Harvest Moon is Shining

When The Harvest Moon is Shining
1920 MCMXX
Music by Harry Von Tilzer
Lyrics Andrew B. Sterling
Key: Bb
Time: 3/4

Now we are getting into the deep tracks of American Pop. Harry Von Tilzer is sometimes referred to as the father of American pop music but that's only by people who have never heard of Stephen Foster. Tilzer does get credit for not selling all the rights to his songs for beer money, so he could be considered the first professional song-smith who figured out how to make a living and not get screwed over. Foster actually worked out the math for any future royalties he would receive for songs like Camptown Races and Oh Susanna while living and sold the rights to them for one lump sum that amounted to a few hundred dollars. Maybe he knew he'd be dead by 37 so money destined for his benefactors did him no good. Foster had the misfortune of writing popular songs prior to and during the American Civil War when plagiarism and copyright infringement was rampant and Foster's business sense was outmatched by a general and total disregard for intellectual property rights. Imagine going into a store, buying some sheet music, then paying a printer to print you off hundreds of copies and selling them all for a profit you didn't share with anyone. And for good measure you put your own name as the composer. "Gentle Annie: Words and Music by Oggy Bleacher." That's what the publishing world was like in 1850.

I've Heard That Song Before

1942
Words and Music by Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn

Even though most of the music in the dusty box is from this 1942 era, I don't want to overemphasize that period. I will probably pick one more pure war propaganda tune and move on. My current selection was based on the suspicion that the lyrics are a nod to the "Play it again, Sam" nostalgia that Casablanca created. But Casablanca was released in November 1942...so that doesn't add up. Youth on Parade, the musical film I've Heard That Song Before was introduced in was released in October 1942. So this is an example of a romantic ideal revolving around the memories we assign to music appearing consecutively and independently. Both Casablanca and the songs used in Youth on Parade were evolving at the same time and the fact Rick is reminded of his affair with Ilsa by the 1931 song As Time Goes By is probably unrelated to the line in this Styne and Cahn song "Please have them play it again...". In fact, am I being crazy to suggest this is why people historically get the quote wrong? Casablana was in the theaters only a few weeks after Youth on Parade was in theaters. So the same people who heard Ilsa say, "Play it, Sam." also heard Margaret Whiting sing a very similar line in a song that would soon be nominated for an Academy Award. I think over time the two scenarios got mixed up in people's minds. I'm sure this factoid revelation is super illuminating in the era of Ebola.

Maybe it's also no coincidence that Vera Lynn also recorded I've Heard That Song Before since she was the top recording singer in England at that time.

We'll Meet Again

Words and Music by Ross Parker, Hughie Charles

I've carried this ancient box of sheet music from an Upstate New York flea market to central Mexico with one goal: record all the songs in it. The oldest song in the box is 110 years old. The majority are copyrighted around 1940 and Bing Crosby's career is heavily represented. I'm trying to expand my own musical boundaries and maybe resurrect a few songs or at least prove why they should be forgotten. It's not fair to say this box of music represents music of an era because only select songs even qualified for publishing. The real lost gems were forgettable in 1936 also, so they weren't published. I'd have to return to the rare 1936 recording itself and transcribe those songs...which is beyond my ability. I want to take the music I have collected, biased though it may be having survived two World Wars to be sold for $10 by a junk dealer in NY who was also probably happy to get rid of it, and present it in trademark Oggy fashion to the world.

Buttons and Bows from The Paleface 1948

Buttons and Bows was written by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans for the 1948 film The Paleface. The sheet music was in the lot that I was forced to buy to get my hands on Petula Clark's Downtown single so I'm going through the songs and trying to generate some interest in old music and learn the songs as I go for therapy*. I already wrote a few paragraphs about the Shelby Flint "Angel on my Shoulder" tune that was pretty damn catchy. That was from 1960, if I recall, and I find myself singing it despite it being 52 years old.

The Paleface goes way way back to freshly post WWII and Jane Russell's titanic tits being all veterans wanted to see. Oh my god! Curves to spare on that frame. Howard Hughes pushed the movie ratings to the limit to showcase her rack in The Outlaw. Bob Hope should always be known as an entertainer who loved to entertain. The country was at war for 5 years and Hope spent 5 years with the USO following the mission of boosting morale and entertaining troops. I hate to compare apples and oranges but has Jimmy Fallon even recited the pledge of allegiance let alone spent 20 years eating mess hall food and telling clean jokes about dirty things? Nevermind. This is about Buttons and Bows. I learned in my research that this song, a kind of annoying western parody, won the Best Song award in the 1948 Academy Awards. That's a strange category because sometimes there are 4 nominees and sometimes there are 11. Well, it didn't have any competition and you could say it was the Academy's reward to Bob Hope for his wartime contribution to the USO.

I want to say here that the Bob Hope era films (ie Billy Wilder) are probably the purest examples of five star premises ever created. For instance, one of Hopes films is called "Alias Jesse James." In which, the bumbling insurance salesman, Hope, accidentally insures Outlaw Jesse James's life for some huge sum. Hope is then charged with protecting James from harm while trying to nullify the contract...and he falls for Jesse James's girlfriend...etc. I mean, that's the most perfect premise. You understand perfectly the entire situation within like 7 minutes. The remaining 70 minutes is pure entertainment. I regard Billy Wilder's "Some Like it Hot" as the perfect premise: two male jazz musicians witness a mob killing and must go into hiding in an all girl's big band...where they fall in love with singer Marilyn Monroe...who thinks they are women. FUCKING PERFECT. The premise of The Paleface is a little weak as Hope plays a hapless dentist who is used as cover for Russell, playing Calamity Jane, until everything works out. Whatever. I'm not going to review the movie but I will say that the fact it seems the plot is a parody of western movies would suggest the songwriters intentionally made the song a parody of the clippity-clop hop along songs about horses and cowboys in love with dust.


The song is actually sung during the movie so I guess this would be the equivalent of a Disney animation song like Beauty and the Beast except Rodgers and Hammerstein weren't available so Livingston and Evans stepped to the plate. The song is written in F Major but I'm not sure that's the key it is sung in. Shelby Flint's song was written in F major but she sings it in D Major.
The lyrics basically describe Hope's dislike for the desert. I'm not sure where in the west  they are supposed to be (Saguaro Cacti would suggest Arizona or New Mexico) but it's far from the city where Hope feels more comfortable. That is also a sly twist from the songwriters who know that all the previous Zipadee doo dah songs exalt the western life and praise the cactus. So I can forgive the annoying lilt of the song and the fact that it's as sexist a song that you'll ever hear.
"Let's vamoose where gals keep using those silks and satins and linen that shows...:
It was published by Famous Music Corp. 1619 Broadway, NY.
The torn and aged copy I have is probably a first edition because it makes no mention of the fact this is an academy award winning song. Usually awards are used to promote a piece of sheet music but this was probably published a month after the movie came out in 1948 and that was it. Hollywood is a machine and if you can say anything it's that they don't rest on their laurels, unless your name is George Lucas. This movie and this song are part of the Paramount production and they are gifts to the future provided by 1948 audiences because truly the movie and the song don't generate enough revenue ($0) to justify existing 64 years later. As soon as the sales dropped then this was never heard from again and that's why I want to resurrect it. Bob Hope and Jane Russell's tits teamed up again in a few years for The Son of Paleface, a weird sequel where it seems the two actors play two totally different characters in the same universe. Again, the machine plows on ignoring any logic. (They even reprise the Buttons and Bows song with different lyrics) The formula worked so it was pushed ahead. Bob Hope could pull these characters out of his ass with no effort at all. He probably learned this song in 20 minutes while I've struggled with it for a few weeks and still can't sing in tune. And if you want to watch his recording you can hear that he really plays with the inflection. He has fun with it because it's natural to entertain...always entertain. Clearly it's his motto. It's unusual to watch these slow developing scenes now because digital video is cheap. Bob Hope only made films. And since these were expected to be in and out of the theater in five minutes there was a budget for one camera. So they got in the habit of singing songs like this the whole way through a couple times with the camera in different locations. Notice how few close ups there are. The line "I'm ready for my closeup" really meant something back then because it involved a total lightning and set change and more makeup etc. This scene was filmed with only two angles, a close up of Russell and a false background screen that's playing the film of a landscape rolling by. It was obviously filmed in Studio 39 or one of those huge hangers where I used to deliver vats of pasta and salad for $8 an hour at Paramount Studios. Hope even does a great job pretending to play the sailor's organ. Buttons and Bows...35 cents. Worth every penny.

Next up...Al Jolson's "Anniversary Song" from The Jolson Story (1946)

* The latest news really has me puzzled and perplexed. A murderous rampage by a marine is eclipsed in the news by two different race related murders. To read the news really breaks my heart. If playing songs from 1948 keeps my brain distracted then that's all I can do. I'm going to bed.