Word: singings
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...going to be my very great privilege to sing for you a song that's never been sung before... It?s something more than a song - I feel it's one of the most beautiful compositions ever written, a song that will never die. The author: Mr. Irving Berlin. The song: 'God Bless America...
...course, lyrics are naked on a page; if you don't know the tune and the setting for, say, "Anything You Can Do" from "Annie Get Your Gun," the words won't make it sing ("Anything you can do, I can do better. I can do anything better than you. No you can't. Yes I can. No you can't. Yes I can. No you can't. Yes I can, yes I can!" Huh?) But the book makes the best case for what showbiz historian Ethan Mordden has described as a "casual timelessness" of Berlin's songs...
...Puttin? on the Ritz," 1930. This instant standard, with one of Berlin's most intricately syncopated choruses, is associated with Fred Astaire, who danced to it in the 1946 "Blue Skies." But Astaire was the third star to sing it on film. First was Harry Richman, who had a #1 hit when he premiered the song in a 1930 film of the same name. Dear Mr. Gable "sang" it in "Idiot?s Delight," in 1939; then Astaire made it his own. For Mel Brooks fans, the definitive rendition is by Peter Boyle, as the top-hatted monster...
...Even in this early form, "God Bless America" had the elements that would eventually make it compelling and enduring. Its long notes virtually force the singer to sing it loud. The powerful bass hand declares that this song is less a toe-tapper than a foot-stomper, suitable for marching in place. It's a short tune divided into four different, attractive musical phrases, none of them repeated; to hear each phrase again, you have to sing the whole thing over. "God Bless America" is thus a recruiting poster, not just for patriotism, but for itself...
...might never have been heard outside the Camp Upton rehearsal hall. The song did a Rip Van Winkle, sleeping for 20 years until Ted Collins, Kate Smith's manager, asked Berlin if he had a patriotic song Smith might sing to mark the 20th anniversary of Armistice Day. Berlin had been in Europe a few weeks before and seen close-up the international cataclysm of the Munich Conference, where Chamberlain of Britain, declaring "peace in our time," capitulated to Hitler of Germany. Digging out his old song, Berlin demilitarized the lyric (no more "Make her victorious") and depoliticized...