Word: yaphank
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...bigger than Elvis'; a tabloid headline trumpeted: "Army Takes Berlin!" The noted wag Wilson Mizner wondered, "What does the Army want with Irving? Up to now the Allies had a chance!" The Army wanted him to do what he did best: write songs. While serving at Camp Upton, near Yaphank, Long Island, he composed a musical for the boys to put on, and late that summer "Yip Yip Yaphank" transferred to Broadway. The show had a couple of hits: "Mandy" and "Oh! How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning," which Sgt. Berlin performed himself. The notorious night bird...
...Berlin's largest contribution to the war effort was a revue called "This Is the Army." The War Department had asked him to consider reviving "Yip Yip Yaphank," but the project soon became grander, and kept growing as the show moved from Broadway to Washington (where President Roosevelt attended a special matinee) to legit theaters and military bases around the world. Berlin eventually wrote nearly three dozen songs for various permutations of the 300-man show, refining some as the war mood changed ("Dressed Up to Kill" was softened to "Dressed Up to Win"). He not only supervised the production...
...father of a future U.S. President (Ronald Reagan) - gave "God Bless America" an impressive mounting. Smith sings the number over a poignant montage of families anxious over the coming war. Murphy hears the song on the radio and says, "You know, I threw that song out of 'Yip Yip Yaphank' 22 years ago. Sounds better...
...Bless America must have been sung first by Washington's troops at Valley Forge, not by Kate Smith in 1938. And didn't Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning emerge from a pioneer encampment and not from a 1918 army musical called Yip, Yip, Yaphank...
Well, yip, yip, yaphank, and let's all wish a happy 100th birthday to Irving Berlin. This week everybody's doin' it -- celebrating the boy born Israel Baline in Russia a century ago, who came to the U.S., reached for the moon and found that there's no business like show business. God bless America: Berlin's songs are his life...