Radio Digest (Nov 1930-Apr 1931)

Tuneful Topics By Rudy Vallee (Continued from page 35) in another place I thought that the part "Then I'll be lost alone" was rather farfetched, and I changed it to "I'll be left alone." I even had the audacity to make a change in the melody, a change of one note, which seemed to me more logical than the way Johnny Green originally conceived it. I played the number the way I saw fit to change it one night for Mr. Green when he was a guest at my club. As we were old friends I asked if he minded the change, to which he replied that he did not, inasmuch as he thought I should play it the way I "felt it." which, after all, is the sensible way for the writer of a song to feel when the artist, unless he is a rank amateur, seems to feel it necessary to make a few changes. We play it at. twenty-eight measures per minute, and although it is written in E flat, I find that I can sing it more comfortably in the key of D. Go Home and Tell Your Mother HERE is a song published by the same firm that at one time boasted of the famous Pagan Love Song. In fact, this song, too, is in a Metr,o-Goldwyn-Mayer picture, and although it is by two great writers, as was the Pagan Love Song, it will never see the popularity that the former song did. Jimmie McHugh and Dorothy Fields, writers of / Can't Give You Anything But Love, Baby, wrote this, one of the last songs that they wrote while still on the Coast. Their original lyric is sung in the piclure, Love in the Rough; it was deemed quite suggestive by the ofncia-ls of the National Broadcasting Company and the song may be sung on the air only with revised lyrics. The original lyrics were not really suggestive, but were possibly just a bit too human. For instance, the line. "For she certainly did a wonderful job on you" and "That we're marryin' like respectable people do." Not knowing that the lyrics had been censored by the National Broadcasting Company, on one of the Fleischmann programs I innocently sang the original — to the consternation of the censors of the National Broadcasting Company — but it was their own fault for not notifying me that only revised lyrics could be used. We play it snappily, or about fifty measures a minute. It is a difficult number to sing when the throat is not open, due to the fact that it hits the high notes and stays there. We have had to transpose it to various keys from time to time depending on the condition of my throat when I have tried to sins it. It was very well received the first time I did it at the Brooklyn Paramount, which is one of the indications of how the public likes a sons. To the Legion HERE is a song with a very unusual history. Every day I receive manuscripts from outside organizations, and one day this manuscript came to me from the Commander of Post No. 1 of the American Legion in Memphis. Tenn. The song in its unfinished state was called For the Legion. It was originally intended to be sung by this particular post as its own marching song, stating that they were the marching legionnaires from the banks of the Mississippi, or Tennessee. In the piano arrangement sent me. the authors had either innocently or deliberately taken a few measures of Victor Herbert's Babes In Toyland. On hearing the opening few measures played on the piano, it struck me that these composers were better than amateurs, and then the origin of the introduction came to me. The verse and chorus, while rough in spots, showed me that there were the possibilities of a real song there. I realized, however, that it must not be sectional or provincial, but should apply to the legionnaires of the entire United States, or the world, for that matter. Being a member of the American Legion. Post No. 62, Westbrook. Maine, 1 recalled that the American Legion had no song of its own, and felt that such a song might be welcome, so I hastily reconstructed the lyrics and melody in an effort to make a song that the legionnaires of every state in the union might be able to sing as they marched along, or wherever they might gather. I obtained permission from the Post No. 1 Commander and the composers to reconstruct the song as I thought fit. Although I finished the song before the big Legion Convention in Boston, it was not in the hands of the publishers until several weeks later. Contracts were issued for the three members of Post No. 1. and one for myself as the fourth composer. I think our Victor record of it is one of the finest things we have ever made. and at times our Connecticut Yankees sound like Sousa and his orchestra. During Armistice Week I did it at the Brooklyn Paramount, where it received a tremendous reception. It is a sons that grows on you. one that I hope will eventually become the favorite song of every legionnaire throughout the country. Beins; in 6 S time it is played in a snappy, march tempo. Blame It on the Moonlight HKRF. is a simple yet effective sons. dealing with the moonlight a the cause of one's falling in love Published by. a small Inn very energetic firm, it is already becoming very popular. It was written entirely by Milton Ager. who. with Jack Vellen. during the past ten or 83 fifteen years, has written a series of hits as long as your arm. The number is well-constructed and of a sweet, lilting nature. Ager is one of the few men who write songs and play the piano excellently: he is a very cultured, scientific man on many matters other than music. It was a pleasure listening to this song before it was published, when Aef-r insisted that I hear it. I found its composer, who had just returned from the Coast, and whom I met for the first time, to be a quiet, refined and extremely intelligent individual. We do it quite slowly at about thirty measures per minute. JVe^re Friends Again HERE is another odd thought, written by the two boys who gave us that very unusual hit. Ill Get By, and who followed it with Mean to Me; To Be In Love Especially With You, and who have been out on the Coast writing for pictures for the past year and a half, since the advent of sound pictures. They have returned to New York and perhaps the first song which has told Tin Pan Alley that they are back officially, is this song. We're Friends Again. They played it for me while it was still in embryo, and struck by the odd thought and beauty of melody and harmony, I suggested that it be published. Roy Turk, who is the lyric writer of the pair, inclines toward slang lyrics: in fact, in all his songs there is a tendency to use American slang, and in this case he dwells on such phrases as "my honey," "I spoke out of turn." and "'why bring that up now?" yet the song is typical of the daily conversation of hundreds of young clerks and young business men who might tell this story of how they quarrelled with their sweetheart, but made up again the morning after the quarrel. Fred Ahlert. who writes the melody and plays piano, is a student of melody and knows what he is about when he sits down to write. The song begins with a dropping glissando: that is. the voicedrops from the high note to the low note in a sort of water-fall, with the end of the melody of the high note broutjht down to the low note, with hardly a break between them, almost chromatically. This type of dropping glissando must be heard to be understood. It is the use of it both in upward and downward glissandos that has led to the use of the word •"crooner ", a crooner being merely an individual who employs a great deal of glissando. Glissando makes a song very appealing and tender, as it takes the harsh intervals out of the composition. This null should do quite well with the song-loving public. We do it quite slowly, at thirty measures or possibly thirty-five per minute. Although it will probably be published in the key of E flat. I find that the key of D makes it more easy to render in my particular I R,;i,i Rudy Vallee's Special Clubs <"' New York in February K>> Did st — Editor.