Walter Rimler > Quotes

“They thought they’d completed their assignment when the studio asked for one more, something punchy for a big production number. So they returned to the piano in their office on the Paramount lot. Several unproductive hours later, they gave up and took a drive in the Los Angeles hills, each of them in an irritable mood. Mercer, trying to think of something cheerful, remembered an “offbeat little rhythm tune”8 he’d heard Arlen humming a few days earlier, one that brought to mind a three-word phrase that had long intrigued him, “Accentuate the Positive.” Later, he gave differing accounts of where he’d first heard that phrase. One was that he’d been in an African American church in Savannah when the preacher, Bishop Grace—called Daddy Grace by his congregation—used it in a sermon. The other was that he’d been told that Father Divine—a Harlem preacher who claimed to be God—had used it. Either way, it was perfect for a song, which he and Arlen created by singing to each other as they continued their drive. Given the source of its lyric and the music’s gospel feel, it’s ironic that it was used in a racially offensive way. In the movie, Bing Crosby and Sonny Tufts performed it in blackface. But “Ac-cent-tchu-ate the Positive” became a jukebox hit and an enduring pop classic.”
― Walter Rimler, The Man That Got Away: The Life and Songs of Harold Arlen