Glens Falls (NY) Online Book Discussion Group discussion

I've started this topic for those who might be interested in the subject of song lyrics. I've always been interested in stories of how the lyrics of different songs were originated... and also about lyrics in general. So the posts in this thread will be lyric-related.

As I said above, I've always had a special interest in lyrics and how they came about. (In fact, I'm a bit of a verse writer myself.) I own an interesting book called Reading Lyrics: More Than 1,000 of the Century's Finest Lyrics--a Celebration of Our Greatest Songwriters, a Rediscovery of Forgotten Masters, and an Appreciation of an by Robert Gottlieb. I love it! I think lyric writers are under-rated. (See an anecdote in Message #2 below about the song "Ole Man River".)

Below is a link to an article containing some amusing anecdotes about lyrics:
http://www.songtale.com/onestop/pilot...
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EXCERPT FROM LINK ABOVE:
One of the workshops I took was the most fun... The workshop was called "Our Music" and it was taught by a pistol of a pianist from Syracuse, N.Y., named Phil Klein.

"Our" meant people of an age to enjoy the popular music of the days when there were melodies and harmonies and lyrics performed by singers who could sing and musicians who didn't sound like clanging garbage can lids. Phil dwelt on a list of oldies from the turn of the century to the end of the '50s. ... Phil's class was hog heaven for folks in their music maturity. He played and sang the oldies while we sang along. ...

While I was revisiting the old, I learned something new: there are lyrics to "Stars and Stripes Forever." Phil's father taught them to him when he was a kid and, at 74, he can still recite them. A sample: "Hurrah for the flag of the free. May it wave as our standard forever. The gem of the land and the sea, the banner of the Right."

He told stories to go along with the songs. One was about "Old Man River," music by Jerome Kern, words by Oscar Hammerstein. One day, Mrs. Kern and Mrs. Hammerstein were together when Mrs. Kern told someone "My husband wrote 'Old Man River.'" That's when Mrs. Hammerstein snapped "He did not. Your husband wrote 'dum dum dum dum.' My husband wrote 'Old Man River.'"

But my favorite story involved the song "I Wanna Be Around To Pick Up the Pieces When Somebody Breaks Your Heart." A lady in Ohio named Sadie Zimmerstedt sent an angry letter to famous songwriter Johnny Mercer. She was mad at Frank Sinatra for divorcing his first wife, Nancy, and wrote a note on lined calendar paper asking Mercer to write a song which should be entitled: "I Wanna Be Around to Pick Up the Pieces When Somebody Breaks Your Heart."

The rest is, of course, pop music history. Mercer wrote the song and put her name on it along with his, Tony Bennett made it famous and Sadie got a $50,000 royalty check. Whether or not it bothered Sinatra, surely Sadie was smiling all the way to the bank.
END OF EXCERPT
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Here's an interesting bit which I read about in the book, No Regrets: The Life of Edith Piaf.
When Edith Piaf first got the inspiration for the song, "La Vie en Rose", she quickly started writing down some lyrics (in French, of course). At a certain part, she used the words "en rose", combined with the word "chose" (which is French for "thing"). Her friend, who was with her at the time (in a restaurant?), suggested that Piaf use the words "la vie" instead of "chose". Thus an unforgettable song was conceived. (The melody was written by Louis Gugliemi.)

Listen to the song here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwkjWJ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZ32WW...

Joy, Ha---great anecdote on "Ol' Man River"!

I've always thought about how much great timeless wisdom there is in popular music .
I toyed with the idea of writing a book aboiut it, but, procrastinateed and it looks like this Robert Gottlieb beat me to it (and who knows how many countless others?)
I will get his book!!

Than ks for the FYI Joy!

You're welcome, Arnie. Thanks for commenting.

PS-I like your expression, "timeless wisdom". Yes, I agree. So many songs have a certain wisdom to them. Take for example, "As Time Goes By" or "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes". They make one ponder.

"As Time Goes By" (1931) (music and words by Herman Hupfeld):
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/rodste...
http://www.reelclassics.com/Movies/Ca...
(Click on the notes to hear a short clip.)

"Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" (1933) (Lyrics by Otto Harbach/Music by Jerome Kern)
(written for 1933 operetta "Roberta"):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOcU40...
http://www.justsomelyrics.com/157177/...

Below is a GR link to a a book about lyrics that seems to take the pleasure right out of them. The book description might as well be in Greek! (See excerpt below.) I can hardly understand what it's trying to say:
Reading Song Lyrics (2010) by Lars Eckstein
Seems to me there's a point when people become TOO SMART to enjoy the simple pleasures. But... I could be wrong. :)

Here's an excerpt:
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"... The first part of this book accordingly introduces a thoroughly transdisciplinary interpretive framework. It outlines theoretical approaches to issues such as performance and performativity, generic convention and cultural capital, sound and songfulness, mediality and musical multimedia, and step by step applies them to the example of a single song. The second part then offers three extended case studies which showcase the larger cultural and historical viability of this model. Probing into the relationship between lyrics and the ambivalent performance of national culture in Britain, it offers exemplary readings of ..."
FROM: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/97...
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Is this a joke? :)

I'll take Gottlieb's Reading Lyrics over this one any day!
It came out 10 years before Eckstein's Reading Song Lyrics , in the year 2000.

It's strange that Eckstein uses almost the same title. Wonder why. Surely he could have come up with something different.

Here's a book about lyrics which came out in 1970:
A yearbook of famous lyrics: Selections from the British and American poets, arranged for daily reading or memorising by Frederic Lawrence Knowles.
Good title. :)

I remember reading about a famous composer who wrote a set of lyrics and promptly lost them. After a search was made, the lyrics were found in an unlikely place. I thought to myself that the world was almost deprived of that great and famous song because of carelessness. Come to think of it, it's been my experience that many creative people tend to be a bit disorganized. Their mind is on other things. But... I could be wrong. :)

See my additions to Message #5 above.