Barbra Streisand had already released award-winning and best-selling albums, starred in a Broadway musical (Funny Girl) and two film musicals (Funny Girl again, and Hello Dolly), by the time she recorded the theme song from ‘The Way We Were’ in 1973, but this was her first hit single, going toContinue Reading
Written by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein (1940) This song, published in 1940, was a rare one that composer Jerome Kern and lyricist Oscar Hammerstein did not write for a particular show or film, but rather it was inspired by wartime nostalgia, with Paris having come under Nazi control inContinue Reading
Written by Hoagy Carmichael and Paul Francis Webster (1945) Written for the 1945 film noir Johnny Angel starring George Raft. In the film, Hoagy Carmichael (playing a character improbably named Celestial O’Brien) sings the song himself. The lyric was by Paul Francis Webster, who had previous collaborated with Carmichael onContinue Reading
Some Of These Days, was written and composed by Shelton Brooks. It was published in 1910, but first attracted attention after Sophie Tucker recorded it with the Ted Lewis band in 1926. Brooks got the idea for the song after over-hearing an argument in a Cincinatti restaurant, when a girlContinue Reading
Dinah (1925) was a hugely popular song of the 1920s and 30s. It was written as a late addition to the Ziegfeld musical ‘Kid Boots’ starring Eddie Cantor. The music was written by Harry Akst and lyrics by Sam M Lewis and Joe Young. Ethel Waters recorded the song inContinue Reading