We are not expecting snow.
Don't get me wrong--I'm not complaining about that! New York snow is only pretty so long as it's falling. So this is meant neither as an order nor a request, but...
"Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!", by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne, sung by Gloria Estefan:
Video from Gloria Estefan - Topic, "Provided to YouTube by Sony Music Entertainment".
Do you know who else has covered this song? ... I'll tell you then: everybody, that's who. Just search for "Let it Snow" on YouTube, you'll see.
I mean, really EVERYBODY, including the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation. ...Well, in a manner of speaking:
Video by jamescovenant. (FYI: The song runs from the beginning until about 1:11;
following is an ad for a game by the clever person who put together the video.)
And as long as we're looking at a well-covered holiday song by Cahn and Styne, here's another--"The Christmas Waltz," by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne, sung here by Natalie Cole:
Video from NatalieColeMusic; "Provided to YouTube by Warner Music Group".
That song, mysteriously, has not been covered by Captain Picard. But despite that lack, the two songs do have something in common aside from their writers: According to Sammy Cahn, they were both written during hot California summers. "Let it Snow" was written to take their minds off the oppressive pre-air conditioning heat, and "The Christmas Waltz" was written because Frank Sinatra called and asked for a Christmas song.
***
As is strongly suggested by their names, both Sammy Cahn (originally named Samuel Cohen) and Jule (pronounced "Julie") Styne (pronounced "Stine" or "Stein" and originally named Julius Kerwin Stein) were Jewish, with Styne writing mostly for Broadway, Cahn writing mostly for movies, and both writing songs for writing songs all the time, with each other and with others.
Lyricist Sammy Cahn was born on the Lower East Side of New York to Jewish immigrants from Galicia. (Hey, that's where my paternal grandfather was from!) He began his musical career at age 13 by joining a dance band after taking all of three violin lessons, and decided to turn his hand to writing lyrics three years or so later. It was demonstrably a good choice: He won four Oscars for Best Song--"Three Coins in a Fountain," "All the Way," "High Hopes" (yep, the one with the rubber tree plant), and "Call Me Irresponsible"--and picked up another 22 Oscar nominations along the way, more than any other songwriter. Not enough for you? He won an Emmy for "Love and Marriage." That's right, the "horse and carriage" song--and no, it was not written for the TV series "Married With Children," it was written for the 1955 television production of Our Town. You can see partial lists of his other songs on Wikipedia and IMDB; they go on and on and I bet you recognize more than one or two.
Composer Jule Styne was born in London to Jewish immigrants from the Ukraine. When he was eight, his family moved to Chicago where he became known as a piano prodigy, playing with symphony orchestras before he was ten. While attending college he was commissioned to write a song for another teenager (Mike Todd, later a film producer), and that was the end of working in the classical music world for Styne. He went on to write over 1500 songs (not a typo), most famously for Broadway, and is perhaps best known for his scores for Gypsy and Funny Girl. He didn't confine his interest to songwriting, producing number of Broadway musicals as well. ... Oh, wait! He also won an Oscar for writing "Three Coins in a Fountain" with Sammy Cahn.
Not bad for a couple of kids from immigrant families, eh?
"Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!", by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne, sung by Gloria Estefan:
Do you know who else has covered this song? ... I'll tell you then: everybody, that's who. Just search for "Let it Snow" on YouTube, you'll see.
I mean, really EVERYBODY, including the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation. ...Well, in a manner of speaking:
following is an ad for a game by the clever person who put together the video.)
And as long as we're looking at a well-covered holiday song by Cahn and Styne, here's another--"The Christmas Waltz," by Sammy Cahn and Jule Styne, sung here by Natalie Cole:
That song, mysteriously, has not been covered by Captain Picard. But despite that lack, the two songs do have something in common aside from their writers: According to Sammy Cahn, they were both written during hot California summers. "Let it Snow" was written to take their minds off the oppressive pre-air conditioning heat, and "The Christmas Waltz" was written because Frank Sinatra called and asked for a Christmas song.
As is strongly suggested by their names, both Sammy Cahn (originally named Samuel Cohen) and Jule (pronounced "Julie") Styne (pronounced "Stine" or "Stein" and originally named Julius Kerwin Stein) were Jewish, with Styne writing mostly for Broadway, Cahn writing mostly for movies, and both writing songs for writing songs all the time, with each other and with others.
Lyricist Sammy Cahn was born on the Lower East Side of New York to Jewish immigrants from Galicia. (Hey, that's where my paternal grandfather was from!) He began his musical career at age 13 by joining a dance band after taking all of three violin lessons, and decided to turn his hand to writing lyrics three years or so later. It was demonstrably a good choice: He won four Oscars for Best Song--"Three Coins in a Fountain," "All the Way," "High Hopes" (yep, the one with the rubber tree plant), and "Call Me Irresponsible"--and picked up another 22 Oscar nominations along the way, more than any other songwriter. Not enough for you? He won an Emmy for "Love and Marriage." That's right, the "horse and carriage" song--and no, it was not written for the TV series "Married With Children," it was written for the 1955 television production of Our Town. You can see partial lists of his other songs on Wikipedia and IMDB; they go on and on and I bet you recognize more than one or two.
Composer Jule Styne was born in London to Jewish immigrants from the Ukraine. When he was eight, his family moved to Chicago where he became known as a piano prodigy, playing with symphony orchestras before he was ten. While attending college he was commissioned to write a song for another teenager (Mike Todd, later a film producer), and that was the end of working in the classical music world for Styne. He went on to write over 1500 songs (not a typo), most famously for Broadway, and is perhaps best known for his scores for Gypsy and Funny Girl. He didn't confine his interest to songwriting, producing number of Broadway musicals as well. ... Oh, wait! He also won an Oscar for writing "Three Coins in a Fountain" with Sammy Cahn.
Not bad for a couple of kids from immigrant families, eh?
Hey I found you!
ReplyDeleteShut up Wesley. ;-)