Some music in honor of Mothers' Day

Here's the thing: I couldn't find any good Mothers' Day songs at all. So I tried to find a song about or addressed to the singer's mother that would be appropriate for Mothers' Day and which would also fit my theme, and it turned out to be a little bit of a search.

(We'll just leave out the jokes about Jewish mothers, okay? After all, it IS Mothers' Day.)

Along the way, I found songs sung by a mama, such as "When You're Good to Mama" from Kander and Ebb's Chicago, and most of the songs from Styne and Sondheim's Gypsy, but much as I'd like to get to Sondheim and Kander and Ebb, these do not seem like quite the right kind of mother songs for Mothers' Day.

I also found songs about mama's advice, such as Arlen and Mercer's "Blues in the Night" which were better, but, much as I'd like to get to Arlen, didn't seem to strike quite the right note for Mothers' Day either.

Then there's this lullabye: "Your Mother and Mine," by Sammy Fain and Sammy Cahn, sung here by Doris Day:

Video posted by Dayniac4324
The song is from Disney's Peter Pan. It's got a lovely melody, but for me it tips a little too far to "sweet" to be really touching.

So then I thought of "I Am Your Child," by Barry Manilow:

Video posted under BarryManilowOfficial
Technically, it's for parents rather than mothers specifically, but yeah. This one works for me. Because when it comes to mothers and children, it's always a two-way street, or it should be. Happy Mothers' Day, Mommy!

(And if you want to cut the sweetness a little--which I don't really think it needs, if you really pay attention to the lyrics, but if you want to--you can always go to the version he sang on Murphy Brown!)

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I've talked a bit about prolific (Jewish) lyricist Sammy Cahn before, when I talked about "Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow," which he wrote with Jule Styne. That team wrote songs for 19 movies and a Broadway musical, and produced such standards as "Time After Time" and "Three Coins in a Fountain." With Jimmy Van Heusen he wrote many songs for Frank Sinatra, including "The Tender Trap," "Come Fly with Me, "The Last Dance," "High Hopes," and "Call Me Irresponsible." (Told you you'd recognize more than one or two of his songs!) And in 1974, Cahn did a one-man Broadway show called Words and Music, for which the New York Times review begins:

Why are such shows as “Words and Music” simple and enchanting, and other shows complex and morose?

“Words and Music” opened last night at the John Golden Theater. I adored it, and so did Sammy Cahn.

Sammy Fain (born Samuel Feinberg) was another of those cantor's sons who have enriched popular music. He's not a household name, but perhaps he should be--he wrote songs for more than 50 films (including Disney's Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland), picking up 10 Oscar nominations and winning two Academy Awards (for "Secret Love" and "Love is a Many Splendored Thing") along the way, and he wrote music for at least 16 Broadway musicals.


Barry Manilow is also someone I have written about before on this blog. Since I linked to his Murphy Brown appearance above, I suppose it would be appropriate to mention that that was not his only sitcom appearance--he also appeared (as himself) on Ally McBeal (remember Ally McBeal? ... Me, either.) and Will and Grace.