In 1917, during World War I, American songwriter Irving Berlin was drafted into the U.S. Army. He was already a successful songwriter at that point, known for major hits like…
Category: Music quotations
“Not fade away…”
On October 27, 1957, American Rockabilly and rock music pioneer Buddy Holly and his band the Crickets released their second 45 rpm single, as a follow-up to their first smash hit “Peggy Sue.” This…
How a political backlash turned “a grand old rag” into “a Grand Old Flag”…
On January 19, 1906, American composer, playwright and performer George M. Cohan copyrighted a new song he’d written titled “You’re a Grand Old Rag.” It was one of the songs…
“Come Together” — the Timothy Leary political campaign slogan that became a Beatles song…
The best-known slogan coined by Sixties counterculture celebrity Timothy Leary is the one he created to promote the use of LSD and other psychedelic drugs: “Turn on, tune in, drop…
“A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall…”
When Columbia Records released the first, self-titled album by Bob Dylan in 1962 it went largely unnoticed by the general public. Only about 5,000 copies were sold at the time.…
The story behind “Dixie,” the blackface minstrel song that may have been stolen from black musicians…
The American Civil War is bracketed by two songs with lyrics that are familiar to most people. The metaphorical end of that war has become associated with The Band’s 1969…
“Silent Night” – the origin and evolving words of the famous Christmas carol…
In 1818, during the annual Christmas Midnight Mass at the St. Nicholas Church at Oberndorf, Austria, the song we know as “Silent Night! Holy Night!” (or just “Silent Night”) was…
The stirring words of Haile Selassie that Bob Marley used for the song “War”…
On October 4, 1963, Haile Selassie I, Emperor of Ethiopia, gave a speech to the United Nations General Assembly that includes a famous quotation you almost surely know if you’re…
The odd links between “Louie Louie” and Ralph Nader’s “Unsafe At Any Speed”…
It’s truly odd, but true: the renowned rock song “Louie Louie” and the history-making book about car safety by Ralph Nader, titled Unsafe At Any Speed, are connected by both…