On December 7, 1941 — which President Franklin D. Roosevelt would memorably name “a date which will live in infamy” on the following day — hundreds of Japanese warplanes made a…
Category: Music quotations
How “God Bless America” created a musical duel between Woody Guthrie and Irving Berlin
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 huge hits like…
“Not fade away…”
[An updated version of a previous post. Thanks to the readers who emailed corrections to me.] On October 27, 1957, American Rockabilly and rock music pioneer Buddy Holly and his…
“How does it feel to be one of the beautiful people?”
The phrase “beautiful people” had been used prior to the 1960s. For example, in Oscar Wilde’s play An Ideal Husband, a social comedy first performed in 1895, one of the…
“Back in the Saddle Again”
The idiom “back in the saddle again” was already in use before it was immortalized in song by the singing cowboy star Gene Autry. It was originally applied to cowboys…
“Enjoy every sandwich.”
Warren Zevon’s sardonic views on life and death are apparent in many of the songs he wrote. An early example is “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead,” which first appeared on…
“The Famous Quotes of October 8th,” a short film script by Robert Deis…
EXTERIOR. SMALL CAFÉ IN KEY WEST, FLORIDA – MORNING An old, gray-haired man is sitting at one of the tables at an outdoor café in Key West, sipping Cuban coffee,…
The American Christmas classic by a Russian-born Jewish songwriter that ended the Vietnam War…
I like odd facts and there are a number of them about the song “White Christmas.” First off, this American Christmas classic was written by the Russian-born Jewish songwriter Irving…