"A Perfect Day"

Sometimes a Song

Sometimes a Song takes you to a different universe and puts you in the position of a time traveler. Such is the case with “(The End of) a Perfect Day,” composed by a lady who was regarded as the greatest American female composer at the turn of the last century. And there’s reason for that designation. Not only did Carrie Jacobs-Bond compose over 400 songs in her lifetime, but her work made a vital contribution to the style of composition called “Parlor Music,” sweet and melodious songs which formed a bridge between folk-style tunes of the 19th century and the great flowering of popular music in the mid-20th century, with the development of a style that Dvorak foresaw when he visited America in the 1890’s.

Before the digital age, in living memory, there were a number of ways that the value of popular music was acknowledged. The Billboard charts were one of these, with rankings of record sales. Actual “gold records” were awarded to musicians and singers by recording companies and later by the Recording Industry Association of America for sales of over one million copies. The first-ever gold record went to Glen Miller for his single, “Chattanooga Choo Choo,” and the first gold LP to Harry Belafonte for his album, “Calypso.” But what was the measure of success when Carrie Bonds was composing her parlor songs? In the 1890’s, the phonograph was just coming into its own, with flat discs winning out over cylinders, but most people could not afford the luxury of such. And radio broadcasting was not available. So particular record sales by particular artists could not be used to determine a song’s popularity. The only real measure of success was sheet music sales. On Tin Pan Alley and in music shops elsewhere, song pluggers employed by the music publishing companies beat out the tunes on pianos to encourage purchases of sheet music. And that system evidently worked, because between 1900 and 1910 over 100 songs topped 1 million sales in sheet music in the US alone. Sheet music brought popular music into parlors the world over and created musical sensations.

Among these hit songs on paper were such as Scot Joplin’s “Maple Leaf Rag,” which sold over 75,000 copies in 1899 and over a million copies overall. “I Love You Truly” in 1901 made Carrie Bond the first woman to sell over 1 million copies of a single song. And in 1910, Bond’s song, “A Perfect Day,” sold over 8 million copies, reaching twenty-five million sales overall, a simply an amazing achievement. Born during the Civil War, Bond had experienced devastating privation in her youth, was widowed early, and suffered from chronic illness. But because of the popularity of her compositions, in her middle years Carrie was able to support herself and her son from the proceeds of their own publishing business, Bond House, which they established in 1915. And having her own publishing company afforded her the rare benefit among song-writers of full ownership of her own work.

Carrie Jacob-Bond was reportedly a determined and astute businesswoman as well as an extremely entertaining pianist and singer. She was called to the nation’s capital twice, the first time to play for President Theodore Roosevelt, and again to play for President Harding. Traveling abroad in her 50’s, Mrs. Bond played a concert with the great Enrico Caruso to a royal audience in London and entertained the British and American troops in France during the First World War. Late in life she moved with her son to California, where she lived out here life, writing and composing and performing regularly in concerts. In 1944 at age 82, she played her last concert, at the Memorial Coliseum, on the bill with composers George Cohan and Irving Berlin.

I hope you will enjoy hearing a sweet version of “A Perfect Day,” recorded in 1956 by talented singers Jo Stafford and Gordon McRae.

And don’t miss the the Different Universe Alert below!

Click on the image below to read about Carrie Jacobs-Bond in an article from Musical America (February 1918). And prepare to enter a Different Universe.

Verse from “A Perfect Day” by Carrie Jacobs-Bond. Click on the image to read an account of how much Mrs. Bond’s song meant to the British and American soldiers serving in WWI in France.