Now through April 15th at Word & Song our Easter special continues with a 20% discount on all upgrades, gift, and new subscriptions. We wish you all the blessings of Eastertide.
Sometimes a Song stays popular for a very long time. Just over 100 years ago, toward the end of the War to End All Wars — what we now call the First World War — a classically trained musician and songwriter composed a tune which he copyrighted and published in London. A year or two later, a young actor put a lyric to this song which touched the hearts of a war-weary world in 1922 and continued in popularity through the Second World War and for decades following. The composer was Canadian Ernest Seitz and the lyrcist (who later wrote many other song lyrics) was Canadian actor Gene Lockhart, who in addition to writing plays, taught literary art at Juliard in New York, performed in the legitimate theater, and appeared in over 300 movies.
Certainly the sentiment of our featured song this weeks resonated with listeners who were enduring wartime struggles and then the privations of the Great Depression and then yet another war. They wanted to hear a song called, “The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise.” And perhaps in our times we need such a song too, to uplift our spirits and remind us of that hope of a The Everlasting Sunrise that we are all awaiting.
This song may be unknown to a lot of our readers, but for the bulk of the 20th century is was beloved and was commercially recorded close to 300 times — and is still performed and recorded in our own times. So if you don’t know it, you are in for a treat. And as with many of our songs, I faced the problem of which version to feature. “The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise” was widely performed as both an instrumental and as vocals. I thought that the very earliest recordings of the song might not quite appeal to the modern ear as much as they did to listeners in the early days of recording history. And yet it’s hard to fully appreciate the jazzy and bluesy and even the comic recordings of the song unless you hear it “straight” beforehand.
So I give you below three recordings. The first is a lovely vocal by the Michael Sammes Male Choir, to get the tune established in your memory. The second a swinging version by Benny Goodman and his orchestra at their hottest. And the last, a funny and sweet and ironic use of the song in a comedy by Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, “The Flying Deuces” (1939) — two full decades after the song’s first publication. Give a listen, and enjoy a small taste of the great variety of arrangements which this simple tune has inspired. If you visit Youtube, you will find versions of this song by singers from Bing Crosby to Les Paul & Mary Ford to Louis Armstrong to Vic Damone to Willie Nelson to Chet Atkins and even to the Fab Four in their pre-Beatles days (as the Quarrymen).
I hope I can count on more than a few converts to this sweet old song among our subscribers! See what you make of it.
by Anthony Esolen is an online magazine devoted to reclaiming the good, the beautiful, and the true. We publish six essays each week, on words, classic hymns, poems, films, and popular songs, as well a weekly podcast for paid subscribers, Poetry Aloud or Anthony Esolen Speaks. Paid subscribers also receive audio-enhanced posts and access to our full archive and to comments and discussions. To support this project, please join us as a free or paid subscriber. We value all of our subscribers, and we thank you for reading Word and Song!
I knew the first two lines to this song, of course, and as soon as the chorus began the next two, I could sing along, but I expected more text that I’d forgotten. Nope—and that simplicity is probably what made it fun for musicians to “play” with.
What a perfect Saturday afternoon interlude. I gave my full attention to listening to each rendition in order. No multi-tasking. Thank you! Once again you nailed it: reclaiming truth, beauty and goodness. God bless you for this life-affirming apostolate. Anne M.