Evening star., 1909-05-30

ous classy Individual So they were set to music.
The music good too, written by one of our best
light composers And the show opened
How did the poets lyrics go? don't know
didn't hear them. OF the eighteen musical incidents
the piece there exactly three traCeabe to the
popular poet author Two of these were choruses,
where the words don't make any difference anyway.
The other was lovesong that absolutely neces
sary to the plot and had to stay in The other fifteen
songs in the piece were by almost as many different
writer's the manager having rushed about at the last
moment and collected songs from whatever source
he could get them.
What the Public Want,
TDARE say that Terwilliger, POLITICALLY riding his
Pegasus in the form of a reaper about the Kansas
farm is thinking up beautiful poems all the time.
which he fondly imaglnes to be songs. But ne Will
need lot of training before he ever write real
song.
He must learn that the public wants songs that
are easily learned both as to the words and the
music There must be nothing stited, nothing
obscure about the points that the words try to bring
out If it IS comic song, 1T must have snappless
that from only two sourCes.-the enthus1 ism
of youth or the skill Of experience. There is an art
about song writing. Even the most commonplace OF
seasons hits have to possess merit in construction
A comic song with good idea concealed in it has
often been ruined by too long a verse or too
plcated refrain. And a verse no matter how
funny that does not lead gracefully into the refrain
where the catchl1ne OF the song lies n1dden VIII
not do.
l wrote song, once. called I'm the Water
Wagon Now 1t not successful when 1t was
first sung and some pointed out to me the rea-
SON The of this song long affair. each
telling complete little story So far, good.
/ made the great mistake however of following each
verse with an equally long refrain, in which the
phrase I'm the water wagon, was used only
once If the audience liked the song. it was worried
by having to wait-to long between verses So | cut
the refrain down to short fourline length the first
and last lines being the same. The song then
given to Frank Daniels He used to sing ten
twelve every night and it was by far the big
gest success he'ever had
To my mind one of the best comic songs in years
was Mr. Dooley It's brevity one of the telling
features about it. and the melody had Tilt that
infectious. Another good thing about it that it
was SO constructed that it the easiest thing in
the world to write encore verses for it. In writing
a comic song it should be built in such way that
encore verses can be added easily. Many's the time
have written, heard comic song that was abso-
lutely adamant in this particular You couldn't add
to it. matter how hard you tried. The
catchne would lend itself to enough applications.
How to Shine in Romance
RUT maybe your soul gives forth songs of the
= mantle order. In this case and if you wish to
shine as prominent writer Of popular ballads,
study the most terrific hit of recent years in that line
before you go too far. l refer to Love Me and the
World Is Mine" )" by Ernest Ball l don't claim that
Love Me- etc, is any great shakes ballad mu
sically verbally 1t is do mean exactly the sort
of combination of both that the public wants. 1t is