The Washington times., 1931-08-25
tO.Type
.WHAT MAKES SONGS LIVE
g AND WHAT MAKES
3, THEM DIE?
BY GILBERT SELDES-

Enough serious thinkers have tried in their time to
discover what makes popular song popular; most Of
them song writers themselves confess they do not know
the answer but when they hit a turn in melody, or
happy phrase which eapvaes the public they imagine
they have found the formula for success Then some
thing like the Banana Song arrives and explodes all
theories You can only say that if song wants to De
popular it must be fairly easy to hum or whistle and
the words must not be too obscure. Melodies from
Beethoven Schumann have served the purpose of Tin
Pan Alley and syncopaton, which horrfes the musical
pedants has also served-so nothing be learned in
that direction.
Why Forget2
There is another problem which I tackled several
with not much 'success) and when returns
to looking James j. Geler's book OF Famous
Songs and Their Stories" which Macauley has just
published. 1t is what makes popular song unpopular;
why are popular songs forgotten! My original answer
that they are forgotten except in public.
Styles change and people would be embarrassed if they
were caught whisng last years tune; it is a. social
to ask the orchestra at night club to play The
Siren Song" when everyone else wants to hear MY
Canary Has Circles Under His Eyes," although "The
Siren Song" is hundred times better. We live in the
illusion that our pet songs are not as sweesy sent
mental the songs of the past and eaYe to drunkard
and close harmonsts the songs of sadness and mother
love while hearts break Love For Sale torch
songs and laments for the hard lot OF the gigolo
Rough Humor
Mr. Gelers book which is full of Illuminating incidents
about the songs-how they inspired and what they
meant orginaly-has the words and music OF the great
hits of the past 40 They constitute history OF
the nation of changes in thoughts and feelings
and at the time they suggest that certain attitudes
always with One of them is XXI kind Of # ri6ald bale
Get That Hat?", in Throw Him Down McCloskey," in
the next decade in 81 Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now "'
at the turn OF the ON tine SSe
uar today would be brutal and sarcastic and not like
'The Picture That is Turned Toward the WaLP:
There's a that's never spoken and mothers
There is Just another missing from the old home that
is all;
There is still mem'ry living, there's father unfOr
And picture that is turned toward the wall"
Three Innortals \ #.# A.
We aren't likely to take this sort of thing to our hearts
now but why do we throw out of memory songs
which still in the current stye Publishers of music
that we tire Of songs when we hear them too often
and that the habit of broadcastng has reduced the life OF
a song from year to three months. Presumably we
play them and sing them not for their virtues, but be-
cause everyone else is playing and singing them, and
'The Wedding of the Painted Doll" make forget
the masterpieces of Berlin and Gershwin and Kern
the beginning of his career Aexanders Ragtime Band"
"The Siren Song "Swanee) which deserves Immortality
and each has repeated after lapse Of years "Whatl
I'd rather hear them this minute than all of the popular
music Tve' heard this year.
Corday's Motive
I suggested few weeks ago that Charlotte Corday
killed Marat because he was enjoying himself in his
bath, and no woman allow that. A more serious
study of the ladys rash is offered by of her
collateral descendants, Michael Corday who does
"Friend of the People. (The book is published by
Dutton What most clearly out of the story is
not the grandeur of Charlotte; she wasn't great
woman, but deluded one. The great thing is con-
centrated picture of few days of the French Revou-
ton subject about which we cannot learn too much
these days do not know what the vast multitude of
Russians felt in their revolutionary days. but nothing
has suggested the venomOus fury of the mob which
seems to have animated even provincial towns in
France Historians have tried to prove that the French
Revolution purely economic; that the people didn't
care and this may'have been true at the beginning.
But the Revolution got out of hand and while the
theorists wrangled and the guillotine and fell,
something like bloodlust to have swept the
country That is to be remembered by those who just
can't wait for revolution in America
!7eIen's Ruinous Face
The reduction of history to a series of economic
movements Of the favorite devices of the modern
historian. He takes the story of Helen of Troy and
denies that hers indeed the face that launched
thousand ships The ships, gather, were Srilt by
forced and undepad labor that the cities of Greece
might destroy the rival commerce of Troy. haven't
the authority to quarrel with this interpretations but
am pretty sure know why it is popular People
without imagination and passion enough to cross the
y;oIr oF xoo,,