I Want to Go Back to Michigan is a song by Irving Berlin composed in 1914. It was a moderate commercial success when it was first released with popular versions by Elida Morris and by Morton Harvey. [1] Afterwards it became a staple in vaudeville. Its most famous performance was by Judy Garland in the film Easter Parade . [2]
The ballad's lyrics employ imagery of an idyllic rural childhood juxtaposed against less appealing city life, which was a theme among some popular songs during this period of rapid urban growth in the United States. [3]
According to Charles Hamm in a biography of Irving Berlin, the songwriter composed "I Want to Go Back to Michigan" at a time when his ambitions were aiming past vaudeville toward musical theater and he was exercising new styles. The nostalgic reminiscence here, along with "Happy Little Country Girl" composed during the same period, was previously unknown in his work. [6] Billy Murray, a popular singer during the period when the song was first composed, recorded it for Edison Records in 1914. [2]
The Avalon Boys performed an a cappella version of the song in the 1931 Laurel & Hardy film Pardon Us . [9]
Judy Garland performed the song in the 1948 film Easter Parade, which was written around a mixture of ten older and eight newly composed Irving Berlin songs. [10] Berlin's deal with MGM for the package of songs that included "I Want to Go Back to Michigan" was $500,000 plus a percentage of box office receipts, which was an unusually advantageous contract for a songwriter and amounted to twenty percent of the film's total budget of $2.5 million. [11] The film won the 1948 Academy Award for Best Musical Score. [12]
Irving Berlin was a Russian-American composer, songwriter and lyricist. His music forms a large part of the Great American Songbook.
"Alexander's Ragtime Band" is a Tin Pan Alley song by American composer Irving Berlin released in 1911 and is often inaccurately cited as his first global hit. Despite its title, the song is a march as opposed to a rag and contains little syncopation. The song is a narrative sequel to Berlin's earlier 1910 composition "Alexander and His Clarinet". This earlier composition recounts the reconciliation between an African-American musician named Alexander Adams and his flame Eliza Johnson as well as highlights Alexander's innovative musical style. Berlin's friend Jack Alexander, a cornet-playing African-American bandleader, inspired the title character.
A novelty song is a type of song built upon some form of novel concept, such as a gimmick, a piece of humor, or a sample of popular culture. Novelty songs partially overlap with comedy songs, which are more explicitly based on humor, and with musical parody, especially when the novel gimmick is another popular song. Novelty songs achieved great popularity during the 1920s and 1930s. They had a resurgence of interest in the 1950s and 1960s. The term arose in Tin Pan Alley to describe one of the major divisions of popular music; the other two divisions were ballads and dance music. Humorous songs, or those containing humorous elements, are not necessarily novelty songs.
Easter Parade is a 1948 American Technicolor musical film starring Judy Garland, Fred Astaire, Peter Lawford and Ann Miller. The music by Irving Berlin includes some of Astaire and Garland's best-known songs, including "Easter Parade", "Steppin' Out with My Baby", and "We're a Couple of Swells".
The Peerless Quartet was an American vocal group that recorded in the early years of the twentieth century. They formed to record for Columbia Records, where they were credited as the Columbia Quartet or Columbia Male Quartet. From about 1907, when they began to record for record labels other than Columbia, they were more widely known as the Peerless Quartet.
"All Alone" is a popular waltz ballad composed by Irving Berlin in 1924. It was interpolated into the Broadway show The Music Box Revue of 1924 where it was sung by Grace Moore and Oscar Shaw. Moore sat at one end of the stage under a tightly focused spotlight, singing it into a telephone, while Oscar Shaw sat at the other, doing the same.
"Ain't We Got Fun" is a popular foxtrot published in 1921 with music by Richard A. Whiting, lyrics by Raymond B. Egan and Gus Kahn.
"I Don't Want to Walk Without You" is a popular song.
"You'd Be Surprised" is a song written by Irving Berlin in 1919 which Eddie Cantor interpolated it into Ziegfeld's Follies of 1919. Cantor soon recorded it and it became a major hit. Other popular versions in 1920 were by the All-Star Trio and by Irving Kaufman.
"Let's Have Another Cup of Coffee" is a song by Irving Berlin appearing in the musical comedy Face the Music, which opened in 1932. On opening night it was sung by J. Harold Murray and Katherine Carrington. The song, set in a self-service restaurant modeled on the Horn & Hardart Automat, is sung in the play by a group of once-wealthy citizens who were awaiting better times, as mirrored in the song's opening lyrics:
"Steppin' Out with My Baby" is a popular song written by Irving Berlin and introduced in the 1948 musical film Easter Parade. There it was sung by Fred Astaire as part of a dance number involving Astaire on stairs and three different dance partners.
"Easter Parade" is a popular song, written by Irving Berlin and published in 1933. Berlin originally wrote the melody in 1917, under the title "Smile and Show Your Dimple", as a "cheer up" song for a girl whose man has gone off to fight in World War I. A recording of "Smile and Show Your Dimple" by Sam Ash enjoyed modest success in 1918.
"I Love You Truly" is a parlor song written by Carrie Jacobs-Bond. Since its publication in 1901 it has been sung at weddings, recorded by numerous artists over many decades, and heard on film and television.
"When I Lost You" is a song with music and lyrics by Irving Berlin. It was written in 1912 after his wife of five months, the former Dorothy Goetz, died of typhoid fever. In it he poured out the grief of his loss; it was the only song that he ever admitted had such a connection to his own life. The song, a ballad, was unlike any of Berlin's previous songs, which were upbeat tunes written to take advantage of the dance craze. The song is in a slow waltz tempo. It became Berlin's first hit ballad.
"That Mysterious Rag" is a song by Irving Berlin and Ted Snyder written in 1911. It was one of the earliest Berlin songs to become a commercial success with recordings by Arthur Collins & Albert Campbell and by the American Quartet being very popular in 1912.
"That International Rag" is a song composed by Irving Berlin in 1913. Berlin wrote the song the night before its debut, when he needed a new opening number for his act while on tour in England.
"I've Got My Captain Working for Me Now" is a popular song written in 1919 by Irving Berlin. It was published by Music Publishers Inc. in New York, New York.
"I Love a Piano" is a popular song with words and music by Irving Berlin. It was copyrighted on December 9, 1920 and introduced in the Broadway musical revue Stop! Look! Listen! when it was performed by Harry Fox and the ensemble. The song was given a tremendous boost in the show as the set for it consisted of an enormous keyboard running completely across the stage. In front of this were six pianos with six pianists playing the tune. Irving Berlin always regarded the song as one of his best efforts.
"Someone Else May Be There While I'm Gone" is a World War I era song written by Irving Berlin and published as sheet music in 1917. The song, recorded by Al Jolson for Columbia Records on September 19, 1916 was very popular that year. Jolson recorded it again for Decca Records on December 5, 1947.
Let's All Be Americans Now is a World War I song written and composed by Irving Berlin, Edgar Leslie, and George W. Meyer. The song was first published in 1917 by Waterson, Berlin & Snyder Co., in New York, NY.The sheet music cover depicts a soldier with his rifle and silhouetted marching soldiers in the background. A popular recording in 1917 was made by the American Quartet.
I Want to go back to Michigan Irving Berlin.
Media related to Irving Berlin - I Want to Go Back to Michigan at Wikimedia Commons
