"Listen to the Mocking Bird" (1855) is an American popular song of the mid-19th century. Its lyrics were composed by Septimus Winner under the pseudonym "Alice Hawthorne", and its music was by Richard Milburn. [1] [2] [3]
It relates the story of a singer dreaming of his sweetheart, now dead and buried, and a mockingbird, whose song the couple once enjoyed, now singing over her grave. However, the melody is moderately lively.
"Listen to the Mocking Bird" was one of the most popular ballads of the era and sold more than twenty million copies of sheet music. [4] It was popular during the American Civil War and was used as marching music. Abraham Lincoln was especially fond of it, saying, "It is as sincere as the laughter of a little girl at play." [5]
Some of the earliest popular recordings were by John Yorke AtLee (1891); Joe Belmont (1899); Frank Stanley and Corinne Morgan (1904); and Alma Gluck (1915). [6]
The song's melody was reprised by Louis Prima and Keely Smith for their 1956 version of the song, with new lyrics by Bob Budston and Joe Falcon, entitled "Nothing's Too Good For My Baby", [7] which appeared on their album The Wildest! .
Bing Crosby included the song in a medley on his album 101 Gang Songs (1961)
Its verse was the instrumental introduction to a number of the early short films from 1935 to 1938 by The Three Stooges, rendered in a comical manner with birds chirping in the background. The first Stooges short to employ this theme was 1935's Pardon My Scotch ; in later shorts the song was replaced with "Three Blind Mice." Perhaps not coincidentally, once and future Stooge Shemp Howard whistles it repeatedly throughout The Bank Dick .
The song later became associated as the theme of Terrytoons talking magpie characters Heckle and Jeckle.
In the movie Together Again (1944), the song is used as accompaniment to Gilda LaVerne's act at Leonardo's. After the place is raided, it is quoted twice as a reminder of the raid.
"Listen to the Mocking Bird" was parodied in the television series, The Flintstones , as a swinging jazz tune called "Listen to the Rocking Bird", in the 1961 episode "The Girls' Night Out".
"Listen to the Mockingbird" forms part of the "Merry-Go-Round Music" medley in Marvin Hamlisch's soundtrack for the 1973 motion picture The Sting , and is the only portion of the medley that can be heard in the actual movie.
"Listen to the Mocking Bird" was remade into a children's version for the show Barney & Friends . The tune is still the same but the lyrics were changed to make it more kid friendly. It debuted in Barney's Sense-Sational Day.
A Hawaiian-style arrangement is used as background music in later seasons of SpongeBob SquarePants .
In the movie The Alamo (2004), Davy Crockett plays "Listen to the Mocking Bird" on his fiddle to a crowd, although the song was not composed until 1855, 19 years after the Battle of the Alamo where Crockett died.
"Listen to the Mockingbird" was played on the piano by Jason Walton (Jon Walmsley) at the request of Miss Mamie and Miss Emily Baldwin (Helen Kleeb and Mary Jackson) on The Waltons TV series, Season 4, Episode 19 "The Burnout" (1976).
A 1953 Lux Radio Theatre adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's story "The Birds" includes a scene in which a character, listening to the radio for news of the bird attacks, flips the dial to one station only to hear Louis Armstrong's recording of the song being played.
The melody is a standard in the repertoire of many bluegrass and old-time country fiddlers, often as a novelty tune and including various bird calls played on the violin strings.
In the movie The Palm Beach Story (1942) The Ale and Quail Club is seen singing "Sweet Adeline" to Claudette Colbert. "Listen to the Mocking Bird" follows. It can be heard in the background.
In 2013, the Gettysburg College Singers released a cover of the song as part of a collection of music of the American Civil War.
"Unchained Melody" is a 1955 song with music by Alex North and lyrics by Hy Zaret. North wrote the music as a theme for the prison film Unchained (1955), hence the song title. Todd Duncan sang the vocals for the film soundtrack. It has since become a standard and one of the most recorded songs of the 20th century, most notably by the Righteous Brothers in 1965. According to the song's publishing administrator, over 1,500 recordings of "Unchained Melody" have been made by more than 670 artists, in multiple languages.
"Turkey in the Straw" is an American folk song that first gained popularity in the 19th century. Early versions of the song were titled "Zip Coon", which were first published around 1834 and performed in minstrel shows, with different people claiming authorship of the song. The melody of "Zip Coon" later became known as "Turkey in the Straw"; a song titled "Turkey in de Straw" with different music and lyrics was published in 1861 together with the wordless music of "Zip Coon" added at the end, and the title "Turkey in the Straw" then became linked to the tune of "Zip Coon".
"Music Box Dancer" is an instrumental piece by Canadian musician Frank Mills that was an international hit in the late 1970s. It features an arpeggiated piano theme in C-sharp major designed to resemble a music box, accompanied by other instruments playing a counterpoint melody as well as a wordless chorus. Most modern piano music sheets have the song in the key of C major.
"Oh, My Darling Clementine" is a traditional American, tragic but sometimes comic, Western folk ballad in trochaic meter usually credited to Percy Montross (1884), although it is sometimes credited to Barker Bradford.
"Funiculì, Funiculà" is a Neapolitan song composed in 1880 by Luigi Denza to lyrics by Peppino Turco. It was written to commemorate the opening of the first funicular railway on Mount Vesuvius. It was presented by Turco and Denza at the Piedigrotta festival the same year. The sheet music was published by Ricordi and sold over a million copies within a year. Since its publication, it has been widely adapted and recorded.
"Tangerine" is a popular song. The music was written by Victor Schertzinger, the lyrics by Johnny Mercer. The song was published in 1941 and soon became a jazz standard.
“Mairzy Doats” is a novelty song written and composed in 1943 by Milton Drake, Al Hoffman, and Jerry Livingston. It contains lyrics that make no sense as written, but are near homophones of meaningful phrases. The song's title, for example, is a homophone of "Mares eat oats".
"Play a Simple Melody" is a song from the 1914 musical, Watch Your Step, with words and music by Irving Berlin.
"Tea for Two" is a 1924 song composed by Vincent Youmans, with lyrics by Irving Caesar. It was introduced in May 1924 by Phyllis Cleveland and John Barker during the Chicago pre-Broadway run of the musical No, No, Nanette. When the show finally hit Broadway on September 16, 1925, Nanette was played by Louise Groody, and her duet with Barker of "Tea for Two" was a hit. The song went on to become the biggest success of Youmans's career.
"Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah" is a song composed by Allie Wrubel with lyrics by Ray Gilbert for the Disney 1946 live action and animated movie Song of the South, sung by James Baskett. For "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah", the film won the Academy Award for Best Original Song and was the second Disney song to win this award, after "When You Wish upon a Star" from Pinocchio (1940). In 2004, it finished at number 47 in AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs, a survey of top tunes in American cinema.
"It's All in the Game" is a pop song whose most successful version was recorded by Tommy Edwards in 1958. Carl Sigman composed the lyrics in 1951 to a wordless 1911 composition titled "Melody in A Major", written by Charles G. Dawes, who was later Vice President of the United States under Calvin Coolidge. It is the only No. 1 single in the U.S. to have been co-written by a U.S. Vice President or a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.
"By the Light of the Silvery Moon" or "By the Light of the Silv'ry Moon" is a popular love song. The music was written by Gus Edwards, and the lyrics by Edward Madden. The song was published in 1909 and first performed on stage by Lillian Lorraine in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1909. It was one of a series of moon-related Tin Pan Alley songs of the era. The song was also used in the short-lived Broadway show Miss Innocence when it was sung by Frances Farr.
"Hearts and Flowers" is a song composed by Theodore Moses-Tobani and published in 1893 by Carl Fischer Music.
"Let Me Call You Sweetheart" is a popular song, with music by Leo Friedman and lyrics by Beth Slater Whitson. The song was published in 1910 and was a huge hit for the Peerless Quartet in 1911. A recording by Arthur Clough was very popular the same year too. A 1924 recording identifies a Spanish title, "Déjame llamarte mía".
"Rock-a-Bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody" is a popular song written by Jean Schwartz, with lyrics by Sam M. Lewis and Joe Young. The song was introduced by Al Jolson in the Broadway musical Sinbad and published in 1918.
"The Gold Diggers' Song " is a song from the 1933 Warner Bros. film Gold Diggers of 1933, sung in the opening sequence by Ginger Rogers and chorus. The entire song is never performed in the 1933 movie, though it introduces the film in the opening scene. Later in the movie, the tune is heard off stage in rehearsal as the director continues a discussion on camera about other matters.
"Alabamy Bound" is a Tin Pan Alley tune written in 1924, with music by Ray Henderson and words by Buddy DeSylva and Bud Green. It was popularized by Al Jolson and included in the musical Kid Boots, where it was sung by Eddie Cantor. Successful recordings of the song were released in 1925 by Paul Whiteman, Isham Jones and Fletcher Henderson (instrumentals), as well as Blossom Seeley, whose vocal version reached number 2 on the charts. The song has sold over a million copies of sheet music and has been included in several films over the years.
"Down in the Valley", also known as "Birmingham Jail", is a traditional American folk song. It has been recorded by many artists and is included in the Songs of Expanding America recordings in Burl Ives' six-album set Historical America in Song.
Richard Milburn, known as Whistling Dick, was an African-American musician in Philadelphia. He was a great guitarist and whistler and composed bird song themes including the tune Listen to the Mocking Bird which, when arranged with lyrics by Septimus Winner, became one of the most successful ballads of the 19th century, selling over twenty million copies of sheet music. Milburn made $5 for this while the finished work went on to make over $100,000.
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, appearing in the Broadway musical, 'Dance and Grow Thin'. 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.
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