MUSIC TO DISPEL DEPRESSION

Hawera Star, Volume LI, 21 May 1932, Page 11

MUSIC TO DISPEL DEPRESSION

A LL Rudy Vallee has to do to make! a name for himself again is to I write a theme song for prosperity. President Hoover handed the megaphone singer the assignment when Vallee called at the White House to pay his respects. “Mr Hoover smilingly told' me,” Vallee said, ’“that if I could sing a song that would make people forget their troubles, he would give me a medal.” The idea of a serenade to the Goddess o£ Plenty—“ Cornucopia, here we come” was a title one song writer thought up, quick as a flash—bounded around tin pan alley like a ball on a roulette wheel looking for a good number to laud on.

One of the more talkative, if possible, piano composers broke into perspiration ait what he frankly confessed was the flrsit inspiration he has had ■since he wrote the hit “ Duckv-Wucky, Don’t Youse Leave Me Nw Mo’.”

“It would be surefire,” lie exclaimed fumbling for a handkerchief, and finding the laundry bill. “A wow,” said another, clamping his boot down on the loud pedal and pounding the keyboard with all the delicacy of a circus rouseabout driving a tent Stake.

The more mature minds among the music makers, however, mulled the matter. They recognised that the task would be no light one. Finding rhymes for “moon” (croon, spoon, June) and “love above, turtle dove, shove” is a simple matter. A rhyme for “reconstruction finance corporation” is not so easv.

Tin pan alley is not a thoroughfare to curl up and roll away at the first breeze of an idea, some erudite persons

Task for Juggernauts of Jazz

to the contrary notwithstanding. I-t has begun casting about for the kind of lyrics that would definitely ’launch America down the way of happiness. Prosperity lyrics suddenly were thicker than Mississippi mud. A tune tinker who had been at work on .a “wow” titled “With You, Dear Elaine, in Spain in the Rain,” tore it up and began' humming madly. “I’ve got it!” he exulted. Then he say: “Do, not say you can’t afford it, Spend your dough, old pal, don’t hoard it.” “That’s terrible,’’said a companion in chromatic crime. “Listen to this: “Oh. it’s just around the corner, baybee. Prosperity, and I ain’t meaning maybee." “That’s great,” shouted another juggernaut of jazz. “And then you could go on with: “From Maine t-o A'labamy, Ev’ry uncle, aunt and'mamy, Ev’rv trade, ev’ry profession Hollers, ‘Down with the Depression!” Thus it went. The idea was at work in tin pan alley, biting this songwriter and that. About all they needed were four more lines and then a smash finale to give the tenors a chance to show their gold teeth on a high mote. These were quickly provided by a newcomer who, catching the idea, contributed:

“Oh, say can you see Anything that’s bothering me? I'm so happy I could sing Whoops, my dear, or anything.” Whereupon ail the others, .struck by the same amazing inspiration for a last climatic line, shouted in unison: “Here comes pros-per-i-tee!”