“YES, WE HAVE NO BANANAS.”

King Country Chronicle, Volume XVIII, Issue 1895, 1 December 1923, Page 2

“YES, WE HAVE NO BANANAS.”

CREATING A SONG SUCCESS. How does a modern song become popular? The question is answered by Lawrence YVright, the British music publisher and agent, who writes on the “Yes, YVe Have no Bananas” craze in “The Stage.” Every day people in the profession—newspaper men and everyone I meet—are patting me on the back and congratulating me on creating the boom (lie says). I feel very ilattercd to have it believed that I am clever enough to get the whole world singing and talking about this wonderfully successful song. But they’re wrong. “YY’es, YVe Have No Bananas” simply slipped into a hit —one day it was unheard of—the next day it just happened. YVhen I received the song, the title caught me at once. I played the piece over, but was not greatly impressed, so I just had it filed away for future reference. The next I heard of it was when the musical director of s.s. Majestic called in the office. I asked him, what was going in America. He said, “Bananas” Why, I had to play it over and over again during every session of my band on this voyage. The passengers kept coming up and requesting ‘More bananas.’ ” “If you could get a hit like that,” he said, “you’d make a fortune.” YVliilst we were talking the musical director of the Savoy Hotel called mo on the ’phone saying “Have you got any bananas?” The answer came nautrally. I replied, “Yes, we have no bananas.” He said, “Joking apart, who publishes that song? All the American people in the hotel are asking my bands to play it.” I told him that I was the lucky publisher, and sent him a set of parts. Other musical directors heard about it and worried for parts. J then realised that there was something extraordinary about the song, so I immediately put it in the press. Before I could get it printed, orders were pouring in for thousands of copies. Julian YVylie telephoned up about it—wanted it for the London Hippodrome at once Poul Specht played it the same week at the Alhambra ; Nora Bayes wanted it for the Palladium. YVe ordered 50,000 copies from our printers, but before they were off the press we had orders for more than that quantity, and from that day to this we have had to instruct our printers to keep on printing all the time until we gave them orders to stop. They have had to put it on three more machines, so that four presses are constantly running oil “Bananas.”