SWAN SONG

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXII, 1 December 1938, Page 10

SWAN SONG

(By Air Mail—Own Correspondent! LONDON, 10th November. When Emmett Adams, the song writer, was dying, he deliberately composed his last song, which he believed would prove his best, to be played at his funeral. A sombre little congregation in Golders Green crematorium heard it played on the organ on that sad occasion. Though distinctly tuneful, it seemed to lack the majestic note appropriate to Death. It is called “Life’s Great Sunset,” and it may, especially after such first-class funereal publicity, rijal the millon sales by the same author’s “The Bells of St. Mary’s,” and “God Send You Back to Me.” When tried out at a London music-shop, the pianist, after a masterly rendition, gave his verdict—“ Swell!” “God Send You Back to Me” was, of course, made for—and by—the Great War. It had its appeal. On Christmas Eve, 1916, in the snow-clad ruins of Ypres, I heard it sung outside his dug-out at the Menin Gate by a despatch-rider who in civil life was a grand opera baritone. But the appeal on that occasion was lightly marred by caustic comments from a comrade who was delousing his kilt in a neighbouring cellar!