Exclusive: Conversations and Music with Michael Feinstein- The Music of Harry Warren

Hi, I'm Michael Feinstein. Welcome to Conversations and Music

Conversation. Well, Harry Warren is a guy to say a lot about. He was someone whom I got to know, even though there was a 60-plus age difference between us

But we became very close buddies because of my admiration for his work and his love for the fact that I cared about his work

a man who had more song hits than any other songwriter in the history of Hollywood

and yet remains very obscure. So many incredible hits on the hit parade, three Academy Awards

It's just staggering to me that Harry Warren's name is not very well known

The songs, of course, are known. Everything from At Last to Chattanooga Choo Choo to You'll Never Know

The More I See You, An Affair to Remember. I Only Have Eyes For You, 42nd Street, Lombard of Broadway, Jeepers Creepers, You Must Have

Been a Beautiful Baby. I mean, the list goes on and on. And Harry was very prolific because in his later years, he worked in the studio system

and so he had to turn out song after song. It was things that he had to write to order

And he loved being creative because it was very natural for him

and he didn't always like working for the studio bosses because they were sometimes so contentious

and they treated him like he was a lackey even though he was one of the components that made

the films very successful and people asked why he didn't have more fame well when he was working

at Warner Brothers in the 30s on the Gold Digger movies Gold Diggers movies it was a Ruby Keeler

film or it was a Busby Berkeley film or it was a Glenn Miller film. It was never a Harry

Warren film. Irving Berlin was an older gentleman. He was the great statesman of popular music

along with Jerome Kern. So by the time that Irving Berlin came to Hollywood, he had such

a reputation that a film would be billed Irving Berlin's top hat. Well, nothing was ever billed

as Harry Warren's The Harvey Girls, or Harry Warren's Hello Frisco Hello

It just didn't work that way back in those days. But he was content because he lived well

When I say content, I can hear his family laughing at me

because Harry was a guy who was a curmudgeon, and he was very temperamental

But I think underneath all of that, he was content. It certainly bothered him sometimes that Irving Berlin got so much more attention

when Harry actually had more song hits. And it is true that during the Second World War, when the Allies bombed Germany

Harry called up a friend and said, ha, they bombed the wrong Berlin. Well, Berlin and Harry had a fight because in the 1940s

Harry was working on a movie that was starring Alice Faye. It was called The Gangs of Here

And he had to write an instrumental piece, and he was in New York. And so they sent a man named Helmi Cressa to notate Harry's instrumental piece

And the next day, Helmi Cressa came back with a piano copy for Harry to approve

because Harry didn't write music fluently. So Harry looked it over, and he said

You changed some of my harmonies. You can't do that. And Helmi Cressa had regularly worked for Irving Berlin

So Harry said, Hey, you can do that for your boss, but you can't do it to me, intimating that Helmi was changing the harmonies in Berlin's songs, making them better

Well, word got back to Irving Berlin, and he was furious beyond words

and he called Harry and he said, Did you say that to Helmy? And Harry said, No, Irving, I would never say that

He just lied. Well, Harry once told me that he only wrote six songs, six basic songs

and he kept repeating the ideas of those songs over and over again I beg to differ But there is an instance where he took one song and used the exact same bridge twice In a movie called Colleen in 1936 there was a song that went I don remember the words

But you gotta know how to dance. If you want to win my heart, don't be something-something smart

Then you gotta know how to dance. So the bridge went

He must have liked that bridge because two years later, he wrote a song called The Lady on the Two-Cent Stamp

I'm in love with a lady in a stamp collection. Yes, siri, she's the lady on the two-cent stamp

And I'm reading through this one day, and I get to the bridge, and it's the same music

It's the same music as was in that song in Colony. So where is it

Let's see. Let's see. Like a dope, I sit there and hope

Same bridge

So Harry would steal from himself, but Irving Berlin did the same thing

Irving Berlin, for the movie Halliday Inn, wrote a title song, Come to Halliday Inn

Come the holiday! Ba ba da da da da da da da da da da da da da da

Okay, so then several years later he writes When I'm weary and I can't sleep

I count my blessings instead of sheer And I go to sleep, counting my blessings

Bridge. I think about a nursery, and I picture tiny hands. And one by one I count them, and they slumber in their beds

Same bridge as Holiday Inn. We just slowed it down, but it's the same music

Well, I'd like to sing you a couple of songs by Harry Warren

One is a thing that he wrote for a movie called Mr. Dodds Takes the Air

It's a song that was another thing on the hit parade, and it's called Remember Me, lyrics by Al Dubin

Here's a song that I've created, nothing too sophisticated, but it's one that everybody knows

Not a hilly-billy ballad full of sentimental salad, I don't think it's silly, I suppose

My own refrain, child of my brain. And my song is dedicated to the people who are made and listed now

For here is how it goes. Remember one September afternoon. I stood with you and listened to a wedding tune

Where every day I had to pay another bill How do I not mistaken dear I play them still Remembering I can see

That little angel on me Can you see It kinda sorta looks like me

For I'm the boy whose only joy is loving I'm the guy who gives you goodnight kisses to

I'm only the husband that you're married to, so I should look a little familiar to you

Remember me. Remember me. Okay. Here's a song that was written for a movie called Summer Stock

It starred Judy Garland and Gene Kelly. and Harry told me an interesting story about the song

The song is a ballad that Gordon sang called Friendly Star, but originally it had a different lyric

Mac Gordon gave Harry a lyric. Actually, I don't know what came first

but I do know that they felt that ultimately the first lyric didn't match the tune

So the tune goes like this. So I'm imagining that the tune probably came first and Mac wrote this lyric

Fall in love. It's lovely when you start out. On to spring, but wait till you feel the frost

You'll be sorry. Well, I think Harry probably felt that that song was not sweet enough or gracious enough to match the tune

because it's a song that is an unhappy love song, and he felt that that tune probably should have a more sentimental lyric

So they split it. He took the tune, and Mac wrote a new lyric for the tune

and Harry took the old lyric and wrote a new tune for it. So the new tune for Fall in Love, it's lovely when you start out

He wrote Fall in Love, it's lovely when you start out. Ah, tis spring, but when you feel the frost, you'll be sorry to fall in love

So they got two songs out of one song. So here is what Friendly Star became

Oh, but I should also tell you before I sing it, that one day I was playing this song for Harry

and when I got to the bridge, I played the notes preceding the actual bridge like this

He stopped me. He said, what are you doing? I said, what do you mean? I'm playing the song, going to the bridge

He said, you left out the best part. I said, what? He sat down and he showed me chords that he wrote

over those three notes. Harry said, don't ever leave out chords like that

Because I went. He said, we worked hard on this stuff. He said, you know what you call those chords

I said, no. He said they called shoulder chords I said shoulder chords He said yeah So I always make sure I play the shoulder chords when I sing and play this song

There's a star for everyone, brightly shining in the sky. It seems to be a part of your destiny

Every night I eagerly watch them all go twirling by

But I can't seem to find The one the heavens decide for me

And how I need the glow of the night and night I know that you are me

But I've traded me And so if you can see me from afar

Won't you kindly like my way You are here, and I am strangely dear

And so if you can see me from far, won't you guide me on my way

I will see my friendly story