For me, chapter titles, like short story titles, are both gifts to the reader, a little extra, and prisms through which the chapter can be both previewed and reviewed. If you know the song, you can hear it, playing faintly in your head. And if you don\u2019t, you haven\u2019t missed out\u2014the words themselves still evoke and invite: They can\u2019t take that away from me; Spring will be a little late this year\u2026<\/p>\n
My mother sang me everything from \u201cBicycle Built for Two\u201d to \u201cWhen You Wore a Tulip\u201d to \u201cLullaby of Broadway\u201d. She, like me, sang poorly but with great feeling and more than enough brio (and jazzhands). Thanks to her, I have been enjoying the music of Irving Berlin, Louis Armstrong, Hoagy Carmichael, Cole Porter,\u00a0 Fats Waller, Jerome Kern and the Gershwins since the day I was born.<\/p>\n
Before television, much of our public and private entertainment centered on music. Although there was, then as now, cultural divides (age, color), much of the music that was played at home on the record player, at the dance clubs and over the radio was listened to by 132 million people. The high school girl, her science teacher, the principal, the custodian and the guy who delivered school supplies all listened to the same music. The older people didn\u2019t listen to everything the teen-ager loved and white middle-aged men may have listened to Bing Crosby more than Billie Holiday but people who listened to music could find a lot of other people who shared their musical taste, and the knowledge of every lyric, at the gas pump, at the grocery store, on the bus and at every gathering place.<\/p>\n
| Name<\/th>\n | Year<\/th>\n | Lyrics by<\/th>\n | Listen<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n |
|---|---|---|---|
| I’d Know You Anywhere<\/td>\n | 1940-42<\/td>\n | Jimmy Mchugh\/ Johnny Mercer<\/td>\n |