Great songs have long been a deep and rich part of the American culture and consequently the world culture as well.  I can safely say that it would be any composer/lyricist’s dream to someday write a classic – a song that is so universal and so iconic that it becomes a part of the fabric of history and lives beyond its time.

This century’s, no make it this millennium’s Ira Award for Best Lyricist of classic songs goes to Irving Berlin.  Of course he was also the composer of these songs as well.

The story goes that Mr. Berlin, who had small hands wrote most of his songs in the key of F# because he preferred to play on the black keys of the piano where the stretch was not so large for his fingers.  Later in life, when he could afford it, he had Steinway make him a special upright piano with a large crank on the side that when turned, tightened the strings and thus changed the sounding key of his F# fingerings – sort of a guitar capo for the piano.

This man had his fingers not only on the piano but also on the pulse of America like no other lyricist since.  Among the many great classic songs he wrote were “Alexander’s Ragtime Band”, “Easter Parade”, “White Christmas”, “There’s No Business Like Show Business”, “God Bless America”, “A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody,” “Always”,  “Puttin’ on the Ritz”, and “What’ll I Do”.

He was a lyricist of great simplicity, humor, conviction and depth.  He spoke to the common man; he spoke to kings and queens, and he spoke to future generations of people that he knew nothing about.  He spoke to the heart of human beings and captured time in a bottle.  He could write silly stuff one day and then turn around and tear your heart out the next.

Don’t ask me just how it happened,

I wish I knew.

I can’t believe that it’s happened,

And still it’s true.

I got lost in his arms, and I had to stay.

It was dark in his arms, and I lost my way.

From the dark came a voice, and it seemed to say,

“There you go, there you go.”

How I felt, as I fell, I just can’t recall.

But his arms held me fast and it broke the fall.

And I said to my heart as it foolishly

Kept jumping all around.

I got lost

But look what I found.

Was there ever a love song so succinct, so simple and yet so jaw-droppingly breathtaking?  It took him just 14 lines to nail down the impact of love for all time.

And then in this next offering, he writes the most iconic song about the entertainment industry ever written.  Will this song ever fade from the human consciousness?  Probably never.

There’s no business like show business like no business I know

Everything about it is appealing, everything that traffic will allow

Nowhere could you get that happy feeling

When you are stealing that extra bow

There’s no people like show people, they smile when they are low

Even with a turkey that you know will fold,

You may be stranded out in the cold

Still you wouldn’t change it for a sack of gold, let’s go on with the show

The butcher, the baker, the grocer, the clerk

Are secretly unhappy men because

The butcher, the baker, the grocer, the clerk

Get paid for what they do but no applause.

They’d gladly bid their dreary jobs goodbye

For anything theatrical and why?

There’s no business like show business and I tell you it’s so

Traveling through the country is so thrilling,

Standing out in front on opening nights

Smiling as you watch the theater filling,

And there’s your billing out there in lights

There’s no people like show people, they smile when they are low

Angels come from everywhere with lots of jack,

And when you lose it, there’s no attack

Where could you get money that you don’t give back?

Let’s go on with the show

There’s no business like show business like no business I know

You get word before the show has started

That your favorite uncle died at dawn

Top of that, your pa and ma have parted,

You’re broken-hearted, but you go on

There’s no people like show people, they smile when they are low

Yesterday they told you you would not go far,

That night you open and there you are

Next day on your dressing room they’ve hung a star,

Let’s go on with the show!!

Can’t ya’ just hear Ethyl Merman’s vibrato yet ringing through the theater?  I live 2 blocks from the Broadway theater district in NYC.  If I lean my head out the window, I can hear her still, echoing through the canyons of this great city.

What do we do at Easter?  Walk Fifth Avenue and sing, “In your Easter bonnet, with all the frills upon it…”  And a Christmas, what do we hope for?  Only the most iconic and best selling Christmas song of all time – “White Christmas”.  Sing it, Bing.

And what got reinstalled into every baseball game after 9/11 all across this land?  The singing of Berlin’s “God Bless America”, the icon of American patriotism.  Sing it, Kate!

I can’t let you get away tonight without my favorite, again, oh so simple, but wrenchingly touching love song.  Here’s another Irving Berlin gem that lives in our hearts and goes to the root of the sadness of love gone wrong.

Gone is the romance that was so divine.

‘Tis broken and cannot be mended.

You must go your way,

And I must go mine.

But now that our love dreams have ended…

What’ll I do

When you are far away

And I am blue

What’ll I do?

What’ll I do?

When I am wond’ring who

Is kissing you

What’ll I do?

What’ll I do with just a photograph

To tell my troubles to?

When I’m alone

With only dreams of you

That won’t come true

What’ll I do?